Annysa Johnson

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

Former first lady Michelle Obama, in town to promote her best-selling memoir, made a surprise visit to a Milwaukee high school Thursday where she encouraged a small gathering of students to pursue their college dreams, prove detractors wrong and never succumb to others' limited expectations for them.

"There are adults who will make wrong judgments about you — there are people who will make wrong judgments about you. That still happens to me," said Obama, a Princeton grad who was told by a high school counselor that she didn't have what it takes to get into the Ivy League school.

"The one thing you have to remember is you can't define yourself by other people's limited expectations of you," she told the gathering of about 14 juniors from various schools who'd come together for a roundtable discussion at Milwaukee Collegiate Academy, an independent charter school on Milwaukee's north side.

"So, your question is do you feed on that negative view? Or do you brush that off and decide to define yourself by your own terms? You have a choice. You can either take that and be defeated. ... Or you can prove them wrong. Let me tell you, there's much more pleasure in proving people wrong."

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Obama stopped by the school — along with late-night TV host Conan O'Brien, the moderator for her Thursday night appearance — just hours before they were to take the stage at Milwaukee's Miller High Life Theatre.

Obama is in Milwaukee as part of a national tour promoting "Becoming," which traces her ascent from a south side Chicago neighborhood to the White House as its first African-American first lady. New York Times reviewer Isabel Wilkerson calls it an "intimate tour of everyday African-American life and ambition" that recounts "her rise from modest origins to the closest this country has to nobility."

The school visit was organized by Reach Higher, an initiative she championed as first lady that encourages young people to pursue education beyond high school.

Students were in mid-discussion in the school's common room — outnumbered and surrounded by a horde of journalists — when Obama and O'Brien emerged from a corner door, eliciting gasps and excited chatter from incredulous students.

"Is this for real?" one young man asked repeatedly, a broad smile stretched across his face.

"Oh now I feel bad because my mom and me just bought your book ... and I didn't bring it."

"Guess what," Obama told them, "I have books for all of you."

The students also got tickets to Thursday night's event.

Obama has made a point of meeting with young people, community organizations and activists on each of the stops on her book tour. She met with Public Allies activists in San Jose, California, toured the African American Museum with young women in Philadelphia and hosted a roundtable with seniors at her alma mater, Whitney Young High School, in Chicago.

On Thursday, she and O'Brien said they were there to talk with the Milwaukee students about their college aspirations and share their own experiences in ways they hope will support and motivate them.

"A lot of what's in my book is ... I write about my journey and where I was at your age and the struggles and challenges I had at your age."

Obama shared her own experience of getting into Princeton: how her brother got in first and how she thought, "I'm as smart as he is," setting off laughs in the crowd.

She urged them to visit as many schools as they could so they could start to see themselves in that college environment and not to underestimate their prospects for getting into the school they want.

"Universities want a curious, diverse population. And they should. Because all great ideas don't come just from people who can take a test," she said. "They come from people who've traveled and had interesting experiences. They come from kids who had to work their way through school so they couldn't be in extracurricular activities. Or they've had a hardship they had to overcome."

She herself did not test well, she said, so her SAT wasn't what Princeton typically touted as its target score. But she was a straight-A student, on the honor roll and active in student government.

"They look at everything," she told them. "For me, I thought, I'm so much more than my test score. Let me tell you my story."

And they should tell theirs, she said, on their college admission essays as a way to set themselves apart in the eyes of college admissions counselors.

"Your personal statements are powerful," she said. "It is your opportunity to tell that admissions committee why you're special ... and what you're going to bring to the table," she said.

"Your stories in this room — and I'm only guessing about the things you've seen, the lives you've lived — telling your story is what's going to make you stand out. That's the thing that makes you uniquely you."