President Obama Wants to go to Stanford

Colleges and Universities A-Z Stanford University
1

Those students who are choosing between Stanford and other schools should watch the first few minutes of President Obama’s remarks at the White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection (which was held on campus in Memorial Auditorium and featured, among others, senior cabinet members and Silicon Valley CEOs like Tim Cook; a few hundred students–many chosen by lottery–attended the event as well):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JAw9ZJlyd7E

He spends quite a bit of time at the beginning of the speech extolling the virtues of Stanford, opening with the remark that he “kinda [wants] to go here.”

Several national news outlets took notice of his enthusiasm for Stanford:

http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2015-02-13/why-is-obama-whispering-sweet-nothings-in-stanford-s-ear-

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2015/02/13/obama-wants-to-go-to-stanford/

Perhaps Malia will join Bill Gates’s daughter, Tom Hanks’s son, Katie Couric’s daughter, and Rob Lowe’s son here.

2

I am sure he would have said the same if he was giving a speech at Princeton or Yale or wherever. It was a SPEECH… and of course flattering those who invited you is pretty standard. I wouldn’t read too much into it.

And should we be impressed that the super-privileged children of actors choose to go to a particular school (whether that be Stanford, Harvard, Princeton, Brown, or wherever)?

3

It’s telling when even Steve Ballmer’s son is a student at Stanford majoring in CS…he could have easily picked Harvard since his father made significant gifts to that university over the years (most recent to improve their CS dept)…ironic, no?