The relationships between Musk and his college aged kids is known publicly to be really bad. So colleges will not see any benefit of accepting these particular kids.
On the other hand, Bill Gates’s kids? Two at Stanford, one at U Chicago. By
Jeff Bezos’s son goes to Princeton.
Larry Ellison’s kids both wanted to pusue film majors and therefor attended USC.
Look up where the kids of other billionaires are attending college
Steve Carrell’s daughter just graduated from Northwestern. Of course he went there.
When I was in college our football was really good and the players lived among everyone. So it was common to see famous kids in class or walking to class. Overall it was pretty normal.
I’m sure he visited her, but he’s an alum of Denison.
Not sure if you meant to visit, but he went to college at Denison. They make sure to mention it on the tour.
Stephen Colbert, the other funny Steve C., went to Northwestern.
Got them mixed up.
A couple of celebrity anecdotes as a Brown parent.
Freshman year Katherine Zeda Jones and Michael Douglas son Dylan was a few doors down. Supposedly very nice kid who was entirely qualified academically.
Running joke on campus was two Beatles band member kids (Ringo and George) were alum but they were jokingly referred to as “the lesser Beatles”.
Crossed paths in a parking lot with Bruce Willis (whose daughter had graduated) who was on campus to receive an award. He saw our NJ plates and engaged us. Such a nice, self deprecating person who obviously knew he made our day by allowing us to briefly connect.
Walking across campus and my wife seeing a tour group and saying isn’t that Sarah Jessica Parker and me responding a little to loud “yes and that’s her husband Ferris Bueller.”
I don’t consider myself particularly star struck but it was undeniably pretty cool to experience while my kid seemed pretty indifferent.
“Academically qualified” covers a wide range of levels of academic achievements. Does that mean “within the range, academically, of kids who are athletes, kids of donors, etc”, or does that mean “within the range, academically, of students who were accepted without being athletes, kids of wealthy alumni, or potential donors, etc”?
And that, my friend, is the reason that these colleges like Brown court these kids, regardless of these kids’ academic qualifications.
That is why these kids are accepted, rather than kids who have much more impressive academic, social, and other achievements than any of those kids you mentioned.
You just remembered a bunch of kids, not by virtue of whatever they did in their lives, but simply because their parents are famous movie stars. You consider that the presence of these kids is “cool”, even though the presence of these kids does almost nothing to enhance the academic and intellectual experiences of your kids.
Not being judgemental, BTW, because this is basic human nature, not a flaw or a failure.
But if that is the effects of having celebrities’ kids has on parents like you, who choose colleges for academics and fit, imagine how strong an impact this has on parents and students who are a lot more shallow. Imagine how strong the effects is on parents and students who want to be associated with celebrities.
The entire Varsity Blues scandal was just an example of how strong that attraction is. Most of those parents weren’t breaking the law to get their kid into USC because of the academic and non-academic achievements of the unhooked kids who attend USC or because of USC’s academics or sports. They wanted their kids there because USC was where the kids of bigger celebrities attended college.
Unfortunately for most of the Varsity Blue parents they were neither big enough celebrities, nor were they wealthy enough for USC to court them.
These colleges are trying to court the parents who have the money, and are willing to pay celebrities lots of money to come to their (the wealthy parents’) events. If these parents are willing to pay some movie star $50,000 for a couple of hours, you can imagine how much they would be willing to donate to a college which provides these parents with a more substantial connection to celebrities.
But why do you assume these kids are “less impressive”? That’s unfair and judgemental. Many times, these kids are driven to succeed by an unhealthy need to prove that they are worthy in spite of who their parents are or the advantages they’ve had.
Why do you feel the need to parse this? If the student has the capability to succeed at the school does this distinction matter?
I do not agree with posters who continually trash/cast side eye/call into question the academics and overall success potential of hooked students, it’s just a bad look for CC.
Again with the judgment. Moss Giannulli and Lori Laughlin are worth $100M+…definitely high enough that any school, including USC, would be interested in ‘courting’ that family. Unfortunately for them they were conned by a very good con-man.
Last year when Apple Martin started at Vanderbilt the TikTokkers were losing their minds over what an alleged troublemaker she was in high school and all that. I did wonder if Gywneth showed up at move-in. Then Apple went through Rush, pledged Kappa which caused another firestorm on TikTok.
Another celebrity daughter of George Stephanopoulos/Ali Wentworth just moved in to Vandy this week.
I attended a state university and encountered a kid of a state politician. I did not consider that fact to be important when interacting with that student.
Facts not in evidence. Do you know these kids backgrounds because I don’t? Far be it from me however, to debate a moderator making broad speculative generalizations.
