The White House says President Barack Obama’s daughter Malia will take a year off after high school and attend Harvard University in 2017.
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“The President and Mrs. Obama announced today that their daughter Malia will attend Harvard University in the fall of 2017 as a member of the Class of 2021”. Couple that with the fact that the family is undoubtedly in a transitionary period as they prepare to leave the White House at the end of Obama’s eight-year run as president January 20, and it’s perfectly understandable that Malia Obama will take a year off before Harvard.
Malia Obama’s year-long deferral before her first year at Harvard is a route taken by about 80 to 110 admitted students.
Several U.S. presidents in addition to Obama attended Harvard, the private school in Cambridge, Mass., founded in 1636. When Malia enters college next year, she will have had time to re-adjust to life outside the White House, according to the New York Times.
The elephant in the room though: given this tradition of Obamas at Harvard, will Sasha, Malia’s 14-year old sister, feel pressure to go to the same school?
“Announcement: I too have chose to take a gap year before the rest of my adulthood”, she tweeted.
The teenager visited dozens of schools, including the University of California, Berkeley, Stanford, New York University, the University of Pennsylvania, Barnard, Tufts, Brown, Yale and Wesleyan.
Foreign study could be in Malia Obama’s future; her mother once said she would like her daughters to study overseas but isn’t pushing it.
“I was asked if I would speak at her graduation and I said absolutely not”.
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Other children of world leaders have attended the school. First Lady Michelle Obama graduated from Harvard Law in 1988, and her husband followed in 1991. First lady Michelle Obama has described her as an “avid reader” and the president has talked about her dedication to earning high grades. You can tell, she’s just a really smart, capable person and she’s ready to make her own way. “I don’t want them to think, ‘Oh, I should go to these top schools.’ We live in a country where there’s thousands of fantastic universities, so the question is-what’s going to work for you?”
