Mercury Seven a team and solo. Grissom, Cooper, and Slayton were Air Force pilots; Shepard, Carpenter, and Schirra were Navy pilots, and Glenn was a Marine Corps pilot. All seven had attended a variety of postsecondary institutions in the 1940s. Of the five astronauts who had completed undergraduate degrees before being selected, two (Shepard and Schirra) were graduates of the United States Naval Academy. Having earned a Master of Arts degree in 1957 at the Naval War College, Shepard was the only selectee who held an advanced degree. Following a decade of intermittent studies, Cooper completed his degree as a mid-career student
Seven Sisters (colleges) and Merope) were collectively referred to as "The Seven Sisters". In the field of astronomy a star cluster, in the constellation of Taurus, is also referred to as The "Pleiades" or the "Seven Sisters." The seven colleges explored the issue of coeducation in a variety of ways. Two, Radcliffe College and Vassar College, are no longer women's colleges. Radcliffe merged completely into Harvard College in 1999, and is now a research institute and no longer an undergraduate institution. The component parts of the College's campus, the Radcliffe Quadrangle and Radcliffe Yard, retain the designation "Radcliffe" in perpetuity, and serve or