Malia Obama has reached that pivotal point in most teenager’s lives when it’s time to seriously consider the colleges to which she’ll apply. The 16-year-old daughter of President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama will head off to college in the fall of 2016.
President Obama has said in the past that Malia wants to be a filmmaker. The media reported last summer that Malia Obama toured two northern California rivals–both Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.
Berkeley, of course, is California’s flagship public university. It is known as a liberal enclave. It also has an internationally renown department of film and media.
Stanford is a private university in Palo Alto, and is a far more conservative school. Chelsea Clinton and some Supreme Court justices including Sandra Day O’Connor graduated from there. At Stanford, students can major or minor in film and media studies. The university has more NCAA championships than any other U.S. school. Malia Obama is known as an athlete, excelling at tennis, so she might be a good fit for “Nerd Nation.” That’s the unofficial nickname for Stanford’s sports fans.
Malia Obama weighs her options for college http://t.co/D5KfVhgihO
— Valdosta Daily Times (@TheVDT) January 4, 2015
Malia Obama certainly has a wealth of fodder for her college essay. She’s lived in the White House since she was just 10 years old, and that alone must be an education of sorts. She’s had a front-row seat to her father’s two presidential campaigns. She has traveled around the world, and met world figures such as Queen Elizabeth, Nelson Mandela and Malala Yousafzai.
Malia Obama’s parents are Harvard-educated lawyers with Ivy League undergraduate degrees–the president’s from Columbia and Michelle Obama’s from Princeton. That said, expectations for Malia undoubtedly run high.
David Hawkins is an official at the National Association for College Admission Counseling in Arlington, Virginia. What did he have to say about Malia Obama with regard to her college applications?
“Given the educational attainment of her parents, which is exceptional in itself, I can only assume she is going to be a bright and well-qualified student,” he said.
What do you predict? Will Malia Obama be heading to Stanford or to Berkeley? Or might she surprise everyone and head somewhere completely unexpected?