As with everything Trump --Grading Curve Tweaked ------------- 0 - 79% is a C. So he gets C.
3
Incomplete!
7
Grade F-
Trump Lost a Billion Dollars in Business, Which Seems Bad for a Businessman President. . Losing $1 billion over 10 years, he was hemorrhaging more than $11,000 an hour.
Here's a breakdown of average 401(k) balances by age:
Ages 20-29: $11,800
Ages 30-39: $42,400
Ages 40-49: $102,700
Ages 50-59: $174,100
Ages 60-69: $195,500
Ages 70+: $182,100
9
"Z' minus.
10
For crying out loud ... Trump can't even color our American flag correctly using crayons while sitting with a bunch of kids who are coloring the flag correctly, that's how dumb he is.
16
Donald Trump is an abject failure. All that he touches dies.
13
domestic policy - B
Foreign policy - F
2
Straight A's for:
- setting up a fraudulent university
- bankruptcy
- detachment from reality
- vile rumors about a sitting president
- being the ONLY presidental candidate in the history of the United States to get and willingly accept assistance from Russia.
Oh, and special honors for cheating on his wife with a porn actress just a few months after she birthed their son!
Ever hear of anyone who did that last one!
Just Dirty Donald.
13
Given the dyspepsia he causes in circles like those of this columnist, we "turn it up to eleven", just for that extra oomph.
2
He would have no grade at our school......Just Expulsion!
10
Donald "A" Trump !!
This is missing the big picture. Of course DJT's grades were likely skimming the ring of a flushed toilet. But that's not the important point.
Grades measure a subject's narrow scope in a specific class. If you do well, it shows "groked" the material. If you do really well, it might show talent. I taught for many years at universities; I have some basis for this assessment.
But, to succeed in a career, esp. one that requires an ability to see beyond the single subject, individual grades become meaningless. To be IN this world, to be WITH this world, the big picture requires taking that A, or that F or E, into the world with you.
If you cannot take the knowledge learned in a class in, say, history and join that knowledge with what you learn in psych & marketing, literature, art, gymnastics; take the successes & failures to the big picture, you wind up comparing everything to a false measure of life, without empathy and scope.
Yes, Steve Jobs and other "geniuses" dropped out. Countless women never even got to play the game; even more countless people of color, right-brained-artists, brilliant "non-college" citizens of the world NEVER WERE ALLOWED IN, or chose other paths.
To measure a person by the narrowness of a GPA, good or bad, continues a flawed system. DJT and his ilk fail to see beyond the silos created in such a system, and thus fail society. We all pay the price for narrow-minded, single-subject judgement, and our kids will suffer enormously.
3
A
What's lower than an "F"?
6
Trump gets an F as a student and an F minus as a human being.
Impeachment now!
9
If there is a person who graduated from Wharton the same year that Trump did that actually carries the distinction of being #1 in the class, it would be great if you identified yourself.
It is so tiresome to have Donald Trump suck all the oxygen from the room with sophomoric comments about his accomplishments that are never rooted in reality. Just once it would be nice to clear the air on something.
I know I am being petty, but it would make me feel better to have one small victory in this battle for truth form this president.
9
As a former professor, the best I could do is "Inc." for"Incomplete." Just doesn't show up, doesn't do the work. By the end of the semester (term), if he doesn't withdraw, replace it with an "F."
6
F minus
8
F
6
I would not give him a grade. I would expel him from the institution for not following any of the rules or traditions.
6
The guy can read and actually pass a test?
5
Drama, A, Logic, F, Ethics, minus infinity, Tax Law, absent, Investment Success, zero.
7
Trump went to college? You’d never know it given his way with words and most of his policies for white supremacy.
6
A functional illiterate, the vocabulary of a 12-year old bully. Failed!
7
Give him a grade? He’s beyond that. Expel him. Send him to reform school. Lock him up!
4
Oh for goodness sake, who cares about his college transcript?! LOL The Dems are really going to lose the 2020 election with their 20 stooges focus.
1
Economy - C- It is ginned up with unfunded corporate tax cuts, ballooning the debt at a time it should be paid down fast with the extra tax revenue to prepare for the next down. Removing all new policy safeguards which could prevent another 2008. Anyone can make an economy look good and lower unemployment temporarily using a credit card. Grossly unsound policy and we will pay for it down the road.
Civil Rights - F Affirmatively removing queer citizen's civil rights in multiple ways to appease religious groups. Delimiting abortion civil rights. Allowing voter restrictions and gerrymandering. Called neo-Nazi's "fine fellows".
Foreign policy D The US is not at war, but the N Korean approach was a preordained failure. He destroyed a workable no nukes deal with Iran to find any reason not to work with them. Tariffs with China instead of creating a win-win. Keeping Cuba embargo alive 60 years past when it proved a failure. No impact on Venezuela. Angered/insulted most allies; cratered NATO. Sent a signal dictators are great.
Inspirational Leader A/F If you're Republican, he's Jesus in a red tie. If not, he's Satan. Meaning he is not the president of all of us but a rank partisan, unfit to be in charge. He packed the Court, destroying its legitimacy for 40 years. He has degraded the office in uncountable ways.
3
make him, ivanka, and jared take a civics test.
4
The only grade that matters is his grade as president. F, because it's the lowest one can give.
Way below that, my friends, way way way.
http://www.thecriticalmom.blogspot.com
4
Grade? Jeez, he doesn’t even deserve a participation ribbon.
4
Trump would fail every subject in the Freshman curriculum of any college in the country: English, World History, Math, Science, Sociology, Foreign Language, Art History - every last one of 'em, an F.
When I was in school, we had to take a "gym" course - he'd fail that, too, because of his insane belief that a person is born with a finite amount of energy, like a battery, and when it's gone - you die. Science is clearly not his thing - actually, the only subject he seems to excel at is Bullying 101. In that, he'd score an A+. Thanks, Trump voters, for foisting this fool on our once great country.
5
WF
Incomplete! He never finishes anything and when he’s bored, he destroys everything. The classic born with a silver spoon in your mouth, and the poor, poor me mentality.
5
It's ironic that a person without honor of any sort graduated from college without honors.
1
Honours in his major: Mendacity.
4
I think giving him a B is being generous. He may have managed to eke out a C. And even that would have been paid for by his father.
2
Trump's college transcripts show him to be a poor student with below average grades.
I know this for a fact, because Trump hides them.
If his grades were As, Trump would show us them and brag non-stop. But they are not, So Trump hides them to keep his deception going.
It's the same thing with Trump's tax returns.
If they would prove Trump is indeed as rich as he claims and as good as business as he claims, we would see Trump's tax returns everywhere. Trump would have them as 50 foot posters on stage at his rallies.
But the tax returns, when finally made public, will show Trump is a fraud, a tax cheat and nowhere near a billionaire.
Remember, the louder Trump crows about something, the more likely the complete opposite is the truth.
Vote Democratic in 2020.
Help rid our country of this disgrace and those members of the GOP who blindly support him.
Trump's failure in 2020 will be America's biggest success.
6
There’s no way Trump is better than a C at any level. His work ethic is poor. He doesn’t read. His writing is rudimentary. His speech is repetitive and often digresses off course. He lacks the self discipline and quantitative abilities for anything scientific. He also wants to protect his financial records from public, because they would reveal his failures in a business that he originally inherited. His strength is his ability to con people into believing him.
3
Well, Ms. Boylan, I think we finally elected the president we have deserved. We have Babbitt-in-chief in the White House, Babbitt before his epiphany, that is. This is the best country. I was the best student. I have the best children. For goodness sake, I have the best alarm clock in the Western world, not that I need it because I really do not need much sleep. And my name has been plastered in cheesy gold all over the country, particularly in my home town, where those losers hate me.
Count me among those losers.
After all, I grew up with parents who actually taught me values, the values that even the lowliest of presidents have respected. I did not grow up in a wealthy family but there was food on the table, a roof over our heads, and an overwhelming emphasis on respecting others. To think that I grew up within ten miles of this dissolute fellow is to experience shock, over and over.
1
I give him a ‘strongly’
No...not a good strongly.....a wrongly strongly.
2
Hum me thinks his dad may have paid to get him in or anted up to get the diploma. It Is quite obvious that he gives little weight to anything other than his gut. And to those who are posting that he’s doing an A job please enlighten us on exactly what warrants such a high grade or are you grading on a curve?
1
Trump won't release his transcripts because he is ashamed. If he was as smart as he claims to be, those grades would be A's and he wouldn't be able to stop waving them in our faces. Similarly, if he released his tax returns, it would expose him for the fraud he is, so he can't have that either.
3
Obama gave Americans an opportunity to aspire to be better, but many many Americans showed that they prefer the dumber kind of life, which is great for a government that makes a mockery of government. Look and listen carefully to all aspects of this administration and ask yourselves what incentive schemes are being deployed to the "loyalist" ranks, hidden from view but naturally at the expense of the taxpayer. By the way, to think that one of the most advanced democracies in the world lacks a legal framework to recognize and implement adequate remediation for government corruption beggars belief.
1
Trump gets a solid A.
The Dems and media have failed in their illegal coup attempts, and he’s emerged stronger. The only reason why he doesn’t get an A+ is because, surprisingly, he’s weaker on illegal immigration and building the border wall than I’d thought he’d be.
1
Both Obama and Trump may have been dismal students in college. But regarding the latter this is merely presumptive. However Trump came into office having certainly achieved a great deal in his life. Obama came with nothing but a couple of lackluster year in the Senate preceded by a virutal lifetime of apprenticeship at the ideological feet of Reverend Jeremiah Wright and to a lesser degree of Louis Farrakhan. His legacy has been a pile of unmitigated domestic and foreign policy disasters, crowned by a megabillion dollar cash gift and abject capitulation to the Mullahs of Iran.
Letter grade?
I can think of a four-letter grade.
2
I don’t need a transcript to see what grades this man got in school. All you have to do if you are interested enough is read his comments each day or you could listen to his speeches. Not the ones written for him but the ones where he goes off script. I don’t know how he ever passed a grade. No eloquence, not a good speller, etc. The name calling is beyond presidential. Now other GOP members are copying him. Ridiculous. Shows the ineptitude, lack of professionalism and knowledge required to lead.
I find it highly ironic that almost all Republicans would give Trump an A+ while knowing full well that he is a cheat, liar, con man and narcissist. These Republicans give him the same grade he gives himself. Now to the matter at hand. An F only reflects a failure to learn something. For most, it is an embarrassment. But he cannot be given an F even though he has learned little to nothing about anything. He must be given the grade he deserves but no letter in our alphabet would be adequate. We have no evidence that Trump earned anything while at school except perhaps a bad reputation. Nevertheless, Trump would tell you that he knew more than any of his professors or classmates and that he did not have to read their texts because they are all wrong. To this day he denies science yet pushes for a Space Force.
All I can say is that giving Trump a grade would be a waste of our time. We know all we need to by his words and actions.
1
This whole story - the column itself and the opinions it has elicited - is hilarious for a simple reason. Trump's detractors are so bent on disparaging him any way they can, that they are postulating the impossibility of him having been a successful student at business school--- when in fact, there is every sign Trump may well be its ultimate star pupil. I mean this seriously.
What is the ultimate teaching of a business school, if not the art of selling anything and everything to anybody and everybody, regardless of the product, even if it's complete junk?
Did he not persuade 150 million customers, selling himself (regardless of the quality of the product) into the White House? 10,000 P.T. Barnums, who said "a sucker is born every minute," could not have sold such merchandise even remotely this successfully.
Trump could trick many tens of thousands to give him their hard earned money at his casinos, often going into the poorhouse in the process, to feed Trump's coffers. The transactions left Atlantic City a blighted wreck. Then, despite the misery he inflicted there, he convinced half of America he could repeat that success on the larger America as president, making a national Atlantic City of this country.
Say what you want about Trump, but he can market anything, even trash, to half the country. What do you think they try to teach at Wharton, anyway? He was their star pupil.
1
A + No one else had the courage to confront China, illegal immigration, and small business job creation like this guy.
A+
Think of how much better off the country would be if the fraud on the left had accepted defeat graciously and the rest of the frauds on the left and right actually helped the country rather than feathering their own nest.
Keep going Donny !
1
One thing is for sure: He failed public speaking.
2
This president gets a D minus. And that’s because I’m feeling very generous today.
1
Suspended because of cheating.
2
Trump's college transcripts show him to be a poor student with below average grades.
I know this for a fact, because Trump hides them.
If his grades were As, Trump would show us them and brag non-stop. But they are not, So Trump hides them to keep his deception going.
It's the same thing with Trump's tax returns.
If they would prove Trump is indeed as rich as he claims and as good as business as he claims, we would see Trump's tax returns everywhere. Trump would have them as 50 foot posters on stage at his rallies.
But the tax returns, when finally made public, will show Trump is a fraud, a tax cheat and nowhere near a billionaire.
Remember, the louder Trump crows about something, the more likely the complete opposite is the truth.
Vote Democratic in 2020.
Help rid our country of this disgrace and those members of the GOP who blindly support him.
Trump's failure in 2020 will be America's biggest success.
2
What grade would I give Donald Trump? I would say he is somewhere between kindergarten and first grade on a developmental level and that I feel is being disrespectful to 6 year olds everywhere
1
I don't know of a letter lower than Z and am therefore unable to offer a grade for Trump.
2
The ant intellectual streak in American politics leaves elected office open to mountebanks and crooks.To bad for us.
1
I would give the president an A-/B+ depending on what category
He aced in these subjects: "Bombastic and Incoherence" and "History of the U.S. and the World." He, his team and his appointees are a disgrace to higher education.
I am feeling generous this morning so will give the President a gentleman's C. But we all know what that really means.
Whatever his grades I would bet on one thing. He paid someone else to do his work. Just like he paid someone else to write his books. Who knows who is paying now and how much. Obviously, Stephen Miller is happily in an office in the White House writing immigration policy that Trump will proclaim is his own. A person who needs a "fixer" to take care of his "business" is not a person who is interested in doing his own work.
Add to this is ignorance of the Constitution, his taking an oath of office that he's long ago thrown in the trash can, and all the other egregious things he continues to do to try in justify himself. I hope the Republicans get a spine so we can survive this faux president.
You can’t really give Trump an A for effort, because he plays too much golf and doesn’t read, but he should at least get a B. As Thomas Watson said “To increase your success rate, double your rate of failure.” Trump seems to double his failure rate every day, so we can assume he’s trying - and don’t underestimate how much his pro-active (fools rush in) efforts appeal to people. Trump is like a laxative for government. You’ll appreciate it if you ignore the results.
1
A high wattage along the Dunning-Kruger spectrum. This is a bias of mistakenly assessing his cognitive ability as greater than it is.
It is related to the cognitive bias of illusory superiority and comes from his inability to recognize a lack of ability. Without the self-awareness of metacognition, he cannot objectively evaluate his competence or incompetence. (But everyone else does)
Time for the James Schlesinger/ Kissinger nuclear trigger failsafe. Harkens back to when that POTUS was in “his cups” where whiskey soaked evenings and erratic behavior put senior cabinet on Zulu alert.
Houston, we have a problem!
1
He gets an A+ in malignant narcissism and his ability to divide, conquer, manipulate, bullying and lying . He gets an F in empathy and basic understanding of reading writing and math. That combination seems to have proved successful and awe inspiring to about 40% of the population.
I might guess his grades weren’t very high but in Trump world facts don’t matter even if you are staring at them on a paper printed in black and white. He will lie to cover them up, threaten to cover them up, gaslight his way to distort the truth, or get his minions to do his dirty work for him.
Alternative facts, distorted reality, fake news, not really! Just a lying scheming president, with potentially lousy grades.
1
Zip. Zero. Nada. Zilch. Goose egg.
1
Revolting. Trump can dish out insults but certainly cannot take any. He has built a life on agressive lies, stepping on others and sheer luck of being born into a family with wealth - based upon dishonesty and greed. All while criticizing everyone else’s talent and hard work he never had to do. Such a completely revolting person who uses everyone and throws them away. I will never understand his army of sycophants given his dishonesty, illegality and one way loyalty.
Not that it makes much difference now, but if some of his tax "statements" can be found, how difficult could it be to find someone to dig up his grades? Or are they in a safe that's in a vault that's in a volcano?
Who cares about the college Transcripts or Taxes returns. I am terrified that Trump may be pressured to attempt a regime change. So far Trump deserves an A grade for not starting a single new regime change war. I hope he ignores the war mongers advising him to go to war with Iran. I hope the presidents of Iran and the USA meet and argue across the table and resolve differences with the urgency of now.
8
If he fires John Bolton, I would give him an A. But why is he hiding so many records--taxes, college grades, etc.? The more he hides, the more curious and suspicious we get.
50
@Girish Kotwal: trade wars
have often preceded wars for "regime change".
of the former, djt has started quite a number already.
and he appointed his war mongers.
so why turn a deaf ear to them now?
how long do you think would djt be willing AND able to
sit at a table and argue across it to solve anything?
4
Does anyone believe the current admissions scandal is something new? Why not check Donald Trump's father's involvement in his admission to Wharton, which has been alluded to on a member of occasions? And the idea that a lawyer threatened Wharton with legal action if they released his transcript is scary.
To those of you who received honors, awards and distinctions, I say, well done. And to the C students I say, you too, can be president of the United States.
GW Bush to a Yale commencement
And now we have Donald Trump. And we do not know his mark.
One must remember that Trump's "Wharton" was not the high level school of today. In fact his father stumped up for the creation of a real estate department as the exchange for his admission. Yet he could not graduate with honors from a department his dad had paid for. I agree that dyslexia is a real possibility in the case of Trump. Others-- actors, musicians, and business leaders -- have been challenged by it and overcome it. But they were not congenital liars.
3
Trump's major was 'look at me' . I need the attention, approval and adoration. Anything that takes away from that generates a 'word salad' of misdirection, phoniness and cover up .
Twitter is a perfect vehicle for this, since no one is there for immediate rebuttal or fact checking.
His Twitter feed is Trump unfiltered. Let the salad begin, no colander is needed.
1
After handing them out for decades, I know that grades, college or otherwise, have little meaning as to the real abilities of an individual. Just pieces of paper, nothing more.
2
What a judgment -- of yourself. Contrast: I graduated with honors from a UC campus, earning 2 degrees in four years. My college success did not affect my career, maybe that's what you mean by your dismissal of good grades. But my academic success has been an important point of pride, and a foundation of who I am as a person.
2
I don't believe in grades. They are never 100 per cent objective.
And yes, students today are smarter. All that said, Trump is hiding his grades for some reason.
I spoke to President Trump's P.R. man, John Barron, and he told me that Donald graciously and humbly declined to accept top honors at Wharton for the sake of his fellow students. His grades were so superior that the other students would have been terribly discouraged by their inability to compete. It's just another instance of Donald Trump's empathy and magnanimity, as well as his amazing intellect!
7
A Hope everyone who reads this is aware of how great a publicist John Barron is. So elusive heard that he remains yyyyhÿq to the
, because he will only work for the smartest, greatest man in the city. Every other client is a letdown compared to DJT. He’s so secretive he’s rarely recognized.
I don’t think he’d continue his business if Tman were to retire. Of course, no one else could benefit his expertise. John is a one man band.
1
hahaha
I remember when George W. Bush went back to Yale after he became President and bragged to the graduating class that "see, even a 'C' student can become POTUS". We know how disastrous his Presidency was, and Trump is even less curious, less industrious, and less perceptive than Bush was. We literally have a failure - in every sense - running the country.
27
I give The President an A+
69
@Brewster Millions
Based on what standard?
140
@Brewster Millions
There's now a course in that? Whoa.
49
@Brewster Millions
Based on what, please?
52
DJT is all about money, hypocrisy and the ugly privileged side of America. Unfortunately mentally challenged Americans aren’t capable of seeing that. We need to help educate them.
28
Grade?--He cannot pass the preliminary self-assessment stage that validates preparedness-- therefore, precluding an actual score for an actual President.......
7
He sets an example by acing “CON MAN 101-201”. But, he likely barely passed both courses (D’s) in “US HIST 101-201”, and in the required “POLI SCI 101-102” series (with help of a tutor or cheat sheets).
As for his Business Courses there was likely the same, his barely scraping by with barely passing grades. We know he was “GREAT” in Marketing, and “BEAUTIFUL” in Sales. Whether he actually did well in his “NEGOTIATIONS 101-201” classes remains to be seen...
But we know that his basic math and science classes, and the statistics classes must have challenged him, that’s evident.
We know that if they gave awards for lying, he would take first place in his class.
No question he is the worst president in history, bar none. He gets an “A” for ADVANCED DESTRUCTION” of a country, and everything it (used to) represents.
11
Only in the nytimes can you get a column judging someone on their college grades. If good grades equals success then why is he worth what he is worth. I know money isn't everything but he did work for some of it didn't he.
This is about snobbery. I used to get a kick out of people who asked me how much I got paid. The look on they're faces when I told them was priceless. How could someone like that? They asked. It was easy I lied on my resume. Plus I was good at what I did.
Academic achievement is no laughing matter but I have to some times. A doctorate is something to be proud of. I just never understood someone not in the medical field wanting, outside of academia, to be addressed as doctor. Someone drops over with a heart attack in a movie theater and someone shouts is there a doctor in the house does the doctorate holder jump up saying yes he's a Doctor of comparative literature.
