[wideminded]

I graduated Fordham with 500+ other grads. I was no BMOC and I was an average student. Yet if my name was mentioned to each of those 500 more than half would recall something about me,

Although it sounds like Fordham has a smaller class size than Columbia, I would bet that if Fordham allowed junior year transfer students while you were there, some of these people would not be widely known to the class.

[BenKenobi]

Even then.

I was a senior year transfer student and people knew who I was from my alma mater.

[xkaydet65]

Actually they would be well known within their major area because students know most folks in their major, and newcomers would stand out. Bill Clinton went to Georgetown. As I went to a Jesuit HS a good number of my classmates went to G’town.When Clinton ran for POTUS my classmates who had gone to Gtown and whom I kept in contact ALL knew Clinton, even though he was a year ahead of them. They KNEW him. No one, as far as I know claims to know Obama from Columbia.