Jenna Bush Hager Reveals Why She Didn’t Transfer To Yale University To Study With Her Sister: “That Could Lead To Some Real Dysfunction”

Jenna Bush Hager admitted to Hoda Kotb on Today With Hoda & Jenna that there was one reason why she did not attend Yale University along with her twin sister, and it may not be for the reasons you think.

Bush Hager has explained on the show that she and her twin sister, Barbara Pierce Bush, attended different colleges when they were young. But they certainly had their fun.

Bush Hager, who attended the University of Texas at Austin, told Kotb that she often enjoyed visiting her sister at Yale University. So much so, it made her consider transferring.

“I had so much fun there that I thought maybe I should transfer, not for forever but just for a semester, and see what it’s like up here in the north,” she recalled.

“So I went and I said, ‘Could I come and ‘study abroad’ at Yale?’ And they said, ‘No, you cannot,'” she told Kotb, who laughed. Bush Hager said they told her, “‘You can come and live with your sister but you’re gonna have to audit the classes,'” meaning she would not be graded for her efforts.

That was enough to reportedly deter her from committing, even if it meant she could live with her sister. “I was like, Woah, that could lead to some real dysfunction for me,” she admitted. “I need the grade to keep me [on track].”

Bush Hager has previously admitted that she had a rather unique experience when applying to colleges at the same time as her sister. While getting rejected from colleges is a “rite of passage,” she told Kotb in a March 2023 episode of Today, “It happens to almost everybody – except for my sister, Barbara Bush.”

Barbara apparently “got into every school she applied to,” according to Bush Hager.

The Today host has also admitted that she wanted to “ride” her sister’s coattails to Stanford University, but their father, former POTUS George W. Bush, shut down her plans. He was “the opposite of the college admissions scandal,” she once said about her father, per People.

Bush Hager explained that she believed the university had a “twin policy” which made it so that, “If one twin gets in, they automatically let the other in because they don’t want to crush souls.”

But when she told her father about her plans of also applying, he reportedly told her, “‘No you’re not. Don’t ruin her chances!’” she recalled on Today.

She ultimately decided to stay close to home because of her father’s plans of running for president.

“I knew this great group of friends that I’d had forever … so I kinda took the easier road,” she said. “I wanted to be protected by them and I did feel really protected.”

Today with Hoda & Jenna airs on weekdays at 10/9c on NBC.