Princeton University

Princeton University, located in Princeton, New Jersey, is one of the eight Ivy League universities. It was founded as the "College of New Jersey" in 1746, and was originally located in Elizabeth, New Jersey. The school moved to Princeton in 1756, still under the original name; the name was officially changed to "Princeton University" in 1896.

Princeton is widely regarded as one of the most prestigious universities in the world. It is amongst the wealthiest, with an endowment of over eight billion US dollars sustained through the continued donations of its alumni and maintained by expert investment advisors. Some idea of Princeton's wealth is gained through its impressive art museum, which features works by Monet and Andy Warhol, amongst other prominent artists.

Princeton offers four-year undergraduate degrees, as well as postgraduate research degrees, but does not have the extensive range of professional postgraduate schools of many other universities - for example, there is no law or business school. Its one major professional school is the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.

The campus, located on hectares of lavishly landscaped grounds, features a large number of gothic-style buildings, many dating from the 18th and 19th centuries. Contemporary additions to the campus feature some more modern architecture, and much sculpture adorns the campus.

Nassau Hall, the University's oldest building. Note the tiger sculptures beside the steps.

Most of the student body lives on campus at the various "colleges" (which are basically student dorms). Undergraduate social life revolves around a number of "eating clubs" which serve a similar role to fraternities and sororities do at other campuses. Later-year students have the option to live off-campus: few do, as rents in the area are extremely high.

Princeton has a "needs-blind" admission policy, in which students are accepted into Princeton on merit, regardless of their ability to pay the (very steep) fees. Instead of student loans, Princeton simply pays the remainder of costs out of its endowment. Despite these policies, Princeton's student body contains a large proportion of the sons and daughters of the wealthy, and as a group is generally regarded as politically conservative in a "North-Eastern Republican" sense.

Princeton's mascot is the tiger, and its school colors are orange and black.

Famous alumni and faculty

Famous Princeton faculty members or alumni:

• Hobey Baker- famous hockey player; college hockey's top individual award is named in his memory
• James Baker - Secretary of State under George H. W. Bush
• John Bardeen, PhD 1936- Nobel laureate (Physics 1972)
• Ben Bernanke - Bush nominee for Fed
• Gary Becker - Nobel laureate (Economics 1992)
• Jeff Bezos - founder of Amazon.com
• Alan Blinder - Economics professor, Fed under Clinton
• Bill Bradley - Former basketball star, member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, former U.S. Senator
• Frederick Buechner - Pulitzer Prize nominated author of Godric
• Aaron Burr - Vice President of the United States
• Dean Cain - actor, played Superman in the television series Lois and Clark.
• Frank Carlucci - Secretary of Defense under Ronald Reagan
• William Colby - director of the CIA
• Arthur Compton, PhD 1916 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1927)
• Clinton Davisson, PhD 1911 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1937)
• David Duchovny - actor best known for his role in The X-Files
• John Foster Dulles
• Albert Einstein - physicist, worked at the Institute for Advanced Study
• José Ferrer - Academy Award and Tony Award winning actor
• Richard Feynman, PhD 1942 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1965)
• Norman Finkelstein, - political scientist
• F. Scott Fitzgerald- writer
• Malcolm Forbes - businessman and publisher
• Steve Forbes - son of Malcolm, businessman and publisher of Forbes magazine
• Robert George - Professor of Jurisprudence, constitutional law scholar, natural law scholar
• Charlie Gibson - TV morning show host
• James Heckman, MA 1968, PhD 1971 - Nobel laureate (Economics 2000)
• Robert Hofstadter, PhD 1938 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1961)
• Carl Icahn - Corporate raider, A.B. philosophy
• U.S. President John F. Kennedy - flunked out after first year
• Brian Kernighan - Ph.D., electrical engineering. Professor, computer science. Co-inventor of the awk programming language, and co-author of the definitive textbook The C Programming Language.
• Saul Kripke - Philosopher
• Paul Krugman - Professor of economics, New York Times columnist
• Jim Leach - US Congressman
• Henry "Lighthorse Harry" Lee - father of Robert E. Lee
• James Madison - President of the United States.
• Burton Malkiel - author of A Random Walk Down Wall Street
• Thomas Mann
• Edwin McMillan, PhD 1933 - Nobel laureate (Chemistry 1951)
• Toni Morrison - Nobel prize-winning novelist
• Ralph Nader - Undergrad alum, Green Party presidential candidate
• John Nash, PhD 1950 - schizophrenic mathematician who was the subject of A Beautiful Mind. Winner of the 1994 Nobel Prize in economics for the Nash equilibrium.
• Joyce Carol Oates - Professor in the Creative Writing Program
• Eugene O'Neill - Nobel laureate (Literature 1936)
• Richard Perle - right-wing policy expert
• David Remnick - New Yorker Magazine editor
• Neil Rudenstein - former president of Harvard
• Donald Rumsfeld - A.B. 1954, Secretary of Defense under George W. Bush
• George Rupp - until recently, president of Columbia Univeristy
• Paul Sarbanes - US Senator
• Richard Smalley, PhD 1974 - Nobel laureate (Chemistry 1996)
• George Shultz - Secretary of State under Ronald Reagan
• Charles Schwab
• Harold Shapiro - Professor of economics, President of Princeton until 2001
• Brooke Shields - actress
• Ruth Simmons - first female and first black president of any Ivy League school - Brown
• Peter Singer - Professor of human values, expert on practical ethics
• Michael Spence - Nobel laureate (Economics 2001)
• Jimmy Stewart - actor
• Robert Tarjan - computer scientist, inventor of many algorithms related to graph theory. Winner of the 1986 Turing award
• Booth Tarkington
• Shirley Tilghman - Molecular biology professor, current president of Princeton
• Alan Turing PhD 1938 - pioneering computer scientist, formulated the Turing machine and the Turing test. The Turing award is named in his honor.
• Steven Weinberg, PhD 1957 - Nobel laureate (Physics 1979)
• Cornel West - Professor of religion
• Meg Whitman - CEO of eBay, undergraduate alumna
• Thornton Wilder - Our Town premiered at Princeton
• Sean Wilentz - Professor of politics (American studies)
• Andrew Wiles - the mathematician who proved Fermat's Last Theorem.
• Edmund Wilson - literary critic
• Woodrow Wilson - President of the United States, and formerly of Princeton University

• Princeton's home page