Malia Obama Is Starting at Harvard
It's official! Malia Obama is a Harvard student. The former first daughter was spotted with her parents moving into her new dorm with her parents.
Malia has been taking a gap year since she graduated from the Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C. in 2016. During that time, she's interned in the Weinstein Company's New York City office, attended the Sundance Film Festival, dined at an Aspen mountain hot spot, joined her parents on a 10-day trip to Indonesia, and partied at the Lollapalooza music festival in Chicago.
When she settles back into an academic routine at her parent's law-school alma mater this fall, she'll be studying as part of Harvard's most diverse class ever, the first one in which the majority of students are not white.
According to the university's website, the incoming class of 2021 will include 1,694 matriculating students (2,038 of the 39,506 applicants were admitted), 50.9 percent of whom are African American, Asian American, Hispanic or Latino, and Native American or Pacific Islander.
Rachael Dane, a Harvard spokesperson, told the BBC the university is "committed to enrolling diverse classes of students."
"To become leaders in our diverse society, students must have the ability to work with people from different backgrounds, life experiences, and perspectives," Dane said.
That's at least 10 fewer students than the original class though. In June, Harvard's campus newspaper the Crimson reported that the college had rescinded a group of students' admission offers they posted sexually explicit and racist images on Facebook.
Obama will be joining the Harvard community as the university considers major changes to its social scene; a committee of faculty and students recently recommended that social organizations such as fraternities, sororities, and final clubs be "phased out" by 2022.
Jenna Bush Hager and Barbara Bush, who attended college while their father, George W. Bush, was a sitting president, offered Malia and Sasha Obama some college-related advice in a letter published in Time earlier this year that included a cheeky reference to their 2001 brush with Texas authorities for underage drinking:
Enjoy college. As most of the world knows, we did. And you won’t have the weight of the world on your young shoulders anymore. Explore your passions. Learn who you are. Make mistakes - you are allowed to. Continue to surround yourself with loyal friends who know you, adore you and will fiercely protect you. Those who judge you don’t love you, and their voices shouldn’t hold weight. Rather, it’s your own hearts that matter.
Chelsea Clinton, for her part, kept a "low-profile" when she attended Stanford University from 1997 through 2001: "Chelsea has been able to enjoy her college years in private, staying out of any trouble that would make the evening news," the San Francisco Chronicle reported after her commencement ceremony. "At yesterday's graduation, the history major milled around with other students before the ceremonies, chatting on her cell phone while waving wildly up to her proud parents, who blew kisses to her from the stands."
Time will tell whether Malia can stay as under the radar at Harvard this fall.
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