<p>Ethanrt, Ill not take you up on the challenge of compiling the data (too much work!) but it might be interesting were someone to take the time.</p>
<p>Greg, theres no doubt that Yale has an impressive representation in the Senate at the present time. Currently, there are six U.S. Senators who did their undergraduate work at Yale and only one from Princeton. However, these numbers can change dramatically in a short period of time. Three of those six Yale Senators were elected just two years ago (Brown, Whitehouse and Klobuchar) while two Princeton Senators retired two years ago (Sarbanes and Frist). </p>
<p>As for the Presidency, the arrival of George H.W. Bush and his son, our current President, increased the total number of Yale Presidents to three, but this, of course, is very recent. For the first 225 years of our countrys history, there had been only one Yale President (William Howard Taft). Princeton graduated one of the founding fathers, James Madison, and Woodrow Wilson, who succeeded Taft. Now, both of these actually pale in comparison to Harvards numbers which include five undergraduate alumni who have entered the White House (John Adams, his son John Quincy Adams, Theodore Roosevelt, his cousin Franklin Delano Roosevelt and, finally, John F. Kennedy) (JFK actually enrolled at and spent part of the fall semester at Princeton but then became ill and had to withdraw. When he recovered, he started over at Harvard.) </p>
<p>Part of the explanation for the higher number of Yale affiliations in Congress is also that a great many U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives have graduate degrees from Yales law school but were not undergraduates there. The presence of law and business schools, in particular, will greatly increase the number of alumni in Congress. This is true, for example, for Senators Specter and Clinton. Finally, I believe I read somewhere (Im sorry that I cant provide the reference) that, on a per capita basis since the time of its founding, Princeton has actually produced more U.S. Senators and U.S. Representatives than any other school in the country.</p>
<p>While each of these schools is proud of its alumni who achieve high political office, Im not sure it means much in the end in terms of evaluating undergraduate political science programs. Many of them didnt even major in political science as undergraduates (e.g. Brown, Whitehouse and Nelson). </p>
<p>You cant go wrong with Yale in terms of political science. It is a highly rated department and the Yale Political Union is fun for undergraduates. Still, I would say the same about Princetons Woodrow Wilson School and the Whig-Cliosophic Society. One difference is that the Wilson School has tended to be more focused on international affairs than on domestic U.S. politics though I understand that this is beginning to change. If you are interested in international affairs, the Wilson school would be a particularly good choice. Some time back, Foreign Policy Magazine ranked undergraduate and graduate programs and I summarized the results here:</p>
<p><a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/3747046-post1.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/3747046-post1.html</a></p>
<p>
<p><a href="http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3718&page=1%5B/url%5D">http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=3718&page=1</a></p>
<p>Foreign Policy Magazine has just published its 2007 survey results ranking the nations top undergraduate, masters and PhD programs in international relations. Scholars in the field were asked to select the top five programs in the country. The rankings were compiled from those responses with the scores indicating the percentage of scholars who felt each program was one of the top five nationally.</p>
<p>In undergraduate programs Harvard edged Princeton just very slightly and both were significantly ahead of the third through tenth ranked institutions. In PhD programs, Harvard clearly led the pack with Princeton noticeably behind at second while Columbia and Stanford tied for third. In Masters programs, Georgetown and Johns Hopkins surged to the fore. Of particular note were some of the smaller schools without graduate programs where the undergraduate program was still ranked in the top ten. Dartmouth stands out on this list at number nine.</p>
<p>2007 Top Undergraduate Programs in International Relations</p>
<p>Rank % Score </p>
<p>1----------48%----------Harvard
2----------46%----------Princeton
3----------30%----------Stanford
4----------28%----------Georgetown
5----------28%----------Columbia
6----------23%----------Yale
7----------21%----------U. of Chicago
8----------12%----------Berkeley
9----------11%----------Dartmouth
10--------10%----------George Washington U.</p>
<p>2007 Top PhD Programs in International Relations</p>
<p>Rank % Score </p>
<p>1----------65%----------Harvard
2----------52%----------Princeton
3----------45%----------Columbia
4----------45%----------Stanford
5----------30%----------U. of Chicago
6----------26%----------Yale
7----------25%----------Berkeley
8----------22%----------U. of Michigan
9----------20%----------U.C. San Diego
10--------12%----------Cornell</p>
<p>2007 Top Masters Degree Programs in International Relations</p>
<p>Rank % Score </p>
<p>1----------65%----------Georgetown
2----------64%----------Johns Hopkins
3----------46%----------Harvard
4----------42%----------Tufts
5----------39%----------Columbia
6----------38%----------Princeton
7----------28%----------George Washington
8----------19%----------American University
9-----------9%----------U. of Denver
10---------7% ----------Syracuse</p>
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