Malia Obama will put her Ivy League education on hold until her dad is out of the Oval Office.
The eldest of President Obama’s two daughters has decided to take a year off before enrolling as a freshman at Harvard University in the fall of 2017, her parents said Sunday.
The Obamas did not say what the teen will be doing for 12 months — whether she’ll be “steel drumming, storytelling or swing dancing” her way around the world, as Harvard’s gap-year students have done in the past, according to the school’s admissions Web site.
Harvard encourages incoming freshman to defer for a year to keep them from later buckling under the pressure of college or “burning out,” according to the school in Cambridge, Mass.
Needless to say, 17-year-old Malia will be able to keep a slightly lower profile once her family leaves the White House next year.
In contrast, former presidential daughter Chelsea Clinton had to have bulletproof glass installed in her dorm-room windows and Secret Service agents dress as students when she went off to Stanford University in 1997, while Bill Clinton was still in office.
Malia toured a dozen schools, including six of the eight Ivies, and visited the Big Apple to check out New York University and Obama’s alma mater, Columbia University, before choosing Harvard.
She will graduate from Washington’s exclusive Sidwell Friends School in June, and will turn 18 on the Fourth of July.
The Obamas have said they plan to stay in Washington until their younger daughter, Sasha, 14, graduates from Sidwell.