Does being the child of a celebrity give you a leg up with elite schools?

[Anonymous]

*cough, cough* yes

[Anonymous]

I went to an elite college and met more kids of celebrities of sorts there. Famous artist's daughter: check. Kids of titans of industry: check. I think that there's a lot of pressure on kids of famous people to live up to the legacy of their parents. They're still into that sort of thing at that age. Later, they may realize that they can just coast a bit on their parents' millions.

[Anonymous]

yes

[Anonymous]

There are development officers for prominent families. That can be defined in a bunch of ways. So those kids are looked at in that pool.

[Anonymous]

Of course. It’s good PR for the school and the families are uber rich. In general elite college admissions favor the extremely wealthy and the extremely disadvantaged. You are most disadvantaged (from a college admissions perspective) as an UMC kid who is neither. There was a NYT article about it somewhat recently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course. It’s good PR for the school and the families are uber rich. In general elite college admissions favor the extremely wealthy and the extremely disadvantaged. You are most disadvantaged (from a college admissions perspective) as an UMC kid who is neither. There was a NYT article about it somewhat recently.

I think that's overstating it a bit. If your family is well known in the NYT type circles for whatever reason, even if they are not uber-wealthy, I think you also get a leg up. As in: if you would be featured in the weddings section of the NYT because your parents are well known, your chances of getting into well-known schools is better.

[Anonymous]

Yes, schools like having the clout of having celebrities show up on campus and of course the potential for donations is important to them.

[Anonymous]

Is this a trick question?

[Anonymous]

Seriously??

[Anonymous]

It’s a big yes. Having gone to high school in NYC with plenty of kids of celebrities and titans of industry I saw that they all got into great schools, not always deservedly. Brown was the usual destination but Harvard was guilty of this too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Duke and Brown seem to come up often with celebrity kids.

Carnegie Mellon too.

[Anonymous]

[code]

Anonymous wrote:I would assume always up until the college years. But after that, maybe sometimes but not always. Remember how Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman and other celebrities and rich people were scamming to get their kids into colleges?

They were B list celebrities though.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It’s a big yes. Having gone to high school in NYC with plenty of kids of celebrities and titans of industry I saw that they all got into great schools, not always deservedly. Brown was the usual destination but Harvard was guilty of this too.

St Ann’s alum?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would assume always up until the college years. But after that, maybe sometimes but not always. Remember how Lori Loughlin and Felicity Huffman and other celebrities and rich people were scamming to get their kids into colleges?

If they’d just paid the college directly it would have been legal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Of course it does.

This! Full pay kid. Celebrity status = free publicity and bragging rights for the school, students and parents of students.

This is true for nearly every facet of the kid’s life… it will continue when they audition or apply for jobs.