Malia Obama has chosen Harvard University to be her college home. The long-waited announcement came Sunday.

The oldest daughter of President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama has elected to take a year off after high school, however, and will enter the prestigious university in Cambridge, Mass., in the fall of 2017.

Harvard University, where both parents earned law degrees, encourages admitted students to take advantage of the institution’s “gap year” process and travel, pursue a special project or acquire intellectual enhancement outside of the classroom. During the year, the student must not enroll in another degree-granting college program.

The gap year option is heavily favored by President Obama, who on more than one occasion has expressed his emotions over Malia leaving the Obama nest. In fact, President Obama declined an invitation to speak at his daughter’s high school graduation, saying he would be too emotional.

“I’m going to be sitting there with dark glasses, sobbing,” he told TV host Ellen DeGeneres during an appearance on her talk show in February.

The decision to take a gap year will keep Malia close to home for a while longer, especially during the period when the first family transitions back into civilian life. The decision also makes her eventual arrival on the Harvard campus easier for her parents, who have guarded both their daughters’ privacy. President Obama will be out of office and no longer trailed in the public by a contingent of news media when Malia moves into her dorm.

The celebratory moment for the Obamas was marred by a host of vile, racist comments posted in response on social media, including on the conservative Fox News site.

The comments, which included racial epithets, became so vicious and distasteful that Fox News removed them and disabled the commentary section on the webpage. However, screen shots were taken of the remarks and posted on other social network sites.

Some printable comments called her admittance an example of “black privilege” and “affirmative action.”

In their usual unflappable manner, President and Mrs. Obama gave no response to the hate-driven remarks. Instead, they appear to be steadfast in allowing nothing to dull the brilliance of their daughter’s moment.

Malia, a 17-year-old high school senior, attends Sidwell Friends, an exclusive private school in Washington — the same school Chelsea Clinton, the daughter of former President Bill Clinton and Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, attended in the 1990s.

Malia visited at least a dozen public and private colleges before making her final choice. Six of the eight Ivy League institutions were among them. She also visited Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

The first lady has said that Malia wants to be a filmmaker. She has interned on the set of HBO’s “Girls,” starring Lena Dunham, as well as a now-canceled CBS sci-fi drama that starred Halle Berry.

When she starts at Harvard, Malia will join a long line of presidential children who have attended the Ivy League institution, including John Quincy Adams II, Caroline Kennedy and George W. Bush.

But that doesn’t make it any easier for President Obama, who also told Ms. DeGeneres, “She’s one of my best friends. It’s going to be hard for me not to have her around all the time, but she’s ready to go. She’s just a really smart, capable person and she is ready to make her own way.”