Which U.S. presidents had the best academic records and which had the worst? I realize that a lot of the standards and opportunities have changed with time. However, generally who graduated from prestigious schools, had high class ranks, high test scores, post-graduate degrees, and, conversely, who falls on the other end of the spectrum?
Many presidents have no real academic records (Lincoln, for one).
Harry Truman never obtained a bachelor’s degree, although he did make an aborted attempt at law school. He was pretty smart, regardless.
Well, ok. Of the Presidents, the only ones without any formal academic education were Washington, Taylor, and Andrew Johnson, you would you put them on that one end of the spectrum?
Lincoln had about 18 months of school as a child.
And he passed an examination to qualify as a lawyer. In other words, for his time and place, he was relatively well-educated, though largely self-taught.
Yeah, it depends how you define “educated”, and in the list of presidents who lacked any formal academic education, Washington had tutors and was apprenticed as a surveyor, Johnson was apprenticed to a tailor, and Taylor had a bunch of private tutors.
I don’t have any special affection for Bill Clinton but he would be at the top or near it.
Perhaps maybe starting with the 20th century presidents would result in more meaningful information as clearly education was not as formalized for quite a few of the early presidents.
This site at least lists what level of education that various presidents had.
It looks like Woodrow Wilson would be near the top of the list. He got his undergraduate at Princeton, spent a year in law school at Virginia, and then got his phd at Johns Hopkins.
Washington did graduate from William and Mary.
He never attended William and Mary, though. He just received a surveyor’s license from them.
True. He won a Rhodes Scholarships, which is a pretty select & prestigious award, and is based in part of his prior academic record.