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I was at Columbia at the same time as Obama. I started there in January 1982, but was on the campus a lot visiting my girlfriend starting in September of 1981. I graduated in ‘86, so I was there at least a year and a half that Obama was supposedly there. Now the fact that I don’t remember him may not mean anything. The campus is fairly large in terms of population, different dining halls, different dorms and off-campus housing, different hangouts, etc. So, someone living in an off-campus apartment (as some of the photos with his paki boyfriend suggest), eating off campus, avoiding big parties, popular bars or clubs and staying low-key in classes, could stay pretty anonymous.

None of this changes the fact that Root brings up about how weird it is to block release of these records. After all, his “phenom” rep was built on the Ivy League image, with Harvard Law and Harvard Law Review President really topping off his resume.

The foreign student theory fits pretty well, although it would not surprise me one bit if he was just ashamed of lousy grades, even three decades later. That still leaves the question: how does one get into Harvard Law on crappy grades? Even with affirmative action, it is very tough. Still, I remember well how intense the drive for “diversity” was getting at that time, so someone with mixed-race parentage, overseas experience and other exotica would go a long way.

So, someone living in an off-campus apartment (as some of the photos with his paki boyfriend suggest), eating off campus, avoiding big parties, popular bars or clubs and staying low-key in classes, could stay pretty anonymous [. . . ] That still leaves the question: how does one get into Harvard Law on crappy grades? Even with affirmative action, it is very tough. Still, I remember well how intense the drive for “diversity” was getting at that time, so someone with mixed-race parentage, overseas experience and other exotica would go a long way.

Good points - it's easy to be relatively anonymous at a large university, although it is rather remarkable just how few people have ever come forward as close friends of Obama during his Columbia years. Definitely very, very odd. As to the getting into Harvard point, don't forget just how much the media buried Perry Sutton (one of the machers of NY politics for a LONG time) saying that he'd made a call on behalf of Obama to Harvard at the behest of Khalid al-Mansour. Sutton suddenly became a senile old man, didn't know what he was talking about, etc.

I think you’re right about his being admitted as a foreign exchange student. But that still doesn’t explain how nobody remembers him.
Columbia College is a small four year ivy league college. At schools like this, your class is like a family, and even years later, remains in touch.

The alumni office would be writing to him a few times a month for donations, there are reunions, and almost everyone shows up.
Where is his yearbook? Was he ever mentioned in the Columbia newspaper?

Also, classes at schools like Columbia are small, especially junior and senior year, with classes of 12-20 people not unusual.

If he went to el crappo Columbia School of General Studies, he could have gone unnoticed. But then, they usually don’t accept people from schools like that at Harvard Law School. What were his LSAT scores?

Something very suspicious here. This is the man from nowhere who leaves no tracks.