After flunking out of Fordham University, how was Donald Trump ever admitted to the Wharton School at U Penn?
Trump is a guy who doesn't read, has no interest in any type of intellectual pursuits of any kind, and was rated as really dumb by one of his profs; "William T. Kelley, who taught Trump at the University of Pennsylvania, claimed that “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.”

Tony Schwartz, the ghostwriter of “The Art of the Deal,” said Trump had “a stunning level of superficial knowledge and plain ignorance.” This is not a smart person.

Here is one of his report cards from Fordham…. a disaster would be an understatement with a GPA of only 1.28!


Trump’s degree at Penn was in Real-estate studies, not what you would call a challenging program, virtually the same course you can take at your local community college. Yet Trump would have you believe he was a business major in the more prestigious and highly challenging Wharton Business program in Finance.

While people who were in Trump’s class said he was anything but a good student and never passed with honors nor was he ever on the Dean’s list. Most who knew Trump at the time, were far from impressed with him calling him a slacker.

People who know Trump best know him as a dumbbell. His older sister has said in interviews that she often had to do his homework, Trump paid someone to take his entrance exam to get into Fordham university, and Trump cheated on his SAT by paying someone to take it for him, according to Mary Trump's new book Trump cheated on his SAT by paying someone to take it for him, according to Mary Trump's new book

And his older brother Robertinterceded on trump’s behalf with a friend James A. Nolan, who just happened to be the admittance officer at Penn State which then was not the prestigious school it is now. . James A. Nolan, the Penn admissions officer who interviewed Trump and ushered his application through the vetting process, said he did so at the behest of Trump’s older brother, Fred Trump Jr. Nolan grew up in Queens and had been friends with Fred since high school in the mid-1950s.

Now 80, Nolan says he found “no evidence” of Trump’s alleged “super genius” at the time. Furthermore, he says, Wharton wasn’t nearly as difficult to get into in the mid-’60s as it is today. Back then, according to Nolan, Penn was accepting 40 percent of all applicants, as opposed to its current cutthroat acceptance rate of seven percent. Not surprisingly, Trump remembers it differently. “I got in quickly and easily,” he told the Boston Globe in 2015. “And it’s one of the hardest schools to get into in the country — always has been,”

Nolan says helping Trump is a big regret. “I wish I hadn’t interviewed him,” he says, breaking into the deep belly laugh of a man who knows that at his age, nothing he says can possibly hurt him. “In retrospect, I wish Trump was able to get him into Wharton by transferring from Fordham University,( his report card follows) and Trump was seen by classmates as lazy and anything but a good student.

“Trump’s college transcripts are apparently terrible. I’ve spoken to friends of Trump from that time, and this was a guy that was obviously not interested in school and possibly never read a book in his life. For everyone that had known him then and years afterward, the assumption was that he had terrible grades, he was a lackluster student at best.”

“Penn has never had Trump deliver a commencement speech or conferred an honorary degree on him. In the wake of his election, Penn tour guides were discouraged from bringing up the T-word and issued simple instructions for handling questions about Trump’s tenure at Penn: Keep it short and sweet — “Yes, he graduated from Wharton in 1968” — and leave it at that. Tell Penn you’re writing an article about Donald Trump’s time there, and you’ll get the academic version of name, rank, and serial number: “Donald J. Trump earned a B.S. in real estate,”

Fact-Checking All of the Mysteries Surrounding Donald Trump and Penn

Why is everything about Donald Trump at Wharton shrouded in secrecy? We set out to uncover the truth by fact-checking all the mysteries.

https://www.phillymag.com/news/2019/09/14/donald-trump-at-wharton-university-of-pennsylvania/This is virtually the same course with a bit more context than you can get at your local community college, not much of a reach for Trump, a lazy student who did the bare minimum.
Trump has never allowed his academic performance there to be made public. Michael Cohen threatened to sue Penn back to the Stone Age if it released Trump’s grades, according to Cohen himself.

“For an article titled “Many of Trump’s Wharton Classmates Don’t Remember Him,” the DP contacted 269 of his fellow matriculates. Seventy-four responded; 68 said they had “never encountered Trump at Penn.” “Wharton was a pretty small community back then … you knew everyone. Well, except him,” 1968 Wharton graduate Kenneth Kadish told the DP. “It wasn’t that [Trump] was just not prominent, it was like he was nonexistent.” Nolan, the admissions officer, recalls: “I never saw him with another student. Always by himself. Kind of a sad sack.”

**A few other points:**

1. Wharton wasn’t the prodigious school at the time it is now, even Trump had originally mentioned as much earlier on.

2. His own classmates hardly remember him, and he even describes the school’s high-flung reputation as overwrought in his 1986 book, “Trump: The Art of the Deal.”

3. In a 1985 biography of Trump, Jerome Tuccille wrote that he was not an honor student and “spent a lot of time on outside business activities.”

4. Another biographer, Gwenda Blair, wrote in 2001 that Trump was admitted to Wharton on a special favor (Donald Trump may have donated over $1.4 million to Penn) from a “friendly” admissions officer. The officer had known Trump’s older brother, Freddy.

***Source:*** (Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery. The Daily Pennsylvanian; ******Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery*** (Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery).

5. . He graduated with an undergraduate degree. Trump didn’t graduate from the prodigious Business School Graduate program with an MBA, that demanded a much higher standard of entry. https://www.chicagotribune.com/n... (Column: Donald Trump’s biggest flaw: He’s not that bright)

6 Another biographer, Gwenda Blair, wrote in 2001 that Trump was admitted to Wharton on a special favor (Donald Trump may have donated over $1.4 million to Penn) from a “friendly” admissions officer. The officer had known Trump’s older brother, Freddy.

***Source:*** (Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery. The Daily Pennsylvanian; ******Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery*** (Trump flaunts Wharton degree, but his college years remain a mystery)

7. William T. Kelley, an Economics Professor who taught Trump at the University of Pennsylvania, said, “Donald Trump was the dumbest goddamn student I ever had.”

***Source: Chicago Tribune “Donald Trump's biggest flaw: He's not that bright”***