Malia Obama to take gap year before entering Harvard in 2017

WASHINGTON (AP) — 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 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.

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.

Obama has spoken publicly about dreading the day when Malia leaves for college, and the decision for Malia to take a gap year could keep her closer to home as her family prepares for another major transition next year, leaving the White House and returning to normal life.

The bond between Obama and his children was readily apparent, as he often was seen holding hands with either daughter getting on or off the presidential aircraft or on the family's walks through Lafayette Park to attend services at St. John's Episcopal Church.

Malia joined her father earlier this month on a three-day trip that started at the University of Chicago Law School, where he once taught constitutional law, to discuss his stalled nomination of Judge Merrick Garland to the U.S. Supreme Court.

The president and first lady have said college-bound students shouldn't limit themselves to just a handful of elite schools.