Back in August, Emma Roberts confirmed to Just Jared that she was giving up Hollywood for college. Sarah Lawrence College, to be exact – Sarah Lawrence is totally elite and private and a lot of really cool ladies have graduated from SLC. So I was happy for Emma! I generally think she’s a smug little brat, but I appreciated that she was at least attempting to get some experiences that didn’t involve red carpets, shopping and talking about her Aunt Julia. However, I also ended my post with “Anyway, what are the odds Emma is just doing this to look brainy and intellectual and then she’ll be out of there as soon as she’s offered some parts?” Yep. I was right. Emma is “deferring” SLC after one whole semester.
Sarah Lawrence College will be without its most famous co-ed this semester — Emma Roberts is deferring.
“She is taking time off to shoot two films,” Roberts’ rep tells Us Weekly.
The Scream 4 star and English lit major began her freshman year in September 2011.
When Us spoke to Roberts in November, the 20-year-old actress admitted she struggled to balance her busy schedule.
“It’s a lot,” Roberts admitted. “It’s more the traveling that’s the hard part, the going back and forth. I was just in L.A. and now I’m here in New York, and now I have to go back to L.A.”
What made Roberts decide to pursue higher education? “I just wanted to get away from everything for awhile and try something new, explore some other stuff,” she said.
Roberts — who’s still dating Glee’s Chord Overstreet — is slated to begin filming Spring Break (opposite Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and James Franco) in early March.
[From Us Weekly]
Well, she put in a good effort? No, I can’t even say that. One semester isn’t a “good effort.” She was there, at most, from mid-August to mid-December. I bet she’s been on film sets longer than that. Here’s an honest question I have about Young Hollywood: do any of them understand the value of taking time out from the Hollywood Race to actually go have some “normal” experiences for several years? I get that they’re told (by their agents, by casting directors, by the voices inside their heads) that if they leave for a year, no one will remember them. But here’s another voice – it’s not like any of these young actors are turning in award-worthy work, you know? It’s not like they’re “deferring” college to do important films. Maybe the Fanning sisters. MAYBE. Other than that, it’s just a bunch of, like, Disney kids who don’t want to leave the party.
PS… As I was looking through the photos we have of Emma, I noticed the strangest thing – she was, like, never in school last semester. She was photographed at parties, shopping, fashion shows, medical appointments, getting juice or coffee, all in Manhattan and LA. Dear Emma: All of this crap will still be there after you finish school.
Photos courtesy of WENN.
I think it’s a safe bet she’s never set foot on campus. No surprise,why get a college education when you can get papped going shopping. Such a twit.
It’s always the same for these Hollywood celebrities. They don’t take education very seriously.
They don’t and they need to because most of them are lacking, when it comes to the knowledge department.
Quite a few do: Jodie Foster, Jennifer Beals, Natalie Portman, Annabeth Gish, maybe Emma Watson, Julia Stiles, Geena Davis, Meryl Streep, Ashley Judd (who got her MA about a year ago), Mayim Bialik, the girl who Dancia (sic) McKellar. David Duchovny has a BA and an MA, and is ABD for his Ph.D. Oh! Scott Glenn.
Many of these were also in movies while getting degrees. Some, like Matt Damon, dropped out. He is, I think, only three classes short of a degree, and Brad Pitt is also someone who almost has the degree.
These are just the ones off of top of my head.
Emma Watson dropped out of university to do a perfume commercial and a teen film. She’s only just gone back to study (until something else comes up).
They’re obviously the exception. Majority of them don’t care.
I don’t know. I’m on the fence with this. Yes, college is wonderful for intellectual and artistic pursuits, but let’s be honest. A lot of us attend college because we HAVE to. Or else we’ll be stuck working low income, entry level jobs. These people have more money than they can spend in a lifetime. College for them would be more of a hobby than a necessity. So, I can see why she doesn’t take it all that seriously. Her financial future really doesn’t depend on it.
That first outfit is ATROCIOUS!!! Barf!!!
I didn’t know that “defer” actually translates to “can’t hack it” until reading this. Ms. Roberts doesn’t have much of a career so she really should concentrate on getting an education. Perhaps at the local community college.
Just because they’re celebrities doesn’t mean more should be expected of them. A lot of non-celebrities don’t go to college or dropout. Considering Emma spent more time in LA, I don’t know why she didn’t just go to school locally.
I’ve thought of that too, but I guess she really loved SLC? Anyway, regardless whether she chose an LA university over SLC, I think she’d still defer to make room for her film commitments.
Wow, that one semester must have been a rough one. Most of these celebs never go back after “deferring”.
Actually SLC has a really high freshman dropout rate because some students can’t handle the school’s free-form structure. You’re not told what to study, you design your entire curriculum yourself and do independent projects in each subject. My guess is Emma thought she could sleep through a few lectures and get by on exams. No such luck — the classes are tiny, and everything’s papers, papers, papers. She won’t be back, guaranteed.
