FAMOUS CHOATE ALUMNI

If you have ever shopped at the Wal-Mart located in Wallingford, Conn., you may have witnessed a bus drop off the students of Choate Rosemary Hall. The naïve teens flood the aisles in the supermarket with their ready for the world attitudes and parade around the store with their perceived freedom as ‘adults.’ The students from the fancy busses are applicants from sister boarding schools all over the world.
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However, Choate Rosemary Hall actually has an impressive list of American figures who have attended the school.

1.      Ivanka Trump
"I was all of a sudden in the prison of boarding-school life, and all my friends in New York were having fun," she recalled to Marie Claire in 2007 of her transfer to Choate Rosemary Hall at age 15. At which time she was responsible for paying her own phone bills. To escape the confinements of suburbia and make her own money, she started modeling for Versace and Thierry Mugler; appearing on the cover of Seventeen in 1997.

Faculty member at the time of Ivanka Trump’s attendance, Mr. Stephen Farrell, stated, “The only time I saw Donald Trump on campus was at graduation with his security guard. He conveyed the exact same image he does now as a presidential candidate, of importance and self-satisfaction.”

2.      Paul Giamatti
Paul Giamatti graduated Choate in 1989 and shortly moved to Seattle. Giamatti later returned to Connecticut to attend the Yale University School of Drama.

3.      Jamie Lee Curtis
The children book author and horror film actress attended a couple of high schools in Califronia, however, in 1976 “The Queen of Scream” graduated from Choate Rosemary Hall. Returning to California the same year to file for her early role in the horror motion picture, Halloween.

4.      Michael Kirk Douglas
Winner of the Choate Alumni Seal Prize in 1988, he graduated from the school in 1963. Participating in football, track, automobile club, and art club. Choate Rosemary Hall High School yearbook lists him as “most suave” and “man of experience,” among other categories.

5.      John F. Kennedy
JFK became known for his juvenile mischiefs. While in his freshamn year he was responsible for placing a firescracker in the restroom that resuleted in a toilet seat explosion. After this incident, the headmaster used the damaged toilet seat as a symbolization of disrespect and referred to the perpetrators as “muckers.” Which led to the satirical establishment of the “Muckers’ Club,” a social group that included his rebellious partners-in-crime.

Although a trouble-maker, JFK did engage in sports including; football, basketball, and baseball. Even holding and he was the business manager of his senior yearbook. In his senior year, he was also voted “most likely to succeed.”
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He also suffered from continual heath problems, and he was hospitalized at Yale and other institutions for colitis and other problems hroughout his time in Connecicut. Despite his setbacks, the 35th President of the United States graduated the Wallinford, Conn. boarding school in 1935.
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CITATIONS
1.      Life at One of America's Most Prestigious Prep Schools.   VOA Student Union. June 2013.
2.      Amy Hagan-Brown. Choate Dad Runs for President . The Choate News. April 2016.
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