US President Barack Obama recently offered some fatherly counsel on college admissions to his 17-year-old daughter, Malia.
Speaking to a group of high school students in Iowa in September, Obama shared his advice for Malia as she begins the tough task of college applications.
One piece of advice that I’ve given her is not to stress too much about having to get into one particular college. Just because it’s not some name-brand, famous, fancy school doesn’t mean that you’re not going to get a great education there.
— Barack Obama
Describing his daughter as a “hard worker” he added that he has encouraged her to not slack off in her final year of high school.
Malia has been touring colleges across the country in the run-up to the college admissions cycle. So far she has visited six Ivy League institutions, including Harvard (where her parents went to law school), Brown, Columbia and Yale, as well as Stanford, Tufts and Wesleyan.
In a final piece of advice that is likely to resonate with many college-going students, Obama advised Malia to be open to new experiences.
Don’t go to college just to duplicate the same experience you had in high school. Don’t make your decision based on where are all my friends going so that I can do the exact same things with the exact same friends that I did in high school. The whole point is for you to push yourself out of your comfort level, meet people you haven’t met before, take classes that you hadn’t thought of before. Stretch yourself. Because this is the time to do it, when you’re young. Seek out new experiences.