These aren't Googlers I'm talking about, except the boyfriend. Most of them are friends from college, along with a few online friends and a family member mixed in.
As for how it comes up in conversation - look at this thread, it's got 3 people's SAT scores already. It's not like it's particularly taboo. Usually it starts with somebody mentioning how much they hate/miss high school over dinner or a few drinks, and then soon everybody's offhandedly mentioning their numbers.
(Edit: Also, I hope that everyone reading this understands that the numbers, while inspired by real people, are completely arbitrary. I don't really care if the general HN community dislikes, misunderstands, or downvotes the post. I care that the people who would see themselves in the 1590 category, whether or not they actually scored a 1590 on some standardized test several years ago, understand the point.)
No, it's really quite strange. This thread has got me thinking, until this thread, I can't even recall the last time somebody mentioned their SAT score. Probably more than 15 years ago? I've heard more IQ scores, GRE scores and even TOEFL scores than SAT scores.
Though remember that most of these conversations happened when I was actually in college (a few even before then, while applying to schools), and I just have a really long memory.
(The conversation with the friend that sparked this musing was last night, but I've been friends with her since she was 14, and so our conversation topics include anything that was fair game back then, which is basically everything.)
As for how it comes up in conversation - look at this thread, it's got 3 people's SAT scores already. It's not like it's particularly taboo. Usually it starts with somebody mentioning how much they hate/miss high school over dinner or a few drinks, and then soon everybody's offhandedly mentioning their numbers.
(Edit: Also, I hope that everyone reading this understands that the numbers, while inspired by real people, are completely arbitrary. I don't really care if the general HN community dislikes, misunderstands, or downvotes the post. I care that the people who would see themselves in the 1590 category, whether or not they actually scored a 1590 on some standardized test several years ago, understand the point.)