I have to agree that the more expensive private schools can be a difficult adjustment culturally. I didn't grow up poor , but I was solidly middle class with two school teacher parents, and I ended up transferring after a semester at a very nice, but also very elite, private college to go back to my state school. Most of that decision was financial, but I'll admit that some of it was that I was the only person I knew at the school who was working part time as a waitress off campus. Another painful memory: sitting in the cafeteria and hearing a couple of girls whispering that they'd heard I was on financial aid.

Hah--guess I just made friends with the other financial aid kids. I definitely didn't hang with the Prince of Spain or anything.

I sometimes wish I smoked because its a great excuse to get up and leave a bar for a few minutes of privacy with someone, if you're in a group...ahem. Might be a reason I've dated/met/hooked up with a few smokers.

That's so crazy. I went to a big fancy school, and pretty much all of my friends had financial aid, and my best friends were the first in their families to go to college. We all had jobs! Of course there were a shitload of rich people there, but I did not gravitate toward them.

Or, what meara said!

Rabbi Harold Kushner's daughter (he wrote When Bad Things Happen to Good People, among other things) was one of my roommates freshman year, but she was totally down to earth. But at NYU it was really easy to disappear into the larger Village, rather than being surrounded by NYU kids all the time.

I did feel a little more comfortable when I went to Hunter, though.

Fair enough. There were plenty of nice people there--with or without financial aid--as I said, most of the decision was financial. The other part just made it harder to be a part of campus life. I'm sure if I had stayed longer, it would have gotten better. Since my family couldn't afford it, though, it made the decision moot.

Jesse and meara's experience was mine at my big expensive private university.

Plei, we were at the Monaco with the fish! Now we are in Vancouver in an AirBnB high rise studio apartment. Very nice!

Bob says after dinner with meara "she was nice. But all the Buffy-istas are!" Also, he says she reminded him of sarameg. Aww.

Since my family couldn't afford it, though, it made the decision ultimately fairly moot.

That was me, too. I moved out of the dorm and commuted in from NJ after one semester, but even with financial aid, NYU was just too much. So I went to community college at home for a year and then went to Hunter.

I think that's part of why I feel like I never really went to college, not in the way most people experience. Being in a classroom is one thing, but that whole campus experience was completely missing.

I went to Boston University which at the time (early 80s) was filled with self-identified JAPs (Jewish-American Princesses). My freshman roommate had been put through EST by her mother, and couldn't have been more self-centered than if she'd been Ayn Rand's daughter. I had a lot of problems including clinical anxiety and depression, but nothing there helped any of them.

They didn't even have Prozac back then.

Oh god, one of my good high school friends went through EST repeatedly with her mom and her sisters. After a while I had to tell her I honestly didn't want to hear about it. I think later it became "The Training" or something? They were into it for YEARS.