Did Wharton require SAT scores for transfer students from Fordham in the 1960s and 1970s?
Executive summary
No available sources explicitly state a formal Wharton policy in the 1960s–1970s that required SAT scores from transfer applicants from Fordham; contemporary accounts about notable transfers (e.g., Donald Trump from Fordham to Wharton) instead emphasize that SAT-related activity played a role in individual admissions narratives rather than a documented blanket rule [1]. Archival and modern Wharton transfer pages describe curriculum and prerequisite expectations but do not mention historical SAT‑requirement rules for external transfers in the 1960s–70s [2] [3].
1. What the contemporaneous record that we have actually says
The university archives about Wharton provide institutional history—curriculum reforms in 1959 and administrative records held by the Office of the Dean—but they do not spell out transfer‑admissions testing rules for the 1960s or 1970s in the available finding aid summary [2]. Modern descriptions of Wharton transfer course requirements focus on mathematics, economics and unit equivalencies; those pages explain present prerequisites for credit transfer and calculus/economics expectations but do not purport to document historical SAT mandate policies from mid‑20th century decades [3].
2. High‑profile cases have driven the question, not surviving policy texts
The question about SATs for Fordham→Wharton transfers commonly springs from reporting on Donald Trump’s transfer in the 1960s. Journalists recount allegations and anecdotes—that someone allegedly took an SAT for Trump and that the score helped his admission—but those pieces frame the matter as an individual episode rather than as proof of an explicit institutional rule requiring SATs for Fordham transfers in that era [1]. The Poets & Quants article cites a Washington Post account tying a high SAT (and alleged cheating) to the transfer, while also noting higher acceptance rates for transfers in the mid‑1960s; it does not quote a Wharton admissions policy requiring SATs of transfer students [1].
3. What modern transfer guidance shows—and why it doesn’t answer the historical question
Current Wharton/UPenn transfer guidance and third‑party transfer guides emphasize course equivalencies, GPA thresholds and specific prerequisite courses (calculus, micro/macro) for external transfer credit; they treat standardized tests variably and often as part of broader undergraduate admissions requirements today, not as a historical one‑line policy about transfers from particular institutions [3] [4]. These modern pages therefore illuminate what Wharton looks for now but do not document whether the school had a rule in the 1960s‑70s specifically requiring SATs of transfers from Fordham [3] [4].
4. Conflicting or missing evidence: where reporting leans and where it’s silent
Reporting leans toward depicting the Trump/Fordham episode as an exceptional admissions story involving an SAT score used to facilitate a transfer admission, while archival summaries and current Wharton transfer guides are silent on any historical blanket SAT requirement for Fordham transfers [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not mention a formal, school‑wide policy from Wharton in the 1960s or 1970s that mandated SAT submission specifically for Fordham transfer students—either confirming or denying such a rule outright [2] [3] [1].
5. How to interpret the absence of direct documentation
Two reasonable interpretations fit the available record: one, there was no single published rule requiring SATs from transfers and the Trump account reflects an ad hoc, case‑by‑case reliance on testing; two, testing may have been used informally or administratively in some transfer evaluations without surviving, easily located policy texts to cite. The sources we have either tell a story about one applicant or summarize institutional archives and modern admissions criteria; none provide explicit historical policy text mandating SATs for Fordham transfers [1] [2] [3]. Available sources do not mention any formal Wharton policy from the 1960s–70s that required SATs for Fordham transfer students.
6. What further research would settle the matter
To resolve the question definitively would require consulting primary materials not present in these search results: archived Wharton admissions bulletins, internal admissions records from the 1960s–70s, or contemporaneous University of Pennsylvania undergraduate catalogues and admissions brochures. The archival finding aid indicates Wharton’s records exist in the university archives [2]; those collections are the next logical place to look for any written transfer‑admissions rules from that era [2].
Limitations and final assessment
Primary sources needed to make a definitive claim are not in the provided set. The best documented facts in these sources are anecdotal reportage tying an SAT score to a high‑profile transfer case in the 1960s [1] and archival and contemporary Wharton materials that describe curricular and transfer credit expectations but do not state a historical SAT requirement for Fordham transfers [2] [3].