In terms of the specific student mentioned, I based my comment about academic qualifications on my child’s first hand in class experience. My kid was a math major with very strong academic credentials who studied along side the aforementioned student and found him to be intelligent, hard working and well prepared for rigorous classes.
I do agree that a modest benefit accrues to the school by attracting some of these kids, but that doesn’t translate into a universal truth that these same kids aren’t qualified.
I mentioned that I found it “cool” to have had these encounters but it certainly didn’t enter into the decision for my kid when choosing amongst his final 3 of Brown, Duke and Harvard. Sorry for the not so humble brag but I don’t think kids of this caliber give a rats buttocks about sharing space with Danny Devito’s kid.
If you read my post closely I only “remembered” one student my kid knew personally. Otherwise my references were to the celebrities not the kids who I hadn’t met. That is why I don’t feel either of us are qualified to opine about their relative academic abilities.
Yes, I believe it is a hook that likely puts an applicant on the dean’s interest list. After award-winning producer and Penn alum Marc Platt and his wife endowed a building on campus, I would have been surprised if their sons Henry and Jonah were rejected. Of course, I assume they met the academic benchmark for admission.
Three generations of the Lauder family have been educated at Penn. Leonard ('54) and Ronald ('65), whose mother was Estée Lauder, are prominent donors to the university through their corporate foundation. New College House was renamed Lauder College House in recognition of their significant financial contribution. Again, I would be surprised if any Lauders were ever denied admission but I assume they are well-qualified applicants.
And, let’s not forget about the Bidens. I believe Penn has become something of a family tradition for them. During his tenure as an adjunct (he says he was a full professor, but I dispute that assertion), Biden established the Penn Biden Center. I really think he intends to build a legacy at Penn.
Now, the presence of famous kids as far as personal importance to our family in choosing a college? Nada. Sure, in retrospect, my kid thought it was cool to live in the same hall as a Biden or to see Noah Schnapp on campus, but that was just serendipity. We’re not easily starstruck though. But I can understand how famous/connected people might be a draw to others who want to hobnob with that crowd.
AOs are people and I’m sure they get starry-eyed, but I sincerely hope they are not admitting kids who can’t do the work because that’s not a good look for the university. I’ll leave the question of whether dean’s interest list applicants are truly unqualified to better informed minds.
Minimum academic rigor in college does not necessarily rise as steeply as admission selectivity when going to more selective colleges (with a few exceptions like Caltech). For most super-selective colleges, any applicant with plausibly “typical excellent” high school academic credentials should be able to do the work and graduate. So being “qualified to do the work” still leaves a lot of room for admission of ALDC applicants who may have no real chance if they were aiming for the unhooked pure academic excellence lane in admissions.
Fame is a double edged sword. One of my siblings was a classmate of the child of a former president- who had a secret service detail. Their salary is paid by the federal government, but the incidentals (they need a place to sleep, shower, change, eat) was provided by the college. The PR benefit (modest-- because at the end of the day, who cares?) seemed overshadowed by the costs-- seats in a lecture hall that weren’t filled by students because an agent accompanied the kid at all times; traffic and transportation hassles when Mom showed up for move in; intense coordination with local law enforcement and campus police if the kid decided to go to a football game (stadium not located in the middle of campus- so MORE transportation issues).
By my sibs account- kid totally qualified academically. You can’t help your last name…
I am very skeptical that these “celebrity kids” are getting in on the basis of a famous name if the academic chops aren’t there. It can be painful and expensive educating and protecting a kid who might be a target of some kind.
This was a long time ago, but I went to college with – well, a lot of celebrities’ kids, but one in particular was the daughter of a very famous singer (daughter is now a celebrity in her own right), and I had absolutely no idea until Very Famous Singer showed up at our graduation and just blended in with the rest of the parents. In fact, I would never have known had my mom not snapped a picture of her. My college was a small university – so I didn’t know everyone by any stretch, but it wasn’t all that easy for famous kids (or kids of famous people) to be totally anonymous.
Circling back to OP’s question (which I don’t think has been directly answered)…
They may all be academically qualified, but do they get an admissions bump for being a celebrity kid?
I personally think the answer is yes, at least at some schools. Of course, that does not mean they’re unqualified or are being admitted solely because of their name. Being qualified and getting a bump are not mutually exclusive. Same as for other hooked categories like L, C, URM.
Between actors, athletes, musicians, prominent business persons, society, politicians, etc. and across all genres, there are a lot more kids of connected/famous people than some seem to realize. For Obama-level prominence surely it matters, but my guess is that it matters much less so for most others.
Both parents did show up at move-in. 
What was the firestorm about? My S didn’t think the pledging was a big deal but did think meeting the parents at move-in was nice.