Fun Facts about Colleges in USA!

Aren’t you excited to know the fun facts about the colleges in America? Some are weird and witty and some are really adorable. So, in this article, there are 35 fun facts about colleges in the United States of America. Go on… Read this and know some facts.

• Calculus was invented even before Harvard was founded. Harvard was founded in 1636.

• The identity of “Alumni” is derived from the Latin word “Alumnus” and the meaning of it is “Foster Son”. 

• Princeton Alum Charles Conrad became the third person to walk on the moon and planted a Princeton flag there in 1969.

• “Alma mater” is a word derived from the Latin meaning “nurturing mother.” 

• The prime college that graduated female students was Oberlin College. It was Mary Caroline Rudd, Mary Hosford, and Elizabeth Prall who were graduated with degrees in BA in the year 1841. 

• The A.B. is an abbreviation of the Latin name for the Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) degree “Artium Baccalaureus.”

• Oberlin College was also the first institute to graduate an African-American woman in 1862. Mary Jane Patterson was her name. 

• The University of Pennsylvania was founded in 1740. Yes, it existed 47 years before PA even became a state.

• The first inter-college football game was held in November of 1869. The game was Princeton vs. Rutgers. Wondering who won? Rutgers won with 2 scorings in lead. 

• There are only 4 all-male in the nation. But can you imagine, there are 60 all-female colleges nationwide. 

• Yale is the most prestigious senior society is the Skull and Bones. Former presidents George H.W. Bush, his son George W. Bush, and William Howard Taft were members. 

• Yale gets its name from Elihu Yale who was the Governor of the East India Company. This is the same organization that is bound to the Tea Act, which led to the Boston Tea Party.

• The word- “college” is derived from the Latin “collegium” and it means community or society. 

• Columbia’s Lion mascot sparked the Metro Goldwyn Mayer’s Lion. The one who created the logo was an alumnus of Columbia and his name was Howard Dietz.

• Approximately 5,000 colleges and universities exist in the country. They grant more than 2 million degrees per year altogether. 

• Columbia University used to be known as the King’s College.

• Beer Pong was invented at Dartmouth College. 

• ENIAC which is the earliest electronic general-purpose computer was made in 1946 at UPenn’s Moore School of Electrical Engineering.

• Brown University was called Rhode Island College during the early days. 

• The first atomic fission happened on UChicago‘s campus.

• Curtis Institute of Music (2.9%), Stanford (5%), Harvard (5%) Yale (7%), and Columbia (7%) are the colleges with lowest acceptance rates in the U.S.

• Duke’s iconic chapel is a wedding venue for many couples who met at Duke. And what’s funny about it is- due to the popularity, weddings need to be booked one year in advance of the wedding month. 

• The total number of females in colleges is approximately 60% of all college students are female. 

• Johns Hopkins is the first research university in the U.S.

• Dave MacPherson, a Long Beach State University student, was the first person to enter Disneyland. 

• Rice University has a puppy room dedicated to pet therapy for students during finals. It is cute, right?

• 14 of the 25 largest sports stadiums in the world belong to American college football teams. 

• The Kalamazoo Promise is a foundation of unknown donors that pay for the college education of students who graduate high school in Kalamazoo, Michigan. 

• With 15.8 million volumes, Harvard University is considered to be having the largest academic library in the world. 

• Ohio University may be considered the most haunted school in the United States

• In 1776, the first Greek student society was Phi Beta Kappa, founded by John Heath at the College of William and Mary. 

• The first Greek sorority, now known as Alpha Delta Pi, was founded in 1851 at Wesleyan Female College. 

• The Boston university bridge is the only place where an airplane can fly over a car while a car is driving over a train while the train goes over a boat, all at the same time. 

• The University of Michigan at Ann Arbor has a Squirrel Club with over 400 members to feed peanuts to squirrels. Isn’t it adorable? 

• There have been many celebrity commencement speakers over the years, one of the most exciting was Kermit the Frog on which he spoke at Southampton College in 1996.