Princeton lagging in national leaders?

PtonGrad2000
Fri, 29 Oct 2010 18:34:34 +0000

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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



More information about Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School can be found here: