Examination of Donald Trump’s academic record yields a distinctly unflattering picture. Trump has allowed the media to report for years that he graduated FIRST in his class at Wharton, despite strong evidence that THIS WAS NOT TRUE and indications that he was, IN FACT, AN UNDISTINGUISHED STUDENT. Alumni with whom he would have attended Wharton, don’t even remember him.
Trump DID NOT go to Wharton’s prestigious MBA program, AS HE’S CLAIMED, OVER AND OVER. Rather, he received an UNDERGRADUATE DEGREE offered BY Wharton to UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA students. And Trump didn’t attend Wharton for a FULL FOUR years. Instead, he transferred there after spending his first two undergraduate years at Fordham, the Jesuit university in the Bronx.
So how did Trump get into Wharton? Trump gained admission as a transfer student only because of “an interview with a friendly Wharton admissions officer who was one of his older brother, Freddy’s, old high school classmates.”
Trump also HAPPENED TO BE the SON of one of the wealthiest New York businessmen of the era. That certainly DID NOT HURT his admission chances. His grades at Fordham were merely “respectable.”
While Trump has FOREVER portrayed himself as an exceptional student at Wharton. (In March, 2016, he explained and supported his doubts about Obama’s birthplace by saying, “Let me tell you, I’m a really smart guy. I know things. I was a really good student at the best school in the country.”
In 2004, Trump told CNN, “I went to the Wharton School of Finance, I got very good marks, I was a good student, it’s the best business school in the world, as far as I’m concerned.” Through the years, Trump somehow enhanced that claim, now saying that he was “first in his class” at Wharton in 1968.
The clear narrative he wants presented is of himself as an intellectual heavyweight — starting a business at age 12, first in his class at Wharton, (“the smartest person I know,” Trump HIMSELF told the N.Y. Times. He personally told reporters that he graduated first in his class.
The “fact” that Trump graduated first in his class made its way into various books, magazines, and websites.
The truth about Trump’s record at Wharton? William Geist wrote, “The commencement program from his 1968 graduation DOES NOT LIST HIM AS GRADUATING WITH HONORS OF ANY KIND.” and “just about every profile ever written about Mr. Trump states that he graduated first in his class at Wharton in 1968.”
And, writer Jerome Tuccille’s 1985 biography of Trump said that while “it has been reported that he graduated first in the class … Donald denied that he ever made such a claim. (HE DID AND STILL DOES) Actually he was not among the honor students that year.”
Tuccille continues: “Donald agreed to attend Wharton for his father’s sake. He showed up for classes and did what was required of him but he was clearly bored and spent a lot of time on outside business activities.”
In 1988, New York magazine reported that the idea that Trump had graduated first in his class was a “myth.” The writer snarked that, in fact, Trump had gotten merely the “highest grades possible, for him.”
Trump repeated refused to release his academic record while campaigning against Obama (not his opponent) by repeatedly demanding that Obama release his own academic records.
This liar is now lying on a different stage. Unfortunately for us, it’s NOT THE PLACE FOR AN AMATEUR MEGALOMANIAC.
Comments
Post a Comment