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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To be amazed that at the age of 39 people are still asking....

76 replies

listsandbudgets · 20/02/2015 23:35

where I went to school!!

Just been out to dinner with DP and met a couple who initially seemed very pleasant. However after a bit Mrs. Pleasant stated grilling me about where I went to university (ok can just about live with that) and then demanded to know where I went to school! I was so surprised I told her only to be faced with "I've never heard of it".. appears she went to a very famous ladies college.

Why on earth did she want to know and AIBU to think that at 39 (she was 45!!) we should be beyond such enquiries.

OP posts:
zoemaguire · 21/02/2015 02:17

Depends on context! If I meet somebody my age from my home town, I'd probably ask so as to find out if we had friends in common. But then given where I am from, the question is slightly less loaded as one of the state schools is one of the most high achieving in the country, so the state/private division tells you less than it might elsewhere about the social origins of the person in question. Also, I didn't go to public school, or in fact to that particular good state school, so I figure I can ask without seeming too much of a snob!

Want2bSupermum · 21/02/2015 02:25

My parents sent me to a boarding school. Very thankful for the education but never felt the need to wedge it into conversation. Would run a mile. They are clearly very dull if they have nothing else to talk about.

GColdtimer · 21/02/2015 02:28

Beryl have you any idea what a snob that makes you appear? Like the school you went to matters a flying jot.

PlumpingUpPartridge · 21/02/2015 02:42

I didn't think Beryl sounded like a snob Confused

Welshwabbit · 21/02/2015 03:06

I remember having a conversation with a woman I met about 10 years ago that went thusly [it had already been established that she went to a girls' private school in North London - not through me asking, I hasten to add]:

Her: Where did you go to school then?
Me: Oh, you wouldn't have heard of it [not being coy - it was a comp in Wales and no - one has ever heard of it].
Her: no really, I might have done. Where did you go?
Me: honestly, it will mean nothing to you.
Her: [pesters some more]
Me: [eventually gives name of totally unknown comp].
Her: (and I still can't quite believe this now) quite pointedly STOPS talking to me and TURNS TO THE PERSON ON HER OTHER SIDE!

SnowBells · 21/02/2015 03:29

Don't take these kind of things to heart. It's just that sometimes, when you went to certain schools, you have a lot more to talk about because plenty of those are pretty similar, and people across schools tend to know each other. Often seen as a way to bond talking about things you're both familiar with.

I'm in my 30s and sometimes still ask the uni question.

MalibuStacy · 21/02/2015 03:38

People who went to 'good' schools will never let you forget it. All my friends who went to public school still talk about school constantly. They're in their forties, fgs.

EatShitDerek · 21/02/2015 04:52

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Arsenic · 21/02/2015 05:06

Beryl's post sounds unhinged. Partcularly the notion of there being only one hated Latin teacher out there Grin

Arsenic · 21/02/2015 05:07

Particularly

Flambola · 21/02/2015 05:09

We talk about schools a lot where I work. I find it fascinating how different Liverpool is to the Wirral.

I went to a good school and I'm proud of it. Passing my 11+ has been my biggest achievement in life. Grin

Flambola · 21/02/2015 05:12

Do they still teach Latin in schools?

I only learnt in Year 7 which was in ... Fucking hell, '97.

EatShitDerek · 21/02/2015 05:17

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Timetoask · 21/02/2015 05:27

Believe it or not my FIL was asked this question recently at the grand age of 80! Grin
He was so shocked he told us about it during our last visit ( quiet man that doesn't talk much about his conversations!)

Arsenic · 21/02/2015 05:28

97? 02? God I feel old Sad

treaclesoda · 21/02/2015 05:39

This makes me want to be in a social situation with someone like this so that I can see the outrage and shock on their face when I haven't heard of their school either. Grin Unless it's Eton, obviously I've heard of that. I don't think I could name another 'exclusive' school though. I'm not from England (although I am in the UK) so public schools just aren't on my radar.

hesterton · 21/02/2015 05:49

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

The80sweregreat · 21/02/2015 09:17

Jeremy clarkson went to a private school /college, enough said really!

IrenetheQuaint · 21/02/2015 09:27

This thread has reminded me of getting to university and my astonishment when posho students not only inquired about what school other people had been to (fair enough when you're 18) but what PREP school they'd been to.

'Oh you were at the Dragon? Did you know Boffy Fotherington-Smythe?'
'Yes of course, he hasn't changed a bit' etc etc

Different world.

Chertsey · 21/02/2015 09:28

Round here you'll often be asked. It's to find out which of the sink comps you went to and if you were in rival gangs Grin

I noticed it a lot in grammar school towns, always raised by people who went to grammar, obviously. As a general rule, I don't know anyone who went to private school, it sometimes seems on here and in the "better" papers as if that's what most normal people do, but not in my world.

KERALA1 · 21/02/2015 09:49

It is funny being an interloper though. Not sure how but dh and I had both fell in with the public school crowd at our separate universities. Some of their daft views were hilarious, one announced that "at state schools they do absolutely no sport" another was bemoaning that going to public school didn't automatically guarantee a place at Oxbridge. Also amusing was the incredulity on us owning up to our lowly origins (both dh and I at different rural comps).

smokepole · 21/02/2015 10:04

When I mention my old "Secondary Modern" people either stare in "amazement" that my parents sent me there, or offer me counselling !

My old school taught "metal work" and how to make Knuckle Dusters....

SunshineAndShadows · 21/02/2015 10:15

It's a fairly common question among the UNC to establish common ground. Also my experience is that friends who went to 'good' schools often stay friends for life so there's more chance of school being discussed, whereas most of my friends are from uni.
In Edinburgh it's definitely a social class thing but it happens in other places too. I've had boyfriends parents ask where I went to school (a crappy comp rife with drugs) and used to feel awkward answering but I'm ovr that now.

TwoOddSocks · 21/02/2015 10:20

I've only ever been asked by younger students who I'm tutoring and are still at boarding school themselves. I think they only tend to meet other people who also went to boarding school or some kind of top school that they might have heard of. In their case I just find it amusing and assume they'll soon broaden their horizons once they leave school.

I'd find it odd to care where an adult went to school (unless we happened to grow up in the same neighbourhood and I was finding out if we might have had mutual friends).

The80sweregreat · 21/02/2015 10:41

Smoke, my comp was the same!