It seems that everyone in the coast (NY and DC in particular) care alot about where you went to college, where you work, what your ethnic background is. I can tell because these topics come up alot during casual conversations. Not so much in California and I've lived there for 10+ years from San Diego, LA, and Bay area. I ran with numerous running groups over there and can't remember any of these topics coming up. When I did a few casually runs in DC with some local running groups, one of the first things someone would ask me was "where did I work". Alot of running bios of local running teams also like to stat there runner alma maters, which I thought was unusual.