Did Donald Trump submit SAT or ACT scores to Wharton when he applied in 1964?
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Executive summary
Michael Cohen testified in 2019 that he sent letters at Donald Trump’s direction threatening Trump’s schools and the College Board to prevent release of his grades and SAT scores; news coverage repeats that claim but no documented SAT or ACT scores have been released in available reporting [1]. Public accounts note Trump graduated NYMA in 1964, then attended Fordham before transferring to Wharton; reporting says scores remain sealed and Cohen asserted they were kept secret [2] [1].
1. What Michael Cohen told Congress — the core allegation
Michael Cohen, speaking under oath in 2019, said he wrote and delivered letters at Trump’s direction warning Trump’s high school, his colleges and the College Board not to release Trump’s grades or SAT scores, and he provided copies of those letters to a congressional committee [1]. Newsweek and other outlets reported Cohen’s statement directly, and the allegation has been widely cited as the principal source for the claim that Trump actively sought to suppress standardized-test records [1].
2. What the public record shows about scores
Available public reporting and biographical summaries state that no SAT or ACT scores for Donald Trump have been publicly released. Multiple articles and biographical entries note that Trump’s specific grades and test scores remain sealed, and that requests for them were resisted [2] [3]. None of the supplied sources contain a published numeric SAT or ACT score for Trump.
3. How this ties to Wharton admissions in the 1960s
Contemporaneous summaries of Trump’s education trace his path: New York Military Academy (graduated May 1964), Fordham University starting in 1964, then a transfer to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania where he completed his degree in 1968 [2]. The supplied sources do not document whether Wharton required or retained an SAT or ACT score from applicants in 1964, nor do they include Wharton admissions files showing what Trump submitted.
4. Allegations of impropriety around admission
Separate reporting and biographical commentary raise other questions about how Trump entered Wharton: some accounts say family influence helped, with reporting that Trump’s brother developed a relationship with an admissions officer [3]. Other narratives — for example, longer biographical pieces and compilations — recount claims that Trump may have enlisted someone else to take the SAT for him; those claims appear in secondary biographies and compilations but are not documented in an official record in the set of sources provided here [4].
5. What is and isn’t documented in the sources
The supplied sources document Cohen’s claim of threatening letters and state that test scores and grades were not publicly released [1] [2]. They do not provide a released SAT or ACT score for Trump, they do not supply admissions paperwork from Wharton showing what was submitted, and they do not show independent verification that someone else took the SAT on Trump’s behalf — those latter assertions appear in secondary reporting or allegation form and lack documentary proof in the cited material [4].
6. Competing perspectives and limitations
One perspective — from Cohen’s testimony and media coverage — holds that Trump actively suppressed his academic records because they were unfavorable [1]. An alternative explanation consistent with available facts is simply that institutions and the College Board did not release records, for reasons ranging from privacy requests to routine nondisclosure; the supplied materials do not prove motive beyond Cohen’s account [2] [1]. The sources provided do not include a response from Trump or Wharton in this packet, nor do they include original admissions files that would confirm what Trump submitted in 1964 [2] [1].
7. Bottom line for readers
Available reporting shows Cohen’s sworn claim that letters were sent to suppress release of Trump’s grades and SAT scores and notes that no scores have been publicly released [1] [2]. The supplied sources do not include any actual SAT or ACT scores or Wharton admissions documents from 1964, so it is not possible on the basis of this reporting to confirm whether Trump submitted SAT/ACT scores to Wharton or what those scores were [2] [1].