This may explain how Trump got into Penn's Wharton School

President Trump and a photo of his father

(Image credit: Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images)

published 9 July 2019

"The myth of Donald Trump, as written by Donald Trump, took yet another blow Monday," says The Washington Post's Aaron Blake. President Trump has frequently highlighted his attendance at the prestigious University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance as evidence of his first-rate intellect, but on Monday, the Post reported that he got into Wharton with a little help from his friends — or, rather, his older brother's friend.

In 1966, Fred Trump Jr. called his close friend James Nolan, then working in Penn's admission office, the Post reports:

"He called me and said, 'You remember my brother Donald?' Which I didn't," Nolan, 81, said in an interview with The Washington Post. "He said: 'He's at Fordham and he would like to transfer to Wharton. Will you interview him?' I was happy to do that." Soon, Donald Trump arrived at Penn for the interview, accompanied by his father, Fred Trump Sr., who sought to "ingratiate" himself, Nolan said. [The Washington Post]

Nolan said he was the only admissions official to talk to Trump and he gave him a rating, but the final decision rested with his boss, and "it was not very difficult" to get into Wharton in 1966, easily higher than 50 percent if you were transferring from another school. "I certainly was not struck by any sense that I'm sitting before a genius," he told the Post. "Certainly not a super genius." Former Wharton classmates say Trump was a middling student.

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None of this is to suggest Trump isn't smart. But added to his evident help staying out of Vietnam and much-greater-than-acknowledged financial boost from his father, it's more proof Trump "routinely relied on family or other connections at key junctures and has inflated the early successes that resulted," Blake says. This is "hardly the story of a self-made, brilliant budding real estate tycoon. It's a story that apparently could have gone much differently if its protagonist were not born a Trump."

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Peter has worked as a news and culture writer and editor at The Week since the site's launch in 2008. He covers politics, world affairs, religion and cultural currents. His journalism career began as a copy editor at a financial newswire and has included editorial positions at The New York Times Magazine, Facts on File, and Oregon State University.

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