everyone's dream school
or disaster to a certain heroine
Generally speaking, being a part of Ouran Private Academy means several keywords: Lineage, Wealth and Intelligence.
the "high-society" folks
Say you're the descendant of a famous politician or powerful business man. Ouran is then a great place for you to be. Unless you're as uniquely inadequate as Nekozawa senpai in terms of socializing, your family name should already guarantee a successful school career. Such would be what we call "Nana Hikari" in Japan, though it's so common in Ouran that you just automatically become used to it after a while. Or rather, you have to.
In real life, it's pathetic to cling to a "title" that won't do you any concrete good in the long run. However, in Ouran we're provided with much more sympathy: what a life without the goodness of ramen, for example. (In that sense, Tamaki should be awarded the Best Taste in Worldly Feast.)
cash, cash and more cash
The heroine of our story, Miss Haruhi the Great, is always here to share her pain with us in regard to lack of $: just how many cottages do these people have!? The hallway talks about vacations at all sorts of unheard-of places around the world can drive a "commoner" insane at first, but we don't really need them to live a happy life. In fact, wealth is not valued as highly as lineage in Ouran, to the relief of some and dismay of others. People tend to be more materialistic when they're poor, and Ouran certainly isn't a place for that.
we're still not the same
Title or money, Haruhi has none. But she's got heaps of IQ to put herself through an A class. That's where the real fruit of Ouran lies: its students are not only rich - they're also smarter than thou.
It looks as if intelligence is placed at almost the same ground as lineage at Ouran, considering the fact that certain rich students (i.e. those from a gangster family) are placed in D classes while students like Haruhi are often seated with the rank A groups. Such cases are scarce, of course, but these "exceptions" alone prove to be powerful enough for breaking the generic Ouran hierarchy. Ouran must be attracting more and more students each year for a reason, right?
the OKHC exclusive
The Host Club, however, requires another condition for you to take part: your beauty must be approved by the King! Yeah right, that probably excludes half of the Ouran population already.