L.A.'s Most Exclusive Schools

At two of L.A.'s most exclusive private schools, four-year-olds wear Tory Burch shoes and Ashton Kutcher is the assistant football coach—but good luck getting in. Even celebrities have trouble pushing their children into Harvard-Westlake and the Center for Early Education, which have acceptance rates lower than Harvard's. Deedie Hudnut, the head of the Center for Early Education (acceptance rate: 6 percent), said Gwyneth Paltrow's kid is definitely not a shoo-in, and she won't deal with stars' personal assistants. “It’s one of my pet peeves,” she says. “If you’re a good parent, you should be the one finding out about the school.” At Harvard-Westlake, one of the best prep schools in the nation with alumni like Jake and Maggie Gyllenhaal and Candice Bergen, if you don't have the grades you're not getting in. “We’re not going to take anyone who can’t do the work. You’d be sunk,” Tom Hudnut says.