70 Fun Facts About Princeton University

Under what name was Princeton founded in 1746?

It became a university and took the name Princeton in 1896, 150 years after its charter.

In which New Jersey town did the college first open, in Jonathan Dickinson's parsonage?

It moved to Newark in 1747 after Dickinson died and finally to Princeton in 1756.

Princeton is the fourth-oldest US college. How many colonial colleges were chartered before the Revolution?

Only Harvard, William & Mary and Yale are older.

Why did the college leave its second home for Princeton in 1756?

Governor Jonathan Belcher, who had 'adopted' the infant college, strongly recommended the central New Jersey site.

Nassau Hall is named for which monarch?

Trustees wanted to name it for Governor Belcher, but he vetoed the idea and it honored the House of Orange-Nassau instead.

Which Princeton president, a signer of the Declaration of Independence, led the college 1768–1794?

He tightened standards and steered the college toward producing leaders for the new nation.

For how long in 1783 did Princeton serve as the capital of the United States?

The Continental Congress met in Nassau Hall and learned there of the peace treaty with Britain.

A cannonball at the Battle of Princeton reportedly 'decapitated' a Nassau Hall portrait of which king?

The gun was said to belong to Alexander Hamilton's artillery company; Princeton had rejected Hamilton when he first arrived in the colonies.

On what date was the Battle of Princeton fought?

It followed Washington's surprise attack at Trenton a week earlier.

Which former president led the creation of Princeton's alumni association in the 1820s?

The association began raising funds when President Carnahan was considering closing the struggling college.

Which president's tenure (1868–88) saw the Triangle Club, Glee Club and first eating club founded?

He also lifted the college out of its post-Civil War slump and abolished fraternities and sororities.

In what year did the college officially become a university and take the Princeton name?

The Graduate School followed in 1900, and the honor system had been established in 1893.

Which future US president served as Princeton's 13th president from 1902?

He introduced the preceptorial system of small-group teaching in 1905 and lost his fight over where to put the Graduate College.

What teaching innovation did Princeton's 13th president introduce in 1905?

Small groups called precepts met with a preceptor to supplement lectures, a then-unique idea in the US.

Andrew Carnegie funded Lake Carnegie in 1906 hoping students would row instead of playing which sport?

The Shea Rowing Center on the lake still houses Princeton rowing.

Princeton's Graduate College sits half a mile from campus because Dean West beat whom in a dispute?

Its Cleveland Tower is a memorial to Grover Cleveland and holds a 67-bell carillon.

The tower crowning the Graduate College is a memorial to which former Princeton trustee and US president?

Its carillon of 67 bells is one of the largest in the world.

Abraham Flexner created the Institute for Advanced Study in 1930 with money from which philanthropists?

Einstein, Gödel, von Neumann and Oppenheimer all worked there; it is separate from the university but closely tied to it.

Which supervising architect enforced Princeton's Collegiate Gothic style until 1960 and designed its University Chapel?

When it opened in 1928 the chapel was the second-largest university chapel in the world after King's College, Cambridge.

Who designed Princeton's grounds between 1912 and 1943?

A campus courtyard was recently named in her honor.

Since 1911 the front entrance of Nassau Hall has been flanked by two bronze what?

They were a gift of the Class of 1879 and replaced two lions given in 1889.

The 'Big Cannon' buried in Cannon Green was left behind by which army?

Students dragged it onto campus under cover of night in 1838 and buried it in 1840.

Students from which neighboring university stole Princeton's Little Cannon in 1875?

Their successors still occasionally paint the protruding cannons scarlet.

Princeton played in the first intercollegiate gridiron game on November 6, 1869. What was the result?

Princeton won the rematch a week later 8–0, and it played under rugby rules from 1877 until at least 1903.

Which Princeton back won the 1951 Heisman Trophy, the last ever awarded to an Ivy Leaguer?

The Tigers had won their final national championship the year before, when he was a junior.

Which coach led Princeton men's basketball from 1967 to 1996 and devised the 'Princeton offense'?

His final win was the 1996 NCAA tournament upset of defending champion UCLA.

Which future US senator was named Most Outstanding Player when Princeton reached the 1965 Final Four?

The Tigers play their home games at Jadwin Gymnasium.

What are Princeton's colors?

A 2007 effort to give the tiger mascot a name was dropped after alumni and student opposition.

Coach Fritz Crisler carried Princeton's helmet design to which school, where it became the famous winged helmet?

Crisler coached at Princeton before Michigan hired him.

Princeton's men's lacrosse team won how many national championships between 1992 and 2001?

In 2012 the field hockey team became the first in the Ivy League to win a national title.

Princeton's Cannon Green bonfire is held only when it beats which two rivals at football in the same season?

The Ivy League was formally organized in 1955, and its rules prohibited post-season football play.

By tradition, what happens to a student who exits through the FitzRandolph Gates before graduating?

The gates face Nassau Street in front of Nassau Hall.

Newman's Day, on which some students attempt 24 beers in 24 hours, falls on which date?

It rests on an apocryphal Paul Newman quote about beers in a case; Newman himself spoke against it.

In what year did the administration ban the Nude Olympics, held at winter's first snow?

Started in the early 1970s in Holder Courtyard, it went co-educational in 1979.

Which faded tradition involved climbing Nassau Hall to steal part of its bell?

The clapper, which rang to open classes each year, was eventually removed permanently for safety.

Princeton's alma mater 'Old Nassau' was written in 1859 by a student in which class year?

