Why didn't Hamilton go to Princeton like Burr?

In the musical: when Hamilton first meets Burr in "Aaron Burr, Sir", he says he heard Burr's name at Princeton while looking for a college he could finish in two years, and John Laurens teases Burr as Princeton's prodigy. Hamilton then heads to King's College instead.

The real Burr: Princeton (then the College of New Jersey) was practically family property. His father, Aaron Burr Sr., was the college's second president, and his grandfather Jonathan Edwards its third. Burr entered as a sophomore at 13 and graduated in 1772, aged 16.

The real Hamilton: the story that Princeton turned him down for wanting to study at his own pace comes from a single source — Hercules Mulligan's recollection, printed in John C. Hamilton's 1834 biography of his father. Princeton's University Archives found no trace of it in the trustees' minutes, and point out that accelerated study was already allowed: Burr and James Madison had both been granted it. Historian Willard Sterne Randall has suggested a different reason, Hamilton's illegitimate birth. What is certain is that Hamilton enrolled at King's College in New York, today's Columbia.

A postscript: Hamilton did reach Princeton in the end — as an artillery captain at the Battle of Princeton in January 1777. Local legend says one of his cannonballs struck Nassau Hall; treat that one as legend.

Fact-check verdict: the musical's version is plausible, but the refusal story is unproven.