Noah Schnapp is embarking on a new chapter of life after graduating from the University of Pennsylvania. The 21-year-old Stranger Things sensation took to Instagram this week to share photos from his graduation ceremony with his 26 million followers.
He beamed in his black graduation cap and gown while posing alongside parents Karine and Mitchell Schnapp and twin sister Chloe in one photo. Another snapshot showed the actor standing in front of the commencement stage while surrounded by his classmates. There was also a video of the moment his name was called before he walked across the stage to accept his diploma.
He quoted Elle Woods' famous line in Legally Blonde as he captioned the carousel post: 'What, like it's hard???'
Life After Stranger Things
The graduation comes nearly five months after his hit sci-fi Netflix series Stranger Things, in which he played the character Will Byers, ended. It is also a little over one month since Schnapp went Instagram official with a new boyfriend, marking an exciting time in his young adult life.
In December 2022, he explained to Vogue how he planned to balance his academic and Hollywood careers. He was an 18-year-old freshman at the time and noted that he would take classes in-person until he was needed on the Stranger Things set, at which point he would switch to virtual learning. Among his classes was a course on Italian cuisine. 'I'm learning about pizza and pasta,' he told the magazine. The then-student also shared: 'I'm lucky. Everyone at Penn has been kind and welcoming. I'm just lucky.'
More recently, in December 2025, he told The Hollywood Reporter that a higher education was always part of the plan. 'It was never really a question whether I would go to college or not, just more of what I would study,' he said. 'I knew I wanted to be an actor, but I wasn't rushing it. I wanted to have my childhood and get all those experiences first before rushing into everything and losing the sense of normal life.'
Personal Milestones
Three years after coming out as gay, the Netflix star shared a photo with a mystery man in his Instagram Stories. The capture showed the pair with their arms wrapped around one another as they admired a city skyline from a roof. Schnapp captioned it: 'One month of us.'
In January 2023, he uploaded a video to TikTok and wrote: 'When I finally told my friends and family I was gay after being scared in the closet for 18 years and all they said was "we know."' The clip showed him mouthing the words to a voiceover that said: 'You know it never was that serious. It was never that serious. Quite frankly, we will never be that serious.'
Schnapp starred on Stranger Things for five seasons between 2016 and 2025.