1
@JoeG Well, that doctor would probably be far superior to Donald Trump's doctor (who should have lost his medical license for the "healthiest president ever" letter.)
I think the President of the United States should be legally required to release grades, tax returns and have a monthly medical exam which is publicly available. That being said, it should be required of all elected officials from senator to school board members.
In addition to elected members the Supreme Court, who’s many members are aging should have monthly exams which proves their mental capacity to do their jobs. Anything less is a danger to our democracy. Their wealth and privilege seems a fair exchange for a little loss of privacy.
6
Slightly OT, but what year was the New Haven show? We may have shared that hitch. Dead always did well in New Haven during those expansive f I am surmising your time frame for such matters of the soul correctly. I was but a young sprout but back in those days of the glorious late 70's, hitchiking was no big deal, even if you were clearly under 18, nor was taking a few years to run with the circus.
I think this damages the reputation of Wharton, that he graduated at all. Shouldn’t he have been expelled for intellectual dishonesty?
11
Regardless of Donald Trump’s college grades, he sure looks like a genius the way he’s manipulated the media his entire adult life, bounced back from multiple bankruptcies, lost more than a billion dollars in the 90s and got himself elected president of the US.
3
@Dave Smith Yes, the only things he needs to add are "failed artist" and "man who lost WWII" to his list of accomplishments.
1
I would give President Forrest Trump an A++++
due to his insight. For instance he said, "Solar is very, very expensive. Wind is very, very expensive, and it only works when it’s windy.” I agree. It is not cheap pumping light and air from the ground.
6
This president does not even deserve a grade. He has not attended even one full day of the schooling offered to him free of charge by some of the best and most experienced teachers on the planet. He pretends to have nothing but disdain for his teachers but all the while he knows that he has no hope of understanding anything at this grade level.
10
The premise of the article is that grades determine a person's success in any of life's endeavors. That might be true only in the rarified towers of academia or journalism. In reality, success in any other profession or occupation depends on many factors such as maturity, drive, empathy for others, ability to communicate effectively, sense (or absence) of morality, and help from family and friends. Trump might be a horrible human being, but he managed to defeat all republican presidential candidates, many of whom attended "prestigious" schools or had experience in the mythical swamp of politics. He took the presidency from a person with substantial more education, connections, and experience in politics in part because voters (reprehensibles) identified with his down-to-earth manner of speech. He has tangled, insulted and silenced seasoned politicians at home and abroad. He has won the support of the monied class as well as the many "Joe six pack" in this wide country of us, and appears to be working to fix many flaws in the US economy. So let's see: he might have gotten Cs, Ds, and Fs as a student. Who cares? The guy is clearly doing an A plus job as president. Advice to the 20 or so Democrat wanting to displace Trump: find issues important to the majority of Americans or get ready for four more Trump years.
1
“The Foul Ball’s” grades? Guaranteed, he cheated. Probably lied on his application to get into college. Even the claim that he graduated is hilarious.
6
aside from all the president horror - are you saying students no longer get C's and D's? Or is it that Ivies are very inflated? Why would a B be a gentleman's failure? At many colleges B's are hard to get and mean work.
1
It doesn't matter what Trump's grades were. It does tell you everything you need to know that he's probably the only president who hasn't been welcomed back to his alma mater. Most schools brag about a president being a graduate of their institutions. University of Pennsylvania doesn't even want to acknowledge that Trump went there.
By the way, as far as I'm aware, Obama never released his grades from Columbia and as he didn't make Phi Beta Kappa (and he and W. were the only two presidents whose fathers made PBK and they didn't) he couldn't have done all that well and certainly not well enough to earn a place of Harvard Law School based on his academic record alone.
B- due to federal spending. Otherwise, a pretty good showing so far.
2
@Once From Rome
Congrease enacts all spending legislation.
I'm not so sure that Trump's grades would be all that bad. Even back then, wasn't it common for parents to "purchase" good grades in addition to "buying" one's way into a school? If Fred Trump saw it fit to dump million on Donald to bail him out, why wouldn't he also have paid large sums to establish a stellar educational record for his son?
2
"What Grade Would You Give Donald Trump?" Well, we know that however we grade him, unless it is an A+ (like he grades himself), it won't matter. So, the question is irrelevant and his attorneys would argue we have no right to ask the question anyway.
However, we can look at his Personal Development and Social Skills, He doesn't play well with others. Is tardy virtually every day. Constantly lies. Doesn't own up to his own mistakes. Blames others. Doesn't turn in homework (no infrastructure plan, no health care legislation, no Middle East Peace plan...perhaps a Middle East War Plan instead?). He is frequently and easily distracted. And, he always wants to be the center of attention.
Regrettably, most of the instructors would objectively state he should be held back another term. However, none have the patience for that.
14
Thank you. Well said.
5
Yes, very well said.
I don't think this opinion piece was written well. I give it an E, for reals.
3
Democrats and those that care about our democracy need to take note of Trump's lawyers claiming that congress has no oversight role over the president . Since the justice dept cannot indict the sitting president or according to AG Barr he cannot be investigated if he does not like it he can end and fire the investigators. According to this theory Trump can shoot someone on 5th ave and no one can investigate it let alone indicts him and congress needs to mind it;s own biz Trump is king or dictator as he has dreamed of thanks to AG Barr aka Roy Cohn. We are governed by a crime boss and his family and he has all the power to do what ever he wants and we can just shut up and like it. Take to the streets before he burns down the Reichstag.
13
His grade is F. Failure on so many levels, the most important of which is on a simply human, empathetic one. Never trust anyone who doesn’t like pets.
I truly wish I could support my President, but he is not interested in me as a citizen of the United States. And he thinks of me as an enemy because I’m not a MAGA person. What he needs is someone apolitical who could possibly explain to him what the non-Trumpists think and how we might find common ground to solve some of the problems we face as a nation. But I fear he doesn’t really care. What he wants is to have the validation of a crowd screaming in support of him. No matter how stupid or viscous the cause. As long as they cheer him, that’s all that matters.
9
Never trust anyone who doesn't like kids. The only one of his 5 kids with 3 moms that he seems to like is the one who is pretty (albeit in a vacuous way) and has very large mammary glands. Puzzle on that fatherhood for a moment, as we collectively ponder where we are, with this true jerk as president.
Something is going on but you don’t know what it is, do you Mr. Jones.
Forget a grade, I would expel him. Enough already!
11
When will this man every just be honest? His lying and attempts to cover up the truth are worse than the issue. It is also sickening how he attacks others for things everyone knows he is guilty of.
The worst one lately is calling Joe Biden “sleezy sleepy”. Joe Biden towers above Trump in too many ways to list.
4
Because the president has caused real harm to many people and his policies will cause long-lasting and possibly existential damage to human civilization, the president deserves a grade worse than a mere failing “F.” He has to score below zero in view of his almost universally misguided and harmful policies from guns to environment to tariffs to negotiatons with hostile nations (Iran) to judicial selections, immigration/asylum/family separation, violation of Constitution/emoluments clause, obstruction of justice, obstruction of Congress, demeaning true public servants like Andrew McCabe and James Comey, and needlessly shutting down the federal government for an extended period of time, he is an utter failure and worse in virtually every category.
13
Phe president refuses to release his college transcripts. yet the president demanded the release of President Obama's transcripts, not to mention his birth certificate. Just a hunch, but I wonder if President Trump was playing the bigotry card.
8
The House should subpoena the transcripts and tax returns of Sean Hannity.
Just for fun — I note that Fox is now running clips from MSNBC and CNN more than their reporting.
Very sad.
5
The grade I would assign him to is Kindergarten.
12
Expulsion for continual discipline problems and poor attitude, and an F in all subjects. Add a note that the professor in the Psychology Department who is writing a textbook appreciates the florid examples of malignant narcissism and Dunning-Kruger Syndrome.
11
Failing, definitely failing.
8
It must infuriate Trump that Obama surpasses the rich frat boy in all pursuits. I would even put money on Obama vs Trump in a golf match, given the fact that Trump cheats and lies as easy as we breathe. Anyone who's been out on a golf course knows how easy this can be.
8
His education at Penn Business School should be front and center of the college admissions scandal.
5
I'm not in the habit of grading tyrants. Mainly because tyrants don't care what others think. So what would the point be?
4
The Air Force sent me to MIT grad school in 1962-64. MIT does not award Latin honors (cum laude, etc.) nor does it award honorary degrees. I received masters degrees in Aeronautics/Astronautics and Meteorology. My masters thesis won the annual award for the best PhD thesis submitted to he department of Meteorology. Glancing at the names on the list near mine, the distinction is AFAIK is that I am the only winner with a masters thesis and the the only winner who became nothing. The winner the year before me became head of the WMO.
2
If that wasn’t bad enough, three of my military classmates in Aero/Astro walked on the moon after graduation. Aldrin, Mitchell , and Duke. I remained nothing. Well, I did work on spy satellites and made colonel 7 years early, but who cares?
2
Grade? That's assuming he even made it through one semester before dropping out.
3
The man can't actually successfully pronounce the word "origins," confusing it for for "oranges." Maybe it's the dentures, I dunno, but I've met fifth graders who sound (and probably are) a heckuva lot smarter. I give him straight D's, Dishonest, Deceptive, Dictatorial, and worst of all, Dangerous to our democracy.
12
I'd say he needs to repeat the 3rd.
5
Unfortunately and very seriously, I met quite a few engineers, (my profession) who might have bought their degrees on-line!
5
"Maybe after the Trump administration does away with marriage equality, abortion access, asylum for immigrants, civil rights, affordable health care, civil discourse and solar power, it can get to work bringing back C’s and Ds."
Perhaps they will...
Very well put; great read!
Thank you.
4
You can't use the word "honor" and Trump in the same sentence. Even a college dropout knows that! But, come to think of it, Trump's whole life has been "without honor."
16
In comparison with George W. Bush, Trump is a candidate for the Nobel Prize. How come Trump hasn't given himself the Presidential Medal of Freedom? He could do that, couldn't he?
6
@Steve
If he could read the comments in the failing NYT, he might see yours and pounce on that Medal of Freedom idea. Medals are shiny so its certainly right in his wheel house.
8
One thing you can be pretty sure of is you won’t find much commentary on thinking originally. Trump is the typical coward in ever dimension and that would probably include never venturing a creative variant on what the book says. Zero originality which would only appeal to professors who prefer to have students parrot ideas back to them. And of course if there were fairly safe ways to cheat, those would abound in the drivel the man would submit (although, more likely, he’d have been paying other more intelligent students to do his work for him, thereby occasionally scoring marks above his mental capacity).
1
I really don’t care what his grades were (though I can’t imagine they were good). What I DO care about is the fact that he claims to have graduated at the top of his class when he did not. A damnable lie, and disrespectful of the person who honorably earned that title. Shame on you, sir.
24
Our president is the same figure who once claimed the honor of best baseball player in New York City during the era of Mickey Mantle.
5
I love the personal success stories in light of prior failings.
Here's mine, shortened. I was dragged to the US Supreme Court and appeared against a long time acquaintance who dropped out of the mathematics PhD program at MIT to go to law school. I had excellent assistance in the brief writing and oral argument practice from 2 guys who were smarter and better lawyers than I. He was backed by the assistance of the Attorneys General of 38 states who joined in an amicus brief opposing me, my client and and the very idea i was operating under.
I won a reasonably rare unanimous decision from the Rehnquist Court.
This string is about transcripts. I've seen mine. It clearly shows I flunked out of law school not once but TWICE. After graduation, I was admitted to both the California and Idaho bars. Tee hee hee.
Dump has something to hide because when you're a lying, cheating, draft dodging, groping, .... (you know the rest); well, you gotta have something important to hide!
10
I think you’re bragging just like him.
2
As a former teacher, a zero is as low as I can go.
11
How about rotten and unworthy of the office he holds even though I know he was elected.
7
Correction. A gentleman's failure has always been a C. This the grade given to a student (traditionally with wealthy parents) instead of a failing grade. A grade of B would be gentlemen's honor. So Trump may be right according to his own code. Accuracy Jennifer.
7
Trump get an NC. (No credit)
Not a single expectation of the presidential syllabus has been achieved. Not one.
Does not deserve the credit the title bears. An asterisked name in the list of US leaders forevermore.
3
Yet another absolutely unenlightening, too-long cluster of words from a comfortably positioned college teacher. Trump's college experience, the she-Clinton's college experience --who cares. One is book-smart; the other, not so much. One is street-smart; the other, not so much. Nevertheless, they were likely the most pathetic candidates for POTUS in our history. I have come to appreciate Trump's positions and accomplishments, despite his regrettable communication practices. Yes, painful as it can be for an academic careerist to discover, C students sometimes run the world.
4
Trump went to Fordham University for a couple of years. His father, Fred, went to HS with a man who would eventually hold a prominent position at the University of Pennsylvania. It was this man who suggested that Donald enroll in Penn.
It paid even then to have connections to get into a good school. Since then all of Trump's adult children except Eric have graduated from there.
Unlike Eric who spent his entire four years at Georgetown, Don Jr. and Ivanka only went there for two before transferring to Penn. Wanna bet they didn't have a little help?
8
"A" for best exemplification of the Dunning-Kruger effect.
4
His undergrad degree is from University of Pennsylvania and not Wharton. And although there is an undergrad major there, going to "Wharton" is typically reserved for MBA students. Let's not encourage even the smallest "truthful hyperbole".
9
The question is, who had a higher GPA in college, Trump or Rick Perry?
3
This story is fine but pointless. Democrats need to stop going on about report cards and tax reports. It’s the republican version of Hilary emails. Obnoxious and won’t change a single mind. Democrats should be putting all their focus into a clear vision of what they are really about for 2020 because the huge swath of voters who are not extreme right or left will not vote for a platform that just says “trump bad. Let’s start seeing writing about what we can do, time to give up on what Trump should do.
6
@Jason
1) Healthcare for All paid for by taxing the richest Americans and rolling back the Corporate Tax Giveaway of 2017.
2) NOT TRUMP 2020
Whatever would be just above failing that would allow him to graduate, with a little "help" from daddy's bank account.
I would grade Trump accordingly. First, I'd be shocked and disturbed that he had been admitted to this prestigious, ultra-competitive "school"---or office---despite an astonishing lack of qualifications, when others vastly more deserving were turned away.
I'd also be disgusted and incredulous that he was given this honor---and this immense power---when everyone knew he slipped in through a "technical glitch," that declared him "the winner" while losing to his opponent for this "slot" by approximately 3 Million Votes.
When grading him I'd treat him like any other "student" who failed to show up most of the time, never did the required reading, claimed that he was never informed about critical assignments, blamed others for his lack of preparation and abysmal performance, and always whined that he was just being "singled out" and "harrassed" whenever he failed to be accountable for his poor test results.
When he DID participate in class discussions, he interrupted others, ridiculed their diligence and knowledge, and spewed nonsensical drivel that could have come from any intoxicated ignoramus at any saloon in the country.
When he wasn't bragging about his money, his "brilliance" and his "irresistible good looks" he loved to "joke" about subjects like racism and sexual assault.
Finally, Trump was always cheating on exams and trying to intimidate others into lying on his behalf. So, what grade do you think I should have given to this student named Donald Trump?
6
On Oct 17, 2016, after the Access Hollywood tape had been aired, and Anderson Cooper quizzed Melania about the tape, she said,
"It's kind of two teenage boys — actually they should behave better, right?" she said to Anderson Cooper on CNN as he interrupted her to say the real-estate mogul was 59 at the time of the 2005 tape. "Correct. I sometimes have said I have two boys at home: I have my young son, and I have my husband."
Rex Tillerson once called him an "imbecile". Jim Mattis said he has "the understanding of a fifth or sixth grader". John Kelly called him an "Idiot".
Trump himself said, "Nobody knew healthcare could be so complicated".
These statements span the gamut of people, including Trump himself.
Sure, anything's possible, but the chance that he has A grades squirreled away from prying eyes somewhere makes the odds of winning a $50M lotto jackpot look pretty juicy, by comparison.
8
When we finally get to the Presidential debates between Mr. Trump and the Democratic candidate, the networks should consider having a “Jeopardy” style round to see if they know photos of world leaders & countries/ states on an unmarked world map. I’m guessing Mr. Trump wouldn’t fare very well.
7
Love to see SNL do one. At least it would be funny.
1
Bob Dylan quotes are worth nitpicking, especially if we’re going for a 4.0 average.
The last words of the article should be, quoting Dylan
“There’s no success like failure and failure’s no success at all”
2
Wish the great Mr Dylan would write a song about this clown.
1
One thing that is probably true about Mr. Trump’s time at Wharton - he obviously slept through his tariffs class.
5
@JCAZ
Just the ‘tariffs’ class?
Not ‘international finance’, ‘MacroEcon.’, ‘MicroEcon.’, ‘law and finance’ , ‘American economy’ or a plethora of others, right?
2
How did tens of millions of traditional Democrats -as well as their friends who made the switch to conservativism in the GOP - feel about the ridiculous No-Results pomposity of the Obama administration?
How did those people then feel about the progressive media war on this President?
If the federal government should overpass the just bounds of its authority and make a tyrannical use of its powers, the people, whose creature it is, must appeal to the standard they have formed, and take such measures to redress the injury done to the Constitution as the exigency may suggest and prudence justify.—Alexander Hamilton (1788)
1
I would give a year of my life to go back to President Obama’s “pomposity.”
The latter doesn’t know what pomposity means even though he’s the walking definition. He can’t spell it either.
If he would shut up his vulgar tweeting, showing his tyrannical tantrums, the press wouldn’t be in the position of having to report it. After 40 months of the histrionics, you can’t think the press isn’t as sick of him as everyone else. No one is enjoying this sordid presidency except trump and his greedy family. I don’t see how you ignore it.
3
@The Observer
President Obama saved the World economy from the 2nd Greater Republic Depression of 2007-2015.
DOW 2009 = 6,400
DOW 2017 = 20,400
Job LOSSES January 2009 = -796,000
Job LOSSES 2008-2009 = -4,200,000
Since then we’ve seen 103 straight months of private sector Job Growth.
THANKS OBAMA B
Trump receives ‘F’ for his ten counts of obstruction of justice as detailed in the Mueller report. If a grade could go lower, it would.
Trump receives an ‘F’ for his willingness to exonerate his friend Putin in directing interference in our election and all intelligence chiefs confirming. Trump later rejected his intel agencies in favor of Putin at Helsinki.
Trump receives an ‘F’ on foreign policy. Absolutely no accomplishments: trade war with China, threatening war with Iran, the U.S. becoming a laughingstock to most of the world, certainly our allies. Meanwhile, Kim is making Trump look like a dotard.
Any one of these is an independent reason for rejecting Trumpism next year. But not to forget the economy, we are in the 120th consecutive month of economic growing. For Trump’s base, he has been president for 28 of those months.
Question for them: Who presided over the other 92 months?
3
We all know the type of student he was as there is always a few in every class. Copied work, did not show up, and befriended smarter students who did the work for him. He was a failure then as he is now. The only problem is that now he controls, to a large degree, the fate of our country.
2
Here's the bigger question: Is there ANYTHING in Donald Trump's life---past or present---that he ISN'T desperately hiding from public view?
Obviously, if there was something---anything---true and verifiable that he could genuinely brag about, he wouldn't be shy about shouting it at the top of his lungs while frantically waiving any supporting documents with both arms in the air.
3
When I hired people, I always did detailed background and reference checks. I would not hire Trump if he did not release his academic record, which is an indicator of success. I see no signs that he is highly intelligent. I would not hire someone whose business background is bankrupting 6 companies and losing over $1B.
I don't know why the American people hired Trump to be President, he appears to be nothing more than a con artist.
8
Somebody has to graduate close to last or last in his or her graduating class. I just don’t want that person to be my doctor, dentist, lawyer or accountant. Oh - or President.
8
are negative numbers possible? Otherwise, zero
2
President Trump is an absolutely awful leader and does not seem to have much, if any, character. However, this seems like an unnecessary hit piece. We’ve got bigger issues to deal with as a nation at this point in time. DT wasn’t a great student? Give me a break.
2
I still say Trump is likely illiterate probably stemming fron a learning disability that he's had since childhood...hence his rather "arrested" intellectual development to put it charitably. The deficit of knowledge just got bigger as he got older hence his profound insecurity. Add his narcissism you've a person who doesn't know, doesn't learn and refuses to believe he needs to. Add his aggression and you've a guy who also attacks anyone who points out the gaps.
3
Don’t forget his oranges.
1
Any A’s Trump did manage to get were either obtained via threatening the professor or bribing him.
I just can not think of the divisive manner of Trump's administration as fitting in the A, B C theme. ON 100 point scale you have to use a negative number for what he is doing to the country as a cohesive country.
1
He must have bought the economics degree from the same place as Larry-the lad-Kudlow, with his history of bad economic calls
3
Students are not smarter than they were ten, twenty, fifty years ago. As Ms. Boylan would say this is "an easily documented"--well let's not say lie--let's say falsehood. We have massive amounts of data regarding student intelligence, including, but not limited to ACT and SAT scores, and there has been no upward trend in the intelligence of college students. Furthermore, the distinguishing factor for success once you have been admitted to a rigorous college is effort, not intelligence, because almost everyone around you is smart enough to succeed.
