Princeton lagging in national leaders?

Colleges and Universities A-Z Princeton University
1

<p>Princeton has done exceptionally well in producing Supreme Court justices lately -- it's strange that it lags so far behind its peers in producing political leaders. According to this recent US News compilation, Princeton doesn't even make the top 10 colleges in producing members of Congress and the Senate.</p>

<p>Introduction:</a> The Top 10 Colleges for Members of Congress - US News & World Report</p>

<p>Harvard leads the list with 15 members of congress, Stanford 11 and Yale 10 members of congress. Yale leads the list of Senators, with 6, versus 5 for Harvard and Stanford.</p>

<p>No president has had a Princeton degree since Woodrow Wilson. while many have had Harvard or Yale degrees.
You would think that with the Woody Wood school, Princeton would have many more budding politicos running around. (Like Georgetown, which ranks number 4 or 5.)</p>

2

<p>Cool analysis. So don’t come here. </p>

<p>Kthxbye.</p>

3

<p>Newest, I think Mancune, (a current Yale undergraduate, I believe?) is just having a bit of fun.</p>

<p>He (or she?) might be interested to know, however, that Princeton’s ranks of U.S. Senators, Governors and U.S. Representatives is quite impressive. </p>

<p>At the moment, there are relatively few Princeton graduates in Congress. After Tuesday, it appears likely that the count will be five total. Given the small numbers we’re talking about here, the counts can change significantly from one election to the next. Within the last 15 years Princeton has had as many as five simultaneously-sitting U.S. Senators and four U.S. Representatives, for a total of nine simultaneously-sitting members of Congress.</p>

<p>Mancune, your alma mater, Yale, has a very impressive total at present in the Senate with six but half of those were elected just four years ago in 2006. In 1988, Yale had seven sitting U.S. Senators. Two years later it was down to two. It’s easy to see how quickly these totals can change from one election to the next and it’s impossible to know what Yale’s count will be two years from now in 2012.</p>

<p>Taking a longer view so as to avoid the election-to-election short-term changes, the picture is quite different.</p>

<p>Since the founding of our nation, and if we are looking just at undergraduate alma maters, Princeton has produced a higher number of U.S. Senators, Governors and U.S. Representatives per capita than any other school in the country. This was true long before the Wilson School existed. Interestingly, this is also true for federal judges including Supreme Court Justices where Princeton has had, in absolute numbers, more alumni on the bench than any other undergraduate school. Again, this is a recent phenomenon as each of the last three Supreme Court Justices has come from Princeton.</p>

<p>Finally, if you want to include all those who have attended law or business school at Harvard or Yale, then the numbers skew very much in their direction. A great many members of Congress have attended law school at one of them. Since Princeton has no law or business school, these affiliations are not a possibility.</p>

<p>Mancune, If you really wish to highlight Yale’s current crop of elected officials (something I think is reasonable given its impressive record), the Yale board might be the more appropriate place to do it.</p>

<p>I don’t think any of the readers here believe you are asking a serious question on the Princeton board.</p>

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<p>More information about Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School can be found here:</p>

<p><a href=“http://wws.princeton.edu/[/url]”>http://wws.princeton.edu/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

4

<p>Considering most schools in the country don’t have any national leaders, I don’t think you can really say that Princeton is lagging</p>

5

<p>Ask me again 25 years from now.</p>

6

<p>They’ve got a real winner coming through the pipes, I hear.</p>

7

<p>Hehehe. I knew I would smoke out PtonGrad2000 pretty quickly with this one.</p>

<p>I am just too tired to point out the relative lack of Rhodes scholars at Princeton over the last 10 years. We’ll save that for another time when this board is slow …</p>

8

<p>Counter with the fact that Princeton has the highest number of Churchill Scholars.</p>

<p>Plus we don’t go pick fights with other schools over such trivial issues. And I think that’s probably worth a good 20 Senate seats or so.</p>

9

<p>Isn’t this statistic in favor of Princeton? I applaud the intelligence of those that would avoid getting into politics.</p>

10

<p>I’m confused as to why this matters. What does it matter that Princeton may not have as many members in Congress at the moment? Perhaps it has that many more acting as top lawyers, artists, fund managers, etc.</p>

<p>Perhaps you should investigate which schools produce the most students who opt for neon hair. That at least would be interesting, rather than just sad.</p>