Celebrities and Education

[chonies]

Feb 7, 2011 21:07:19 GMT -4 @talkbox said:

I think getting a degree for them is also excellent PR. They brag about having brains. How many times over has Natalie POrtman described as "the Harvard educated actress..." and spouted all sorts of idiocy? Now Emma Watson is going to Brown Univeristy and I think a lot of it is just hype.

I just have to wonder, what on EARTH are their credentials to get into those prestigious schools? You sincerely cannot tell me that all these actresses are really brainy as most who get accepted.

I'm no expert on university admissions, but I suspect they are enrolled with the expectation that they won't stay. However, for most students, getting is one part, staying and graduating is another.

I also wonder if there is a "paid in full" clause, and if you can pay for four years of a BA with one check, they may be willing to overlook certain shortages. On a related note, most grad students I know didn't pay for their degree because they were indentured servants to the school in exchange for tuition; again, if someone rolled up with a tuition check, admissions might be rather welcoming. Another thing: if Franco and other actors didn't go the usual high school route, they might be admitted under alternative or non-traditional criteria, as would other students who might have taken a year or twelve off.

Now I want to compile a list of celebrities and their degrees.

[Deleted]

I just can't rag on anybody for getting an education, regardless of any ulterior motives. It's a heck of a lot better than a lot of other meaningless crap celebs waste their time on. I think taking courses and getting educated in anything is a good thing for a person.

[talkbox]

I wonder how seriously the professors and students take the celebs as they come in. Ashley Judd is supposedly going back and didn't Natalie take the elevator that was reserved for handicapped students?

[sueli]

Now I want to compile a list of celebrities and their degrees.

I think there have been a few online articles on such a list, but I don't know how comprehensive it was.

I just don't understand how this would be useful to these people unless they were going to use it somehow in authoring their own books or screenplays.

A lot of actors, I think, are English Lit majors. Another with a degree in same is Wentworth Miller:

"I certainly learned how to break down a text at Princeton," he says, "which helps me break down a script – or at least that's the line I feed my parents when they start wondering where all that good money went."

[JeanBean]

I applaud celebs who actually earn a degree, although James Franco is absolutely insufferable about his academic credits. And hey - Wentworth Miller actually just sold screenplay that he wrote under a pen name, so I guess that education is paying off a bit.

To answer a question posed above - as someone with lots of friends who work in college admissions - you cannot pay for 4 years with a single check. But plenty of actors are accepted to college for reasons other than their academic strength, for example, their potential contribution to the college. It's much the same as with athletes. They may not have the grades, but they are valuable for the publicity/status they bring the school, and the future donations they will probably make.

[Deleted]

Feb 7, 2011 21:33:59 GMT -4 chonies said:

I'm no expert on university admissions, but I suspect they are enrolled with the expectation that they won't stay. However, for most students, getting is one part, staying and graduating is another.

I also wonder if there is a "paid in full" clause, and if you can pay for four years of a BA with one check, they may be willing to overlook certain shortages. On a related note, most grad students I know didn't pay for their degree because they were indentured servants to the school in exchange for tuition; again, if someone rolled up with a tuition check, admissions might be rather welcoming. Another thing: if Franco and other actors didn't go the usual high school route, they might be admitted under alternative or non-traditional criteria, as would other students who might have taken a year or twelve off.

Now I want to compile a list of celebrities and their degrees.

The fact that a successful young actor or actress may have no difficulty making tuition payment certainly doesn't hurt their undergraduate admissions prospects. But I don't think schools tend to admit these students with the expectation that they'll drop out. Young celebrities who pursue higher education tend to be driven and focused enough to commit themselves to school at a time when they could be earning a lot of money working. Most of them also have had unusual and interesting life experiences that make them stand out in the larger pool of applicants ... not to mention, connections that might benefit the schools they attend.

Things are probably different at the grad school level. At least in the humanities, a lot of programs seem to admit anyone who can easily afford to pay, and might not care if someone like James Franco drops out. If he's admitted to graduate programs because his celebrity status overrides the admissions requirements, I would be surprised if he's encouraged to graduate. It's one thing to admit someone who is under-qualified, and quite another thing to graduate him in spite of substandard work. His future career probably won't be relevant to his course of study, so the program can't use him as an example of alumni achievement. And it's not like he's setting aside other interests to pursue one thing ... he seems content as a dabbler.

[Mutagen]

Feb 7, 2011 22:20:07 GMT -4 @baignoire said:

I never knew John Cho taught English! That is so cool.

I know! And to junior high/high schoolers - I shudder to think about what a brat I was at those ages, lol.

[chonies]

Feb 8, 2011 2:54:30 GMT -4 @desireelegume said:

Feb 7, 2011 21:33:59 GMT -4 chonies said:

I'm no expert on university admissions, but I suspect they are enrolled with the expectation that they won't stay. However, for most students, getting is one part, staying and graduating is another.

I also wonder if there is a "paid in full" clause, and if you can pay for four years of a BA with one check, they may be willing to overlook certain shortages. On a related note, most grad students I know didn't pay for their degree because they were indentured servants to the school in exchange for tuition; again, if someone rolled up with a tuition check, admissions might be rather welcoming. Another thing: if Franco and other actors didn't go the usual high school route, they might be admitted under alternative or non-traditional criteria, as would other students who might have taken a year or twelve off.

Now I want to compile a list of celebrities and their degrees.

The fact that a successful young actor or actress may have no difficulty making tuition payment certainly doesn't hurt their undergraduate admissions prospects. But I don't think schools tend to admit these students with the expectation that they'll drop out. Young celebrities who pursue higher education tend to be driven and focused enough to commit themselves to school at a time when they could be earning a lot of money working. Most of them also have had unusual and interesting life experiences that make them stand out in the larger pool of applicants ... not to mention, connections that might benefit the schools they attend.

Things are probably different at the grad school level. At least in the humanities, a lot of programs seem to admit anyone who can easily afford to pay, and might not care if someone like James Franco drops out. If he's admitted to graduate programs because his celebrity status overrides the admissions requirements, I would be surprised if he's encouraged to graduate. It's one thing to admit someone who is under-qualified, and quite another thing to graduate him in spite of substandard work. His future career probably won't be relevant to his course of study, so the program can't use him as an example of alumni achievement. And it's not like he's setting aside other interests to pursue one thing ... he seems content as a dabbler.

I definitely agree about not graduating in the face of substandard work, although when I think about teen actors who attended college after already having some fame, I usually have the very cynical image of someone who enrolls in a Name School either as a way to fill a career lull, or to be marketed as A Boy/Girl Next Door. Britney Spears at Pepperdine, etc.

However, when I was researching the teens who went to college, I found a lot of them actually did graduate, like Julia Stiles.

[chitowngirl]

Mayim Bialik from Blossom and The Big Bang Theory has a PhD in Neuroscience.

[Sunnyhorse]

Feb 8, 2011 10:14:55 GMT -4 Mutagen said:

Feb 7, 2011 22:20:07 GMT -4 @baignoire said:

I never knew John Cho taught English! That is so cool.

I know! And to junior high/high schoolers - I shudder to think about what a brat I was at those ages, lol.

Mutagen, you can add Jon Hamm to your list. After graduating from the University of Missouri (M-I-Z! Z-O-U!) he taught drama at John Burroughs School, the elite prep school he attended here in St. Louis, in part as a means of paying back his "school family" for their many kindnesses after his mother died and his father became terminally ill during Hamm's adolescence. (One of the kids he taught was Ellie Kemper, now working on The Office.) He's a good guy, and St. Louis is proud to claim him.