Contrary to Ms. Boylan's excuses, what we have here is grade inflation. No, this does not represent the collapse of civilization, just the erosion of an effective means for assessing student success. Saying that does not mean that I am "shaking my fists," even though I am conservative. It just means that I am rooted in reality. Perhaps that is because the facts have a conservative bias.
3
You’re equating ACT and SAT scores with student quality. Those are standardized tests taken in high school.
In many classes, the quality of work a student can produce is higher now than when I was in college. My senior seminar students, because of their ability to collect large and interesting data sets, their training in econometrics, and the availability of sophisticated software produce much better research papers than I did in the 1980s.
2
"the Wharton School at Penn" - Don Trump did not attend the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He was asked to leave Fordham University in the Bronx because of his low results and then transferred to U.Penn, with a lot of help from his father's monetary contributions to the school. He spent his last two college years in the Undergraduate Program at U.Penn in a real estate studies section. The U.Penn College is divided into different sections, one of which is called Wharton. This is not the Wharton School, which is an exclusive Graduate School; Don would never have been accepted there, no matter how much money Fred Trump gave.
12
No matter what grades Donald Trump received there would be a problem. He would complain that they were not correct, someone sabotaged him, or he was a misunderstood genius.
For the record, I too was a misunderstood genius. I worked quite hard in all my science classes but the professors refused to do what some of the other departments did and that was to grade on a curve. Only one class had that and it was by far the hardest one we took. Organic chemistry had a 15 point span for an A. Other classes were graded as expected. I know I would have set the world on fire with my insights had my grades been more upwardly mobile so to speak. The entire scientific community has fallen at least 20 years behind because I was not given stellar grades.
Back to reality. Like most science majors I worked quite hard, studied hard, and did as well as I could. I was a borderline B minus student. Had I majored in anything else I would have been a straight A student but I, being a fool, wanted the challenge. I've paid for that many times over. However, I never cheated and the grades I got were all mine.
Trump reminds me of the superficially smart people I've known who have learned a little about everything but think that they know it all. They never ask questions and never consider any other points of view. Then when it all goes to smash it's someone else's fault. Trump must have skipped all the discussions on responsibility and ethics.
5/15/2019 7:55pm
12
@hen3ry
You are describing the Entitled candidate who LOST to Trump. But obviously you have never looked at the President himself.
He's rude? A bit mean? We TRIED several nice talkers who could be ''the life of the party.''
They damaged us and blew through our money producing bery little. We'll stick with what Trump is actually DOING.
2
Very beautiful piece. Beautifully crafted.
4
Great that someone at the Times has taken up Trump’s academic record. Given how much of a fraud he is in everything else, I wouldn’t be surprised if he cheated his way through Penn.
As for his success, what is the real source of success in life. Hard work, innate talent, personal virtue? Does Trump have any of that? A long time ago a friend told me what he thought the real source of success was: keep a straight face.
4
@JFC
I read that Trump's father made a huge donation to Wharton. Of course, that wouldn't have influenced the college to award a degree to an individual who rarely attended classes.
8
Considering how much money you have to pay to go to these schools they better give you top grades, and that's just for the regular kids who only had to pay the ridiculously high tuition, the ones who paid extra would be off the charts.
How could you not give high grades if you charge that much?
The whole thing is a racket.
3
"...a B, in fact. The gentleman’s failure.". perhaps in grade inflated private colleges, but I take some pride in my 'B' in Intermediate Macroeconomic Theory, a class that has a 1:3 fail rate at my admittedly middle-of-the-road but far from grade inflated university. Perhaps the author would benefit from a semester spent masquerading as a re-entry student at a state University.
7
@Charles Becker
This article is not about the author but rather about the person in charge of the Oval Office and a country of over 330 million people.
All of that makes the WH occupant the most powerful man in the world.
But what makes it even sadder is the fact that the 45th not only knows nothing about the country he represents or its history or Constitution or anything (let’s be honest), but even less about America’s neighbors, allies and the World, at large.
That’s a very very ‘scary’ proposition for USA, soon to be USR (United States of Russia).
5
My father was not highly educated and didn't read. He loved George W. Bush because Bush spoke inarticulately and made many verbal gaffes that made my father feel more comfortable with his own illiteracy and limited grasp of history. He said as much on more than one occasion. If my father were still alive I imagine he would like the same things about our current president, though, as an FBI agent, my father would never have warmed to this president's disrespect of our intelligence agencies or his coziness with dictators all over the globe.
9
D Minus Don is dishonest daily.
21
I was at that Grateful Dead show! Oh, was I supposed to comment on Trump? Blech....
8
College: Trump doesn’t read. To compensate, you need to attend lectures. As many White House staff, military, and intelligence professionals will attest, he has trouble making it through 10 minutes of lecture without leaving the room to watch TV. So, no lectures. In that case, we may then go to predictable behaviours. How has Trump managed his way around regulations and rules? He has misrepresented the truth, leveraged, hired expert assistance, and delegated to toadies….. Therefore, unless he was actually caught cheating (for which a record might possibly exist) back in the day there were no surveillance cameras, and no computers. In fact, for a fee, I would be willing to bet a good deal could be accomplished.
9
@honouria
When I attended UC Berkeley, a frat got a dog admitted; they paid someone to attend the dog's classes and to take exams. The paid guy refused to attend graduation ceremonies and publicly accept the degree. So, the dog never got its degree. It went that far due to the size of undergrad lecture classes, and the paid guy's willingness to go pretty far with the joke, even in the last two years when class size was limited.
3
This story is a recycled, worn out urban myth. Also irrelevant.
Obama wouldn't release his undergrad or Columbia transcripts either.
5
Irrelevant. He released his birth certificate and tax returns - Trump has yet to release either. Obama's intellect is as obvious without his transcripts as Trump's ignorance is without his school records.
10
Not true. This claim is yet another Trump-like falsehood, popular on mendacious, conspiracy obsessed right-wing websites.
And Obama didn't come from immense wealth, unlike the current occupant of the White House. Are you implying that Barack Obama made it to Harvard Law School and became the editor of the Harvard Law Review solely on the basis of influence, connections and donations from a very, very rich father?
6
Obama did not go around bragging about his fantastic grades and then decline to prove his claim by releasing the transcripts to show us those grades. So I am not sure what point you want to make.
What other presidents have bragged about their grades? If presidents want to claim they flew to the moon, so be it, but be prepared to prove it. Why not?
Obama was president of Harvard Law Review as announced by Harvard Law School in 1990 so we have some indication that he was an strong student at least in graduate school. If you read his book, he acknowledges that he was not a serious student until midway through his college career.
6
What grade would I give?
There's no grade that's low enough......
16
I don't really care about Trump's college grades. Many people are "late bloomers." I do care about his lies, his racism, his corruption, and his lack of morality. My guess is that he took courses that were not a lot of work, and no courses that encouraged him to think differently. I doubt he interacted with anyone from a different country or religion. His statements that essentially everyone who disagrees with him is stupid (Obama, Tom Steyer, Adam Schiff) is juvenile. BTW, I went to high school with Steyer, and he graduated number 1 in the class and then went on to be summa cum laude at Yale.
22
It likely says: Go back to Kindergarten, throw in some charm school and get over yourself. Come back and try again when you are ready to treat others with basic levels of respect and dignity, and are ready to cease tooting your own horn constantly.
6
I am thinking that this is a new category of journalism, 'lets bait Trump and see what he does"..I like it..
Trump, how much do you really weigh - I used computer graphics with a photo of you and am calculating 350lb.News bait - "Trump is calculated to weigh 350, with new engineering programs " - perhaps we can get him to focus on the perception of his fatness, instead of Iran and war..
14
Did he really attend?
6
No real evidence.
Trump has lasted through all sorts of non stop assaults that would have made other simpleton politicians like Maxine waters fold. Despite her incredible verbal jousting skills.( sarcasm). Also what you would consider "all over the place thoughts" is actually the ability to shift gears and respond. But most of you are on medication (because you're not organically whole people)
that inhibits the ability to do so. That's why you have no ability to indulge in humor.....you know .other then to break out in some dance when some ignoramuses song comes on the radio.
1
Trump is incoherent. So, it would seem, are his defenders.
7
@ST how so? What's your evidence? Maybe the s. t. Stands for saratonon transmitters that you don't have at normal levels that prevent you from giving more details then just a lame quip.
Knowledge of subject matter: F—
Attendance: D
Reading Comprehension: F—
Follows directions: F—
Gets along/Respects others: F—
Donald hasn’t made any effort to learn or understand the job. He does not ‘play well with others’ and has not leaned to compromise or work with others to the detriment of projects.
I don’t see any change in Donald’s behavior and recommend that he be removed from this office.
14
What a tizzy over nothing. Trump's grades are completely irrelevant...to Trump. And should be to us.
We have to remember that this bum is a textbook narcissist of the highest order. If you tied him up in a chair, filled his veins with scopolamine, and brought the hot light down close to his head, the only possible answers he could give would merely support his notion that he is the best at everything and completely infallible.
You'd save yourself time and angst by remembering he cheats at golf.
12
Reporter, Mr Trump, what do you think of Smoot-Hawley.
Trump. You know, okay, Mr Smoot and Mr Hawley, are friends of mine, and are two of the most fantastic people, they do things bigly, they are fantastic, ask them how big my inaugural crowd was.
12
Loved it. But I think he would think Mr. Smoot is black.
5
When a man threatens lawsuits to any school that reports his true grades, pushes his subordinates to refuse legal requests for his tax records, appoints a compliant AG to twist the facts of a two year investigation and then stonewalls when asked to make the report available one is left to assume what his grades, his tax records, investigative reports are.
Many share my opinion that he's not very smart, he cheated on his taxes and he was not exonerated by the Mueller Report. In short, he's a dumb crook.
30
So much attention for this individual, Trump. This favors him actually, ie, to keep his name and picture in the paper. As to his college grades: Why would anyone care? What we know from the public presentation of himself presently is that Trump is a liar through and through. And he’s a bully. And he’s insecure. And he has thorough lack of grace. And he has no understanding of service ... except to himself. And so on and so forth ... all in utter darkness. Let’s even say he was an “A” student. Look what that leads to! Good at being atrocious? You know what may be at the base of this grade-thing Trump’s gone out of his way, including through attorney threat, to conceal? My guess is that surely his grades were not as good as those of President Obama, Trump’s nemesis. This is, admittedly, silly to mention (apology to President Obama). Poor Trump who can’t, even as president, be in the big leagues. And the more he tries, the worse it gets.
6
Trump isn’t successful. He’s a lying, cheating, racist, sexist, narcissistic bully, whose only claim to success is somehow eluding any meaningful consequences for a lifetime of fraud.
Comparing him to actual successful people who dropped out or got poor grades only serves to foster his continued normalization. He shouldn’t even be mentioned in the same sentences as the people you discussed.
In fact we don’t even need this article. We don’t need any more op eds on this man. Actual news aside, we need to shut up about the man. Had the media closed their mouths about him in 2016, we might not be in this mess.
23
Trump is no mental Giant, in fact quite the opposite. Dealing with Trump is like having a battle of wits with an unarmed man.
10
...and arguing with the dining room table.🤪
2
Well, there are many reasons to give trump an F. But more importantly, how do you grade a congress that is faced with reams of evidence of a felony obstruction of justice by the president and does not impeach him? Or how about a behemoth intelligence apparatus that witnesses influence and intrusion by a national adversary and does nothing to thwart it? And, lastly, what grade do you give a democracy that gives more weight to the most clueless, informatiin deprived and primitive voters in the most secluded and isolated regions of the country? I'm just amazed that this country ever got anything right like proclamations of equality, secularism and a belief in science to begin with and I'm starting to think it was all a fluke.
15
Citizenship should be a required course to graduate from college. Not the usual political science but a study of the moral background supporting the Constitution. This class must be taught only by someone with proven record of integrity and nonpartisan ship.
I would give the present usurper a grade of Z minus!!!
5
He keeps tripping over his own tongue. He can't say a complete sentence of more than 7 words. His spelling is horrribbel. He can't do basic math. His handwriting is illegible.
Definitely not college material, but his daddy is rich, so give him a C. Maybe we can get a new building out of it.
8
What Grade Would You Give Donald Trump? Surely a rhetorical question, but it deserves serious answer. The question isn’t narrowed down to his performance in an academic institution, it’s a general question about his whole life - at least what is known of his life, but arguably most importantly on this latest period, his Presidency.
Academics: surely no better than a C.
In business, a B or C would seem reasonable.
People and relationships in his personal life, and morals generally: a clear D.
As a reality-TV character: A. The fact that he was actually just playing himself (see above) is inconsequential in this regard, and doesn’t lower his grade.
And finally as President, he could be graded E, but it would be unfair to do so. His election was a mistake, not unlike making a blind person a judge in a fashion show. There are various explanations for mistakes like this, but it remains a mistake. Trump was elected to the Presidency despite the fact that he was obviously unqualified and unsuited, regardless what many thought. If a fashion show judge is discovered to be blind, the fact that he failed at his job can’t be laid at his feet, but only at the feet of whoever hired him. They clearly, and in the case of Trump, deserve an E, but it would be unfair to grade Trump this way, or even at all. If anything, he might even be pitied, because someone put him in a position in which he could only look ridiculous. That said, though, I can’t find it in my heart to pity him, either.
3
Ironically, Ivys are well-known for rampant grade inflation. It's pretty much impossible to get worse than a B, and yes, I attended an Ivy. Imagine how bad Dumb Donnie's grades must be that he's scared of people seeing them.
6
The trumpeter deserves minus zero points. Deductions for bad spelling,awful diction, criminal lies. Not to mention: grade inflating, asset lying, self dealing ,daily deceptions, gross nepotism. The list is long. How can congress cope? How can thirty percent of the “ American people” resist truth and logic to follow an ignorant destructive no-nothing? Grade point for trump: zero
5
Mr. Trump should graduate with full honors when and if he moves from the 6th grade to junior high.
1
An F for Trump dishonors students who tried and failed; as most institutions of higher learning do not recognize E. Trump doesn't just Fail, he dishonors honest, hardworking students who sometimes fail.
Trump fails in the most dishonorable, dishonest way a human being can fail. There is no grade that signifies Trump's level of failure.
4
What is the over / under on his undergraduate GPA being at, or higher than, Obama's?
3
Grade!? I'd have expelled him in the first week for sexist language and touching up the girls.
11
Did Trump even have a report card? Maybe his "report card" shows how much his dad paid for each course Donald received P.
5
I'd give him an incomplete. As a president and a human being, he's dropped out.
10
It’s hard for me to figure out how Cadet Bonespurs was able to graduate from a school like Penn based on his own unassisted efforts. Just listening to way he continually mangles the English language says to me that he must of had some major help with his college coursework.
And...there is ABSOLUTELY no way he graduated at the top of his class in 1968. If I had to guess what his final Penn GPA was I would put it somewhere in the 2.7 range.
You can bet you bottom dollar that if Trump was the top student in his 1968 graduating class and his SAT scores were impressively high he would be the first one to publicize them. The fact that he treated Penn and the College Board with lawsuits if they released his grades and SAT scores tell you all you need to know about how low they are.
8
I give Trump a solid "E."
Enemy of our Constitution, the American people and our nation under law.
14
Obama was President of the Harvard Law review, the highest
honor in world law schools. You don't get that without top scores.
12
@IndeyPea
Well, you think he would have been proud to release his grades, no?
1
DJT's grades are whatever Fred paid for. Absolutely no relation to DJT's actual class work, thus starting his aversion to the truth.
10
I would be willing to bet if there was a short bus to his campus, he was on it.
3
F. Worse than Andrew Johnson, and that's going some. We already know what at least one of his undergraduate Wharton professors thought of him. If he did get some decent grades I, as a former university professor, would doubt the integrity of the work. He certainly did not get much of an education in critical thinking. He's got a certain degree of street smarts, but these too are grounded in bullying with others to back him up in one way or another.
4
C on Dylanology. "Nothing succeeds like failure" indeed. "There's no success like failure and that failure's no success at all."
2
Is it possible to get a minus?
3
Re: "As Bob Dylan — who left the University of Minnesota, and his fraternity, Sigma Alpha Mu, after one undistinguished year — observed: 'Nothing succeeds like failure/ And that failure’s no success at all.' "
Wrong on both counts. Robert Zimmerman, alias Bob "Dylan", revealed in his memoir, "Chronicles", that he never in fact, attended college at all. (The confusion results from Zimmerman himself lying about it.) As for "nothing succeeds like failure": that was a very old saw long before Zimmerman sandwiched it into "Love Minus Zero/No Limit".
2
Z-- Pleez, give me a break. And if he got his degree in economics, then something must truly be "dismal".
2
Per the headline: Trump would have been kicked out of class very early in the semester for lying and racism and bigotry and for incivility towards the teacher and other students. Maybe even expelled from school.
4
It should be obvious to anyone with an IQ > 80 that he has an IQ of < 80, not to mention an attention span that is less than that of a 3 year old. Therefore I don't think that he can be graded in the traditional sense.
Please, let him go back to cheating at golf and defrauding banks 100% of his time after 2020. The current situation with him golfing 98% of the time and cheating the American public the other 2% may end up costing the world its future.
9
I find it amusing that the same community that gave Hillary an A+ chance of winning the election is giving Trump F's.
2
Ahem. What Bob Dylan actually wrote (sang) was, “She knows there’s no success like failure,/And that failure’s no success at all.”
1
Who did Trump sleep with, manipulate, extort, malign or bribe to graduate at all? How much did daddy Trump pay to ensure entry into and graduation from this Ivy?? I would give him an A+ if his degree was in the art of dishonest business practices, criminal levels of distortion, Napoleonic syndrome, cheating, malice, total break with reality, lying and a whole host of assaults on humanity.
6
Trump gets a zero, as he was a no show to class.
4
... and no no class to show.
1
Trump has many inadequacies and complexs. He telegraphs them by accusing others of having the same deficiencies.
6
He gets a zero across the board:
he doesn't read, doesn't think, knows no history, sex, money, and power are his only "guide" posts; has no social skills, no people skills, no negotiation skills, a billion dollar loser, serial liar, maturity of an eight year old; delusions of grandeur prevent him from developing a conscience, weak character creates his need to be in total control which explains his dictator wannabe behavior; no intellectual curiosity, takes credit for everything, never gives credit to others for their accomplishments, accepts no blame but transfers and projects blame onto everyone but himself, denies scientific facts because of his many oil deals with the russians; no matter how much money pa trump gave to the school, he should have been tossed out for lack of character, lack of discipline, lack of decency. Money can't buy knowledge, class, or morality.
7
Let’s speculate. Trump cheats brazenly about his golf scores, stiffs contractors in his real estate deals, declares bankruptcy how many times, loses over a billion dollars from 1985-1994 according his tax records, scams the American people with his magic act and becomes the president. And I wonder who he paid to write his papers and take his tests when he was in college?
None of this is even remotely funny.
6
Much as I find Trump dangerously egocentric and morally, intellectually and psychologically unfit to be President, I find this exercise in bad taste. What purpose does this serve except to encourage his opponents to vent to no constructive purpose and his supporters to cry harassment? I understand the
disgust and desperation, but there has to be a better way to
set the country back on a proper course.
3
I would give him a T, for traitor, for collaborating with Russia to get himself elected, whereby Putin gets a number of things in return, none of which are in this country's best interests.
11
Trump reminds me of wannabe military veterans, particularly those who would pretend they were in Vietnam, as I was.
The more unbelievable the war story is the farther from truth is the person telling the story. In other words, the odor of a barnyard comes to mind.
Trump is much this way. He tells us tall tales, belittles others who are or were much more successful in their endeavors (you know, the Harvard Law issue of Obama's), investors that didn't declare bankruptcy several times or grift investors that were foolish enough to back him.
He is telling war stories and has no experience to back him up-he is just a wannabe just like those wannabe war heroes.
But, his adoring masses are just thrilled with him, warts, lies and outsized ego.
4
I have yet to hear from any of his college pals. Were they all paid off or did he simply not attend ???
6
Hate to say it but... all this just makes Donald Trump:
"a Man of the People".
Sadly, not a day goes by where I don't think of the Grifter in Chief being impeached.
We have already made plans for the next inauguration day.
We will have a party in front of the WH the night before.
I can't wait....really.
4
As Trump would not be in the White House without Russian intervention, his grade would resemble those of the students placed in college through their parent’s bribery- N/A.
He is America’s first non-President, with numerous investigators waiting to pounce once his sham in office is officially done and dusted.
But he was an A student at Trump University, before it was shut down for fraud.
His other college, high school and elementary school grades are sealed under his legal threat, which tells you everything you need to know.
4
I wonder what would happen if we ignored trump for say 2 months. Let him do his best to get all of our attention with wars, fake national emergencies, and temper tantrums. We all go on with our lives and nobody notices or talks about him him. I believe he would have a nervous breakdown.
7
Possibly affected with ADD - still I support Trump rather than the Progressive clowns that are coming out of the woodwork these days. However the more clowns the better for the Republicans & Trump. But back to the article- Education is NOT equal to intelligence. Some of the most unintelligent people are extremely well educated. ... Education does develop important skills that can help all people achieve, but the important distinction is that intelligence is NOT dependent upon the level of education or on grades.
Yes, it's true, Trump is top of his class. Never mind no decent person would want to be a member of that class.
