So you’re a famous person (congrats) and you’ve had a kid, and now you have to decide where to send that kid to school. But this kid is special! They can’t just go anywhere a normal kid would go. They need to be properly educated, to learn math and science and literature and social skills like how to treat others as equals, preferably around other equally famous children. So you’ve got to send them to one of America’s handful of nepo-approved nepo-baby academies (and if you live in England, good luck getting them into Eton). Your choices are below, ranked by how many notable alumni from our nepo-baby handbook attended each institution.
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Crossroads
Notable nepo count: 11
Enroll if: You want your kid to book a lot of roles and have a vaguely hippie star persona.
This Santa Monica school has a progressive, ’70s-L.A. origin story and a bevy of children-of-Hollywood grads including Maude Apatow, Zosia Mamet, Kate Hudson, Jack Quaid, Jonah Hill, Charlie Hall, Maya Rudolph, Liv Tyler, Gwyneth Paltrow, and the Deschanels. It was even the subject of a Vanity Fair story back in the aughts, in which some alums fret over whether it has gotten too overwhelmed with offspring of the glitterati. Let’s say it’s a classic choice, if a little obvious.
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Harvard-Westlake
Notable nepo count: 11
Enroll if: You’re looking to prime your child to land at an Ivy or a streamer.
Journey over the hills and into the valley and you’ll get to this more academically intense institution, which has educated Lily Collins, Billie Lourd, the Gyllenhaals, Emily Deschanel (she went to Crossroads and here!), Cody Horn, Ethan Peck, Jessica Capshaw, and the legend herself, Jamie Lee Curtis. Think of it as a real-life version of the prep school from Netflix’s The Politician — and not just because Ben Platt went there. Platt and Beanie Feldstein are some of the more notable famous youth currently making their way to Hollywood. Congrats to Harvard-Westlake on being of the moment!
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Saint Ann’s
Notable nepo count: 8
Enroll if: You want to coordinate school pickup with a star of screen and stage.
If you live in New York or are bicoastal but prefer the East, then you’ve got to find somewhere to send your kids in the five boroughs. Voila! Come to Brooklyn Heights and embrace the progressive ways of St. Ann’s, which has taught Maya Hawke, Lucas Hedges, two Nivolas, and two Kirke sisters. It’s also where Lena Dunham went to school, so you’ve got the rarefied possibility of having your kid grow up to make their own version of Girls and cast their classmates in it.
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Sierra Canyon
Notable nepo count: 4
Enroll if: You want your kid to star on a sports team, a reality-TV show, or a reality-TV show about a sports team.
Athletics-wise, Sierra Canyon is the school to beat in basketball, and not just because its team has been absolutely full of children of NBA stars, including Zaire Wade, Scotty Pippen Jr., and Bronny James (who transferred from Crossroads). The team has even held its own media days. Aside from basketball, other grads include Ireland Baldwin, Kylie and Kendall Jenner, and Willow Smith. At last, the jocks and non-jocks can unite (in being the children of famous people).
More on the year of the nepo baby
- We’re Making Nepo-Baby Merch for Actual Babies
- These Magazines Ran on Nepo Babies
- How a Nepo Baby Is Born