What were the admission and transfer requirements at Wharton in 1966 when Trump transferred?
Executive summary
Contemporary sources show Donald Trump transferred from Fordham to Wharton in 1966 and graduated in 1968; firsthand accounts and later Wharton materials give a picture of transfer rules today but do not record the exact formal admission checklist Wharton used in 1966 (sources: transfer year and graduation [1] [2]; admissions officer recollection and mid-1960s acceptance context [3] [4]). Available sources do not provide a verbatim 1966 Wharton transfer admissions policy; modern Wharton pages describe rigorous prerequisites, residency and course-credit rules that now govern transfers [5] [6].
1. What the record says about Trump’s transfer in 1966
Multiple news accounts report that Donald Trump attended Fordham for two years, transferred to Wharton in 1966 and graduated from Wharton in 1968; those timelines are stated directly in coverage recounting his enrollment and diploma [1] [2]. Former University of Pennsylvania admissions officer James Nolan, who interviewed Trump in 1966, described being asked by Trump’s brother to grant an interview and said transfer acceptance in the mid-1960s “was not very difficult” compared with today [3] [4].
2. Firsthand recollections vs. documentary admissions rules
James Nolan’s recollection provides the most detailed contemporaneous account quoted in reporting: he said Fred Trump Jr. called him and that transfers then had higher acceptance rates; Nolan also stressed he was not “struck” by exceptional academic brilliance during Trump’s interview [3] [4]. Those recollections explain how an application could be advanced by a college connection, but Nolan’s anecdote is not the same as an institutional admissions policy document from 1966—available sources do not cite Penn’s formal transfer criteria from that year [3] [4].
3. The modern Wharton transfer requirements used as contextual contrast
Wharton’s current external- and internal-transfer webpages list specific prerequisites (economics, calculus, language requirements), residency rules (external transfers must complete at least half of required coursework and minimum semesters at Penn), and administrative conditions for credit posting—rules that are substantially more codified and stringent than the impressions of the 1960s offered by Nolan [5] [6] [7]. These modern rules show what Wharton now requires of transfer students but are not presented by sources as retroactive descriptions of 1966 policy [5] [6].
4. Claims about test fraud and calls for investigation
Mary Trump’s allegation that Donald Trump paid someone to take the SAT has been publicized and prompted faculty calls for an inquiry into whether fraudulent entrance helped lead to his transfer to Wharton; media reporting and faculty letters reference the allegation and request review but do not document conclusive proof in the public record [8] [2]. Those reports link the allegation to Trump’s 1966 transfer without providing archival admissions paperwork or a documented retroactive finding by Penn in the sources provided [8].
5. Acceptance rates and selectivity then versus now
Interviewed sources say Wharton (and Penn) admitted a much higher fraction of applicants in the 1960s than today; one Penn official cited a 1980 acceptance rate “slightly greater than 40%,” and Nolan said more than half of applicants were accepted in the mid-1960s—contrasting sharply with single-digit rates reported for later decades [4] [9]. Those figures are cited in reporting to contextualize why contemporary observers view the 1966 transfer as less exceptional [4].
6. Limits of available reporting and what’s not in the record
No provided source reproduces Wharton’s exact transfer-admission checklist, point-score thresholds, or a 1966 admissions regulation text. Available sources do not provide Trump’s application file, SAT score records, or a Wharton institutional ruling from 1966; they rely instead on recollection, memoir allegation, and modern policy pages [3] [8] [5]. Where claims extend beyond the cited reporting—such as definitive proof of SAT fraud or an explicit 1966 admissions rubric—available sources do not mention supporting documentation.
7. How to interpret the competing accounts
Reporting presents two converging themes: contemporaries and former admissions staff say Wharton was less selective for transfers in the 1960s and personal connections could influence interviews [3] [4]; and later accusations—most prominently from a family memoir—assert test fraud that some Wharton faculty urged be investigated but for which public documentary confirmation is not shown in the cited coverage [8] [2]. The modern Wharton policy pages illuminate how transfer admissions are evaluated today, offering an explicit contrast to the looser-seeming practices described in the 1960s recollections [5] [6].
If you want, I can assemble the specific modern transfer prerequisites from Wharton’s sites side‑by‑side with the 1966 recollections to show precisely which elements are new versus what reporters say existed then [5] [6] [3].