Getting schooled

Listen up, young readers: Your choice in higher education has lifelong implications.

The name of your college follows you to internships, job interviews...and the local meet market.

Huh?

Here, The New York Times tells us about the Ivy Plus Society, an extended alumni club. Membership is open to alums of schools like Harvard, Princeton, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth and Washington University in St. Louis.

(Washington U alums can only join if they attended medical school there.)

At the club's gatherings, 75 percent of attendees are single. An excerpt:

To the cynically inclined, Ivy Plus is a meet market for the pedigreed. One young Dartmouth graduate, declining to give his name, said: “It’s a singles party masquerading as a networking event. Look around, it’s clusters of guys and girls just staring at each other.”

My alma mater occasionally surfaces during my trips to the meet market.

However, the discussion usually ends when I explain my obscure Wisconsin college by noting, "Harrison Ford went there, but didn't graduate."

Upon entering the "real world," many of us regard college only as a place where we fine-tuned our resumes and mastered the zen of beer pong.

But I've heard of 20- and 30-somethings who have dismissed potential dates because an Ivy League label was intimidating.

Or because the fellow singleton attended a college that was the dater's athletic rival.

Tell me: When it comes to dating, does your alma mater matter?