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LeadershipDonald Trump

No one knows what Donald Trump did at Wharton

By
Valentina Zarya
Valentina Zarya
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By
Valentina Zarya
Valentina Zarya
Down Arrow Button Icon
August 14, 2015, 4:59 PM ET
Billionaire Donald Trump has seen a long line of companies cutting ties with him after his disparaging comments on Mexican immigrants.
Billionaire Donald Trump has seen a long line of companies cutting ties with him after his disparaging comments on Mexican immigrants.Photograph by Scott Olson—Getty Images

Trump seems to bring up his time at Wharton at every other press event. But what did he actually accomplish in his two years at the school?

Last month, comedy website Funny or Die released a viral video, called “Donald Trump: POW.” The “W” in this case stood for Wharton — the prestigious business school at the University of Pennsylvania. The video mockingly applauds Trump’s ability to remain under the radar during his time in Philadelphia: “Trump was careful not to capture any unwanted attention at school, he evaded the Dean’s List and any kind of honors and any kind of recognition of service,” the video quips.

It seems like Trump managed to not only stay unnoticed by the administration but by his classmates as well. The Daily News reports that none of the students that attended Wharton between 1966 and 1968 have any recollection of Trump; he was only a student there for two years, after transferring from Fordham University in New York City.

“He was not first in the class. He was not known on campus for any reason at all,” his Wharton classmate Nancy Hano told Daily News. Another classmate, Stanton Koppel, told the publication, “I have no memory of him whatsoever.”

Salon also looked into the matter back in May, and found nothing that would support Trump’s claims that he was an honor student:

Writing in the New York Times magazine in 1984, William Geist reported that “the commencement program from 1968 does not list him as graduating with honors of any kind,” even though “just about every profile ever written about Mr. Trump states that he graduated first in his class at Wharton in 1968.”

Trump has never publicly shown his school records; or, as Funny or Die puts it, he’s been “covering his tracks for years by refusing to disclose his school transcript.”

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By Valentina Zarya
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