Democracy Dies in Darkness

Trump has referred to his Wharton degree as ‘super genius stuff.’ An admissions officer recalls it differently.

July 8, 2019 at 11:00 a.m. EDT
James Nolan, 81, a former admissions officer at the University of Pennsylvania, at his home in Philadelphia this month. (Marvin Joseph/The Washington Post)

PHILADELPHIA — James Nolan was working in the University of Pennsylvania’s admissions office in 1966 when he got a phone call from one of his closest friends, Fred Trump Jr. It was a plea to help Fred’s younger brother Donald Trump get into Penn’s Wharton School.

“He called me and said, ‘You remember my brother Donald?’ Which I didn’t,” Nolan, 81, said in an interview with The Washington Post. “He said: ‘He’s at Fordham and he would like to transfer to Wharton. Will you interview him?’ I was happy to do that.”