Famous Smart People that went to state schools or lower level universities?

Parents Forum
41

<p>Famous Harvard professor and Nobel Laureate (for solving the structure of DNA) James Watson - got his bachelors at Indiana U.</p>

42

<p>Kofi Annan-Macalester</p>

<p>Eugene Lang-Swarthmore</p>

<p>Steve Case-Williams</p>

<p>Robert Noyce-Grinnell</p>

43

<p>^ you consider those (especially Swat and Williams) LOWER LEVEL colleges??? :eek:</p>

44

<p>^ I’m not surprised-people somehow revel in the assumption that the top Liberal Arts Colleges are somehow lower level. That this thread has places like Grinnell, Macalester, Reed, Sarah Lawrence, Swarthmore, Williams is testimony. The emphasis was on lower-level universities, especially state universities which people tend to assume turn out nothing more than average people, not the aforementioned Liberal Arts Colleges which are private and tend to maintain intellectual exclusivity akin to the top universities.</p>

45

<p>Norman Borlaug, plant biologist, father of the “Green Revolution,” Nobel Laureate, credited with saving more lives than anyone in human history: University of Minnesota-Twin Cities</p>

46

<p>Toni Morrison, Pulitzer Prize-winning author and the last American to win the Nobel Prize in Literature (1993): Howard University</p>

47

<p>Bill O’Reilly, Marist.</p>

<p>Ok, Libs, bring on the venom!</p>

48

<p>Read 'um and weep.</p>

<p>[List</a> of University of Texas at Austin alumni - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_University_of_Texas_at_Austin_alumni]List”>List of University of Texas at Austin alumni - Wikipedia)</p>

49

<p>I know the OP said no actors, but I couldn’t resist this one as it was such as surprise:</p>

<p>Eli Wallach, known for many roles, especially The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, and more recently, as the screenwriter Arthur Abbott in The Holiday, graduated from my alma mater, The University of Texas. As he was born and raised in Brooklyn, I would love to know how he ended up at UT.</p>

50

<p>George Washington Carver–started at Simpson in Indianola, Iowa, and transferred to Iowa State.</p>

51

<p>Oscar Hijuelos, Pultizer Prize-winning author (“The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love”): City College of New York</p>

52

<p>Jon Stewart, comedian/satirist: College of William & Mary</p>

<p>Edward O. Wilson, prominent evolutionary biologist: University of Alabama</p>

<p>Oprah Winfrey, television personality/entrepreneur/billionaire named to Time Magazine’s list of “100 most influential people of the 20th Century”: Tennessee State University</p>

53

<p>Chad Hurley, co-founder of YouTube, graduated from my school (Indiana University of Pennsylvania). Also, Gregory Booth, the CEO of Zippo Lighters, graduated from there as well. Those are just two of the many.</p>

54

<p>David Mamet, Pultizer Prize and Tony Award-winning playwright: Goddard College (VT)</p>

<p>Annie Proulx, Pultizer Prize-winning novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter (“Brokeback Mountain”: University of Vermont</p>

55

<p>A very small sampling of notable University of Texas alumni:</p>

<p>William Buckley, Sr.
David Geffen
Fernando Belaunde Terry (former president of Peru)
Sheik Abdullah Tariki (founder of OPEC)
Sarah Weddington (represented Jane Roe in* Roe v. Wade*)
Catherine Crier
Walter Cronkite
Bill Moyers
Liz Smith
Betty Nguyen (CNN anchor)
Mary Lou Retton (oops, sports figure)
Michael Jenkins (sports anchor/reporter)
Berkeley Breathed (cartoonist-Bloom County)
John Maxwell Coetzee (2003 Nobel Prize in Literature)</p>

56

<p>William Bennett got his PhD from Texas, too. And one of the thirsty Bush twins.</p>

<p>Also Charles Whitman went there. Hey, if you take the good, you gotta take the…</p>

57

<p>thanks guys. I like the youtube founder one.</p>

<p>And actors okay. I just didn’t want things like </p>

<p>Well Shaquille O’Neal went to LSU or one like that. like obviously he didnt do anything in college</p>

58

<p>A lot of actors are listed as UT alums, but interestingly enough, the people in this group were the least likely to graduate of all the others listed (well, probably a lot of athletes left early to go pro, but Wikipedia doesn’t list whether or not the athletes graduated, unlike the other categories).</p>

59

<p>The Mellons, founders of of Carnegie Mellon went to PITT!</p>

60

<p>Guys “lower level” colleges are not: University of Michigan, UCLA, UC Berkeley, UT, UVA, Swarthmore, Williams and a whole bunch more (these colleges are quite at the top). The OP requested schools below the top 50…</p>

<p>Anyways… I’ll add one person to the list: Robert J. Stevens. He is the CEO of Lockheed Martin. He graduated from Slippery Rock University of Pennsylvania.</p>