5
Most of the people who go on about how horrible President Trump is, don't have the ambition, stamina, or the skill to be president, but all they do is criticize every little detail. The President has no obligation to satisfy everyone, nor does he have an obligation to be "politically correct", which is only an attempt by people to manipulate others. There is nothing in our Constitution that guarantees the right to go through life unoffended. I admire anyone who is willing to put forth the effort it takes to be President (look how they age while in office), and subject themselves to the scrutiny they receive.
If you disagree with one of the President's positions, make your arguments, but STOP THE NAME CALLING. It's undignified and shames us in the eyes of the world...not the President's behavior, but ours.
@Raz
How do you feel about Trump's name calling? Effort? He spoke at rallies his hirelings organized for him. He told cruel lies, e.g. he would reopen all those shuttered factories, knowing those jobs were in Mexico or India never to return. The soybean business will not return; there are other countries where they are grown already bidding for the business. Trump's lies will hurt those who believe them. He and the GOP managed to smear Clinton to the point where her honest offers of job retraining, paid tuition for kids, and transportation to where jobs existed were rejected. She had enough experience to know what she could accomplish; she didn't have to lie. This is ultimately a tragic manipulation of desperate people.
4
It's not just conservatives who are concerned about grade inflation. Graduate students I had in the past--should I grade them on the content, or factor +/- whether or not they could spell, use grammar etc (there was immense variation, + and -). But do you really have an idea if you can't express it grammatically?
1
Why bother with worrying about his performance then? The only outstanding marks in his current role are mendacity, inciting anger, increasing partisanship, and grounding the 737-800 MAX.
1
He probably got an A because his Father probably paid to get him into Wharton and maybe he made a "deal" for grades as well. In any case I think there's a very good chance that Trump cheated while in school.
1
While I completely understand Trump’s faults and his lack of education from civics to morals, he sustained and survived in many eyes for decades as a successful businessman. There are people that continue to support him from his kids to fans to employees to staff and the media. This is the air he breathes every day with chutzpah. Until the point he opened his mouth as a politician, he convinced everybody, including the media how smart and successful he was. He used and took advantage of the government around him, especially the legal system. While I understand how gullible his base is, I question the education, the knowledge and the wisdom of his educators, his cabinet, his employees, the republican congress and especially the elite lawyers that continue to feed him every day. Without them, Trump is nobody. He is street smart with terrible academic grades.
3
Successful, ran 3 casinos I to the ground and has 6 bankruptcies. Oh, and owes Russia billions which he is paying back day by day. Must be a different planet, I mean, dictionary.
4
@NMT, ‘a successful businessman ‘, with multiple bankruptcies, right?
3
@Ellen Jones
@Karen Lee
Please read again, especially the words before "successful".
Three things I'm pretty sure are true of Trump.
He somehow managed to cheat on his SAT Test.
He never wrote any of his papers.
He failed his Montreal Cognitive Assessment.
6
If at your exit from university, graduated or not, you have no ethics, you failed to capture the most important concept.
In other words that makes you a failure (a Looser, in his own words) regardless of any school performance or acquired knowledge.
2
Based on his tweets, interviews, and speeches, I'd have to rate him equal to the 1972 remedial English students I taught at CUNY.
5
Also in the “we can guess what it says” department …
I know that many people are of the opinion that a killer score on the SATs means nothing more than that a person is good at taking standardized tests.
Perhaps. I tend to believe (admittedly self-servingly) that it might imply at least a little more. At least a life-long love of reading, no? Be that as it may, I’ve been waiting for someone to point out that we know at least a little about our so-called president’s SAT performance.
It’s simple: anyone who scores in the top 1% is automatically a National Merit Scholarship Finalist, a status that is publicly announced, a matter of public record, and a source of pride and bragging rights to the secondary schools that produced the finalists.
For all of Trump’s claims of being a “stable genius,” he didn’t manage to score in the top 1%; if he had, we never would have heard the end of it. And those public records still exist; my public high school gave certificates to the three seniors who made that top 1%, and it was all over the local papers.
I’m still waiting for a reporter to ask the quisling why he clearly didn’t manage to red-line his SAT scores; I’d get some small satisfaction in seeing him caught in yet another obvious lie.
3
The Trump’s are pretty simple. Look at all that married them says it all. Ivanka really was that the best that you could do?
He could have said he was Jesus and he wouldn’t have lost a voter.
Dear Dr. Boylan,
Thank you for yet another interesting column. My one quibble would be with your thought that "today's students are smarter". I love my students. I think some are very smart indeed, but I don't think they are "smarter" than the people who did much better than I did back at Cal in the late Pleistocene. One thing I DO know however is that they are enormously ignorant about stuff that they should know -things like "which countries border Afghanistan and hence might have a personal stake in the rise of the Taliban" (I bet a fellow faculty member that none of the students who walked by us at our supposedly "selective" college could tell us. I won- Like their president, these students have been taught that feelings matter more than facts & why worry about knowing stuff when there will always be a screen to look things up on...
2
Well he has the best words, the greatest memory of anyone, he’s like, really smart, and he’s accomplished more in his 2 years as president than in the history of the country. He’s the best golfer among all rich people although he has no time for golf because he’s working so hard for the American people. It stands to reason that he graduated at the top of his class, was quarterback AND head cheerleader, homecoming king, and when not studying, served food at homeless shelters. In fact, he’s so tired from winning that he can’t make it into work until 11 am and his fingers are worn down to tiny, doll-like miniatures. Heavy is the head that wears the gold-plated, self-coronated crown.
7
‘Coming events cast their shadows before’ or so goes the adage.
While educational performance shouldn’t be the only ‘litmus’ test of an individual, it does hold some significance when judging a person’s performance esp. one that occupies the ‘highest office’ in the country and the ‘free world’.
As the author points out that the likes of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates and perhaps even Bob Dylan may not have done well at college, but they differ from the 45th in many distinct ways, chief among them:
1) their ability to be honest with themselves in light of their failures and shortcomings
2) their tenacity to learn from their mistakes and rectify them
3) their potential for ‘greatness’ which they discovered after having gone through self-introspection and hard work
4) ability to remain humble throughout their successes and failures
Needless to say, the current WH occupant lacks these and many others that are crucial for leading a country, much less the world’s largest economy.
Instead, he relies on his uncanny ability to blame others for his mistakes ad nauseam, lie, cheat, deceive, divide and destroy anything and everything that hinders a ‘mob-style’ Presidency as though he were an ‘Al Capone incarnate’ himself, in the flesh.
7
Trump is a genius. A very stable genius, by his own admission.
Unfortunately, at least in one realm, he may be right. He has a very good understanding of the psychology of the undereducated and underinformed, and is able to control his presentation enough to appeal to those who are generally less than analytic, who respond primarily to images, memes, and aphorisitc sound bites, and whose minds, like his, cloud over easily when it comes to the complicated stuff.
In fact, an argument can be made, given how many commenters here have been talking about Trump being ADD, that he is therefore the perfect representation of a population that due to the influence of electronic media becomes more and more ADD every day.
I have argued for a long time that Trump is no intellect, but he has an undeniable cunning which he has learned to exploit well in the areas he thinks count, even if he would never be able to articulate his strategies beyond "deny, deny, deny--then accuse your accuser of the same thing". The fact that he can't define "projection" or "reaction formation" doesn't mean he isn't, in his own way, quite psychologically crafty, and that's why he's so dangerous.
Now, of course, if we didn't have a flawed governmental system that his particular talents are geared towards taking advantage of, we wouldn't be having this debate. It might behoove us to examine our institutional norms to keep someone else with similar abilities from taking advantage in the future.
11
“Most of my students are going to do well in the classes they took with me, as well they should; they worked hard”
Do grades reflect performance or effort? The two are not always correlated.
Trump would probably flunk by either criterion.
2
I'm sincerely curious! Is it really that bad to graduate with a 3.4? Why is that a gentleman's failure? 3.4 is roughly the GPA my son left Cornell with last May. He took a lot of classes outside of his comfort zone (coding etc!) and his grades increasingly were on the rise as he went through school. In the end, finding mentors, being adaptable, and taking leadership roles are also signs of success in my book.
6
@Thorina Rose
A 3.4 GPA is very respectable, especially at a difficult college or university. It shows that you had more B's than C's, and probably some A's. Or, you had more Passes than Fails.
1
The first thing to keep in mind is that we are not sure that Trump actually went to Wharton or took courses at Wharton. He completed only his last two years at Penn, and his father definitely paid some big bucks although we don't know how many.
The word is that Trump took real estate courses through Wharton, new curricula. Sounds possible; I can even imagine his getting through the first week of an economics course. Real estate, maybe, if not well. By the way, it's possible to take courses through general studies; I've heard of some people getting their degrees being in General Studies. This is one way to avoid actually being "accepted."
In any case, I cannot imagine that his children were accepted without "donations," and graduating without help. They are clearly not Penn material. Sad to take someone else's place, someone who could better benefit from the education available if one is able to absorb it.
15
"Never let schooling interfere with education"
Attributed to either Mark Twain or Grant Allen
People who get good grades are often just good recipe followers. I discovered this a while back, when a promising graduate student in physics failed his qualifying exams for the third time. Why? He had nearly perfect grades, and worked hard.
Being scientists, we did an informal study. We made a list of the very best graduate students over the years; students who went on to do great work in physics as academics or in the private sector. It turned out that the best correlate to success in their academic records was not GPA, but the standard deviation in the GPA. These students aced some courses and struggled in others, but they were able to prioritize and produce when it really counted. They didn't waste their time on jumping through hoops.
This was an informal study, not statistically meaningful, but time has shown me that many of the best scientists I've had the privilege to work with have similar stories to tell about their academic years.
In short, grades really don't matter that much in the long run. But they sure help to get a career started.
8
The question is relevant to only those thinks the answer matters. Myself, it's his performance as a President, a leader, a moral example (honesty being the most important), and his accomplishments while in office. As of yet, I'm not only unimpressed, I'm outraged that he continues to hold the Office.
16
C+ with comment #4
#4: Inattentive, Wastes time, Does not follow directions.
7
Trump's grades would have depended on how smart a guy he hired to take his tests for him.
23
If the responses here are favorable to Mr. Trump it goes without saying, but I will as many others have, that nothing he could do in the future, or did in the past, makes difference to them. Just like Trump, they revel in blowing off their detractors and enjoy watching them melt down over Trumps bravado and their giving the finger to anyone who opposes them.
If the responses are negative towards Trump they will act like gasoline on a fire to Trumps minions and Trump ratcheting up the daily bloviating he loves to do while he watches the left's heads explode. I suppose it might end like the battle in Monty Python's Holy Grail. The Black Knight (Trump) battles King Arthur (Democrats) and the Black Knight loses both arms and legs in a sword fight. In the end the Black Knight calls the battle a draw. Just like Trump might do if he is ever held responsible and tried and found guilty in a court of law. There is no shame or taking responsibility for anything with Trump and his supporters.
4
If he were steer he’d be rated “Utility, Cutter, and Canner.” They are “mostly older in age and used in cheap ground beef, or processed and canned products.”
But he’s not a steer, he should be rated Chicken.
16
Please keep in mind that the President spent his first two years at Fordham and then completed a 2 year real estate program. This is not a Wharton MBA or the undergraduate business program. The guy is a complete fraud.
32
The grandmother who raised me spoke little English, yet some how managed to amuse and chastise me at the same time when I brought home a less than stellar report card:
"I see you have "clevers" and "dandies" and no "awfuls" or "bads".
5
Interesting question because it presumes there must objective assessment measures or criterion to evaluate him against. But since he now controls by proxies all executive Branch reports, statistics and evaluations for example like the Bureau of Labor Reports and obviously believes in governmental fakery as factual. Any accurate objective assessment of his leadership cannot be publicly affirmed. A reflection of the boy cried wolf fable by his own design—all pronouncements of success by him or his sycophants are most likely lies!
4
What will Trump's college transcripts reveal? If his performance in every other endeavor since then is any guide, here's the answer: He cheated.
18
There is no grading scale that can measure the depth of Trump's grades. He should be suspended.
14
To be fair, Trump has succeeded pretty spectacularly with what might be called the "wise-guy metric." And I say this because even though we don't know his net worth - it might actually be negative - he has managed to live pretty lavishly.
On the wise-guy scale, if you succeed by bluster, by knowing the right people, by paying the right people, by creating a public image that is smoke and mirrors, then you have beaten the system, "gotten over", and it shows you are very, very clever indeed!
Sure, it helps if you family gives you roughly $400 million in chips to start. But who can acquire that amount of money and personally be on the hook for $900 million in personal guarantees and STILL live large? Not Bernie Madoff.
And the con, despite all the public info about who Trump really is, still works, given his continued approval rating among GOP voters.
And it would be very, very cynical to argue that Republicans, like, say, like street hoodlums, actually look up to somebody who knows how to game the system and get away with documented malfeasance.
So, give credit where credit is due.
5
@MT. We all give him credit, especially those who voted for the Con Don. Unfortunately, nations die with leaders like this. Look around the world. The visitor from Hunger, er Hungary is a blood brother. As is Putin, Erdogan and Maduro. But those who voted for Trump and who support him still have been badly handled. That includes you in the Supreme Court. You are the next whose reputation will be trashed by association with the anti-democratic crowd supporting this blowhard phony. But it won’t matter since our adherence to profit by CO2 will cost us the planet not just our democracy.
3
Do you suppose while at Wharton, Trump had a class on international trade and tariffs? I wonder what his grade in that might have been.
9
It's not just Trump's inadequate education--it's his refusal to accept education, or advice or instruction or (especially) criticism. His bullheaded insistence (and evident sincere belief) that he's a "stable genius" who's always right is what makes him so dangerous in a powerful role.
16
Canada's leader when put on the spot with a true gotcha-question was able to confidently explain quantum computing, whereas Trump cannot spell hamburger or understand how tariffs work. Sort of says it all.
41
The President has difficulty completing a thought without jumping to another subject - usually a grievance. His grades? Seriously?
Do you remember the Peter Sellers movie "BEING THERE"? The main character is a simple minded gardner who has been educated solely by television. Welcome home.
510
Chance: In the garden, growth has it seasons. First comes spring and summer, but then we have fall and winter. And then we get spring and summer again.
Rand: I think what our insightful young friend is saying is that we welcome the inevitable seasons of nature, but we're upset by the seasons of our economy.
Love it!
24
@Anita
One measure of intelligence is the ability to entertain two (or more) conflicting thoughts at the same time.
It seems most of the time, Trump is unable to hold one thought in his mind.
72
I had forgotten all about that movie, didn’t Sellers character wind up in government.......
25
The only grade that matters to this president is the grade his party gives him. Since fully 90%of Republicans view him favorably he must be an A+. Knowledge of history and government, world affairs and basic civics is beyond his realm of understanding but he's in the right party. He passes muster.
272
@silver vibes
Nice to see you, my friend! It is pretty ridiculous when Trump gets asked what grade he deserves and, predictably, it is highly inflated. But, as you say, without censure from his party, he can kid himself that he is a star performer.
42
@silver vibes
They think he is Jesus. Really. There are several of them that have said it several times.
44
@NM -- esteemed daughter,
a question the author should have asked is what grade would banks, loan officers, former business partners and creditors have given the president? What would his credit rating be? Owing to his multiple bankruptcies he's an abject failure.
67
the fact remains that this man has hoodwinked and manipulated us all and has obtained a powerful reverred position and all because of something we still refuse to recogize: his apparent brilliance. until we recognize that this dude is smart and quite capable of accomplishments in ways we apparently are not, we will not defeat him. having nothing to do with academics, he is teaching us something now. will we learn?
The devil is supposed to be clever too, but who wants to emulate him.
1
I imagine that Donald Trump approached his studies at Wharton in the same way that Olivia Jade Giannuli approached hers at USC- with sights fixed firmly on partying, swaggering and networking. It would be interesting to know how much pressure his teachers felt they were under to give him passing grades, but maybe they were happy just to see the last of him.
9
Failure can beget success if you are able to learn from that failure. But if all you can do is lie about it, you really are a failure.
10
For a guy that can’t remember where his father was born, I doubt he even went to school.
15
His dad probably paid someone to take Trumps tests, the recent college scandal has probably been going on for a long time, and it was just exposed. If Trump did as well as he claims, then he would release his transcripts. But like the Mueller report, a report that doesn’t clear him of obstruction, keeping it secret, and just repeating it cleared him, doesn’t make it so.
3
I'm not going to make this as complicated as most in the comment section.
Mick and Keith summed up Donald better than any other person I have yet to read.
"Just as every cops a criminal and all the sinners saints
As heads is tails call me Lucifer cause I'm in need of some restraint"
Donald is walking and definitely talking proof that our society is disintegrating.
Someone said Donald destroys all he touches. Donald has single handedly destroyed religion as a serious subject.
The Mega pastors sold the soul of religion just to destroy the "Johnson Amendment. " Religion is now a joke.
The most gutless, corrupt group in Congress in the history of this nation.
No matter what Donald touches, it's destroyed.
Watching Donald decry "Socialism" while pumping 27 billion to farmers. Donald and the GOP have become a laughing stock of the nation and the world.
If a President refuses to follow the Constitution I sometimes wonder while the general public should pay taxes or obey any law they don't agree with? I spent all these decades thinking the President was supposed to be the nations "leader." Donald has proven me wrong.
We have nothing more than the nations "Grifter in Chief."
13
I tried googling to see what is more important than transcripts: The opinions of fellow classmates. There was little there and of that, little was complimentary. I found that strange for a person who has been president for two years that there was so little about Trump as a person in the memories of his peers. More telling was when I did the same for Joe Biden. The fourth Google result was a Facebook page from Dmitry making the claim that Biden was a pedophile. Can you guess who's already meddling in the 2020 election?
We need impeachment proceedings to begin if for no other reason to send the message that Russian intervention in our elections is not to be tolerated. This administration welcomes it. We have to force it to act to guarantee our elections are not compromised.
14
If Donald Trump ever made his SAT scores public, we'd have to change the address of the White House from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue to 790 Pennsylvania Avenue! As a Penn grad (with honors) one year behind Trump, I can say that few students in his 2 years at Penn's Wharton undergraduate school can remember him from their classes. Those who do, say he was the chubby, dumb kid in the back of the room who got teased a lot. He claims to have graduated 1st in his class, but I've seen the honors list from 1968 and he's nowhere to be found. They also remember that, after his mysterious departure from Fordham after his sophomore year (Fordham won't discuss it), he only got into Penn because his registrar was a close friend of his older brother, Freddie, and his father made a multi-million dollar contribution to the school. Trump's major was economics, but he shows no sign of having learned even the basics of Economics 101 at Wharton. A month into his presidency, Trump called his advisor, General Flynn, at 3:00 in the morning to ask him which would be better for the economy, a strong dollar or a weak one. Flynn said that he was only a military man and suggested that Trump ask an economist! Trump has just shown the world he is clueless about the way tariffs work. I would love to see a reporter ask him his opinion on Smoot-Hawley.
25
I took five years to graduate with a four year degree from an unaccredited Bible School, which by the way, no longer exists, and I'm prouder of my grades than Donald J. Trump. I wonder if Hebrew or Greek was on his curriculum?
3
@Richard McLaughlin
It was all Greek to him.
8
I once had an employee who had a mediocre GPA, but an A in a class with the title 'Romance and Courtship' (I am not making this up!). I had no idea that was now taught in college. Back in the grim old days, we were resigned to being autodidacts in that department.
So, please give our President a little more credit where credit is due. I am virtually certain he got an A+ in the 'Rip-Off and Cheating' class.
10
ehhhh- Wharton in the early 60s was not what it is today. Trump obviously got in following a large influx of cash from dad. The profs undoubtedly knew this. There is no way that Don was going to flunk out.
So, he probably made a fairly minimal/respectable effort and they probably gave him Cs. In those days,and for a long time beforehand, "...Gentlemen..." were supposed to get Cs.
John Kerry did in the same time frame at Harvard, for example.
I loathe Trump but if he got Cs at Dear Old Penn, so did a lot of other WASP Gentlemen there and at the other Ivies.
Not that Trump is actually a WASP Gentleman, either. But he was rich and he was a WASP and he coluld probably pass for one, except among other actual WASP Gentlemen, who would have seen right through him.
4
Lets be honest...people like Trump let daddy's money do the talking. I'm sure he had the best grades money could buy.
6
Wild guess...his GPA was well below a 3.0. The silly thing part is that he’s hiding it. Most of us can tell he’s not brilliant and has a one track, non-academic mind, and the rest, his cult followers, don’t care.
10
I think it's a reasonable conclusion that his grades were pretty bad when you consider this is a person who invents reasons to brag about himself, even to the point of shading his failures into boastful successes yet on this subject he has his "fixer" (now in prison) threaten legal action against the University if his grades ever got out.
8
A through F - what grade Donaldo Trumpo? G?
4
The doofus in the White House would be lucky to get an F.
7
Grade "L" *
* "L" = liar
13
There is a village university somewhere in Russia missing their idiot.
15
I got to hand it to you, that was very funny....
1
Trump is barely literate. He is the least curious, academic, considered, thoughtful and cultured person on the planet. He is devoid of morals and ethics. He has no emotional intelligence either.
What grade would I give him? Zero, an F. What's the scale?
