You know what would be really cool? If someone famous slept in your dorm room. The odds go up a great deal if you went to certain schools. According to an article by Alison Leigh Cowan and David Walter in the New York Times:
A search of archival records at several universities reveals how easy it is to share a little turf with Michelle Obama at Princeton or Anderson Cooper at Yale, if one is enterprising.
The first lady had a single room at 224 Pyne on the Princeton campus long before she moved into 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. “I’ve been hoping she would stop by for old-times’ sake,” said Andrew Gross, a music major who spent the last year in the room. He got the 168-square-foot room to the annoyance of the friend behind him in line, who wanted the room “really badly.”
A visit from Mrs. Obama is unlikely. At least in part because college dormitory rooms used to be mostly anonymous cells that students occupy for less than a year, they tend not to be the sort of things with which alumni have much of an emotional relationship. Literally hundreds of students have cycled through the rooms on older campuses. At some schools, that means there are a whole bunch of mildly famous alumni. Keeping track is hard.
Witness the students who occupy another room at Princeton, 33 Holder, briefly occupied by 1952 and 1956 Democratic presidential candidate Adlai Stevenson. According to the article:
The four freshmen living in Stevenson’s old digs have it festooned in Mardi Gras beads and posters for “The Notebook” and “Death Cab for Cutie.” They said they did not know who Stevenson was but were impressed when told he ran for president in 1952 and 1956.
“I just love how at Princeton, there’s just famous people in every place,’’ said Sabina Hlavaty of Rockville, Md.
Well let’s home Hlavaty at least looked Stevenson up after the interview was over. [Image via]
