College Bound

She’s in at Harvard.

This piece of information should relieve anyone’s concerns about whether America’s best-known high school senior, Chelsea Victoria Clinton, will get into college.

But whether the first daughter will choose to attend this country’s oldest university is anybody’s guess. She was admitted under Harvard’s early action program, which does not obligate her to commit to a spot in the class of 2001 until May 1. Officials at Vice President Al Gore’s alma mater said that out of about 4,000 early action applicants, Chelsea was one of 985 prospective freshmen who were accepted, solely on the basis of academic merit and test scores.

The university was hardly broadcasting Chelsea’s acceptance as a coup. In fact, a Harvard spokesman confirmed her admittance only when asked directly. The spokesman stressed, moreover, that “she got in here completely on her own. This is a kid who didn’t have to play the daddy card.”

Harvard, in any case, was only one item on Chelsea’s college shopping list. On the grand tour of colleges she took with her mother in August, she visited Amherst, Brown, Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Wellesley, where Hillary Rodham gave the commencement speech when she graduated in 1969.

It’s probably a safe bet that, at some point, the soon to turn 17-year-old daughter of the president also has visited her father’s alma mater, Georgetown University, about a six-minute ride from the White House.

Like almost every other detail of her life, Chelsea’s college plans remain an intensely guarded secret. Her parents are fierce in their devotion to her privacy, and officials at Washington’s Sidwell Friends School say nothing about any aspect of her life at the prestigious, coeducational private school.

But on several recent occasions, Chelsea’s mom softened her resistance to discussing her daughter. Hillary Rodham Clinton declined requests for an interview about Chelsea’s academic intentions, but around the time of the Inauguration, she did offer some insights.

Pondering life with her daughter away at school, she told a television interviewer that “it’s not going to be easy having her go off to college. But I think that on balance, this has been a more positive than negative time in her life.”

Without Chelsea in the White House, “it’s going to be very hard,” she continued. “You know, you work hard to raise an independent child who can make good decisions. And the first decision is, I want to go away--you know, go away to school.”

While mother and daughter were spotted throughout their Ivy League tour, many of the schools were reticent about acknowledging a possible application from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

A Wellesley College spokeswoman was spectacularly vague. Maybe she visited and maybe she didn’t, the spokeswoman said. Maybe she has applied and maybe she hasn’t. Maybe she’ll get in and maybe she won’t.

Well, would Wellesley be interested in a second generation from the Rodham Clinton family? “It sounds like PR gibberish, but we would be interested in any well qualified students,” Janet Mendelson responded. As for whether an applicant who is both the daughter of an incumbent president and a graduate of Wellesley College might have some slight advantage in the freshman candidate pool, Mendelson said, “The truth is, we treat all prospective students exactly the same. We do every year have women apply who are the children of famous people. We treat them all equally.”

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That was the party line across the college board. All applicants are equal, the schools insisted, regardless of whether Mom and Dad thoughtfully endowed a small building at precisely the moment that their precious child was applying to that very same college. Grades, aptitude tests, the all-important college essay and outside activities: That’s what matters, end of conversation.

More than a generation has passed since the child of a sitting president was in a position to apply to college. But in the case of any high-profile individual, “we treat them with the utmost discretion and confidentiality,” said Karl Furstenberg, dean of admissions at Dartmouth College--which does not seem to be high on Chelsea’s campus radarscope. “We evaluate the credentials in the same thorough way we would anyone else’s,” Furstenberg said. But in truth, he acknowledged, that may be easier said than done.

In assessing a prospective student, “we think of the various background factors,” Furstenberg explained. “If someone has had the unusual situation giving them an interesting life and interesting perspectives, we think that’s worth something.” Such a student would be “different, by virtue of experience,” he went on. “We would give that some recognition. That’s different than saying we would give them an automatic acceptance.”

As for Chelsea, Furstenberg said, “Of all the students applying to college for next fall, she is unique. She is in a category of one.”

That not only makes her an attractive candidate, he said, but “I would go one step further and say I don’t think there is any college that wouldn’t think that if such a student is qualified, that it wouldn’t be attractive to the college as well.”

Certainly, agreed Brown University spokesman Richard Morin, the notion of accepting a first offspring is “a win-win situation” for student and school alike. “Of course, it would be a benefit to have the first child here. It would focus a lot of the nation’s attention on Brown,” Morin said.

In fact, he observed, Brown has had unusual experience with children from political families, including “a ton of presidential candidates’ kids.” Among Brown’s pol-pack alums: Kara Dukakis, whose father, Michael, ran for president while she was a student in 1988; Laura and Donna Zaccaro, daughters of former vice presidential candidate Geraldine Ferraro; William Mondale, whose father, Walter, ran for president alongside Ferraro in 1984; Roberta Forbes, whose father, Steve, hoped to win the White House in 1996; and Kathryn Alexander, whose father, Lamar, also made a stab at the presidency last year.

Kerry, Rory and Doug Kennedy, children of the late Robert F. Kennedy, all went to Brown. One of the school’s more celebrated graduates is John F. Kennedy Jr., known for appearing in college dramatic productions and for wearing short-shorts around campus. Amy Carter also began college life as a student at Brown, perhaps as a result of a particularly memorable campus tour. (She graduated later from the Memphis College of Art.)

Her student guide escorted Amy and her parents into a dorm to show them a typical room--only to find that the model room used for campus tours was locked, recalled Eric Widmer, Brown’s dean of student life at the time. This “Potemkin room” was hardly typical anyway, conceded Widmer, now the headmaster at Deerfield Academy, since it featured rugs, curtains, bedspreads, quaint framed paintings on the walls and not one speck of dirt.

Ever resourceful, the student guide proceeded down the hall until he found an unlocked door. He opened it to discover a mess that most pigs would turn up their snouts at. The room’s wall decorations were posters “in the worst taste,” Widmer recalled, adorned with obscene epithets. Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter were appalled, Widmer said, “but Amy loved it,” and decided Brown was for her.

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No such episodes have been reported on Chelsea’s college excursions. But during an overnight visit to Princeton, an enterprising correspondent for the local newspaper, the Princeton Packet, scooped the world with the news that “Chelsea ordered pasta primavera and her mother had the chicken Mediterranean” at a restaurant called J.B. Winberie.

Princeton sophomore Len Teti drew straws with three other students for the honor of conducting the first mom and daughter on a campus tour. Wearing orange Princeton shoelaces in his sneakers in honor of the occasion, Teti showed them the library, the chapel and the dormitories.

“I thought they were the basic mother and daughter looking at colleges,” Teti told the Packet. “The best part of the experience was how normal it was. What struck me was that she was like most arriving high school seniors.”

He also noted that in addition to asking about the academic environment and how students interact with their professors, Chelsea inquired about truly significant matters such as the food service, computer hookups and whether the dorm rooms are quiet.

Chelsea’s private meeting with American studies professor Sean Wilentz strengthened speculation that the elite, wooded campus has assumed a high spot on her college wish list. Princeton is just a little more than three hours from Washington, and while it is unlikely that the first daughter would regularly hop an Amtrak train to see Mom and Dad for the weekend, a White House vehicle could easily ferry her back and forth. The school is also known for its strong program in dance, a passion of the first daughter since early childhood.

Wilentz stressed that he had not seen Chelsea’s test scores or high school records, but said he found her a “very impressive” candidate. “She’s a very well-spoken and knowledgeable young woman.”

The possible arrival of a president’s child would, of course, entail mammoth security considerations, not to mention a media zoofest. But harking back to a famous graduate from the recent past, Wilentz said, “If we can handle Brooke Shields, we can handle anything.”