Big Apple Out, Big ’Nati In: NYCers Dismayed As Williams Small Talk Dominated By Conversation About Which Cincinnati Ohio High School You Attended

Brearley? Been-There-Ley. Saint Ann’s? Saint And-What-Else-Ya-Got. Bard Manhattan? More like I’m Bored, Man(hattan). There’s a new sheriff in W-town, a new topic dominating the conversational wrestling ring. And judging from many concerned reports received by the Williams Haybale, this is scary stuff.

The mean streets of Williamstown – said students from hometowns as far flung as the West Village, Manhattan, to the East Village, Manhattan – are overrun by conversation they find indecipherable, bewildering. Conversation like an unskippable YouTube ad. Conversation they, horrifyingly, are forced to not only listen to, but sometimes even understand and participate in, despite it having absolutely no relevance to their lives: past, present, or future.

Ousting the NYCers of Williams College from the ecological niche they have occupied these past generations, the new small talk of the town is no longer Which New York City High School Did You Attend And Is It Better Or More Smarter Than The New York City High School I Attended.

Now, the hottest small talk in Williamstown is the high schools of Cincinnati, Ohio.

The Big Apple has been displaced. It’s all about the Big ’Nati now.

How could this be, you might be asking. How could navigating daily conversation in Williamstown require understanding the intricacies of the high school system in a single city hundreds of miles away? Determined to get to the bottom of this unprecedented phenomenon, investigators from the Williams Haybale did their noble duty by listening in on croom conversations, lunch rush line chats, and post-hookup pillow talk all over campus. And what they found was shocking.

“Oh, him? Yeah… he really went to Shroder, if you know what I mean.”

Figure 1: Shroder High School

“What was high school like for me? Well, you see, I went to… Turpin.” 

Figure 2: Turpin

“You went to Aiken?!? Do you know Laura Geller? Headband Laura? Soccer team Laura? You do? You know Laura?!??? No way!”

Figure 3: AIken

“Surely this is a critical point of conversation that everyone in this room, no matter their hometown or homeland, race or creed, finds both riveting to discuss and relevant to their daily lives!” 

All across campus, Cincinnatians nodded in agreement. “Surely we are all equally enthralled by the newfound knowledge that our fellow Eph attended Hughes STEM, and my cousin Marcus also attended Hughes STEM, but would’ve been three years above her at Hughes STEM, and therefore, they probably didn’t know each other during their shared time at the beautiful institution we all know and love and have heard of, Hughes STEM.”

Figure 4: Hughes STEM

While NYCers of campus shared only confusion and despair at this new trend, others weren’t so critical. Many were in support of the Cincinnati-enomenon.

“How else would we cast silent, petty judgments about our fellow students if we didn’t know whether they attended Gilbert A. Dater or Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, Ohio?” Midd Weston ’28 told the Haybale. “What? Should we just start asking for their family’s tax bracket instead?”