>To speak nothing of the professors... This probably had a lot to do with it. Schools like that have huge endowments (Princeton's is north of 20 billion dollar

>To speak nothing of the professors... This probably had a lot to do with it. Schools like that have huge endowments (Princeton's is north of 20 billion dollars), and as such can afford to attract very good faculty. Very good faculty can lead to very bright students. Princeton is also going to have a lot more defense dealings than something like a state school and where cutting-edge tech is being researched, OGAs are guaranteed to be sniffing around and weaseling their way into the research with funding.