Not to mention people I know that went to MIT from Georgia (and elsewhere in the south) who lost their accents pretty damned quick because having a Southern accent at almost any northeastern university -- but especially one where the students pride themselves on simply being smarter than everyone else* -- can be a recipe for misery.
*I had a very memorable exchange with one MIT student who told me -- to my face -- that I was simply not as intelligent as he was (in spite of attending one of the highest ranked liberal arts colleges in the country) because my college did not require its students to study calculus. If memory serves, I answered something like "Yes, but we're required to be able to write and speak coherent English, which is beyond you."
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Date: 2008-02-13 10:56 am (UTC)*I had a very memorable exchange with one MIT student who told me -- to my face -- that I was simply not as intelligent as he was (in spite of attending one of the highest ranked liberal arts colleges in the country) because my college did not require its students to study calculus. If memory serves, I answered something like "Yes, but we're required to be able to write and speak coherent English, which is beyond you."