The free form curriculum is what turned me off about SLC. I know that I personally would not have made it on that.
If she’s not going to college she should take some acting classes. Very uninteresting and only mildly attractive. She was so inept in SCREAM 4, she made Hayden Panetierre look good. Hollywood nepotism at its best!
Hmm… she doesn’t particularly offend me and there are equally bad – if not worse – “actresses” in Hollywood without those family connections. Nancy Drew was OK.
And heck, if could only punch one Roberts, it would be Julia!
It’s not actually going to college for these starlets,it is the bragging rights of being accepted to these schools and ‘deferring’. They think they are more interesting when they talk about themselves. Not surprised at all.
And yet it seems to me the ones who do actually go to college don’t really brag about it: Jody Foster, Brooke Shields, Julia Stiles, etc.
I found the most interesting part of this story to be that she is doing a movie with Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and James Franco. Why is Mr. High Art doing a movie with a bunch of teenyboppers?
I wondered the same thing! Mr. 127 Hours, I’m too high on art, with…Disney kids? There’s got to be a motive there of some sort. We are missing pertinent information regarding this!
The director and writer of the film is Harmony Korine. He wrote Kids. And I think one of his more recent films, from within the past couple years, was well received at TIFF.
I’m assuming Korine’s edginess and the controversy and acclaim that has surrounded a lot of his past work is the pull for Selena and Vanessa in trying to shed Disney. And I guess on all of his previous films he’s made everyone stay in character while they’re on set. So it might be some type of pseudo-acting boot camp for these girls too, as a way to shed that Disney acting style?
Franco’s motivation…eh. Korine cast him as a rapping drug dealer. That might be enough. lol Or it could be some high art reason he’ll reveal come promo time. lol
“…Roberts — who’s still dating Glee’s Chord Overstreet — is slated to begin filming Spring Break (opposite Vanessa Hudgens, Selena Gomez and James Franco) in early March.”
James Franco with Vanessa, Selena AND Emma in a movie. Stellar cast for sure and will def be a moving piece of ART.
I’m not sure who I’d want to punch first out of those four people. It’s a tough decision, I tell you!
Note to Emma: a college education will pay your bills long after your acting days are long gone.
Hon there’s a ton of people with degrees from great schools that can’t find work right now but the interest off a few million you got for doing some movies to me seems a little more sure fire you can pay for college yourself with money left over and then learn to manage your own money while your there
I absolutely agree. I’d have ditched college for a few million bucks, too. After all, she can always go back, and a lot of people change their mind about what they want to study as they go along; so why rush it?
She’s never paid for a damn thing in her life, what are you all talking about?
As long as Gary Marshall is around to put her in crap like Valentine’s Day, she will have jobs. As much as I think another Emma – Emma Watson – is a stuck up brat also, at least she has stuck with school. AND she’s much more talented than E Roberts.
jodi foster and natalie portman did just fine…so if you are a good enough actress then you will succeed regardless. I cannot stand emma roberts…UGH!
entitled brat.
“Explore other stiff” at Sarah Lawrence? Yeah, she took that seriously. I wonder what her grades were?
I’m an actor and a stand up comedian and in all fairness if my career was hot right now I wouldn’t want to take time off for college either the industry is very fickle and you never know when opportunities to make that kind of money will come along again i mean if you had the chance to work while your young and make MILLIONS so your always INDEPENDANTLY wealthy and not living off aunt Julia so when the phone stops ringing like its starting to for a lot of the last generation of Disney tween stars I mean i know I’ve dreamed of those opportunities so I can understand not walking away from millions in this economy
Computer and motor skills fail: Comment not meant for Alex, meant for Hollywood kid I’ve also never met/general rumination.
It’s not like the photos you saw of those sweatshirt-clad co-eds vibrantly discussing hegemony with their first-name-basis professors as falling autumn leaves threaten only the integrity of the foam on their genius-sized college frappucinos, is it?
@Alex: MY BAD!! THAT COMMENT ISN’T MEANT FOR YOU!!!
My finger slipped and I accidently hit the ‘reply’ button to your comment and I really want to straighten it out because it will look like I wrote something really nasty to you and I had no intention of doing so, whatsoever. My computer kind of cacked up trying to fix it, so I don’t know if I was successful. Ack, sorry!!
Dakota Fanning filmed a movie over Thanksgiving/Christmas break. She’ll be back at NYU in a few weeks. Funny how she manages to fit in work, school and returning home to visit her parents.
I find her utterly uncharismatic. Say what you will about Aunt Julia, she totally had that star quality in films like Pretty Woman.
Also people lets not forget you go to college at 18 because you have nothing else going on in your life
I guess, but couldn’t you also say that you can’t have anything else going on in your life if you’re full-time student because it’s a huge committment? Unless you’re a name, being entirely rudderless and dumb won’t get you past mid-terms and even if you’re still totally confused about what to do with your life after you’ve graduated, you’ve had to work your ass off for years at that confusion. Mostly dumb, but not wholly dumb. University doesn’t ensure anything but it demands everything and unless you’re willing to let go of your preciousness and ego sometimes, you’ll get fried. Like St. RuPaul says, You Better Work! This applies to whatever you do, but you know, higher education is quite the bracing tonic if all you know of it is ‘cheerleaders are stupid and cruel because some films I made told me so’.
