First school needs First Daughter

T here comes a time in the life of
every high-schooler called "choos-
ing a college and then going there." And when you're the President's daughter, everybody thinks it's their business to know all about it. So we all know about Chelsea Clinton getting in early to Harvard. We also know about her getting in late on the night of her 17th birthday, about her so-called "appropriate" boyfriend. And we know all about her most intimate hopes and fantastic, wonderful dreams.

But we do not know about Chelsea's plans for university, and instead, find ourselves at the receiving end of a gushing fountain of deliberate misinformation. Newspapers report she is interested in Brown. Weekly magazines mention Amherst College. Bill wants her nearby at Georgetown. Hillary likes the sound of the Citadel. Meanwhile, Uncle Roger Clinton is hoping they can enroll together in one of those late-night, cable-TV colleges.

Everyone is busy trying to make her life choice into their own political statement. Everyone is so damn selfish! They forget that at the center of the mayhem is a tiny, beautiful, human girl, who deserves nothing but the best undergraduate education money can buy. Oh gee, I wonder where that could be found. The absolute, bar-none, number one school? Could it be...Yale College? What's the matter, haven't any of these people picked up a current issue of U.S. News and World Report?

Unlike other schools, Yale has happy and friendly students who would welcome Chelsea and befriend her. Social excitement, fine dining, even passionate romance may await her in any of twelve residential colleges. A safe, heated bus will transport her to and from intramural bowling and other extracurricular pastimes.

Having the First Daughter on campus might seem like a big deal initially, but the novelty will inevitably fade and it'll become another piece of common knowledge, just another dreary aspect of life at Yale. When Jodie Foster first arrived here, people couldn't handle the excitement of having a celebrity sharing the classroom with them. But today, does anyone make a big fuss? Of course not. We're cool like that.

It's not true that Yale is too public a place for a celebrity like a President's daughter. George Bush went here, and he was President. William Howard Taft went here, was President, and weighed 300 pounds.

Now Chelsea, you don't weigh three hundred pounds, but don't think you're going to get any special treatment either! Even though your dad's name is on the post office, you'll still have to wait in line for a package. But the post office can work in your favor, too: "Going to Washington on Friday? Will split driving, pay tolls and 2/3 gas. Plus, you can sleep over in Lincoln Bedroom!"

Chelsea, I know Yale's location isn't ideal for you. We don't have the idyllic pastoral greensward of an Amherst or a Swarthmore. Cross Campus Lawn is just a bleak, muddy expanse littered with refuse and human bones. We don't have Georgetown's trendy M Street. And we don't have a Rhode Island Capitol building here in New Haven like they have in Providence.

But New Haven does have advantages for a young woman like you that big cities such as Boston and New York could never provide. For example, did you know that at Harvard, you would be confused with Chelsea, a small run-down, bankrupt city nearby? You might get alarmed when people informed you that the state had handed you over to a city manager. If you went to school in New York, the situation wouldn't be much better. How would you like to overhear people talking about how "Chelsea's gotten much more gay over the past few years" or "Chelsea's almost 100 percent gay these days"? You might get all bent out of shape over the perfectly innocent comment, "Well, if you've got twenty bucks, you can always stay in the Chelsea Hotel."

You have the grand opportunity to avoid these embarrasing incidents! We don't have a Chelsea in New Haven yet. But we want one very soon. On this one issue, all Yalies have reached a true consensus. Our diverse student body speaks with one unanimous voice. The diverse faculty, too, from Serge Lang to Jay Jorgenson, have found a common ground. They all look forward to having you. I conclude with the following plea: Chelsea Clinton, please come to Yale!

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