Notre Dame is a great school with a great reputation, but its lay-reputation is not so great that people's eyes will widen when you say it in conversation. As you said yourself, your desire to say, "I went to Notre Dame" is rooted in nothing more than shallowness. I could understand this desire for lay prestige if we were talking about, say, Columbia and University of Chicago. Clearly dropping Columbia in casual conversation is going to garner you some lay-prestige, whereas many Illinoisans don't even know the difference between the University of Illinois in Chicago and University of Chicago.ENGINEERD wrote: I honestly have never heard that opinion am I really that delusional???
Notre Dame probably has more lay prestige than UCI. But all I'm saying is this:
1. Don't let lay prestige determine your law school.
2. Notre Dame's lay prestige is not mind-blowing. You aren't going to get panties to drop by saying Notre Dame like you would with Harvard, Yale, Columbia, etc.