July 22, 2015
Liberal Quaker graduates, and most likely, many conservative ones, might not like to be reminded that reality television star and business mogul turned Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Business.
Trump, in fact, did earn his bachelor's degree from UPenn in 1968 after transferring from Fordham. Yet according to several of his classmates who spoke to the New York Daily News, he wasn't very memorable.
The Daily News points out that when Trump was profiled in the 1970s and 80s, he was classified as someone who finished at the top of his class. In his 1987 book Trump: The Art of the Deal, Trump spoke dismissively about his classmates. Per the transcript of the 2005 biography Donald Trump: Master Apprentice:
"It didn't take me long to realize there was nothing particularly awesome or exceptional about my classmates. I could compete with them just fine."
One fellow business major in the 2005 book said that professors treated Trump like he was another professional among students.
Well, according to those who talked to the Daily News, that wasn't the case. Several of his classmates not only did not have any recollection of his time there but had some nasty criticism of his recent political activities. Here are some of the quotes, from the Daily News:
• “I have no memory of him whatsoever,” Stanton Koppel, a Wharton classmate.
• “He was not first in the class. He was not known on campus for any reason at all,” Wharton classmate Nancy Hano said.
• “No one remembers him,” former classmate, Dennis Wilen said Tuesday.
• “I think he’s a racist blowhard,” Wilen said.
Some of his classmates refute claims that Trump finished at the top of his class, however, the article does not cite an instance in which Trump explicitly makes that claim. Read more from the New York Daily News here.
