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Analyzing the College Years of the Presidential Candidates
By Catherine Groux
Posted October 22, 2012 04:00 PM
Before they were presidential nominees, Obama and Romney were young college students.Before President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney were battling for the presidency, they were young college students with an exceptional drive to succeed.
Barack Obama
President Barack Obama - or Barry as he was known in the 1970s - began his postsecondary education at Occidental College, a liberal arts school in California, where he studied on a full scholarship, New York Magazine reports. After two years, Obama decided to transfer to New York's Columbia University, where he majored in political science and international relations.
Although Obama was a good student at Columbia, his fellow bachelor's degree seekers said he did not yet stand out as a leader.
"He was not at all a high-profile student, not the sort of guy who is class president, who everyone says is going to have a future in politics," Obama's classmate Stuart Levi told the Daily News. "It's funny - there are people like that from my class, but he wasn't one of them."
After graduating from Columbia and working as a community organizer in Chicago for four years, Obama attended Harvard Law School. There, he was president of the Harvard Law Review, becoming the first African American to hold this influential position.
While Obama may not have wowed his professors or peers as an undergraduate, he came to Harvard ready to impress, ultimately graduating magna cum laude.
"I thought...his talents are such that there's no ceiling to what he could achieve - and that included becoming president of the United States," Harvard professor Lawrence Tribe told New York Magazine. "He's the only student about whom I've ever had that thought."
Mitt Romney
Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney originally attended California's Stanford University, but after his freshman year, he decided to leave to complete the two years of missionary service expected of Mormons, New York Magazine reports. For 30 months, Romney worked in Normandy before returning to his home state of Michigan. Once back home, he decided to transfer to Brigham Young University as an English major.
While earning his bachelor's degree, Romney raised $1 million for his school as the head of the Cougar Club and held the highest GPA in the College of Humanities.
"He was a bright student," Charles Tate, a former professor who taught Romney, told The Universe. "I've been watching him for years."
After earning his bachelor's degree, Romney enrolled in a joint program at Harvard Law School and Harvard Business School (HBS), New York Magazine states. Although he graduated cum laude from law school, Romney experienced more success in business school, graduating in the top 5% of his class. In fact, Romney even took a course with former president George W. Bush.
While he shined academically, many of his peers viewed Romney as somewhat of an outsider, NPR reports. Because of his missionary work, Romney was older than many of his classmates and already had a wife and children. Additionally, while many of his peers wore tie-dye and sported long hair in support of the counterculture, Romney often came to class in a suit and tie, carrying his father's old leather suitcase.
