Have any of Trump's Wharton classmates commented on his grades?

1. Classmates’ recollections: unremarkable academically, according to campus reporting

Reporting that surveyed or interviewed Wharton alumni finds frequent statements that Trump “did not stand out academically,” with several classmates noting they could not recall him as a top performer and archival class lists showing no appearance on dean’s lists or prize recipient lists where a top student would be expected to appear ^{[1] [3]}. The Daily Pennsylvanian’s investigation found classmates who doubted Trump’s claim to top-of-class honors and pointed to the 1968 program and award lists that omit his name, which reporters used as evidence that his academic record was not exceptional ^[1].

2. Specific classmate comments and degrees of certainty

Some classmates offered blunt assessments—one classmate quoted in multiple outlets described doubt that Trump was “the smartest guy in the class,” while others characterized him as a loner or someone who made memorable boasts in class but did not leave a strong academic imprint ^{[4] [3]}. Media efforts to locate vivid academic recollections frequently came up empty, producing more impressions about personality and presence than concrete claims about grades, but the classmates who did speak to reporters commonly disputed the notion that he was the top graduate ^[3].

3. Conflicting characterizations and fringe claims

A handful of later articles and aggregation sites repeat stronger claims—some sources and online posts describe Trump as a “C+ student” or a middling “B student”—but those characterizations derive from classmates’ impressions and secondary reporting rather than released transcripts, and such labels vary across accounts ^{[5] [4]}. At the same time, Trump’s own past statements have been ambiguous: in a 1988 interview he suggested he “may not have finished first but … earned ‘the highest grades possible,’” which leaves room for interpretation and invites scrutiny from classmates and reporters ^[2].

4. Institutional secrecy and the evidentiary limit

The University of Pennsylvania maintains that it will not release alumni academic records beyond degree, major and graduation date, a policy cited by Penn spokespersons and by reporters as the reason definitive GPAs or rank cannot be publicly confirmed, which constrains both journalistic and classmate-based conclusions ^[1]. Because official transcripts or dean’s-list confirmations for individual alumni are withheld, classmate testimony and archival program lists are the principal public sources reporters have used to infer that Trump was not a top-ranked student ^[1].

5. Motives, memory, and the politics of reputation

Classmates’ recollections are filtered through decades of memory and the political salience of Trump’s later career, which can amplify both negative and positive remembrances; journalists note the difficulty of separating genuine memory from retrospective framing, and some outlets found that attempts to reach hundreds of classmates often yielded scarce or inconclusive testimony ^[3]. Reporters explicitly present alternative viewpoints—some classmates recall memorable pronouncements or personal traits rather than academic performance—so the emerging consensus in the reporting is less about a precise GPA and more about the absence of evidence that he “graduated first in his class” ^{[1] [3]}.

6. Bottom line: classmates have commented, and their verdict leans against the “top student” claim, but no transcript has been released

In sum, many former Wharton classmates who have spoken to news outlets say Trump did not distinguish himself academically and dispute claims that he graduated at the very top—a conclusion supported by archival class award lists cited in reporting—yet because Penn will not release individual academic records, the classmate testimony and archival omissions are the strongest publicly available evidence rather than an official GPA or rank ^{[1] [3] [2]}.