We’ve all heard about Woodrow Wilson, Michelle Obama, and Brooke Shields at Princeton. But what about all of the fictional characters who have matriculated at this great, ivy-bathed institution?
It seems the University can’t get enough of our fake alumni:
DID YOU KNOW: Princeton has a Program in Linguistics, but contrary to what you may have seen on TV, “30 Rock” character Jack Donaghy was never employed there to read every English word to canonize the language in his perfect American accent.
– Princeton University’s Official Facebook, 2011
While Alec Baldwin’s big-time network executive character doesn’t seem like an unlikely character you might meet at Reunions, The Ink has decided to weigh in on how some of Princeton’s other faux-alums stack up:
THE UPC GUIDE TO FAKE PRINCETON ALUMNI
Bruce Wayne, revealed in Batman Begins
Plausibility: High. Just think about the donations the Wayne family could give to the endowment.
Major: Economics with a Certificate in Laying Chicks, I suspect.
Sam Seaborn, from The West Wing
Plausibility: A high-powered speech writer and political guru – sounds about right.
Major: Woody Woo
Trivia Point: His Secret Service codename is “Princeton.”
Doogie Howser, M.D., from Doogie Howser, M.D.
Plausibility: Questionable, but not unlikely. He’s a child prodigy who supposedly graduated from Princeton at age 10. In 1983. (But he’s white and not a woman, so he might have fit in with the lil’ old boys’ club.)
Major: Whatever gets kids into med school these days.
Fantasy Senior Thesis: “Riding Unicorns: How I Met Your Mother and Fooled Her into Thinking I Was Into Her”
Will Smith, from the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air
Plausibility: Well, the proof is in the interview. (Just imagine Janet Rapelye in this situation.)
Major: ORFE, assuming they can all solve Rubik’s Cubes too.
Dr. Manhattan, from Watchmen
Plausibility: VERY High. (Blue is diversity points.)
Major: Atomic Physics, World Destruction
Probable Senior Thesis: “Tachyons: Not a Plot Point”
Princess Mia Thermopolis (aka Anne Hathaway), from Princess Diaries 2
Plausibility: Unlikely. Just because Princeton has castles does not make it the appropriate place for every Disney princess.
Major: The movie says Woody Woo. But maybe she only picked it because it was still in its heyday of selectivity?
Sam Montgomery (aka Hilary Duff), from A Cinderella Story
Plausibility: See above on princesses. Queens, however, we accept.
Major: Comp Lit
Trivia Point: “RaspberrySmoothie” gets hilariously upset in this College Confidential chatroom about how unfair it is that Princeton admits Duff’s character:
I can’t believe she got into Princeton! Nowhere once in that movie did I see her studying, working, or doing anything but moaning about how much her stepmother sucked. And she wasn’t even geographically diverse, a legacy, award-winning, or a minority. What a slacker.
Amory Blaine, from Fitzgerald’s This Side of Paradise
Plausibility: High. The character is based off of Fitzgerald, a Princeton graduate drop-out himself.
Major: Literature or Philosophy. He would deem anything else too vocational.
Fred Flintstone, from the Flintstones
Plausibility: Based on this episode, the University was appropriately named “Princestone” in Fred’s time. Just ask John Nash, he’ll remember.
Major: Wheel and Fire Engineering (WAFE)
Some other non-canonical alumni include: Charlie Epps from “Numb3rs,” President Charles Logan from “24,” Paul Kinsey from “Mad Men,” and Angelina Jolie’s Russian spy character in that one movie no one watched called “Salt.”
Can you imagine how crazy Reunions would be with all these characters?
a collaboration by Oren Fliegelman ’16, Vivienne Chen ’14
Fitzgerald never graduated.
Evelyn Salt (Angelina Jolie) from the movie Salt also graduated from Princeton.
You forgot Mindy Lahiri, from The Mindy Project.
Henry Wilcox, former CIA director, was a Princeton grad. During the third season they mention he was a member of “the Glorious Tiger Inn.”
Will Smith never attends Princeton in the Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. There is no proof that he attends from the clip shown here, and if you follow the series, he ends up going to college at “ULA.”
Brooke Shields DID NOT REALLY graduate. She attended no Math, Science or English classes. As a student at the time, we found this HIGHLY offensive, although the current students just seem happy to have a celebrity on campus. 25 years ago this school represented scholarship. Now it represents wealth, nothing more. Ms. Shields, Foster and all the ’70’s stars that went to “college”(while still working full time in their career) set a bad precedent that continues to this day.
At least some famous folks have done it right. Natalie Portman went to Harvard(on the strength of normal High School Grades, not some on-set tutor that gives straight A’s) Peter Weller(Robocop) teaches at Columbia now, and History, NOT drama.
Alfred Eaton in John O’ Hara’s “From the Terrace”