17
It goes without saying that Trump would be bragging about his grades if they had been something to brag about. Therefore, it's obvious that his grades were nothing to be proud of. The more he tries to hide them, the worse it looks. I'd be willing to bet that Trump's father had to pay bribes to get little Donnie whatever degree he claims to have.
7
First, let me say that I am a US cfaculty in Mathematics at a well know university. A few thoughts
1.From the way he speaks English, DJT probably failed Reading 101 in Junior High, forget UPenn. Second, he does not seem to understand the concept of "balance of payments", so obviously he failed Econ 101. He talks like an uneducated man and can't pronounce words he reads but is not familar with. He requires bullet point summaries for intelligence briefings. Not scholarly inclined... We don't need his college transcript to estimate his grades! Just listen to the man.
2. Most of the people I know speak and write more than 1 language. I speak/read/write 4 or 5. I have been to > 40 countries. and I am familiar with several cultures outside my own. Many people are like me. I dont see what people see in DJT, but a lot of people voted for him. Does that mean that education and culture matter in the US? we should investigate that..
3. I am also street-smart. Third- world-country-slum street-smart. Again, so are many other Americans. Like you, I went to University to learn. I absolutely did not care for my grades. GPA didn't exist. If I received a good grade, I was happy. If I received a lower grade, I didn't complain. In those days, we lived under an authoritarian goverment and the university was under surveillance by the army and the police. People dissapeared. Our parents were happy if we came home at night in one piece. Grades were a second-order issue.
8
F-
12
F..
6
Big old F.
5
Forget Trump's grade. I give Wharton a big F- for graduating a business major who fails at running a casino, who cannot make a bottle of vodka that would sell (even with all of his Russian connections), who fails at a plane business, fails at a university, fails at a steak business, etc.
Trump University seems more credible than Wharton does at this point.
18
Grade him? Is there a grade lower than “F” He can’t be graded...how do you possibly grade someone who is completely out of his mind? He’s certifiably out of his mind and it’s time we started acting like it and get him the hell out of there.
10
Trump gets an F for lack of curiosity, lack of honesty, lack of respect for the office he holds, lack of basic human decency, and lack of empathy for the people who elected him.
I remember my Sophomore or Junior year. I had registered for Geology. I went to class and at some point discovered it wasn't "mick" Geology, for non geology majors, but the real deal. I was a Sociology major for Pete's sake. But, I decided to stick it out and see what happened. I worked harder in that class than any other. I was up late at night in the library and at my desk in the residence hall. It was very very hard stuff. But, then first mid term came back and I was pleased with my B-. Had I cracked the code? I used the same studying technique for the rest of the quarter. In the end I got a C+ on the final and a C for my final grade. I was never so happy when my grade slip arrived. To this day I can recite stuff about silicate minerals and what is a silicon-oxygen tetrahedron. I know how different rocks cleave and why. I know the temperatures some rocks and minerals form at and how...I'll bet Trump never took a class he had to study for much less study something really hard. He skips class even today so he can watch TV and tweet....and deserves every F he gets.
511
@Harley Leiber I made the mistake of taking Astronomy: lectures full of physics and a weekly lab. One week we went to the top of Hunter College and using the telescope and math, we had to calculate our distance from 68th Street to the Chrysler Building. I came up with something absurd, like 3.2 miles. The professor gently told me how far off I'd be if I were measuring distances in outer space. Oh well. I passed. Unlike you, I remember nothing from that class. I was a music major. I imagine Fred Trump purchased Donald's bachelor's degree. He hasn't earned anything in his entire life on his own.
51
@Harley Leiber. His Party also gets an F — especially in being able to support their own oaths to defend and protect the Constitution. They skipped out of the course on Patriotism.
39
@Harley Leiber
Not to be too picky, but I would give Trump "A" in all the character deficiencies you list.
6
If Trump had gotten all As and Bs he would have been waving his transcript around. The fact that he had to threaten the school about releasing them, shows that even he is embarrassed. They must have been pretty low even when they were bought by daddy.
19
In his extended NYT Magazine interview, Howard Stern notes that Trump was traumatized by his father. I think that, consequently, the president feels that he has always been a fraud but does his best to hide that knowledge from himself and the world. The bragging about being first, top, best, smartest, ad nauseum, is his attempt to convince us all that he's not a fraud. It's working for his supporters, but the rest of us remain unconvinced.
16
F--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------...ad infinitum
17
I was the first in my lower middle class family to get a graduate degree (ScD in a science field). I don't look down on Trump voters, but I think they made a huge mistake in voting for him. They saw part of who he is, and liked the views he expressed. But they didn't hear the whole story, including his many failures. They were let down by media that did not adequately question his grand claims of success or the validity of the idea that working in a family business automatically means you could govern a large, diverse country. The voters had little exposure to information showing that Trump was unlikely to be able to accomplish any of the things he promised. If the story of the Polish Squad who demolished the Bonwit Teller building to make room for Trump Tower had been widely told, maybe people would have reconsidered voting for a guy who paid these illegal immigrant workers $4/hour to work 12 hours a day in asbestos dust, and who then failed to pay them as promised. Lawsuits followed. Trump has never been a friend of people who work for a living. His own career relied heavily on the business his father had built up over many years. Donald's contribution, apart from publicity, was to run it into bankruptcy. After two years in office, he is still unable to understand the role of a president or perform the duties required of a national leader. He has chosen to be careless, uninformed.and hateful. Grade: F minus.
20
Nadler should issue a subpoena demanding Trump's grade school, high school, and college grades. I think we all could use some levity during this disastrous flirtation with governance by a "man of the people".
9
It doesn't matter what Trump's or anyone's gr ades re. There are thousands of storie of people being successful after suffering poor grades and thousands of stories of people being successful after outstanding grades. As an life long educator, how many times do we have to say that grades don't matter. It's what you do with what you learned that does have an impact on one's life and the lives of others, not your grades. Let's measure Trump on the impact he has had on the world. Who cares about his grades? What has he done and continues to do to us? That's what we should be looking at.
2
Many decades removed from high school and college, I’ve seen that the achievers among my cohort aren’t the academically gifted ones. I suspect this is a universal truth (okay, that’s an exaggeration, but it sounds truthy). The reasons why some students don’t do well academically are many, and in many professions, academic achievement isn’t a critical requirement.
As to why Mr. Trump (and Mr. Obama, Mr. Bush, Mr. Kerry and others) don’t disclose their grades is because they just provide fodder to their political opponents. A less than stellar grade in even one course, or a list of all the courses the candidate took, could provide all sorts of ammunition (consider: an “F” in math; a major completely outside the mainstream; not graduating in 4 years, etc).
Anyone who has the stamina and the political ability to run a presidential campaign is almost certainly not dumb or lacking in ambition.
There'd be no grade for Mr. Trump at any of the schools or colleges I've taught at in the past 43 years. He would have been suspended/expelled for his behavior, language, and dishonesty. Such behavior wouldn't be tolerated, especially at the university level. Maybe, just maybe, in a K-12 school he'd be on an IEP in a special education class for behaviorally-impaired students.
12
He has a count in excess of 10,000 lies. He believes and spreads conspiracy theories. He's shown himself incapable of discipline, at ease with ignorance, and his biggest fan is the person staring back at him in the mirror. The mere fact that someone has to threaten legal action if his grades are released...come on folks...it doesn't take a rocket scientist with great grades to know that this guy has nothing upstairs worthy of applause.
10
My grade: Not a member of the human species.
Reasoning: He doesn't do anything besides what a dog does. There is no evidence that he possesses the faculties that set humans apart from dogs.
7
@whaddoino
No way he can measure up to a dog. Dogs are capable of learning, they are companionable and fun to be with.
5
@Whaddoino
I disagree. Dogs are way more intelligent than 45.
Quite frankly, even a fossilized gerbil would have a higher IQ.
BTW, I heard 45 got into a policy debate with a rock. The rock won. ;-p
2
I'm reminded of John Kerry, W and the Swift Boat Veterans. I'm convinced the purpose of the Swift Boat criticisms was not so much to question Kerry's service [which was certainly honorable] but to force him to release his military records which would include college transcripts, SAT scores and the like. When Kerry finally did that - about six months after losing the election - it turned out that Kerry's grades and test scores were no better the W's. The idea that Kerry was the smart one and Bush the dumb one was just false. That being said, raw intelligence is probably not what's most important in a president. FDR, despite being educated by private tutors, was at best a mediocre student in college while Jimmy Carter probably has a genius IQ but was an ineffectual president. Trump (sort of like Bush and Reagan) is very likely a lot smarter than his critics want to allow (building sky scrapers in NYC is no easy task), but that's not so much what matters. What matters is how well he's implementing his program - leaving aside whether we approve of the program or not or even him personally or not. On that score, I think you have to give him an A for effort and a tentative B- pending the outcome of several ongoing projects [will the wall get built, will tariffs lead to an agreement with China, will we finally get an infrastructure bill, will the economy stay strong, and the like].
Trump graduated with a degree in economics, and from Wharton no less, and thinks trade wars are good and easy to win? That’s a stain on Wharton. Anyone who has taken an intro course to macro economics knows that tariffs are nothing more than an unneeded and unwanted tax on consumers.
I wonder how much Daddy Fred had to do with getting Cheeto Face into Wharton in the first place, much less a degree.
7
Because he graduated doesn’t mean he learned anything, you know, you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink it...Trump..I’ll go to school but I won’t learn anything, and you can’t make me, besides, I have a bone spur...
With what we’re stuck with now, I would love to see his marks for first grade, if HE got that far!
2
If Trump was first in his class at Walton, I would say it was at cheating.
5
What difference does it make to see the grades given to the person who is POTUS? Bush 41 probably had less than stellar grades. Clinton probably had great grades on his transcript. This tells us nothing about this POTUS as a middle aged or elderly person. Grades don’t reflect knowledge.
2
He won't release his college transcript because it is being audited. Credits were transferred to Trump University and are delays in the forgery process.
9
Can we negative numbers and qualifiers?
2
How do we know that Trump even attended college, let alone graduated?
1
Grades, Donald Trump didn't need grades. His father bought his way into everything he did in life including probably the Wharton School. It's doubtful he ever bothered to attend classes since he knows nothing about tariff's or the economy.
10
Do we even have proof Trump attended college? I'm betting his old man paid to buy him a degree.
5
Re grade inflation, about fifteen years ago a chemistry professor (I think it was chemistry) at the University of Wisconsin remarked in a faculty meeting of some sort that the plain fact is that students are getting better. He knew this because it was his practice to re-use old tests (I suppose seven years would be safe), and that the plain fact was that the actual performance on the tests, not the "grades", got better with the passage of time.
2
@als I'd like to suggest one possibility here that might have affected the grade results: when I attended Maryland U. in the late 60s, fraternities used to archive test papers so they could be studied by their fraternity brothers. Most instructors said they didn't re-use old tests but, like the Prof. in your example, there were undoubtedly some lazy ones who did. The ability to memorize the answers to test questions doesn't show real knowledge (or smarts).
2
@als
When I went yo university in the late 70's it was pretty easy to get in, even with less than stellar marks. Now it's difficult; there's much more competition and without top high school marks you just don't have a chance.
Students may not be getting smarter, but they are much harder working.
3
I think there needs to be an investigation into how an ADA accommodation is justified. Does the student have to undergo psychometric testing by a qualified health care provider to establish a learning disability, or does a note from an urgent care doc do the trick? There's a lot of misuse and abuse here....
2
My guess is that if DJT had to sit for tests, he probably got a C or below. If he had to turn in papers, he might have gotten B's or even A's - because he could have bought the papers. Some classes I'm sure DJT would have taken because they were easy A's/ easy B's. They exist. Or taken calculus from "Professor D plus Donovan" because no one gets less than a D plus in that professor's class. These professors also exist.
When I was at college (Holy Cross), it was the tradition that only ten percent of any class got A's. I don't think that is the case for all colleges or even very many colleges to have that tradition. If that was the tradition at DJT's schools, I highly doubt he made the top 10 percent cut.
1
He did not get "in" to Wharton. Not at all, he wasn't like all the other students that went through admissions.
Nope, he transferred as a result of a generous donation from his dad.
Unfortunately, I believe his attendance and graduation from the undergraduate program devalues my graduate degree from Wharton. No money changed hands prior to my attendance.
11
A+ with perfect attendance and head of the class of his peers. Also with more mental dexterity then the faculty. Every day out shines, out performs out works TMZ elected Obama. Obama's presidency was listless and stagnant. He did nothing but posture heaped false alclaidas Upon him. Trump battles for the American people while people with a exaggerated sense of self intellect (lemon, maddow,hayes and mr.and miss Scarborough) battle against us. The brother/sister hood maga movement is growing stronger every day. 2020 is ours!!!
3
@lord of the sith, like your screen name, A would be pure fantasy!
2
@Lord of the sith
That's the funniest thing I've read all day. You've got quite the sense of humour.
4
Sad thing is he truly believes his own trope, he hasn’t yet connected higher consumer prices with Trumps so called “winnable” trade war.....
2
The Flynn effect applies to everyone but Trump
Is it too much Adderall, or too little?
3
Maybe he's one of those late bloomers. If so, he's pushing the envelope.
7
Trump has consistently shown in business and now as POTUS that he is not Ivy league, or Penn, Wharton capable. If what has been reported is right, then his father's "donation" to the school would put them both in the recent highly publicized group of parents/students who bought admission. But it also shows one additional observation I've made, which is admission is the hardest accomplishment as few students will actually fail from one of the top tier schools once enrolled.
1
As an adjunct teacher of freshman composition, oneofthe hardest things I haven’t to do is grade the students’ papers and give them a final grade in the class. I hope that none of my students read this essay. When I was an undergraduate many many years ago, I was a B student. Sometimes, I got As and occasionally less than a B. But I didn’t consider myself a failure as the grading scale was A for excellent, B for good, C for average, etc. While I could have done better in some courses, others were challenging. I felt that when I graduated with a B average, It showed that I was a good, although not a great student. I was happy with that.
These days, however, students think A means acceptable, B Is bad and everything else is horrific. Not everyone can be great in every subject. Your essay makes it seem like those who get less than a 3.5 average are somehow lazy dotards like Trump was s a student. This leads to grade inflation and pressure on both teachers and students who feel they must get that A. How wonderful that you have a class full of top notch students. But you don’t do the majority of students and teachers any favors by advancing the idea that the only acceptable grade is in the A range and any knowledge the student may have acquired is secondary to the final grade. Not every less than stellar student is a Donald Trump.
5
I'd guess that if an embarrassing transcript does eventually surface, we'll get an answer from Trump something like the answer Dick Cheney gave to why he evaded military service through deferments, viz. "I had other priorities in the 60's than military service." Trump will say he was too busy making tons of money for his father, so he couldn't attend many classes, but if he had attended, he'd have had straight A's. In fact, he'll say, to get the grades he did get in spite of his not being given the time to study clearly makes him the smartest person in the whole school.
7
When I was a young engineering student we all said to each other - "10 years from now it won't matter where I graduated from or what my GPA was. All that will matter is what I've accomplished since."
Well, as we've seen from the college admissions scandal, that quaint idea died in the 70's. Engineers who graduated from MIT or CalTech in the 1980s still get better shots at opportunities, get better salaries, get laid off less frequently - than those who did not.
While a PhD from a top school is not a guarantee of lifetime employment in engineering - you do actually have to show up - it's not far from it for many.
That said, the roles of the successful are filled with B and C students and there are plenty of A students who failed miserably at their business endeavors.
As for me - I went to State, and 20, 30, and 30+ years later, despite my stellar (my opinion) work record, I'm still working to prove myself as qualified as those who graduated from blue-ribbon schools. (Though, I owed a lot less in tuition loans.)
1
@Iceowl
That is not my experience.
I graduated from Brooklyn College, major in computer science.
I've worked at Bell Labs, JPMorgan and Morgan Stanley.
I cannot complain about how I have gotten paid.
I worked hard, but Brooklyn College gave me the American Dream.
5
Trump bandies around the name Wharton School to give the impression that he earned an MBA from the prestigious Wharton graduate business school. But all he really did was scrape through his junior & senior years at Wharton's undergraduate school. As for transcripts, as a consulting software engineer, I have been routinely been required to authorize my university & graduate transcripts to be released to prospective clients over the decades. The last time was in 2015, when I was recruited for a contract at the Mayo Clinic. I was 67 years old at the time. While I feel that, after your first 10 or so years in a profession, your professional achievements should speak for themselves, the truth is that a degree from Penn 50 years ago, & 2 graduate degrees from Drexel are a significant factor even today in my ability to compete for and win contracts (a 1600 SAT also helps) . Sad, since you can, if so inclined, beancount your way to a PhD at even a top-notch school or get an excellent education from a much lower ranked school. It's up to you and what you are willing to put in to your educational opportunities. As they say, "you can lead a horse to water, but if you can teach him to do the backstroke, you've accomplished something. ;)
@G Yeah, and nothing at all has changed since then.
Slightly off topic but grades don't mean much when graduating seniors have a 3.7. I must be old but I grew up on C = meets expectations, B = exceeds expectations, and A = as close to perfect as I've ever seen. I doubt that today's graduating seniors are all in the practically perfect category.
5
I appreciate the article, but it’s not as if this dope was worried about getting a job. He was always going to ride his father’s financial coattails. And, considering Fred’s other kids, it doesn’t appear there was going to be competition for that role. One (well, “I”) suspect he did nothing at school other that primp and pose. They hustled him out of there and never looked back. He’s spent his life in a vain attempt to appear something other than what he fears he is. And here we are.
10
Finally - a NYT article that made me chuckle. Well done - astute observations well-packaged!
1
BTW it's my understanding that Yale gives more A's than Harvard. Anyway, t went to a couple of schools before Wharton. Obviously he's not only that smart, but he has bad judgment. And he says whatever comes to mind. You'll notice that he doesn't marry women who went to Wharton, NYU, or Vassar.
3
Grading Trump? Rather like doing the limbo -- how low can you go?
14
I don’t think Donald Trump graduated from an American University at all! I think his diploma is in German. Or maybe Scots Gaelic. Anyway show me proof he graduated from an American university! His name is Donald and he likes to golf- that’s proof he graduated from a Scottish college!
4
Off-teleprompter, Trump sticks to a vocabulary of some 300 to 500 words - about the same as a fourth-grader, and even gets words & grammar wrong frequently. The idea that he could master Scots Gaelic is like expecting my 14-year-old diabetic cat to master stochastic math. He certainly is not a Tuatha-de-Danann, Daione Sidhe, or even a Cait Sidhe. Maybe a Hob, though. Happy belated Beltane!
2
He graduated first in his class like he won the club championship at several of his golf clubs: by a combination of lying, cheating and complete fabrication. The actual truth is an alien concept to Trump. He simply spews out what he wishes others to believe, and then becomes aggrieved if he’s questioned or challenged about his fantasy assertions. Tell me, how is this not a form of psychosis? He is episodically out of touch with reality. It would be an interesting case in a psychiatric hospital setting - but where to put the millions who accept his fantasies as reality? There’s no hospital big enough.
12
As I recall, the press had little interest in finding out what Obama's grades were. Why the double standard?
1
@stayfree47....There is no double standard. Obama never claimed he was the greatest thing that ever happened.
2
@stayfree47
Obama wasn't a braggart. Trump is. He's a liar and a con. Showing how poorly he did in school would at least show his supporters an actual fact, for a change.
2
Guess you don’t recall Trump wailing about Obama’s college records. Looks like your “double standard” only goes one way.
1
I am a Penn alumnus, though not Wharton (I majored in English/French, and yet, somehow, I'm not destitute and sleeping under a bridge now. Go figure!). A recent issue of the alumni magazine had a cover feature about another alumnus, "a pioneering photographer of transgender life." Great article, fascinating person. And yet, the next issue was filled with letters to the editor bemoaning the inappropriateness of the article and cover image (hey, some people want to display these magazines in doctor's offices! no one should be subjected to the horror of a man applying nail polish!). Many said they would cancel their subscriptions. Moreover, more than one letter-writer pointed out the disgrace of featuring a transgender alumnus on the cover when Penn still hasn't put a big photo of its most famous Wharton grad front and center. So, yeah, Ivy League, whatever. Still plenty of happily ignorant blowhards.
7
This is hazardous territory. One feels like it is fun, but not funny. We are responding to the person who questioned the legitimacy of Pres. Obama by attacking his legitimacy.
I will take a try though: He dropped many courses, but his transcript may not show that. He did not take logic. He did not take a math class. He did not take art history.
So what did he take? Marketing. I think he was interested in marketing, but it turns out he was both the butcher shop and the meat. He marketed himself as a brand. That probably was not in any course he took back then. It may be now though: influencers are all the rage.
It is easier to imagine what he did not take as a course in college than what he did take. It is hard to picture him doing anything, turning in assignments and taking tests. Rigorous intellectual ardor is not likely in his past.
He took Fred Trump's money to college. Fred wasted his money on the attempted education. This is silly stuff.
He drove a fancy sports car and dated the best looking girls. He was a BMOC (term of that era meaning 'Big Man On Campus'). He wore expensive clothes and was Florida tan after every school break.
Girls said he was 'stuck on himself'. Guys did not like him. He was lacking in self confidence, but then again so were most of his classmates. No one would have suspected he would become POTUS. Least of all me.
