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Emmanuel graduates had a large involvement in the settling of North America. Of the first 100 university graduates in New England, one-third were graduates of Emmanuel College. Harvard University, the first university in North America, was named after John Harvard (B.A., 1632), who was an Emmanuel graduate. Other alumni of Emmanuel include

• F.R. Leavis
• Fred HoyleSir Fred Hoyle ( June 24, 1915 August 20, 2001) was a British astronomer, notable for a number of his theories that run counter to current astronomical opinion, and a writer of science fiction, including a number of books co-authored by his son Geoffrey H
• Griff Rhys JonesGriff Rhys Jones (born 6 November 1953) is the comedy partner and foil of Mel Smith. He was born in Cardiff, Wales, UK. Griff was educated at Brentwood School, Essex, where he met Charlie Bean (Executive Director of the Bank of England) and Douglas Adams,
• Graeme GardenGraeme Garden (born February 18, 1943 in Aberdeen, Scotland) is a British comedy writer and performer. He is also qualified as a medical doctor and an accomplished actor, director and author. He went to Repton Public School and Emmanuel, Cambridge where h
• Cecil ParkinsonCecil Parkinson, Baron Parkinson PC (born September 1 1931), is a British Conservative politician and former Cabinet minister. Unusually for a Conservative minister, he had relatively humble origins being the son of a railway worker. He became MP for Enfi
• Tim YeoTim Yeo (born March 20, 1945) is a British Conservative politician, member of Parliament for Suffolk South, and the Shadow Transport and Environment Secretary. He is also a paid director of Univent PLC and Genus PLC, and writes articles for Golf Weekly an
• John WallisJohn Wallis ( November 22, 1616 October 28, 1703) was an English mathematician who is given partial credit for the development of modern calculus. Between 1643 and 1689 he served as chief cryptographer for Parliament and, later, the royal court. He is als
• Michael Frayn
• Graham Chapman
• Choudhary Rahmat Ali
• Rory McGrath

Emmanuel College is also noted as the home of a wide variety of duck species, including the Mallard, the Carolina, the Mandarin, the Pintail, the Tufted, and the Wigeon. The more exotic species were donated to the college by a former Master as a gift to the college at the beginning of his term. There is also a fine example of a Chinese plane tree in the College grounds.

Emmanuel College, or 'Emma' as it is known throughout the University, attracts large numbers of undergraduate applications due to its reputation as being a 'friendly college' (although several other colleges also claim this title). Emmanuel topped the 'Tompkins Table' in 2003 and 2004, which ranks colleges according to end-of-year examination results.