The Young Actor Who Got A College Recommendation Letter From Michelle Obama
When high school students prepare for college applications, they usually ask teachers or coaches to write their college recommendation letters. However, one young actor got a recommendation letter from former First Lady Michelle Obama. Yara Shahidi, who had a leading role in "Black-ish" and its spinoff "Grown-ish," was the recipient of that letter.
She discussed that fun fact with W Magazine in a 2017 interview. In addition to writing the recommendation, Obama reportedly supported of Shahidi before AP exam time. "She is very amazing and such a supporter, which is something very surreal to say," Shahidi told the outlet.
A month after her W interview, Shahidi spoke with Seventeen. She told the outlet, "I did get all of my college acceptances and I'm keeping them close to the belt as of right now, but I got into every college I applied to. So that's really exciting. I found all of that out last week. My college plans are all up in the air, but I will choose within the next month."
During a panel in October 2016, Shahidi asked Obama to write a recommendation
The subject of Michelle Obama writing a recommendation for Yara Shahidi was broached during a talk they did in October 2016. On International Day of the Girl, they sat down for a collaboration between the Let Girls Learn campaign and Glamour to discuss education for girls around the world and how vital it is. Shahidi and Obama bonded over being called "aggressive," and Obama said, "What I realized is it's okay to take up space without the fear of being too loud or too aggressive. That just means I'm owning my space even more." During their talk, they also bonded over paths of study.
In a clip from the discussion uploaded to YouTube, Shahidi talked about how education has had a positive influence on her life and career. "Because it's made me truly interested in the world around me," Shahidi continued. "And I think my love of acting is the same reason I want to study sociology because I'm interested in humans." Obama held up a hand for a high-five and said, "I was a sociology major." Yara reciprocated the high-five and said, "Oh my goodness, write my recommendation letter please!" Obama laughed and said, "You got it! You got it." And she was true to her word.
Shahidi and Obama studied the same things as undergrads
Yara Shahidi ultimately chose Harvard, taking a gap year before attending from 2018 to 2022. Harvard was always on Shahidi's mind, long before she was old enough to enroll in university. In a "Jimmy Kimmel Live" interview from March 2018, Shahidi talked about getting into Harvard and how as a kid, she'd read through the Harvard course catalog due to her aspirations to be a history professor. For her majors, Shahidi studied African American studies and Social Studies – the department that teaches sociology.
Michelle Obama previously attended Harvard for law school. She was a student at Princeton for her undergraduate years. Like Shahidi, she majored in African American studies and earned her degree in sociology.
Obama has shut down speculation that she'll run for president multiple times, and Shahidi doesn't aspire toward the White House either — but that doesn't mean the activist doesn't want to make change. "I definitely want to be in, like, a politics-adjacent kind of position," Shahidi told Entertainment Tonight in 2018 after Oprah Winfrey claimed she could be president. "I do want to be in a place in which I can implement that level of change, president, I don't quite know. I always think about how strange it'll be that they'll be going back through my Instagram that I had when I was 12." Despite that, she still was firm that she wanted to work in Washington, D.C. somehow. Shahidi goals and work ethic could definitely be a force for good.