571
@Harry Schaffner
He didn't really take anything. Anyone with ADD that severe would never be able to complete any exam.
29
@Harry Schaffner. You assume he even showed up on campus, something many others in the class of '68 dispute.
50
@Sandy
We know that he showed up on campus. His professors confirmed it. They remember him because they said he was the dumbest student they ever saw.
127
I'm with you Prof. I would have never been admitted as a 20-ish grad to Duke where I spent over 30 years in research and teaching, with a named chair to boot. BTW -- my daughter is a Barnard grad and is now a professor at Arizona State in Earth and Planetary Sciences.
My first college term earned an astounding 0.6 gpa. A few years later I was invited into a good honors program, followed by a graduate degree at a school many consider prestigious. Now I am a university economics teacher. I understand what it is like to be a late bloomer. I give don an A+ as the latest of all late bloomers. Of course this is based on current position occupied rather than a measure of actual performance.
3
Dandelions are late bloomers, but are considered weeds to be eradicated.
1
@PJM - Maybe and A+ in Self-Marketing; that's about it. What about Ethics?What grade would you give him in Ethics?
i give President Trump a solid B+. I find his efforts to grant a tax break to stimulate the economy, international politics, and efforts to operate amidst a Democratic legislative group that has nothing in mind but opposing the president, very commendable. Kudos for being the first President in 40 years to try to do anything meaningful for immigration control and reform. And a useful border wall may not be aesthetically pleasing, but it would solve a large problem.
However, I think he could use some pointers on decorum, behavior, and language. He is after all our leader, and needs to appear as such.
1
@Robert Miller,,,You do know that Obama handed him a good economy and in he first two years he had both a Republican House and Senate? The wonderful tax cut has led to a trillion dollar budget deficit, he has trashed the Paris Accord, the Iran nuclear agreement, canceled DACA, diminished ACA without a promised replacement and accomplished exactly nothing more than a photo op with North Korea. And please tell us what he has done with regard to immigration reform. When Obama left office illegal immigration was at 40 year low and there were no asylum caravans crossing Mexico - two years later there is a border crisis? Sounds like a really great job.
5
There’s no way Donald Trump’s GPA broke a 3.0. If that much isn’t self-evident, then I don’t know what could be.
On the matter of Bob Dylan, context is key.
“In the dime stores and bus stations
People talk of situations
Read books, repeat quotations
Draw conclusions on the wall
Some speak of the future
My love, she speaks softly
She knows there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all.”
165
@ubique Many apt Dylan quotes, including this one: "Steal a little and they throw you in jail/Steal a lot and they make you king."
42
@ubique
I'm sure he doesn't want it, but Dylan deserves a national funeral when he dies, with the greatest honors the Republic can bestow on one of its citizens. The equivalent of Victor Hugo's in France, way back when, with immediate admission to the Panthéon. Bob, please don't die while DT is in the White House, because he just doesn't know.*
*"There are some people that if they don't know, you just can't tell them"
3
I'd give him a USDA Grade C. (Only because it doesn't go any lower than that.)
I think he falls somewhere in between ground chuck and chicken wings.
11
A+ for being honest and doing his best to do what he promised he would do.
2
Honest? In which alternate reality?
3
Loved the article, but am flummoxed by the Dylan quote. It's from one of my favorite Dylan songs, but I'll be damned if that line means anything at all.
3
This is a a great piece, but I would have to disagree with Ms. Boylan about grade inflation. It's real, and it does not, sadly, prove that students have become smarter. That's wishful thinking. The demands for higher grades have produced...higher grades. All the evidence shows less reading, shorter writing assignments, and truncated attention spans. Of course, this varies by field, and I'm not claiming that it necessarily applies to Ms. Boylan's classes.
Having said that, I think we can all agree that Trump was not a strong student according to any scale of effort or accomplishment. Nothing has changed there.
8
Institutions with presidents among their alums typically shout that fact from their rooftops... (Even Nixon is again claimed by Whittier) The Wharton pages and Penn website, however, are some of the very few places online that Trump can be avoided entirely.
4
Having graduated high school in 1966, I can attest to the fact that Wharton undergraduate was considered a "back door" to the Ivy League in the mid-1960's. Beyond that, an undergraduate business major was considered something of a joke in academia -- a set of easy requirements ("gut" courses), and lax grading. Usually, members of the football team were business majors. Others, many of whom graduated into jobs in business, majored in liberal arts or the sciences; there was no need to major in business to be hired by, or start, a business.
9
@Raphael........... I was there at the time and completely disagree. The math courses were challenging (tougher than in the liberal arts college) and there was Statistics and Finance which were gut busters....
1
Unfortunately Donald isn't really grade-able; it's like trying to assign a letter grade to a howler monkey. Not fair to the humans in class, or the howler monkey.
18
The premise of this piece — that Trump earned whatever GPA he had as an undergraduate — is highly suspect. I would wager that Daddy Fred Trump purchased his grades for him just like the rest of his “accomplishments”.
9
Such hatred and vitrol. I hope you find peace.
2
@Simon
... Mr. Trump, and that you try to get some sleep at 3:00 a.m. instead of ranting on that Twitter account of yours.
Mr. Biden doesn't stay up all night screaming at people and giving them puerile nicknames, Donald, now does he.
4
Such hatred and vitriol - from trump!
6
@Simon
Simon -- I don't think Mr. Trump reads the Times and he'll probably never read your comment about him, either.
2
I wouldn't give him a grade, I'd just expel him for failure to grasp basic policy and procedure.
10
There isn’t a grade low enough to represent his performance. He is an unmitigated disaster.
12
When I was a graduate teaching assistant, I had a student who decided to fight the grade he'd earned on an important exam I'd just given the class. I wouldn't change it, so he went to my supervisor, who told me to give him the 3 or 4 points he needed for a B. How do you teach young jerks like this? And how do you work with old jerks like this?
13
I:
Inhumane
Inhuman
Indecent
or
U:
Unacceptable
UnAmerican
Unconstitutional
Unlawful
11
His grade? “Does not work and play well with others.”
16
There is no grade low enough to give our cowardly bully in chief, the wannabe godkingemperor with his BFFs the world's dictators, his submission to those who finance his "businesses" and eagerness to emulate those who jail, torture, and kill their opponents.
He has no patriotism, and if he has a religion it is a worship of the power of evil.
He has made hatred and victim blaming normal.
He is actively conspiring to make our planet uninhabitable.
I would go on. Putting him on a scale that runs from excellence to failure does not acknowledge the active destruction that is his primary accomplishment. His ability to traduce Republicans because they think he helps them "win" ignores the active harm they are doing each and every day in their conspiracy against America.
Making America dangerous, small, and cruel. The crash will be like nothing anyone has experienced, and Democrats will not be able to fix it this time, as they have in the past. (Bush crash fixed by Obama, while Trump superheated that recovery for temporary profit. How stupid is that?)
10
This individual cannot be"graded" on a human scale. It is the trumpian psyche that we do not get. It does not recognize or submit to any rule, concept, or method that deals with anything that is vaguely like morality.
As he recently said, "only suckers pay taxes." That he is "smart" or intelligent is not the issue. He is both of these things, as the fact that he is still alive proves.
He is basically as insane and cruel as any ancient despot, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero or modern for that matter such as Hitler. We are fortunate, I would suppose, in that that the Law permits outright murder, but he is cape able of causing the deaths of millions with out even thinking about it...
2
@Tom Carney
Apologies, It is supposed to say that the Law Does not permit.
2
As the father of a child with learning disabilities, I am always reluctant to pile on when Trump is criticized for not reading, for having a short attention span, etc.
Most people with dyslexia or ADHD develop workarounds for their challenges, but Trump's narcissism provides the greatest workaround of all: since he already has all the answers, there is nothing he needs to learn. It's a risky strategy for the leader of the free world, but one that leaves lots of time for Twitter.
784
@Ron
You may remeber that when asked why he did not attend the daily presidential briefings after his election, he said, "I'm like a smart person...."
57
@Ron
I think you are overlooking another workaround: his Daddy's immense fortune. This allowed the hiring of all sorts of people to shield him from his shortcomings, whether due to learning disabilities or not.
79
@68Rocket What many of us who were at Penn at the same time wonder is whether people were hired to do his course work for him . How many Penn graduates other than Trump have such a loose grip on English that they use "Myself" as the subject of a sentence?
73
Grades should be part of public information. If the fact one has graduated is announced publicly then why are the grades/GPA not part of that same piece of information ?
5
College grades and standardized test scores do tell us something about a person. But the ancient Greeks promoted a higher ideal, specifically the idea that a wise person should follow the dictum of "Know Thyself" (as is inscribed on a wall, in Greek, of course, at the Temple of Apollo at Delphi, and elsewhere.
By that criterion, Trump is barely human. He shows no evidence of a recognition of the fact that most of the people in his world see him as ineducable, severely limited in capacity for feelings of empathy, and so narcissistic that he learns nothing from his failures.
6
I am not an Ivy League grad, but I was told that once you're in you have to work at flunking out.
Not so at UCLA, where I did grad work. I received grades that I had to work to achieve. I saw classmates drop out.
I was proud to receive my "With Merit" addition to my MA, I earned it.
Trump used college simply as a trapping. His intellectual level is that of the bored dillitant he has always been, absent any intellectual curiosity.
6
you don’t want to be the guy who shows up to a back alley fight with a knife, because odds are you will be outgunned.
if you are still willing to fight trump fairly, at least understand it’s going to be a long painful fight, your best hope being that trump will accidentally inflict the parting shot upon himself. Likely.. but it may be a long time coming.
Trump's lying doctor said the boy had a bone spur in his foot and would fail at using it for anything military. Actually, the truth of the matter is that he has a bone spur in his brain and when he uses it, he creates great pain and destruction for everyone.
10
@Don - What a lame excuse - bone spurs. My mother was a telephone operator in the Marine Corps and I don't recall her telling tales of having to run 20 miles through the jungles to serve the country.
2
@tom harrison - The concern with the military may have been that if Daddy had bought him a officer's commission he would have been a top candidate for getting fragged by his men.
3
@DJ McConnell - lol, that's rich.
I’ve created a new grading system for him. He gets one fools-gold-plated star for being elected by fools, even if he wanted to cheat but was incompetent at it. A coal ash star for denying climate threats to our nation, and for being a really mean person. One crooked star for being disabled by ADD or whatever it is, and for being an actual unindicted co-conspirator at the same time.
All the other stuff? well, he only deserves three stars, what can I say. Out of a possible ten stars.
4
I don't know about a grade but the teacher's comment would probable read..."Doesn't play well with others."
4
Extra credit for “ Bone Spurs “ ???
Sad.
6
I'd give him an "L" for LOSER! Which he has been since his name entered the lexicon when I was a student at NYU, way back in the 1970's. Still can't believe that there are so many others in this country who fell (and continue to fall) for his shtick.
8
As we all know, grades don't mean a whole lot. Trump is the illegitimate president of the United States. So, who cares? By the way, it's "she knows there's no success like failure and that failure's no success at all."
3
"You know, like if they [academic institutions] did the exact same thing Mr. Trump had demanded of Mr. Obama."
Classic bully is Mr. Trump -- and his minions. Deny, deny, deny. Or accuse, accuse, accuse his opponents of doing exactly what he's doing. Lying, lying, lying. Birther nonsense. It matters not how nonsensical. His base, giving him an A+ on this comment thread, would not waver in their support even if he shot someone on 5th Avenue in broad daylight.
We're doomed. This is no way to run a democracy -- or a republic, for that matter.
3
Painfully, we've learned that Trump and his uneducated followers have a lot in common.
7
Teacher comments: I am please to report that Donald continues to show great progress in living up to his talent. Unfortunately, his talents are bullying, lying, cheating and bragging.
8
A seeming illiterate, who often can't get the spelling of 'collusion' right no matter how often he practices. Maybe he should work on easier words first, like 'liar' and 'fraud'.
9
When my sister taught school she had mentally handicapped kids in her class. While everyone else got marks that reflected their work, these unfortunate children got a 'pass' and moved along to sit in the next grade with their age peers.
Donald doesn't even rate the courtesy pass for doing nothing but filling space in the White House. He's destructive, nasty, expensive, and repulsive. In other words, an all-caps FAIL.
9
I wouldn’t give a grade, I’d assign an “incomplete” and expel him.
He doesn’t fit in a learning setting.
3
A+ ... the first to have a chance at cleaning the swamp
1
He should be expelled for bad behavior. No grade. No graduation.
3
Trump was a mid to low C student.
This is admirable, considering that Donald has documented IQ of only 95, has always been functionally illiterate, and that he suffers from both narcissistic personality disorder and being an extreme present hedonist.
5
Boylan is a committed participant in the well-known grade inflation phenomenon; I’m sure she distributed unearned A’s widely during her tenure at Colby. And since when is “working hard” deserving of an “A?” Effort is important only if it leads to the desired results; results are what matter. She betrays her ignorance by not understanding the difference. Worse, she’s passing that attitude on to scores of her students.
I personally don’t care how Trump did in college 50 years ago, nor do I care who he has sex with. Same thing goes for Obama, or either of the Clintons.
However, it is quite obvious that Barrack Obama was very intelligent because he was made Editor of The Law Review at Harvard. This happened when he was not on the national stage. Bill Clinton was a Rhodes Scholar, a prestigious opportunity for any young person. Hilary Clinton was the first student speaker at her graduation from Wellesley, an honor so impressive that she was in Time magazine as a previously unknown college student.
I don’t need to see transcripts of any of these people because their intelligence is on display by their vocabularies and manner of speaking in public via appearances or on social media. The only interest I have in their sex lives is that it is nobody’s business but their spouse. The spouses of public figures can handle their own issues.
That said, I want to know how people handle their own finances, because that tells me of their ability to handle public finances. If mistakes were made in the past, were lessons learned? Are they beholden to financial interests that are not good for our country? Corporations or foreign countries? Do they pay taxes? Do they contribute to charity? Which charities?
The way people spend, make and invest their money reflects their current values and ability to see the big picture. Show us your taxes, Mr Trump.
16
I' m doubting he even WENT to Wharton.
6
I am eminently qualified to "grade" Trump; I teach middle school.
Emotionally and intellectually he would rank in the bottom half of the national cohort of 7th graders. I work with a number of students who would easily be more competent and measured as president, despite falling a little short of the age 35 requirement.
More interesting than the number or letter grade we give students would be the comments that appear on the report card as well.
Grade: F
Comments: Needs impeachment!
19
I am sure the Wharton School at Penn is thrilled that Trump goes around bragging that he is one of its finest graduates.
That ought to dampen the academic image of the University of Pennsylvania like almost nothing else. You too can pay a lot of money to attend the same university as President Donald J. Trump, Class of 1968.
Given Trump's countless business failures, rip-off schemes such as Trump University, disregard for law and ethics, and his know-nothing, abusive, and chaotic performance as President, maybe the University of Pennsylvania might want to ask for its diploma back.
11
When he was the Dean of Trump University, Donald gave himself an A+ and awarded himself a crown that was left over from the Miss Universe pageant.
9
As the late George Carlin put it, "If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?"
4
Who cares about his grades.
What we do know is that he didn't learn much, that's for sure.
5
Based on the fact that he clearly didn't learn anything but graduated nonetheless, Wharton needs to be de-certified!
6
For his followers, Trump remains a "successful businessman" at the top of the social pile regardless of the means or actual wealth. This is the American Dream without the effort.
1
Since you mention Bob Dylan, it might be interesting for you and your readers to know that in his brief stint at the University of Minnesota, Dylan received a D+ in his Music Appreciation class.....(https://www.minnesotafunfacts.com/famous-minnesotans/music/bob-dylan/). This clearly did not hold him back and who knows, may have contributed to his decision to drop out of the U of M and hitchhike out to New York and into history.
As a former college faculty member, I hope some of the students to whom I assigned low/failing grades went on to successful careers and lives though I doubt I had any Dylans. What worries me about Trump is not whatever grades he did or did not receive many years ago, but the obvious lack of intellectual curiosity or honesty he exhibits today. That he does not read, that he has access to the world's best intelligence information and apparently does not avail himself of it. Instead, he chooses to listen/watch such luddites as Lou Dobbs and Sean Hannity. Our President appears to be making decisions in either a low-information or false information environment. This is what worries me.
8
Did you ever think he didn’t appreciate the music the school was making him listen to? Maybe that’s why he wrote all his own. Most everyone appreciates his music. Hmm, Nobel prize. We should all thank him.
1
Donal Trump. A man with so much to hide! What scares me most is the number of people that support him.
4
Actual Dylan quote (from song = "Love Minus Zero/No Limit", album = "Bringing It All Back Home"):
"You know there's no success like failure
And that failure's no success at all"
Similar, but not the same as lyric mis-quoted in the article.
As the late George Carlin put it, "If you try to fail, and succeed, which have you done?"
2
Guessing might be the best way to encourage the truth to come out.
Grade inflation occurred in the late 1960's when college professors inflated grades so their male students would have a better chance to be exempt from the draft for the Vietnam war.
1
As a student of that era, GPA had nothing to do with losing a student deferment, so long as you didn't flunk out.
2-S student deferments were ended in 1967.
IBM's subsidiary Science Research associates designed a draft deferment test.
Also students in the top 10% of their class were deferred.
In protest colleges stopped releasing rank in class.
Eventually a lottery system was devised.
When middle class parents saw their children were going to be drafted the parents put pressure on the Congress and Congress cut off funds for the war.
We must all be at least somewhat illiterate because there are simply no words to properly describe Trump's constant lies and nonsensical arguments. We need a new vocabulary.
2
president obama is actually, truly, verifiably, really smart. unlike the (un)stable genius.
4
If he approached school the way he approached business, his grades will reflect a mixture of failure, cheating and others' successes, orchestrated with a certain cunning.
4
I'm certain Trump doesn't even grasp the hypocrisy of threatening legal action if Wharton released his grades after he demanded that Obama release his.
As for grading his performance in office, I have to give him an F. And if there were any grade lower than that he would deserve it. Among many things, he has FAILED to "protect and defend" the Constitution by not taking appropriate action against an adversarial foreign power that everyone but him acknowledges interfered in our 2016 election and threatens to do it again in 2020. He as also FAILED to recognize the serious nature of the climate crisis and promoted policies that will only make it worse, threatening the future livability of our fragile environment. The list goes on and on.
But when he looks in the mirror Trump sees someone who has accomplished more in his first two years than any other occupant of the Oval Office in history. (I wonder what FDR would say about that.) Of course, he always gives himself an A+ in everything, regardless of the reality.
3
If you're referring to USDA grades for turkeys, I give him a USDA Grade C since that's a step lower than the wing tips, tails, and giblets used in Cat Food.
5
@Jbugko - I'll give him a USDA Utility Grade myself.
1
Unless you work in Academia, nobody cares what grades you got in school as long as you graduated. This hunt for Trump's college grades is just meaningless. OK, admittedly we all hate him and want to see him gone. The world is a diminished place with him in it. We don't need yet another reason to declare his unfitness for the Presidency. Let's focus on his ACTUAL crimes. He is obstructing and daring us to do something about it.
1
It's obvious that Trump was at Warton to teach the professors.
After all, he did 'invent' priming the pump.
2
Read the 12-mistake sentence that anchors Dumb Don's August 15, 2016 paper on national security and you understand immediately that he can neither read nor write. He could not have sat a single test or exam in high school, let alone university. So what happened? In that time-honored American tradition, Fred wrote a check.
3
@Francis McInerney - What I don't understand is why the old man doesn't just turn on spellcheck like I do. Anytime I see some red squigglies, I try another spelling.
Meanwhile, if you check out Melania's tweets, they are well written and make sense and she is an immigrant dealing with another language. If she can figure out a way to get it right its sad that he can't learn from his third wife. She has no degree that I am aware of.
@tom Harrison
I suspect Melania's tweets are written by someone else. I get the sense that she isn't all that interested in being First Lady.
1
The heck with grades. My question about Trump's transcript and academic record, based on his long career-long record of cheating and dishonesty, is whether they would show he had been caught cheating as a student. It wouldn't be a surprise if he had.
2
The current occupant and all his actions are always the “greatest“, “amazing“, “beautiful“, genius, etc, etc.…
If any of this is real, he should be ranting from the rooftops for the release of his transcripts, and his taxes, so that we may all bask in their glorious glory. Don’t you think…?
He brags as he breathes, yet still they believe…
2
I would give the President an F because in my opinion he has not helped to conserve the environment to preserve it for future generations, he has not recognized global warming, drops out of negotiated treaties without trying to improve the existing ones, has hired someone to run the education department who has no background in education and many other changes that I feel are detrimental to society. He said at his inauguration he would be President for all Americans, but he never thinks of me. I am worse off than when he was elected.
2
Students are 'smarter now'? Really?
Having taught mathematics at the post-secondary level for most of the past four decades, I believe I have ample evidence, largely anecdotal but partly quantitative, that that categorically is not the case. If anything, quite the reverse.
You don't have to fit into the political category 'conservative' to be alarmed by the degradation in rigor in American education at every level.
4
@richard - Yeah? If that's the case, why don't Conservative lawmakers do something to make American education more rigorous at all levels? Does it have something to do with money?
