The Real Life Chilton School (and Celebrities Who Went There)

The Chilton School, Rory’s Prep School of Gilmore Girls is inspired by a real-life school with a long list of celebrities who have attended there. in Gilmore GirlsRory attended the illustrious prep school, Chilton, where the marble floors were once walked on by Harriet Beecher Stowe, a set of banisters was donated by Robert Frost, and a sconce was ceremoniously lit by Thomas Edison. The details may seem far-fetched, but the school that Chilton is based on boasts an even more impressive history. Chilton is based on a real school.

Chilton plays a huge role in Gilmore Girls During the first several seasons of the show and helps lay much of the show’s groundwork. It’s where Rory meets Paris Geller, Rory’s friend throughout the series, and it’s the reason for the Gilmore girls’ notorious Friday night dinners at Emily and Richard’s house. Chilton also facilitates Rory’s acceptance to Yale, where Rory meets her boyfriend, Logan Huntzberger. Not only was the Chilton School important in the fictional world of Gilmore GirlsBut the real Chilton School has its fair share of famous attendees.

The real Chilton School

Choate inspired Chilton

as in Gilmore GirlsThe actual Chilton School is located in Connecticut, just 26 miles from where Chilton is set in Hartford. And, like Chilton’s historic marble floors and banisters, the actual campus includes a building built by an American patriot with a secret passage behind the chimney that could have been used on the Underground Railroad. At Chilton, Rory participates in many extracurricular activities in preparation for college. She is on the school paper, The FranklinAnd Rory claims hemlines and tree-planting on the Chilton student council.

Likewise, the actual Chilton school, named Choate Rosemary Hall (known as “Choate”), has a prestigious school newspaper, The Choate Newsand a student council, along with many other specialized clubs. in Gilmore GirlsRory has been accepted to Yale, Harvard and Princeton universities like most Choate graduates who go on to Ivy League schools and go on to upper-echelon careers. Since its founding, Choate has educated hundreds of celebrated alumni including directors, writers, actors, politicians, Olympians and even a future president.

Who went to the real Chilton School

Many politicians and celebrities went to Choate

The actual school that inspired Chilton also boasts an impressive list of alumni, having educated a host of the country’s greatest minds and celebrities. One of Choate’s earliest graduates in 1910, Caresse Crosby was known as the “literary godmother of the lost generation of expatriate writers in Paris.” After establishing the Black Sun Press and publishing the first works of names such as Ernest Hemingway, Henry Miller, Anais Nin and Charles Bukowski. Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Edward Albee is also a graduate.

A list of actors Michael Douglas, Glenn Close, Jamie Lee Curtis and Paul Giamatti all went to the real Chiltron School. State representatives, senators, ambassadors, a US congresswoman, a US Gilmore Girls.

Rory Gilmore’s experience at Chilton

Rory’s experience differs slightly from reality

One of the big differences between Chilton and Choate is that Choate is primarily a boarding school. Students live on campus in dorms as part of the way the school helps prepare them for university life. Rory, on the other hand, drives back and forth to school on a regular basis.

Choate also offers a program called their Postgraduate Year. They allow students to apply to spend a year at Choate after graduating from high school for the academic year before going to college. It allows students another year to prepare for university, take additional courses (five per academic term), and pairs them with a counselor to help prepare them further. Rory never had the option of a postgraduate course plan while attending Chilton.

One thing that classroom studies have demonstrated over the years is that Smaller class sizes lead to better education. Teachers are able to devote more time to individual students instead of simply lecturing a class. Choate follows that philosophy. Classroom sizes in 2024 are an average of just 11 students according to Their official website. This is not the case when Rory is at Chilton. The audience can see many more students in the few classroom scenes shown on screen.

Other than these specific differences, however, Rory’s experience at Chilton may not be all that different from students attending Choate in the real world. She is still engaged in rigorous academic courses, multiple extracurricular activities, and actively preparing to attend a university after leaving high school in Gilmore Girls.