Princeton Trivia

On last night's episode of Will and Grace, part of the plot line is the discovery that Will doesn't know how to swim, and Jack ends up helping him overcome his fear of the pool. I'm sure all Princeton alumni who saw this were smiling to themselves at the factual error. Will Truman, in the show, is supposed to be a Princeton grad. However, Princeton (like several other ivy league schools), actually requires its graduates to know how to swim! I'm sure most alums will remember the experience the first week of their freshman year, having to take a swimming test. If you couldn't stay afloat for 15 minutes without holding the side or touching the bottom (or if you opted not to even attempt it), you had to take swimming lessons for your PE class freshman year. (I know. My freshman roommate didn't know how to swim. But he learned.) Swimming is also a requirement at Cornell, Columbia, Dartmouth, and MIT. Thus, if Will were truly a Princeton man, he'd have known how to swim.