1
He passed. He retained what knowledge served his purpose in life which has and remains to be the biggest celebrity figure of his time. That does not leave much knowledge required to graduate from university, and he does not indicate that he retained much of that.
When it comes to Trump University, all that matters is how much Trump can get away with when he settles out of court in order to buy his way out of a fraud conviction.
3
Brent was really on fire in the fall of 79, comfortably settled in while also bringing some much needed experimentation and variety to the band's sound. A marvelous string of shows, culminating in a rightly legendary New Years run. But the real jewel is the second set from 10/27 at Cape Cod Coliseum. The Caution jam cooks.
Also grades don't matter
4
It all depends on the concept and definition of success, For his followers Trump represents the American Dream, a a "successful businessman" who has risen to the top of the social pile regardless of the means and actual wealth. What we know of Trump's educational record from grade school on suggests dishonesty and disgrace. There are school mates who testify to his bullying and obnoxious behavior toward teachers and other students, necessitating a transfer to New York Military Academy and no evidence of any academic achievement. It's enough that Trump can say he he attended Wharton School of Business regardless of how well he did there or even graduated.
5
Many, dare say, most of his followers don’t know who this Wharton guy is that he keeps talking about. More importantly, they don’t care. Ignorance is bliss. SAD.
Rarefaction! I must admit, even after looking it up, I still can't figure out how to use it in a sentence. Apparently, it's basically the opposite of compression.
Thanks very much for the new word though!
1
I looked that one up, also. I’ve tried to give you a sentence but I can’t, either.
1
I did a teaching stint in Asia. They let me do grading in points but assigned letter grading themselves. Then I found that A- spanned into mid-80s... 'Our students compete in a tough job market', they explained. Luckily, I never had a pressure to give good grades while teaching in US.
1
And unless I am mistaken, Trump transferred to Wharton from St. John’s. And of course he was in military school as a teenager. Boys are typically sent to those place because they have significant discipline problems. Another happy day in America.
7
@Mark Siegel He transferred to Wharton from Fordham.
I went to UC Santa Cruz back when they were still doing "narrative" evaluations, which basically summarized your performance in the course without giving it a letter. It ended up being pretty hard on students: over the hill at Stanford, people close to the mean in science classes would get an "A", while we had a statement in our records saying how we scored relative to "average".
And then there was my evaluation for Ancient Greek, stating that my work in the course "was of barely passing quality". Would have preferred a C to that!
6
Who knows more Greek?
Based on reports, he never does his reading assignments, watches a lot of TV and typically makes claims such as "my dog ate my homework," so, he gets a F--clueless.
14
Pretty much if you get into an elite university program your grades should be high since theoretically students with the highest high school academic achievements are the ones selected. It’s not true grade inflation unless people are given a pass when they don’t do the work or don’t meet the requirements.
1
IN ADDITION to Trump's 1040s and college transcript, I demand to see his the x-rays of his feet.
45
Give hime some credit for spelling "Red Socks" properly...
6
F minus minus.
13
I see many comments stating the trump has ADD. I doubt that his intellectual deficiencies stem from anything more than never having to work for or learn anything since it was all handed to him to begin with. He is simply lazy and willfully ignorant, hence stupid.
You can't fix stupid.
68
F for intelligence and knowledge
W for withdrawing from meaningful contact with the human race, which the humanities teach and from the world that sciencereveals
4
Trump is insanely jealous of Obama, his intelligence ,his class and the fact that most of the world loved him. He never can match up and this is why he tells so many lies about himself and his so-called abilities and achievements equating money with character.
What a moron . He just doesn't get it or perhaps he does and it is eating him alive .
43
@Mathilda Rose: we can only hope that his knowledge of his inferiority is eating him up.
Hopefully before eats the country up.
2
Did he even graduate? Where’s the proof?
20
@Indy1
Hey Indy 1, he himself gave you his word and you know how great and beautiful his word is. Also, he has lots of words. He said so so of course its true.
2
education is not key to a good presidency. a basic education is all that's needed. that and common sense and leadership skills. i can give many examples.
to focus on his grades is what hacks do. its not serious journalism, and is just silly nonsense. hard to believe the NYT publishes this silliness.
3
It’s not about his grades, it’s about his lies, for which he gets an “A” for telling more than all previous presidents combined.
5
“Basic education, common sense, and leadership skills”
NONE OF WHICH TRUMP HAS!
2
The point was never to attack his academic achievements, rather to make the point that his claims of knowledge and intelligence are also trumped up- in other words, a puff piece with information most of us reading already suspected/knew. That being said, I would not be surprised if he didn’t remember his grades, it has been decades since he’s been in school after all and at that point schooling doesn’t really have an effect. This isn’t a defense of the man, but rather a more balanced view on him considering that people either love him or hate him.
2
Even liberals such as myself shake our fists at grade inflation
3
Why should it matter to Trump what his grades were?
Oh. yes. I forgot. He is a pathological sociopath and narcissist who compulsively lies about everything he does. Whether it is his academic record, or his golf game, or really, anything else, he has to be "the best," "the greatest," or "number one." He is as shameless as a child about this, and we all now know to flatly ignore his absurd claims.
All of us, except of course the zombie MAGA-heads who don't care that he is lying, or, if they realize it, actually admire his dishonesty.
27
A grade is just a number. Like your weight--Trump's very low. Or your IQ--Trump's very high. Or your height--Trump's the best.
Of course, I'm just a citizen and a taxpayer (and a C student, if barely), so no one cares what I think. Nor should they.
Trump's SAT (Satanic Achievement Test) scores are so high that they qualify the whole country for early acceptance to University of Sheol.
3
An educated person proofreads before s/he seals the envelope and licks the stamp (or taps send).
5
Did you learn that at Wharton.
1
In tax avoidance policy and marketing, its an absolute A . Business management F. Economics F . Overall I’d be surprised with anything above a C average.
5
Let’s see your grades.
3
Tom and Tom are not President.
Dumb Donnie was probably lucky enough that the guy who wrote his essays got a "D" for him and told him it was special. It was a grade created just for Donnie.
I am beyond outrage. I am just sick of him.
19
His daddy purchased him a 4F from the draft to go to Vietnam... so.. I say... let's go with what daddy chose here:
4F (as in a four dimensional failure as president).
14
How do we even know he graduated from Wharton? Is there any public record that confirms that he actually attended Wharton? Using typical trump logic he has threatened legal action if Wharton releases his transcript. To the casual reader, that implies that he was a student there. But was he? And what about those SATs? Same doubts apply. Wharton wisely keeps its institutional mouth shut. Frankly, having seen him in action for two years places serious doubt in my mind about any educational background at all. Remember, Fred sent him to New York Military Academy because he was a lousy student. And his roommate at NYMA says publicly that "no bigger jerk has ever walked the planet Earth."
Have we seen his birth certificate? Was he actually born? With trump, nothing logical can be assumed or left to chance.
He cheats at golf, he cheats on his wife, he cheats at business, he lies at least ten times a day and he's a moron. These are the known facts. With that background, can we really assume anything about this person's education?
Perhaps Trump University was created to fill the void of no real diploma. Imagine, Dr. of economics from Trump U. No, wait, that's Larry Kudlow.
The only degree the donald deserves is in mental midgetry. And he has the record to prove it. And the followers.
38
I would give him an "A" for Arrogant and an "I" for Ignorant.
2
What grade?
That’s a joke right?
It depends entirely on your personal feelings for the guy, and judging by this diatribe you wrote, you would not even give him a chance.
To you and Liberals he fails just because he breathes air.
The rest of your argument is irrelevant after that preconceived notion about him.
3
@AutumnLeaf: It is gross arrogance to say that people who oppose Trump do so “because he breathes air.” There is no end of outrageous behaviour that would cause any critical thinker to oppose Trump. But to keep this short, I’d just like to remind you of the babies and children he separated from their parents without even having a plan to reunite them. He simply doesn’t care about them. If that isn’t enough reason for opposition, I don’t know what is!
3
To quote Jon Snow: We breathe air. Trump doesn’t. Wasn’t that what he said or was it the Night King?
1
Someone who doesn’t read and cannot spell should receive a grade of I, for incomplete or incompetent.The important evaluation should be of his mental and emotional stability.For the lack of these qualities he earns an F.His emotional rants and daily lies prove that he does not even deserve an E.Most often Trump is evaluated as they rate movies-that would be an X.
7
I bet he enrolled to stay out of the draft and then never took the classes, he at that young age knew who the losers were
1
Trump is an odious hypocrite for demanding Obama's transcripts and refusing to relinquish his own. That said....a B in 1968 was actually a very good grade. It wasn't a "gentleman's failure," as Finney puts it. I'd be surprised if Trump had even close to a B average at Penn, honestly. Also, Trump's moral failings are many. I don't consider sub-par academic grades evidence of, well, anything.
Grade inflation is so rampant today that it's easy to forget that a B was, at one time, actually considered above average. Finney's conclusion that higher grades reflect not grade inflation but smarter students is pretty specious.
3
@Sarah A: But we don’t know that he had a B average. That is just something a commentator inferred. Without a transcript we simply don’t know. Nor do I care except that it’s further proof of his narcissism and lying. I do care that he is destroying a once wonderful country. If you love the USA you should care, too.
1
So just how good of a student was Donald Trump? Here's a clue: after Trump became nationally famous, one of his Wharton professors would tell people that Trump was "the dumbest student I ever had."
9
Regardless of his academic record, the man shows signs of dementia.
17
I would expel Trump for school and require him to work in prison library, the only safe place in society for and from him.
4
@David Macauley - Yup; the books would be perfectly safe from wear and tear at his hands, that's for sure.
2
Major in comprehending Fox News.
Minor in no curiosity for learning at all.
6
Did we ever see Obama’s transcripts? I can’t recall ever seeing transcripts for any president.
5
I'm convinced that, while he officially matriculated at Penn, he did not truly "earn" his degree. Ten bucks says Daddy paid some impoverished student to write every term paper.
5
Is Z- a possibility for a grade?
5
"his high pony" Good one.
4
Neither did Barack Obama. You didn't have a problem with that. Seems duplicitous (maybe you should look that up).
5
@Melissam. There was no need for former president Obama to show his grades. Everything he did showed him to be a man of intelligence. I don’t need to see Trump’s grades either to know that he is not.
1
@Cat Lover
I think the fact he was Harvard Law Review was an indicator of good grades.
1
Students have gotten smarter? Is that a joke?
My husband and I both teach at a university. It is a well known fact that NOW 50% of ALL freshmen will be required to take remedial classes..and that includes the private boarding school students whose parents paid $65K in tuition, room, and board.
I’ve had classes where not one student could write a complete sentence. I begin each semester with one week of diagramming sentences---if you went to Catholic School you’ll know what I’m saying.
Children don’t learn cursive and if a school requires it, the parents go ballistic! Tell me! How do these students read ANY paper in the National Archives? Constitution? Or a letter from Nana? How does one research early history or don’t facts matter anymore?
Students get higher grades because parents vow to get the dean fired! My husband teaches IT and EVERY student copies straight from the Internet. We have software that shows copying...students with 94% plagiarism should be given an F and kicked out of school! Doesn’t happen. I have my law degree and every semester I TRY to explain Theft of Intellectual Property. In this private college (If you can’t get into the STATE university you go here) it’s like looking at a flock of sheep staring back at me!
My BEST students are Marines. I teach fire rescue at the Marine Air Bases and water rescue with helos and vertical hoists.
They remember EVERY word as their buddies’ lives depend on them.
Students are smarter-oh RIGHT!
7
@Nuschler
I'm substitute teaching in high school. I see that the kids no longer have to read or learn to write or even understand what's happening anywhere. Because all they have to do is go online. It's all there for them. Everything right there. In color.
3
Most students take remedial courses in math, which is counterproductive, leads to failure, stigmatization, and dropping out. It's an outdated requirement that has little or nothing to do with their futures.
One week diagramming sentences is a waste of time. There's a reason schools jettisoned diagramming — for most students, it didn't work!
Cursive? Now, you sound like a hidebound, traditionalist from the 1950s! Lots of people's handwriting, mine included, was ruined by cursive instruction. It even induces carpal tunnel syndrome. In the modern era, learning how to touch type on a keyboard is far more important.
As a long time college instructor, I find it hard to believe your college doesn’t enforce anti-plagiarism rules. I realize there are grading pressures but, in well-documented cases, students can be flunked, if not for the course, at least on the assignment. Most colleges have a two-strikes and you're out policy; while I abhor plagiarizing, I agree that there should be a second chance and not instant expulsion. In some cases, international students come from countries where copying material is expected; others, however, use that as an excuse.
Color me skeptical your campus doesn't support giving an F if someone plagiarizes. If so, it's a rarity and your faculty should organize and change policy.
Finally, I hope you're not of those who believes students in the 1950s and early 60s were better students. They were not. Gobs of research documents that.
1
@Marsha Pembroke
When is the last time you taught?
Hawaii Pacific University requires NO SATs, ACTs.
Most students here are foreign and simply need a degree from a US college, then return home.
Most universities require TOEFL (Test of English as a Foreign Language) for non native English speakers. HPU doesn’t. My husband was sure his IT grad students couldn’t speak any English which is why they plagiarized. “Oh there’s a word I recognize! I’ll copy and paste this whole chapter!”
HPU has NEVER kicked out a student for plagiarism...EVER. The students got a lousy education and never learned about the legalities.
Faculty should organize--HAHAHA! There are only part-time adjunct instructors teaching in most colleges. They have as much power to organize as Walmart employees can unionize. "You don’t like how we do it? Fine! There are PLENTY of folks looking for teaching positions."
My spouse lost his job in the 2008 recession...as he had complained about plagiarism.
I teach multi-variable calculus and American Lit. Remedial math is simply ratios and percentages. Learning how to calculate sq footage for painting a room or percentages for a loan is all that we expect. Not algebra or trig.
Not sure how cursive writing “ruined” your handwriting since they are the same thing. Not talking calligraphy.
How could Robert Caro write five volumes on LBJ if he couldn’t READ cursive? No personal letters, diary entries?
MOST for profit colleges only have one requirement. Money.
3
"...students have gotten smarter."
Wherein Boylan offers a conclusion based upon zero evidence. Very Trumpian of her, yes?
3
There would need to be a grade much worse than F to appropriately capture what a miserable failure as a human being DJT is. One of his professors described him as the dumbest student he ever had. The degree to which DJT overstates his own intelligence is symptomatic of one of the worst cases of Narcissistic Personality Disorder in history.
14
Incompetent! Incomplete!
1
I’ve heard it said that no one is completely evil. Not even Cersie Lannister!
Yet, I have completely given up any faith that anyone from this paper or its readers has anything good to say about Donald Trump.
I wonder if he will someday look back on it all and wonder if being president was worth it.
2
@Steven Roth, yet, like Sisyphus, you continue, over and over, to frustrate yourself, by reading "this paper" and commenting on its' articles.
4
I expect him to say before long he was the first man on the moon.
7
He would not have been admitted.
Too dull.
Too inattentive.
Too lazy.
Deficient in intellectual inquisitiveness.
Of dubious moral integrity.
But his daddy was rich.
14
I give him an A for cunning and cruelty; D for smarts. No doubt someone was hired to read and write for him to secure whatever actual grade appeared on a transcript.
12
I give him the grade: Total Loser.
Why? Easy. Even if had he graduated at the top of his class, his serial bankruptcies say he didn't apply anything he learned.
19
What kind of grade would I give Donald Trump? The same grade that he has bestowed on his own Presidency. Degrade.
11
How dare you call Donald Trump an "American taxpayer"!! That's an insult to those of us who actually pay taxes.
48
To grade him as a person, I would give him high marks for:
cunning,
self-aggrandizement,
malignant narcissism,
greed,
dishonesty: being unacquainted with the Truth and stealing/ taking whatever he can get away with.
5
Evidently, if you want your kid to learn how to lose more than $1,000,000,000 in less than a decade, send him or her to the Wharton School.
Since a letter grade cannot possibly do Trump justice, he is more appropriately rated America's "#1" loser.
11
For putting across the idea the world's future might just be authoritarian, not democratic; I'd say Trump is one of the worst leaders in world history. Since the end of WWII we've seen a spread of democracy, self governance, human and civil rights throughout the world, including China and the former USSR. Trump admires throwbacks fascists like Kim Jun-Un, Putin, Duterte, Bolsonaro. All of whom seek to imprison their people; foster war and hatred,
and promote economic poverty.
He lies daily, pays off prostitutes, downgrades education, imprisons children, and incites division among Americans at every turn.
His economic policies seem designed to deliberately create pollution and further damage the environment; while taking money from middle and lower class peoples and delivering it to the wealthy.
He has usurped our Constitution and seeks ways to undermine the rule of law.
His personality is completely repulsive, and his lack of vocabulary is a serious indication of a person with no significant intelligence.
Now what exactly is the point of this article? Shouldn't the headline be; "Is Our Donnie Really That Bad After All?"
The answer is NO, he's worse.
12
Trump is not simply a partisan actor with an agenda. He is a deeply damaged human psyche. This is underplayed in our cultural conception of him as a “leader.” The extent to which he compulsively projects and spreads his own spiritual illness (for example, not simply de-regulating environmental law, but in effect trying to push pollution ) is severely troublesome. Have we already forgot about our pre-WWII past? He is dangerous because he is very unwell, and we should remember what Arendt, Fromm, et al , had to say about compromised psyches that relish positions of great power.
3
Seven of my blind students received their GED under my tutorage. I would predict the failing Mephistopheles received some distant unknown letter beyond the letter Z.
5
Obama didn’t share his grades. He ‘s also probably the only President or Editor of the Harvard Law Review that never published a word in it. As far as grades today are concerned they’ve been corrupted by the politics of intolerance and the equality of results that applies to the proletariot but not the self appointed Vanguard.
5
The zen of Trump: imperfection has no limits.
3
Here’s a hint: If you fail at governance because the issues we face are incredibly complex, well, that’s an E, a good failure. But if you simply don’t care? And see no difference between a lie and the truth?
What happens if you know that there is no difference between a lie and the truth?
The man who can see from the start the a problem is too complex for them, and thus doesn't care, is way wiser than the fool who toils away like sysphus at an unsolveable problem.
1
“Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases to love.”
― Fyodor Dostoevsky, The Brothers Karamazov
4
Great book and quote. Donnie doesn’t know who that immigrant is.
2
His Achille's Heel ... toeing the line at a GPA of 2.0 or less... unless mirrored in an art of the deal (not New Deal) transaction.
One thing is certain. He is not a standard fool, unable to think clearly and for himself. Most people from ivy leagues I've encountered are such. And why? Simply put, hubris. President Trump carves out his own path, and its based upon his love for this country. This article's author has written an essay saturated with hubris.
2
Love for this country? He leads with his ego, and it is an insatiable master—hubris feeds it....
1
@Len
Do you intend to say that Trump is an above-standard fool? Or a sub-standard fool? And if he's unable to think clearly and for himself, who's he able to think for? Confusing.
1
Did someone actually write: for love of country——— meaning Donnie. Oh, wait, sorry. You mean Russia or is it spelled Russer at Wharton. Now I get it.
1
I feel that the president has thoroughly debased his office, and I think there is good reason for the Senate to subpoena his tax records, but I don't see why he should be obliged to release his college transcripts to the public.
3
@Adam
No one is saying Trump should be obliged to release his transcripts, only that he is hypocritical to conceal his own transcripts while demanding that Obama release his.
2
This wasn’t a call for Mr Trump’s transcripts but rather another example of his horrible personal character and utter hypocrisy. He demeaned Mr Obama’s intellect and demanded his (Obama’s) academic records then later threatened Wharton and the College Board if either released his (Trump’s) grades. The irony was sad and pathetic.
The man’s vanity has no limits. Our nation is at the precipice of war with Iran and Mr Trump - the know-nothing of all know-nothings - is sitting idly by too preoccupied with the fallout from the Mueller report to notice.
2
"Nothing succeeds like excess."
- Oscar Wilde
1
Trump studied hard at Wharton like Bush 43 trained hard in the Texas Air Guard.
7
what's less than zero?
2
Let's grade President Trump as if he were a Kindergarten student. Here is one section of a standard report card at that level:
Regulates emotions and behaviors: F
Establishes and maintains positive relationships: D (he has a great relationship with Ivanka after all)
Follows school/class rules: F
Exhibits a positive attitude toward learning: F
Demonstrates pride in work: A+
Our president would not graduate Kindergarten, but he is the most powerful person on earth. What is wrong with this picture?
6
"Well, that’s an F, the same grade you might give a businessman if he’d lost more money, year after year, than any other American taxpayer."
It's incomprehensible that the above quote applies to the President of the United States (illegitimate as he may be). Not to mention, that he won largely based on votes from ignorant people who fell for the ruse that he is one of America's most successful businessmen as opposed to the truth that he is perhaps America's most successful conman (purely through dumb luck and Daddy's money rather than genuine savvy).
3
A logical deduction is that Trump is too embarrassed to release his grades because the grades reflect poorly on his academic achievements.
We know Trump won’t release his tax returns. We know the reason is he lost over a billion dollars over a ten year period.
We know his ego is so large that he would brag about making straight A’s if he could back it up.
Whenever Trump is unable to back up his brags, he hides the truth and calls people names.
