<p>Say someone dreams of getting elected to Congress.</p>
<p>Are there schools that really would enhance someone's ability to be Washington-bound?</p>
<p>Georgetown</p>
<p>Probably Ivies - can’t beat Ivy connections and their famous, wealthy, and influential alumni networks.</p>
<p>I second Georgetown, but would say that schools like:</p>
<p>harvard, yale, princeton, and columbia are very successful as well.</p>
<p>successful, but not AS successful schools would be:
Cornell, UPenn, Dartmouth, Brown, Stanford (mainly because of location)
then
Duke, Uchicago, northwestern, and more recently Hopkins (geitner, head of the GOP, etc), though Hopkins is usually very successful with international politics and public policy through SAIS, and has a ton of connections through there. In fact, their alumni base in DC is equally as strong as georgetown’s on the Foreign services part.</p>
<p>Georgetown comes to mind…</p>
<p>I was thinking Dartmouth, but I have no idea why I think that. Oh wait, it’s because of Geithner and Paulson. So, if you want to be a Secretary of the Treasury, go to Dartmouth!</p>
<p>For most voters the ‘big’ college is their state flagship. Those Harvard/ivy boys are mistrusted in most of the Country.</p>
<p>^yeah, politicans tend to downplay their perceived elitist roots. I don’t know if it’s true, but George Bush had trouble being elected for congress in his district because he was a Yalie (or so I learned in “W”).</p>
<p>OK. But I am going to pull some prominent alumni from the closest large state universities to me. I’m only going to post prominent politicians.</p>
<p>We’ll start with my school, Oklahoma State-Stillwater. Our alumni includes Prime Minister of Jordan Adnan Badran, Senator Tom Coburn, former Senator Don Nickles, former FEMA Director Joe Allbaugh, former Surgeon General Robert H. Whitney, 3 current Congressmen, and 4 former congressmen.</p>
<p>University of Oklahoma-Norman. Former Senator David Boren, who is the current University President, 1 current Congressmen, and 4 former Congressmen (including Dick Armey and JC Watts).</p>
<p>University of Texas-Austin. First ladies Laura Bush and Lady Bird Johnson, Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, former Senators Lloyd Bentsen and Ralph Yarborough, like 30 different Congressmen, as well as Sheik Abdullah Tariki (co-founder of OPEC), former Peru president Fernando Terry, and Palestinian National Authority president Salam Fayyad.</p>
<p>University of Arkansas-Fayetteville. Senator Mark Pryor, former Senator William Fulbright and University President (created Fulbright Scholars program), former Secretary of Transportation Rodney Slater, and 1 current Congressmen, 3 former Congressmen.</p>
<p>Oh darn, I forgot to mention NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, and previous president Woodrow Wilson when describing Hopkins, lol.</p>
<p>^That seems like a lot of prominent politicians and stuff (idk what Harvard’s alumni are like, though, besides Obama). Is that what you were trying to show?</p>
<p>Harvard’s alumni are insane. lol</p>
<p>Obama went to Columbia for his college. He just went to Harvard for Law School, which is usually quite separated from the rest of the campus.</p>
<p>I am just curious if there’s anything to back up when people say, “Hey, if I can just get into [insert prestigious college name] no matter how bad my finaid is, I’ll be set for life with connections and stuff…”</p>
<p>^Yeah, I just looked it up on wikipedia. Absolutely amazing. But, I wonder what the difference between elected and appointed officials is. For instance, do state schools have more elected vs. appointed, and does Harvard have more appointed vs. elected, or am I making up random stuff here.</p>
<p>That’s probably a good point you may be onto.</p>
<p>Any other thoughts?</p>
<p>Any top schools greatly enhance the chances - many high-level politicians have attended top schools (like the Ivy League, Stanford, MIT, Chicago, Northwestern, etc.)</p>
<p>Also - lesser-known fact - if you are trying to get elected to the House or the Senate from your state, attending your state’s flagship university can also increase your chances. For example, the two Senators from Georgia both went to the University of Georgia. Both Alabama Senators attended Alabama schools, with Richard Shelby attending University of Alabama. At least one of the Senators in each of these states attended their state’s public university: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas (both), Delaware, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa (both), Kansas (both), Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland (both, but for grad school), Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Ohio (both), Oklahoma (both), South Carolina, South Dakota (both), Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Washington, and Wisconsin (both).</p>
<p>This is my source: [List</a> of current United States Senators - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_current_United_States_Senators]List”>List of current United States senators - Wikipedia). As you can see, most of the Senators either went to 1) their state’s flagship university, or 1) a selective university or college.</p>
<p>Northeastern states seem to have a particular love for the old elite colleges, whereas the Southern states and many of the Midwestern states seem to prefer or like just as much graduates from their flagships.</p>
<p>University of Florida!</p>
<p>[List</a> of University of Florida people - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Florida_alumni]List”>List of University of Florida alumni - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>Holy Cross</p>
<p>In the Boston metro area, the Irish mafia seem to favor both BC and Holy Cross as breeding grounds for their elected officials.</p>