WASHINGTON: President Barack Obama’s daughter Malia will take a year off after graduating high school in June before attending Harvard University in 2017, the president and his wife said on Sunday in a long-awaited announcement.

Harvard encourages admitted students to defer for one year to travel, pursue a special project or activity, work, or spend time in another meaningful way. The student must not enroll in a programme at another college that would grant that student a degree.

Malia, the eldest of the Obamas’ two daughters, is a 17-year-old senior at Sidwell Friends, an exclusive private school in the District of Columbia that helped educate another first daughter, Chelsea Clinton, in the 1990s.

Malia’s younger sister, Sasha, 14, is a freshman at Sidwell. Malia is set to graduate high school in June.

Published in Dawn, May 2nd, 2016