Shields worked with director Woody Allen in his 1977 film Annie Hall, but her role was cut out of the final edit of the film. In 1978, when she was 12 years old, Brooke Shields played a child prostitute in the controversial film Pretty Baby.

She continued as a successful child model with model agent Eileen Ford, who, in her Lifetime Network biography, stated that she started her children's division just for Brooke Shields.

Brooke Shields began her career as a model when she was 11 months old in 1966. Her first job was for Ivory Soap, when she was shot by Francesco Scavullo.

Noting that Shields "got all As and Bs, and obviously paid attention to her school work", it claimed she "got cheated" because Princeton did not require her to take any classical studies, medieval, modern or American history, nor any course in mathematics, philosophy, economics, political science, world literature, or science with laboratory experience.

Shortly after Shields graduated from college, her four-year transcript was published in the July 1987 edition of Life Magazine. Based on that transcript, The New York Times published a light-hearted op-ed piece intended to tweak the claim that Princeton produced superior, well-rounded graduates.

She was a member of the Princeton Triangle Club and the Cap and Gown Club. Her autobiography, On Your Own, was published in 1985. Her 1987 senior thesis was titled "The Initiation: From Innocence to Experience: The Pre-Adolescent/Adolescent Journey in the Films of Louis Malle, Pretty Baby and Lacombe Lucien".

She moved to a dorm at Princeton University to pursue her bachelor's degree in French literature, where she graduated in 1987. At Princeton, Shields spoke openly about her sexuality and virginity.

Shields attended the New Lincoln School until eighth grade. She graduated from the Dwight-Englewood School in Englewood, New Jersey, in 1983.