Sasha Obama, the younger daughter of former president Barack Obama, is starting at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor next week, according to a report in The Detroit News.
The report seems to cement the rumors that circulated earlier this year.
Other UMich students have seen the former first daughter attending freshman orientation, as well as walking around campus, including near the undergraduate library, according to the report.
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One third-year student told The Detroit News that he was vacuuming when “she walked out right in front” of him: “I said, ‘Excuse me.’ It was a crowded hallway with her and some Secret Service dudes,” the student said.
A freshman also told The Detroit News that the two have mutual friends, and that Obama was just “a normal student to me.”
Sasha, 18, is expected to start classes on Tuesday, according to the report. It wasn’t immediately clear what she planned to study, or if she would be living in the dorms.
A representative for the University of Michigan said he did not have any information to share, adding: “We’re excited about starting another academic year. We welcome all students to campus and wish them all much success in their time at U-M.”
Sasha, whose legal name is Natasha, graduated from the elite Sidwell Friends School in Washington, D.C., in June, after reportedly attending her senior prom in May. The Obamas have always taken her education seriously: Sasha was notably absent from her father’s farewell speech in 2017; a White House official later said she stayed back in Washington, D.C., because she had an exam at school in the morning.
Attending a state school is a bit of a different path than her sister and parents, who all attended Ivy League schools. Malia is entering her third year at Harvard this fall (she took a gap year after high school before starting college), Barack Obama went to Columbia and then Harvard Law School, and Michelle Obama attended Princeton and then Harvard.
Still, UMich is no slouch. It’s ranked 27th in the nation by US News & World Report, tying with Tufts in Medford — a school that Malia toured a few years ago.
And at least her parents will have something to get them through any potential empty nest syndrome: The Obamas apparently just bought Celtics co-owner Wyc Grousbeck’s estate on Martha’s Vineyard, which was listed for $14.85 million. (In 2016, when she was 15, Sasha held down a summer job on the Vineyard at Nancy’s Restaurant & Snack Bar.)