‘Gilmore Girls’: A College Counselor Revealed Inaccuracies in Rory’s College Storyline
Rory Gilmore’s transformation from a bookish teen to a college newspaper editor was among the most important storylines in Gilmore Girls’ seven-season run. While fans largely agree that Rory ended up at the school that was the right fit for her, how she got there was a bit suspect. In short, fans have long argued that Rory’s acceptance into multiple Ivy League schools was entirely unrealistic. Recently, a college advisor appeared on Friday Night Dinner to weigh in on Rory’s college journey.
A College advisor weighed in on how Gilmore Girls handled the college application process
Larisa Kliman, the mastermind behind Eating Gilmore, isn’t just a home chef. She is a college advisor, too. Kliman sat down with the hosts of Friday Night Dinner, a podcast dedicated to Gilmore Girls. During her chat with hosts Morgan and Rachelle, Kliman discussed her career as a college counselor and admitted that she thinks the series got a few things wrong.
Kliman told the podcasters that someone like Paris Geller likely would have never been rejected from Harvard University. Yes, Paris’ interview was reportedly terrible. Still, her lineage, grade point average, and variety of extracurricular activities would have likely been more important to admissions counselors than her sub-par interview. Kliman revealed that she thinks Amy Sherman-Palladino got the application process wrong, too. She admitted that Rory’s decision to only apply to Ivy League schools was unbelievable, too.
Where did Rory Gilmore apply during her senior year at Chilton?
Rory, along with Paris, attended the Chilton School, a private, college preparatory school based on New England’s famed feeder schools. The school’s rigorous academics and reputation understandably led to plenty of Ivy League acceptance letters. Still, it seems unlikely that a school like Chilton would allow a student to apply to just three Ivy League schools. Still, that’s what Rory did.
Rory applied to Harvard, Yale and Princeton. Rory had the best chance of being accepted at Yale because her grandfather and great-grandfather graduated from the prestigious university. She was accepted to all three schools she applied to, though. With zero extracurricular activities and nothing to set her apart from the crowd, it seems like a reach that Rory would have gotten into all three.
Gilmore Girls wasn’t completely Ivy League obsessed, though
While Rory and Lorelai had their eyes set on the Ivy League from the time Rory could speak, Gilmore Girls wasn’t entirely obsessed with the top rung of colleges. The show’s characters mentioned several other schools during the show’s seven-season run. Paris’s boy-obsessed pals, Madeline and Louise, were accepted into Mills College and Tulane, respectively. Mills, an all-women’s college in Oakland, California has a 75% acceptance rate. Tulane, a New Orleans-based university, is far more competitive.
Lorelai mentioned she was bound for Vassar before getting pregnant with Rory, and Emily Gilmore graduated from Smith College. Paris also mentioned Sarah Lawrence College to Louise and Brandeis to Rory as college options for each of them. Vassar, Smith, Sarah Lawrence, and Brandeis are all competitive schools that accept less than 50 percent of students who apply.
