<p>Which show, liz? I'll be away, so I need to know what to tivo.</p>
<p>I think it's called The Big Idea with Donny Deutsch or something like that, it'll be on at 10pm and 1am EST</p>
<p>Yes, I went to Brown Summer Studies 2005 and saw Lucy DeVito...she was very funny, very good--looks a lot like her father. Her parents were there as well. They're very nice people, although I didn't speak much to them (I just congratulated them after the play was over). But I do get a little upset when people "freak out" about celebrities and bother them to try and get a picture or autograph or something of that nature...I heard of a person who bothered the DeVitos while they were having I picnic and I felt like slapping them. They're people, too, and they don't want to be disturbed when they're trying to have lunch.</p>
<p>And yes, Stifler's brother does go to Brown.</p>
<p>aw man, to anybody who actually cared about watching ian on the show, they decided to cut his segment out of the show. chuck norris is still on there and stuff, but no ian. if you want to read his write-up of the experience though you can read it here</p>
<p>Anybody know who's going to be around next year? Does Leelee ever come back? :) :)</p>
<p>my sister just graduated from brown and at the graduation we saw tim robbins and susan sarandon.. so a kid of theirs has to have gone.</p>
<p>my other sister who still goes to brown also spoke to leelee sobieski at a pizza place once a couple years ago.</p>
<p>yeah, i know some of the ones who were there, i'm talking about next year</p>
<p>Personally, I think the presence of celebrity children at Brown demeans the college because while many colleges recruit legacies, famous families, etc., when a celebrity attends a college that college gains a high level of notoriety for accepting privileged students over normal hardworking students. While the number of celebs at Brown doesn't even break 10 students, it hurts the public perception of Brown making people believe that it is something other than the amazing learning institution that it really is. </p>
<p>I understand the basis behind admitting famous students to a university despite their qualifications and as realistic as I try to be, a part of me will always be angered by students who take the spots of more qualified students (whether they are celebs, legacies, athletes, or URMs). </p>
<p>So far the people I have met from the class of 2011 have been everything I expected them to be: diverse, intellectual, independent, and thoughtful. So maybe this rant is just me being overly dramatic.</p>
<p>js, I'd disagree that there is any way to accurately judge who is a 'more qualified student'; numbers such as GPA and SAT are certainly not accurate methods by any means. The same argument you've presented is made about all the groups that you mention (celebs, legacies, athletes, and URM's), and it is just silly. Some of these people are qualified to attend Brown for reasons that have nothing to do with GPA and SAT scores, etc., but their qualifications may speak much larger volumes regarding their actual potential to contribute to Brown than do those "objective" measures.</p>
<p>^^^ couldn't agree more. Could you imagine the people we'd have to go to school with if all of a sudden they started admitting only the perfect scored kids from the top high schools? It'd be full of really hardcore asians and rich white prep school kids who could afford to buy their SAT scores and that'd be about it. </p>
<p>And yes, I'm stereotyping grossly here.</p>
<p>To mgcsinc, does the promise of potential contributions to the university count as one of the non-quantitative reasons that these famous students were admitted because we all know that's the most important factor to the admissions office with these students. Frankly, I think these students are hurting Brown's reputation because when the public sees these famous students attending Brown they come to see Brown as a haven for the rich and famous, where these students can manipulate the Open Curriculum to coast through the next 4 years.</p>
<p>Personally, I value the Open Curriculum so much that it pains me to think about these types of students who were admitted for superficial reasons and who will abuse a system that is supposed to represent intellectual exploration and learning.</p>
<p>Because the Open Curriculum is so easy to exploit for superficial purposes, Brown definitely looks for a type of student who will take advantage of the system, a type of student who is intellectually curious. In spending hours and hours talking to my fellow 2011'ers I feel like Brown did a good job at finding students who are really interested in learning. But I don't believe for one second that these famous applicants are put under such rigorous standards as the rest of us are and because of this materialistic and superficial approach to admissions, Brown admits students who will most likely waste this great system.</p>
<p>"who will abuse a system"</p>
<p>Hello, God! You really are omniscient!</p>
<p>js, you're NOT making ANY sense. </p>
<ol>
<li><p>Your argument is based on the notion that celebs,<br>
