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) Bryn Mawr College is a part of the Tri-College Consortium in suburban Philadelphia, with its sister schools, Haverford College and Swarthmore College. Barnard, Smith, Mount Holyoke, Vassar, Bryn Mawr, Wellesley, and Radcliffe were given the name "the Seven Sisters" in 1927, because of their relative affiliations with the Ivy League men’s colleges. The schools are sometimes referred to as "the Daisy Chain" or "the Heavenly Seven." The name "Seven Sisters" is also a reference to the Greek myth of "The Pleiades," the seven daughters of the Titan Atlas and the sea-nymph Pleione. The daughters (Maia, Electra, Taygete, Alcyone, Celaeno, Sterope,