Harlan Page Peck's lyrics were first tried to the tune of Auld Lang Syne before professor Karl Langlotz wrote new music.

The fall intramural competition Cane Spree commemorates a feud from the 1870s between which two classes?

Sophomores, angry at freshmen strutting with fancy canes, stole them and hit the freshmen with their own canes.

On which street do ten of Princeton's eleven eating clubs stand?

Terrace Club is the exception, sitting just around the corner on Washington Road.

What is the selective admission process used by six of Princeton's eating clubs called?

The other five clubs use first-come 'sign-ins'; about 68 percent of upperclassmen belong to a club.

Which was the first of Princeton's permanent eating clubs?

The clubs were required to go coeducational in 1991 after a lawsuit and a denied Supreme Court appeal.

Which residential college, named for a US president, was renamed First College in 2020?

The name change came after the killings of Black individuals by police that year and debate over Woodrow Wilson's record on race.

Princeton's Honor Code, under which students proctored their own exams, ended in what year?

The university cited an increase in students using artificial intelligence to cheat.

Which dean introduced Princeton's controversial grade deflation policy in 2004?

The numerical targets were dropped in 2014 after a faculty vote.

Princeton first admitted women as undergraduates in what year?

Its lack of an affiliated women's college had earned it the nickname 'the monastery'.

Who became Princeton's first female president in 2001?

The same year, Princeton replaced all loans in its financial aid packages with grants.

Who became Princeton's 20th president in 2013?

His tenure has included the Princeton & Slavery Project and the end of numerical grade-deflation targets.

Princeton named public spaces in 2018 for Betsey Stockton and which other enslaved man who worked on campus?

The project published hundreds of primary sources and 80 scholarly essays.

Founded around 1765, what is the oldest collegiate political and debating society in the US?

Whig-Clio remains the largest and oldest student organization on campus.

The Daily Princetonian, founded in 1876, holds what distinction among US college dailies?

Princeton's WPRB (103.3 FM) is the oldest licensed college radio station in the nation.

The Princeton Triangle Club is famous for what signature routine?

It was historically performed by men in drag; F. Scott Fitzgerald and Jimmy Stewart were members.

What is Princeton's oldest a cappella group, formed in 1941?

A cappella 'arch sings' take place under the campus's many Gothic arches.

Firestone, opened in 1948, was notable as what?

It now has more than 70 miles of bookshelves, one of the largest open-stack libraries in existence.

Andy Warhol's Blue Marilyn hangs in which campus institution, established by President McCosh in 1882?

The collections number over 112,000 objects, from Antioch mosaics to Monet and Van Gogh.

Which artist made 'The Hedgehog and The Fox', the sculpture between Peyton and Fine halls?

Moore's Oval with Points, Calder's Five Disks and Picasso's Head of a Woman are part of the Putnam Collection scattered across campus.

Which two US presidents graduated from Princeton?

Vice presidents Aaron Burr, George Dallas and John Breckinridge are also alumni, as is Michelle Obama.

Which Amazon founder is a graduate of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science?

Fellow engineering alumni include Apollo 12 commander Pete Conrad and former Alphabet chairman Eric Schmidt.

Which of these famous writers attended Princeton but did not graduate?

His debut novel This Side of Paradise follows Amory Blaine through his Princeton years.

Which 2001 film follows mathematician John Nash as a Princeton PhD student?

Nash, Alan Turing, Richard Feynman and Terence Tao are all Princeton graduate alumni.

Which of these Nobel-winning novelists was a member of the Princeton faculty?

Her papers are held in Firestone Library alongside F. Scott Fitzgerald's manuscript of The Great Gatsby.

Who was the first Black student to graduate from Princeton with a bachelor's degree, in 1947?

He was one of four naval cadets admitted through the wartime V-12 program in 1945.

Princeton has the world's largest per-student endowment, at over how much per student?

The endowment was about $37 billion in 2021, fourth largest in the US overall.

Which US Department of Energy facility does the university manage?

The lab takes about 7 percent of Princeton's $2 billion operating budget; the campus also hosts NOAA's Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory.

What is the nickname of the small commuter train that links campus to Princeton Junction station?

NJ Transit runs it, along with the 600-series buses.

Princeton's Reunions weekend brings back roughly how many alumni and guests each year?

The four-day celebration culminates in the P-rade of alumni in class costumes.

How many points did Princeton score in a 2005 loss to Monmouth, tying a Division I record low?

It came nine years after the program's famous upset of UCLA under Pete Carril.

Which New Jersey governor granted the college its second charter in 1748 and donated his 474-volume library?

A Congregationalist alienated from his alma mater Harvard, Belcher decided to 'adopt' the infant college.

What was the top-secret 1951 fusion effort that grew into the Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory?

Astrophysicist Lyman Spitzer directed it until declassification in 1961, when it took its current name.

Which NOAA climate-modelling lab has sat on Princeton's Forrestal Campus since 1968?

Founded in 1955, it lets Princeton faculty and graduate scientists take part in its research.

Which Apollo 12 commander is a graduate of Princeton's School of Engineering and Applied Science?

Jeff Bezos, Eric Schmidt and former EPA chief Lisa P. Jackson are fellow engineering alumni.

In which year did a fire gut Nassau Hall, which President Smith blamed on rebellious students?

Samuel Stanhope Smith, the first alumnus to lead the college, later mishandled an 1807 student riot and was pushed to resign.