athletes, URM, etc. are underqualified. Although you have not even spent a semester at Brown, you should note that everyone who is admitted is in fact qualified! And as mentioned earlier, with the exception of Brown's admission officers, how can one assess this idea of "qualification." After all, evaluating SAT scores and GPAs alone is insufficient. </p></li>
<li><p>If Brown admits... say 20 celebs in a given class, why should that matter. Should the admission office begin rejecting famous applicants due to fear of outside speculation? </p></li>
<li><p>Who are you? I mean, congratulations on your acceptance to Brown, but that in NO WAY gives you the authority to demean the value of other students. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>I had more to say but it's late and I'm tired. Nonetheless, js I want to leave you with this. At Brown there are so many different people present. Celebs, athletes, minorities, gays, transgendered, muslims, catholics, and so many more. Moreover, these individuals all filled out Brown's application and gained admission. Thus, when you arrive on campus DO NOT marginalize the individuals you have deemed as underqualified, (for the same might be done to you), rather digest the idea that at the end of the day ALL of us represent Brown.</p>
<p>OH and for exploiting the Open Curriculum I would like specific examples of what you mean?</p>
<p>js, you need to stop stereotyping.</p>
<p>Also, I hope you enjoy the diversity (URM's), titillation & good acting (celebrities), parties (athletes) and tradition (legacies) that these people bring as much as I do. I love that Brown is such a mixture of intelligence and true diversity (beyond the simple ethnic sense of the word)! I promise that if you can't come to respect these people, you won't be as happy as you could be.</p>
<p>Finally, the idea that there is public disrespect for admitting any of these groups is a fantasy. It's simply not true.</p>
<p>Brunoian2010, I was in no way trying to sound elitist and arrogant in my comments about celebrity children. I think Brown is one of the most amazing universities and it just saddens and angers me when people marginalize Brown for admitting these celebs making it seem as though the university is, as one source called it, a "Hollywood U". I know I'm making the assumption that these students are underqualified and yes that is a bit ignorant of me. Yet it just bugs me that Brown has this false reputation amongst many people but I guess it's inevitable because of the way many people perceive the Open Curriculum. </p>
<p>It was this article that started to get me thinking about this whole situation: <a href="http://web.cornell.edu/higherednews/?p=39%5B/url%5D">http://web.cornell.edu/higherednews/?p=39</a>. It doesn't provide sources and I'm not sure about the background of the writer and his credibility in college admissions. But you might want to check it out, it's nothing new about Ivy League admissions but it got me thinking about this thread a bit more. </p>
<p>*To your second post, most people believe celebs are attracted to Brown because it is easier to coast through the 4 years given the lack of requirements. I understand where they are coming from but I believe at most universities you can pretty much coast through.</p>
<p>rebuttal:</p>
<p>Welcome to the Ivy League, where every move you make can be interpreted as <a href="mailto:bullsh@t">bullsh@t</a>. Even if Brown did everything perfectly (not that I'm ackowledging any fallacy with the insttution) someone would still criticize it.</p>
<p>js-- welcome to 1985 and being wrong. There was a time period where Brown was under heavy fire for the open curriculum and for admitting celebs, but we're more than 10-15 years from when any of that was happening on a serious level.</p>
<p>And of course all of the students who come here are qualified-- there is no lack of qualified applicants at Brown or many of the most selective schools in the nation and as a result we get to choose who we want to admit out of a large pool of people who would fit in great here and are more than qualified, a pool considerably larger than the number of spots we have to offer.</p>
<p>Occasionally, a celebrity or a celebrities child is included in that mix. Do people think less of Harvard because of Sarah Hughes or Natalie Portman or various other celebrities who attend there? Are you making the same complaint, or does this come out of some place where you're upset that Brown is ranked lower than it probably should be and you're looking to up prestige (which, among any circle that matters, can hardly be done) and you think that celebrities are effecting that?</p>
<p>They're not and haven't been for a while. You're bringing up issues that existed in Gregorian's time here, not now, at least not amongst the public. And while books will mention things like URMs, legacies, athletes, and all kinds of preferential groups, I'd hold off before you cast judgment on them until you're here.</p>
<p>Oh yeah, and I'm a first generation college student (well, four year degree) who's not rich and not famous.</p>