What was Donald Trump's GPA and class rank at the Wharton School?
Executive summary
Donald Trump’s precise GPA and numeric class rank from the Wharton School are not publicly documented; available archival records and reporting show he graduated “without honors,” which at Wharton implies a GPA below 3.40, and contemporaneous Penn lists do not place him among top students — contradicting the long-circulated claim that he graduated “first in his class” [1] [2] [3].
1. The simple answer: no official GPA or rank has been released
There is no verified public transcript or official University of Pennsylvania release that lists Donald Trump’s exact grade‑point average or a formal numeric class rank for the Wharton class of 1968, meaning reporters and researchers must rely on contemporaneous commencement programs, dean’s lists, and secondary reporting to reconstruct his academic standing [2] [3].
2. What contemporaneous Penn documents actually show
Archival materials consulted by student newspapers and local reporting list Wharton honors recipients and a dean’s list for 1968; Trump’s name does not appear among the award winners, the 15 cum laude / four magna cum laude / two summa cum laude recipients printed in the commencement program, nor among the Dean’s List of 56 students that year — omissions that indicate he did not graduate with academic honors and was not among roughly the top 15 percent of the class as measured by the Dean’s List [2].
3. The “first in his class” claim and where it came from
The notion that Trump graduated “first in his class” has circulated for decades, appearing in older profiles and repeating in some media accounts, but direct checks against Penn records and alumni lists contradict that claim; contemporary classmates and the student newspaper disputed the idea, and Penn materials show Trump graduated without honors rather than at the top of his class [3] [2] [4].
4. Inferring a GPA range from Wharton’s honors threshold
Wharton’s published standard for undergraduate honors requires at least a 3.40 GPA to qualify, so the documented fact that Trump graduated without honors establishes a firm upper bound: his GPA at graduation must have been below 3.40 unless other extraordinary explanations (such as an honor‑disqualifying sanction) applied — an outcome reporters have noted as an important data point in the absence of a transcript [1] [5].
5. Claims, recollections, and motives to obscure grades
Some classmates remembered Trump as a student who kept to himself or was not academically prominent, while a few recall him favorably; at the same time, reporting has documented efforts — including letters prepared by or at the direction of Trump’s representatives, according to testimony — to block release of academic records, which helps explain why definitive numeric evidence has not surfaced publicly [3] [6] [1].
6. What can and cannot be concluded with confidence
With confidence: Trump did not graduate with honors and is not listed among 1968 honors and dean’s list recipients, so he was not “first in his class” and his GPA was below Wharton’s 3.40 honors cutoff [2] [1]. Without additional primary documentation — an authenticated transcript or an official Penn statement releasing GPA or class rank — it is not possible to state his exact GPA or his precise ordinal class rank; available reporting and archival evidence support characterizing his academic record as average or below the honors threshold rather than top of the class [2] [5].