What was Donald Trump's academic record and application profile when applying to UPenn?
Executive summary
Donald J. Trump transferred from Fordham to the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School in the mid-1960s, graduated in May 1968 with a Bachelor of Science in economics, and is not listed among Wharton’s Dean’s List or commencement honors for 1968 — facts that undercut his repeated claims of being a top student [1] [2] [3]. Admissions accounts, contemporaneous records and later reporting paint a picture of an average student whose family connections likely eased his route into Wharton, while Penn maintains that it will only confirm degree, major and graduation date, not grades [4] [2] [3].
1. The basic, verifiable record: degree, date, major
University and widely cited biographical sources concur that Trump graduated from the University of Pennsylvania in May 1968 with a bachelor’s degree in economics from Wharton — a fact repeated on official and encyclopedic pages [1] [5] [6]. Penn’s public policy is to confirm only graduation date, degree and major for alumni records, which means independent confirmation beyond those basics is restricted without the alumnus’s consent [3] [7].
2. What Penn’s contemporaneous records show — and do not show
Contemporaneous Wharton materials and student publications list graduates and honor recipients for 1968; Trump appears as a graduate but is absent from the published Dean’s List and from the printed honors in the commencement program, indicating he did not graduate with academic distinction such as cum laude, magna or summa honors [2] [7] [3]. Multiple reporters and archivists have used that “proof by omission” to conclude Trump was not among the top tier of his class [2] [7].
3. The application and admission context: family connections and interviewer recollections
Reporting based on interviews with the admissions interviewer and biographies indicates Trump transferred from Fordham to Wharton in 1966 and that at least one friend of his family played a role in setting up the interview; the interviewer described Wharton then as less selective and recalled Trump as an unremarkable transfer student, implying that social and familial ties aided his admission more than a standout transcript would have [4] [1]. Several biographies and contemporaneous anecdotes suggest Fred Trump’s influence and network mattered in shaping Donald’s route to Penn [1] [4].
4. Claims, contradictions and the limits of public evidence
Trump has sometimes portrayed his Wharton tenure in grand terms, and occasional profiles over the decades have amplified assertions that he graduated at or near the top of his class — claims contradicted by the absence of his name from the 1968 honors lists and by classmates’ recollections that he was not academically distinguished [2] [3]. Penn’s refusal to release transcripts without the alumnus’s permission, and Trump’s reported resistance to making his records public, means precise GPA, test scores or admissions files remain unavailable to journalists and researchers [2] [3] [7].
5. Alternate perspectives and implicit agendas in the record
Official and sympathetic accounts — including the White House biography and pro-Trump materials — emphasize the Wharton degree as evidence of elite credentials, while investigative outlets and student archives focus on verifying honors and academic standing and expose discrepancies between boastful public claims and archival records; both perspectives are accurate about what they assert, but they serve different narratives: one of credentialed success, the other of inflated self-presentation and the role of privilege in admissions [6] [2] [8]. Some contemporary observers and former faculty offered sharp character judgments about Trump’s classroom performance, but those are anecdotal and cannot substitute for sealed transcripts [8] [4].