I went to college to get an education, and to also enjoy the social experience. I did both, and managed to get good grades and accepted to school even with partying, tutoring, TAing, and having an outside job. And, I paid for it myself.
What actually prepares these actors intellectually for attending college? Unless she attended a prep school (I really don’t know her history), I bet she felt pretty intimidated by her classmates. Some universities offer a remedial approach to college for “returners” but I doubt a school like SLC does.
I’m going to say, ‘not prepared’. How well-prepared are a lot regular students for university?
Sure, a lot of kids aren’t “prepared” and a lot of universities offer college skills courses to bring them up to speed, but certain colleges like SLC offer curricula that is both challenging and unstructured, so there’s an assumption that by only admitting “top” students their student body will enter the college with the necessary preparation for that environment. I think it would be a hard transition for someone accustomed to private tutors who cater to their unique learning needs and don’t impose demanding deadlines.
Pretty damn prepared if you went to a prep school, which is where more kids going to these private colleges went. I went to a private prep school myself, and my first two ears of college were easier than my last two years of high school. So yeah, the prep kids do have a HUGE advantage. Enough so that when I have kids, I’m enrolling them in private prep school as well. It costs a lot of money, but the results are spectacular. And you build connections with other students that will be important later when they’re rich and you need a favor.
major difference in pics….the skinny face vs. more fuller; the latter being far more beautiful than the other
College was the best time ever. Everyday was an adventure.
TOTALLY agree. And, you miss part of that adventure if you “defer” for a few years.
Maybe she thinks college works the same way that it seems to happen on “Gossip Girl.” Like, you say you’re in college, but you really just pass by campus once every couple of months and that counts.
haha so funny! I hope the high school kids watching GG don’t think that’s real life. lol
arms of a 50 year old woman
So not impressed by this one. If her auntie weren’t famous, where would she be? Defer my ass. Guessing the parties at school weren’t fun enough and she wasn’t getting enough attention.
She may have also been put on academic probation, if she was never there. I’ve worked in higher education for a long time, and that could also b a real possibility.
Too bad, Alot of celebs go to college and still have either great careers or decent careers in acting, or decide to forget acting and have a more mainstream career.
Agree with this.
And she may not have received as much sycophantic attention from classmates as she felt her celebrity status warranted.
“explore some other stuff”- She certainly doesn’t sound like an english major.
explore other stuff means she wants to just be young and do what young people do. She has the money to party, and honestly just because she can speak a nice sentence doens’t mean she can hack it in college. I can’t imagine the students giving a shit about who she is, or not giving her the attention she thinks she deserves.
Gotta remember she’s been in movies since she was younger and has a certain level pre-programed on her pedestool. .
Yes, because doing movies like Scream 4 and Spring Break and waaaaaaay more important in the long run than a good education.
She’s become another waste of space. An entitled and spoiled brat by name and family. Too good to spend time having to learn stuff.
She is a bad actress. Apparently a bad student, too.
English lit? Well she sure picked a major that didn’t require actual attendance. Good for her.
To be fair, it’s Sarah Lawrence. I visited there as a possible college choice; one visit, and it was off my list. Props to her for survive that long. I wouldn’t have made it.
she really can’t act and has a weird looking face, not pretty tbh (sorry just my opinion) but she has all this nepotism going for her so why bother with college right. such a shame.
The big advantage of a college education for Hollywood kids is that it gives them a chance to be exposed to much more of the world than they’ve seen before, especially if they’ve just had tutors. They’re forced to take courses in many different areas. I can guarantee that you need hands-on experience in such things as chemistry, physics, and biology that can’t really be self-taught. In college, you’re surrounded by teachers who actually specialized in their areas and other students who are talking about what they’re studying. It’s a whole different world than high school unless you’re just coasting and there to party and hang out only with the shallow. Kid actors especially need to get that broader view of life, to get a chance to try new things. What if their true calling is something entirely different from acting? What if they would be happier as a chemist, a geologist, a psychologist, a writer, a mathematician, etc.? Their money just means that they will be free to choose a life’s work without worrying about the money. But how can they really choose if they’ve only been a kid actor? Not much is expected of kid actors and so their success is a matter of luck, no guarantee that they will have the skills and opportunities to continue as adults. Then they will just be bored and undereducated. Maybe not even still rich if they try to maintain the Hollywood lifestyle.
all true but some of them just aren’t smart enough to realize this i guess.
Not everyone is cut out for college.
Bad move, imho. She can NOT act, and it seems like the whole being related to Horsey Face thing has already ran its course.
Stay in school. Or at least take some freakin’ acting lessons!