Photo Credit: nbcnewyork.com
WASHINGTON, D.C. – White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest confirmed this week that Malia Obama will likely attend Barnard College in the fall.
“After thinking carefully about what the school has to offer, the President, the First Lady, and Malia have decided that Barnard is the best fit for her,” Earnest said at a press conference. “She is looking forward to an unparalleled four years in New York.”
Malia Obama could barely contain her excitement at a subsequent interview. Sifting through a thick stack of acceptance letters, de-anthraxed FedEx packages and lovelorn fan mail, Obama proudly fished out her Barnard letter to show a group of reporters. “I can’t wait to get to campus,” she exclaimed.
This fall, Obama spent several minutes laboring over Common App data entry for her application, an ordeal which she later described as “excruciating.” She effusively thanked her college advisor at Washington’s $37,000 per year Sidwell Friends School, Melissa Buschemi, for the actual writing of her essays and taking of her standardized exams. Buschemi, a Harvard graduate, quivered in fear underneath her desk while awaiting confirmation that Obama had been accepted to Barnard, well aware that a rejection would have meant spending the remainder of her career writing recommendations for students she did not know in a public school basement.
“I just can’t wait to get started in New York,” Obama resumed. “I love the city so much. That’s all Melissa said my application essay was about – how I just wanted to be in New York, and also that I was the daughter of the president, and hey buster, do you know how much training the Marine Corps Scout Snipers get in covert assassinations of poorly paid admissions counselors? A lot more than you might think. It must have stuck out, since I got in.”
Told that only 16 percent of Barnard applicants were admitted this year, Obama paused and frowned. “That doesn’t seem fair,” she said. “Why can’t everybody’s else’s dad be the president too? It worked for me, and Chelsea Clinton, and Jenna and Barbara Bush.”
“I’ll divulge that I’m still a little on the fence between Barnard and NYU,” she confessed. “But really, who wants to end up with $250,000 in loans and a job at Arby’s? At least Barnard graduates end up at, like, Sweetgreen or Dig Inn.”
Obama said she thought long and hard about other universities she decided were ultimately inferior for a range of reasons, including widely acknowledged safety schools like Rutgers, NYU and Harvard. “It came down to the New York schools and Rutgers,” she said. “But sorry – New Jersey? I can’t start a political career by getting day drunk in a strip mall or lying dead at the bottom of a swamp.”
Malia paused briefly to check her Snapchat, which flashed an alert saying she had received messages from Drake and Justin Bieber. The presidential daughter explained that she “doesn’t DM Canadians” before sending a threatening reminder text to her limo driver not to forget her Absolute Bagel delivery: “Because you know what your job means to your family, Josh.”
Her face flushed with anger at the suggestion she had benefited in any way, however slight, from her family name, her education at one of the nation’s most elite high schools, or her father’s eight years spent overseeing the economic, military and diplomatic policy of the most influential superpower in the history of the world.
“Still, people say I just got in because of legacy,” Obama continued. “It’s so frustrating. That’s why I applied to Barnard, not Columbia, in the first place. I worked incredibly hard. Have you seen my resume? The White House got like 1.2 million likes on the Instagram of my prom photos. I bet there’s no Sam Goldberg from Westchester who’s done all that.”
“Will I be a little insecure about being in Sulzberger, not John Jay?,” questioned Obama. “Sure I will. But I think an all-girls school offers something important. I’m a bold, beautiful Barnard woman. I am fully confident I possess the profound academic insights, withering insecurities and deep knowledge of intersectional oppression required to succeed at Barnard.”
In choosing Barnard, Obama has looked to her father as a role model. “I’ll follow in my dad’s footsteps – spend my college years in Morningside Heights, become a community organizer, and a few years down the road I’ll get my own anger translator, book deal, and $25.6 million in seed funding.”
The First Daughter, planning ahead, already has a rough idea of what she will want to study: “Things that will help me connect with future voters and donors. You know – political science, history, Yiddish.”
“I know she thinks that she wants to do this whole politics thing right now,” retorted Malia’s father, Barack Obama CC ’83. “But I think she’ll come around to an investment banking internship. Or just marry a rich lawyer, like I did.”
The President is confident the charm of Malia’s intended career path will wear thin. “When she’s out of campaign funds and she’s forced to sit through an eight hour dressage competition with the Koch brothers, she’ll change her mind,” President Obama said. “And have you ever had to spend a night in Vegas with Sheldon Adelson? The man is an animal. I woke up in the Venetian in ’08 with a ‘Hope and Change’ tramp stamp.”
Still, Malia Obama is adamant about the path she has chosen.
“I’ve been looking at the activities they have at Barnard. I think I’ll join the college Democrats and the debate team,” she said. “And keep this under wraps, but I’ll also be joining the Muslim Students Association.”