2
From what we have discovered about him: he doesn't like to read and does not read, he watches TV a lot, he thinks he is smarter than anyone around, he doesn't listen to people with expertise, I would bet that he must have gotten C's generally, one or two B's from generous graders. Universities don't like to fail students because it reflects negatively on their capacity to teach so I suspect that if there are any grades higher than B's, they were due to generous graders, and most probably, because Trump complained so much that teachers preferred to get rid of him (or he threatened to sue them). I know of one professor who never failed anyone because he didn't want a student to take his course again. He had had enough of him.
2
Ah, but Jennifer, re "failing on such a gargantuan scale," and if Trump did so poorly in college as we could safely predict, on the contrary he has NOT amounted to anything. Rather he is a total failure as a man, as a human being. They say a "piece of paper" tells us little as to how an adult will perform in later years. The brightest among graduates may not be a success in any career or profession. The struggling student may succeed exponentially. It depends a lot on character and drive, assertiveness and complacency. Trump is that person right there in a middling hole who most likely did not only present less than stellar grades but also continued the trajectory of poor performance across the board. F for failure is the only grade applicable for this man. And even that is too good.
4
While I would never suggest that grades make the man or woman, or even what college one attended and if one graduated, but I think what's most instructive in the case of this president and his academic record is not just his predictable, hyperbolic lying, but the lengths he went to conceal whatever they were.
More to the point in my view is the lack of evidence that this president knows much about anything pertinent to his position or outside of his bizarre personal preoccupations, including a vainglorious interest in adulation and rage when not forthcoming, an affection for strongmen and interest in achieving the same kind of power, antiquated views on a whole host of subjects previously settled and a belief in loony conspiracy theories that support a paranoid view of a world he appears to view from the perspective of his belly button.
Even more frightening, his intellectual deficiencies including a complete lack of curiosity pale in comparison to his lack of any discernible moral compass.
8
The president is not a follower. He probably got terrible grades. As poor as he is at execution, his concepts are fairly sound. He has routinely beaten far more intelligent, detailed analysts with his own homespun, street smart work, his 2016 election analysis and the China trade war (now, belatedly endorsed by Lloyd Blankfein) being examples. He’s done far better as president than my very low expectations indicated he would. Obama was a details guy whose policies were nothing special. His main legacies are $10T more debt and fallen states in Libya/Syria.
2
@rjs7777
There would have been $10 trillion more debt no matter who was president. Congress holds the purse strings, not the president, and the staggering increase was primarily due to the inherited recession, tax cuts, wars, Medicare Part D, and the interest on previously accumulated debt. Blaming that on Obama despite the fact that he inherited these problems from a previous Republican administration and the fact that Republicans controlled the U.S. House for six years of his term is ridiculous and very hypocritical for a party that purports to believe in "personal responsibility."
1
"Lots of successful people have been terrible students, of course, including a roster of all-star dropouts: Steve Jobs, Frank Lloyd Wright, Walt Disney, Elton John."
Very true. As awful as Trump is, there is no reason to dig up ancient stuff just to cause irritation. This is the kind of thing that generates sympathy for Trump and give the impression of throwing everything against a wall to see what sticks. He would not be the first rich kid expected to work in the family business to display shocking indifference to his classes.
3
I imagine that Trump was given a "C" on the basis of his father's donations to the college and arm twisting of the administrators. If he had been left to his own devises, it seems inconceivable that Trump would have gotten anything other than "incomplete" in any class (can you see him actually trying to learn the material?), which would wash him out of the program.
2
When I was still teaching, there were always a few students who did little work, and consequently did not do well in the course. It didn’t matter how bright they were; if they hadn’t applied themselves, they couldn’t respond appropriately to the questions I asked about the material. Many considered themselves so intelligent that they didn’t need to study, and they were often the most irate following the release of grades. It should not have been much of a surprise: I always returned midterms and papers with comments about why they needed to apply themselves. It never made much of an impact on their behavior.
That’s how I see Donald Trump. Undeservedly self-confident, arrogant, but profoundly lazy. And while college grades don’t always guarantee success (or failure) in life, the flaws in character tend to stay with people all their lives and have much more to do with the kind of real (not monetary) success they achieve.
4
I would suggest Trump call his college and ask for his money back. It's evident that college did nothing for him and he obviously needs the money.
3
Each day his chauffer drove him to school Lord Trump learned how to call the students actually in the honor role "a bunch of elitists" which made every frat boy friend of his envious of his leadership skills.
While hiding behind bodyguards, he threatened to beat up the Captain of the football team. One day Little Lord Trump's bodyguard took sick during the afternoon, and Trump proved that he could probably compete with the fastest runner on the track team.
3
Back in 2001 my MBA profs in Boston had said it was no secret among colleagues that George W Bush slept in the back of his Harvard Business School classrooms and paid others to do his papers.
W now seems like a Rhodes scholar next to Trump.
7
I think it's fitting that Trump attended Wharton given that his entire Presidency has been one huge wharton this country.
3
It is not particularly interesting what "grade" a faceless unelected English professor would assign to a politician; or anyone or thing for that matter.
I know this is meant to be a fun article but it can be irritating watching intellectuals in academia subjectively assigning value to human beings based on their very pedantic and narrow field of expertise.
1
He must have learned the don't-release-transcripts dodge from his predecessor.
If it's measured by what a nation needs, he gets an unsatisfactory.
if it's measured by keeping his angry, hate filled promises, he gets an outstanding.
2
His college education is likely why Trump is looking for the “oranges” of the Muller investigation.
3
I personally dislike stories of academics humblebragging about how they achieved impressive academic careers 'despite' having been "poor students," casually ignoring how inattentiveness to grades was likely a positive factor in their high intellectual attainments. Typically these are slightly (or even extremely) non-conformist types who use their freedom from academic hoop-jumping to cultivate their interests much more deeply than the typical transcript-polishing pre-professional whose MO consists in the cramming-regurgitation cycle (mimicking of course the anorexic's binge-and-purge routine, with similar nutritive effects), & the occasional borderline or actual plagiarism when feasible. Goodhardt's law (a social science counterpart of the Heisenberg principle, though "Hawthorne effect" operates similarly): "The more a measure becomes a target, the less it operates as a measure." The competitive transcript polisher (the typical pre-professional) sees school as a game wherein finding the path of least resistance is the key to grade maximization; all failure (like hardcore, deep learning, which requires failure) is anathama, success is everything. Real learners (Dylan apparently) take the opposite tack.
It is hypocritical of faculty to embody these distinctions in their own career, then unreservedly celebrate/endorse grade-striving, disacknowledging the distinctions. If Dylan "fails" at school but turns out to be brilliant, that says what school (& grades) reward.
Trump is so obviously lazy, and demonstrates all of the characteristics of someone who never had to strive to achieve anything. While his business results surely raise questions about his ethics, I have no doubt he is a genius student of human behavior, this is the only way someone survives (and thrives) using his methods. I thin this is important to appreciate, and perhaps should influence the evolution of our priorities when understanding who is best suited for what.
I am a member of Bob Dylan, Steve Jobs, etc. dropout club. I am doing ok, most of my peers have masters degrees or better. For some of us, the pace and social aspect of schooling just doesn't fit, and grades are not the reward, knowledge and ability are.
The more interesting aspect of your column is your proof that grades may be irrelevant, but education is not.
If only EVERYONE could just get one...
@Humble/lovable shoe shine boy
Bob Dylan, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates et al are outliers, not average in either talent or intelligence. Most of us are ordinary with good skills we worked hard to achieve. It might be okay for a very exceptional individual to drop out of school; it doesn't lead to future success for most of us. Knowledge is usually a product of education; ability is usually a product of using your knowledge to grow in whichever field you choose. Successful people apply themselves, focus and work hard to get where they want to go. Famous artists were talented; they were good enough to be accepted as apprentices; they learned everything they could to go on to create their own original art, sculpture, designs. Many were not literate, they learned through apprenticeships.
It's disappointing that a transwoman with such a significant platform has decided to discuss Trump in the mild context of grade inflation. There's so much privilege in this op-ed it's impossible to know where to begin.
10
"Was his G.P.A. that low? Was he bad at statistics, like measuring crowd size? Is it possible they refused to give him honors because, even then, they had reservations about his performance in Self-Paced Narcissism?"
Then as now he was/is really bad at what he did/does.
3
I'd give him an Incomplete. The deadline is long past for a remedy.
4
I would give Trump an A+ for the following reasons.
1. Most politicians as members of the human race lie or, if you prefer, dissemble or prevaricate. Trump is, I think, the first American President to lie endlessly and to his advantage. He avoids the shame of being caught in a lie by denial of the lie. He successfully communicates the notion that today's truth is tomorrows lie and visa versa.
2. To supplement his lies he has successfully created his own innumerable set of facts, eg., Obama was born outside the USA. How many American politicians have had ten's of millions of adoring fans applaud fake facts. Better yet, he has convinced Republican legislators and jurists that lying in the service of the good is commendable
3. In 1967, as surely Ms Boylan knows, Roland Barthes, a French literary critic created the "Death of the Author" paradigm . Simply put the intentions of the author cannot be used to interpret a text. By a simple extension of Barth's theory it can be postulated that what President says should not be used evaluate the worth of his judicial appointments, legislative achievements etc. The Republicans nod Amen!
Trump is the first American autocrat to signal the death of politician. He follows in along line of 20th and 21 century European autocrats and dictators. Let us hope our next President can get a passing grade and reincarnate a vital political tradition before the curtain descends.
6
What I don't understand is why his schools have acquiesced to Trump's legal threats. To me, it is shameful that they would let a lie stand when they can disprove it. I also doubt that prospective students would overlook a school that published grades when in the best interest of the public. Indeed, I suspect that standing up to DT would actually increase their pool of candidates and donors.
6
They can’t do it because it’s not legal. You can’t release a transcript without a request from the student. Parents are often surprised to learn this.
6
I suspect the school is following the law, which precludes dissemination of student records without the student’s permission. As they should so respect the privacy of all students.
2
@David Gd
There are existing laws against revealing private info. Trump's letters were unnecessary.
2
When I went to Wharton, economics was a required part of the curriculum. The president gives no evidence of having spent any time at all studying economics. He also seems to be extraordinarily bad at mathematics, or indeed any type of analysis. Hence, I struggle to get my head around the notion that he even managed to get a Wharton degree.
18
Trump's academic efforts seem to be about at the same level mine were my first year in college when all I wanted to do was party. Since my grades that first year were under average, that is the best grade I can assign to our current prezident.
2
Grades are necessary but in the long-run, they don't matter. The American education system has to focus on improving students' critical thinking skills so that we never again elect someone so unqualified to be President.
18
He called himself a "nice" student and has the biggest ego ever to sit in the WH. We know his daddy was giving him a million dollars a year when he was in his teens. He graduated in the early 1960's from an Ivy league undergraduate program. If you are a good student in the Ivy League you graduate with honors-- cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude. This is written on your diploma for you and your parents to show off to friends and relatives. I have my Harvard diploma - cum laude --proudly on display in my office. He does not claim to have graduated with honors and hides his transcripts today. Therefore, we know he was an average student at best. If I had a million dollars in the bank and was lazy like Donald Trump, I would have gotten someone to do the work for me --like we know rich people do just to get into college today and in the past. He could have bought a cum laude or better grades. But obviously he didn't and likely because he is also cheap and didn't think it mattered because he could just lie about his grades--so why spend the money. He was a C student at best and otherwise would be at least showing us his diploma --if not his actual grades. You can't claim to be a "stable genius" if you don't graduate with honors.
5
I like to tell all the Ivy League grads who’ve worked for me over the last 35 years that I graduated “cum-diploma.” I also have no idea where my diploma ended up but I never felt the need to hang it on the wall.
2
@EPMD There's nothing inherently bad about "bad" grades. Lots of smart people didn't get good grades. Einstein was though to have cognitive issues. Grades in and of themselves mean nothing. BUT...Trump should own whatever/whoever he was in college. The fact that he hides his transcripts means he is afraid. The truth is, he is a liar and a cheat. We all know he didn't go to school on his own merits. Daddy bought him that degree. He could own that, too, but chooses not to. Again, because he has an inferiority complex. That's why he lashes out- because he is constantly threatened by the intelligence of others.
No Trump supporter will touch this topic because....well, because "whatabout Hillary's Emails!!"
But it's glaringly obvious that the man is a slacker; a con man who learned VERY early on how to game the system and leverage Fred's money. Sadly, he felt compelled to fabricate his entire life's faux "success" to escape from an inescapable truth...
Deep down, he, too, knows he's a Loser.
30
Trump would get a WF - withdraw failing - if he went to an accredited school. He would have withdrawn just after failing his first assignment because he submitted a paper that had nothing to do with the topic at hand. He would then complain about the topic being stupid and fake.
After that, he would sue the school to try to get his tuition back. The school administrators, afraid of the bad press, would settle out of court.
7
My guess is that Trump is another Olivia Jade.
Maybe Daddy told him to join the Crew team.
9
These are his ACTUAL SAT scores.
Math. 510
English. 440
6
@New World
Source? From his obvious severe ADD, I find it difficult to believe that he ever completed a one-hour test on anything. He simply can't do it, any more than I could lift 10,000 pounds.
4
@New World Is there any source for your ACTUAL SAT reference?
@New World And if I recall correctly you get 400 in each test for signing your name at the top of the sheet.
1
Straight "D's" - Beginning with Delegitimate and moving through dereliction, denigration, discrimination, desecration, deregulation, deception, defamation, derision, degradation, deviance, demonization and degeneracy - Now let's move on to the teacher comment section of his report card.
994
@Jerry Farnsworth Adding deleterious to your list.
52
@Jerry Farnsworth Two you left out: dishonest... and disgrace.
90
@Jerry Farnsworth Teacher Comment: When called on in class, if he shows up, Donald tends to stand up, pound his chest and talk about how great he is. None of his classmates seem to like him.
70
I challenge the entire notion that he graduated from "Wharton."
Yes, Wharton is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, but when someone says they go to Wharton, they are talking about their graduate degree, usually an MBA.
Trump went for two years to the University of Pennsylvania. He received a Bachelor of Science from that school.
Diplomas for business majors from UPenn- undergrad and graduate do not mention Wharton.
When Trump gets his MBA from UPenn, then he can say he graduated from Wharton.
29
Thank you for clarifying this. Trump no more attended Wharton School than my cat. He attended undergrad school at the U of Penn and took some business classes that were named for the graduate school. He did not attend, much less graduate, from Wharton and only attended undergrad owing to daddy’s money.
29
@Oxfdblue
It is amazing how many comments about the dubious ethics, academics or intellectual talents of some students from elite schools are like this.
Schools sometimes admit and graduate some people who have no business handling anywhere near the serious responsibility or the analysis of complex situations expected of someone with a degree in the given field of study. Rather than accepting this, there is some form of nit-picking to avoid even a hint of tarnishing the purity of the institution. When many people are so hyper-sensitive about a reputation, it seems like strong evidence that that reputation is overblown.
3
@Oxfdblue Look, this is just plain old incorrect. Sorry. Wharton grants undergraduate degrees.
1
Thinking of our deal maker in Chief Trump and his years of a Wharton business school education, I am reminded of a section in Catch 22. WWII B-24 pilot and Capitalist Milo Minderbender says he failed out of Harvard, but was quickly hired by a bank to help turn profitable companies into bankrupt ones as a way of dodging taxes. He was highly valuable to the bank as avoiding taxes was more important than making a profit.
However, there is a prescient quote, too too apropos for Trump, that makes me weep:
"As a typical capitalist, Milo is scared of losing his property and his means of making a profit. But he also fights this battle with honest conviction. He can only see the world in terms of the syndicate. The Germans are business partners, and in Milo's book, this overrides any official wartime enemy status they have with the U.S."
Replace Germans with Russians, and Joseph Heller was 50 years ahead of his time.
13
Who wouldn't rather enjoy a Dead concert than write an essay! I'll bet it was a great show.
7
I’d give him the same grade he earned for his bone spurs: 4F
1173
"What Grade Would You Give Donald Trump?
The president won’t release his college transcript. But we can guess what it says."
Remember when Trump was after President Obama's birth certificate and his college / law school grades? So now Trump is above the fray and will not allow his grades to be published.
Trump "has claimed he graduated first in his class at Wharton, which is — prepare yourself for a shock — an easily documented lie. He graduated without honors at Wharton, which means his grade point average in 1968 was probably less than 3.4 — a B, in fact. The gentleman’s failure."
With the 10,000 plus lies Trump has spoken and tweeted, it's clear that he was lying about graduating first in his class.
More than likely Trump was even lower than the "The gentleman’s failure" grade.
For his failure record in the last two plus years, Trump's grade would be a minus 1,000.
14
@Retired Guy: You've got gumption, in using the term ,"gentleman's failure."
Trump is as much of a "gentleman," as Obama is a "Muslim from Kenya."
2
@Ponsobny Britt
Read the article and you will see that I copied the term from the article.
As for Trump being any sort of a "gentleman" let alone being compared favorable to President Obama: For Get It.
1
@RetiredGuy You mean, your mother never told you about repeating what you heard from strangers?
If Wharton also carried courses in Lying, Cheating and Scamming, then have to say that the Trumps have done well. Indeed, done spectacularly. A summa cum laude is in order - at least from Trump University, if not from the Penn U.
6
He does not read--or, if forced to do so--cannot possibly read with the kind of open mind necessary to actually learn something. So, if I had been his instructor, I would have given him an F for all reading-related classes. He also cannot write, as evidenced by his rambling, misspelled, ungrammatical, lying Tweets. Being a good writer requires a degree of honesty and a desire to share something meaningful with your readers. That's all beyond him, so I would give him an F in any class in which he was required to write. Clearly, Trump-as-student could not have been very different from Trump-as-president: lazy, close-minded, and hostile to learning anything different from what he carries around in his gut. He must have been admitted into Wharton the way many rich parents arrange for their children's higher education: by making a big fat contribution to the coffers of the school. And, years later, we too are paying the price.
16
@Cmary Well he's no good with the numbers either, is he now? So, F on that too.
2
It's possible to be educated beyond your intelligence... Where 'facts' are recited by rote without understanding what they mean. You see this on the Sunday morning political shows where a guest answers every question with the same talking points as their peers on every other political show.
Trump is a bit different. He has no facts.
But what he says appeals to the lunatic core of the GOP well enough to squeak out a win in selected swing states, like his sales pitch is good enough to take to the bank when it's time for another loan.
5
I remember my first professor's vindictive introduction to college at the U of R grading on a D- curve failing half the calculus class. It did not get much better from there. If your livelihood depends on high grades, don't go to Rochester!
As for trump, any transcript would be suspect. How many tests/papers did the trump actually take/write? While he is sabotaged his fellow student's education to look better, he likely paid off a poor intelligent stand-in to do his work for him.
He has proved he learned NOTHING at Wharton. Indeed, his diploma should be revoked. Same goes for his SATs, likely paid for just as the wealthy do now to get their kids into name brand colleges
Had Twitter been around, trump would have echoed
Lori Loughlin's daughter, Olivia Jade Giannulli's "I don't really care about school," only interested in the party scene. So trump, like Olivia, they replaced a deserving student the opportunity to advance in life.
"students have gotten smarter" Unless, of course, your a conservative student so gullible to the trump-Republi-con - wind turbines cause cancer - with a seven day a week Sunday bible class education funded by tax payers who can't afford college.
In trump's world, all kids are below average. Indeed way below trump. I so long for lake Trumpbegone - that would truly MAGA.
Perhaps Wharton did not want to risk their reputation giving someone so obviously intellectually lacking, that giving trump "Honors" would have discredited the school for ever.
8
The President of the United States is apparently functionally illiterate. Nothing to be ashamed of, if you're getting remedial help to catch up. I suspect he is not.
27
Trump illustrates the true grade in life - stubbornness. Whatever college you get into, or maybe no college at all, it is your ability to pick a goal and doggedly pursue it that will determine your outcome in life. An honors student who is shy and uncertain won't do as well as some blowhard who went to Podunk U - unless their field is solitary, like research in quantum theory.
It surprises me that parents and children don't realize that it is YOU that determines your fate, not your alma mater.
4
@Kathleen
"Stubbornness" -- as in "severe ADD with a billion of Daddy's money to shield him from the real effects."
Trump has severe ADD. He can't read a full page of text. He never completed a one-hour assignment on anything in school. He doesn't even know what "tariff" means because he could not sit still long enough to listen to the explanation.
3
It is annoying that Trump boasts of holding an Ivy League degree and a supposedly high IQ. But what counts the most is his astonishing level of ignorance, coupled with astounding confidence in himself. It's his poor performance as president that really matters.
12
Ha, ha, you are joking right???
First of all one has to graduate high school to enter college. As daddy paid for him to do both.
In my opinion he has yet to finish middle school let alone enter high school.
11
@MHV sorry to be that guy, but I don’t think any Ivy League college or university requires a high school diploma. Just one of those little lies out there, I’m afraid...
My thought is it doesn't matter what he got at Wharton, you can't run a government like a profit as the only goal construction development company, a profit and duck all the taxes possible, or a purely private sector capitalist enterprise. Profit and money are not the values of reasonable governance. Reasonable governance has been written about by our forebearers, discussed in many circles, and the purpose of government of and by the people looked at in detail. Trump is blind and deaf to all of this in his selfishness, demented navel gazing .
2