Is Trump Really a Student of the Art of War

Donald Trump has been aggressively questioning Barack Obama'southward academic record, suggesting that the president was a "terrible student" who did not deserve to go in to Columbia University and Harvard Law School. While Trump has no testify to back up these claims, there are strong indications that Trump has repeatedly inflated his own academic record -- and that he used family connections to gain admission to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.

"I heard [Obama] was a terrible student, terrible. How does a bad student go to Columbia so to Harvard?" Trump asked in an interview last month. "I'k thinking about it, I'm certainly looking into it. Allow him show his records."

Only an examination of Trump'due south own academic record yields a distinctly unflattering picture of the celebrity businessman. Amid other things, Trump has allowed the media to report for years that he graduated first in his class at Wharton, despite strong evidence that this is not truthful and indications that he was, in fact, an undistinguished student.

Trump did not get to Wharton's prestigious MBA program. Rather, he received an undergraduate degree offered by Wharton to University of Pennsylvania students. And Trump didn't attend Wharton for a full four years. Instead, he transferred there after spending his showtime ii undergraduate years at Fordham, the Jesuit university in the Bronx.

"I decided that as long as I had to be in college, I might as well examination myself against the best," he explains in his 1989 autobiography, "The Fine art of the Deal."

So how did Trump get into Wharton?

Gwenda Blair's volume on the Trump family reports that he gained admission equally a transfer educatee only because of "an interview with a friendly Wharton admissions officer who was one of Freddy's old high schoolhouse classmates." (Freddy is Donald's older brother.) Trump was as well the son of i of the wealthiest New York businessmen of the era, the developer Fred Trump. That certainly couldn't take hurt his admission chances.

Blair also reports in her Trump biography that his grades at Fordham were just "respectable."

Trump has consistently portrayed himself as an exceptional educatee at Wharton. In March, for example, he explained his doubts about the president's birthplace by maxim, "Let me tell you, I'm a really smart guy. I was a really skillful student at the best school in the country."

In 2004, Trump told CNN, "I went to the Wharton School of Finance, I got very proficient marks, I was a skilful student, it's the best business schoolhouse in the globe, equally far every bit I'm concerned."

Over the years, myriad profiles of Trump take claimed that he was "first in his course" at Wharton in 1968.

Hither'south what the New York Times reported in a January 1973 piece:

The Times repeated the "fact" once more in a 1976 contour, "Donald Trump, Existent Manor Promoter, Builds Paradigm As He Buys Buildings":

The clear narrative being presented is of Trump every bit an intellectual heavyweight -- starting a business at age 12, first in his class at Wharton, "the smartest person I know." Who told the Times reporters that Trump graduated first in his class? It's not articulate, though Trump himself is an obvious possibility. We too know that Trump, a voracious consumer of media coverage of himself, would almost certainly have seen these references to his graduating "first in his class."

The "fact" that Trump graduated showtime in his form made its way into diverse books, magazines,  and websites.

And so what'south the truth about Trump'south tape at Wharton?

Writing in the New York Times mag in 1984, William Geist reported that "the commencement program from 1968 does not listing him as graduating with honors of whatever kind," even though "simply almost every profile ever written nearly Mr. Trump states that he graduated showtime in his form at Wharton in 1968."

The writer Jerome Tuccille reported in his 1985 biography of Trump that while "it has been reported that he graduated first in the class ... Donald denied that he ever made such a merits. Actually he was not among the accolade students that year." Emphasis added.

Tuccille continues:

"Donald agreed to attend Wharton for his father's sake. He showed upward for classes and did what was required of him but he was conspicuously bored and spent a lot of time on outside business concern activities."

In 1988, New York magazine reported that the thought that Trump had graduated showtime in his class was a "myth." The writer snarked that, in fact, Trump had gotten just the "highest grades possible."

I wanted to get Trump's response to all this, but his spokesman has non replied to a request for comment. A Wharton spokeswoman tells me that the school does not release information about alumni beyond year of graduation and degree granted.

I will update this post if Trump gets dorsum to me. The easy solution to clear this all upward, of course, would be for Trump to release his academic records -- something he has repeatedly demanded that Obama practice with his own academic records.

Trump's academic performance at Wharton, good or bad, didn't bear on his career much. When he graduated, he promptly went to work for his father's existent estate firm, where he was made president a few years after.

bergspectlemeded1971.blogspot.com

Source: https://www.salon.com/2011/05/03/donald_trump_wharton/

Share this post