What Does Trump Mean When He Says 'I Went to Wharton?'

Donald Trump frequently tells crowds that he went to Wharton, as a credential to prove that he is intelligent:

"I went to the Wharton School of Business," he noted several times. "I'm, like, a really smart person."

"Why do you have to tell us all the time that you went to Wharton?â€ moderator Chuck Todd asked. "People know you're successful."

You might be forgiven for thinking from this, as I did, that Trump has an MBA from the Wharton School of Business. He doesn't. He actually has an undergraduate degree for the two years he spent there. Yes, I said two years. Trump was not able to get into the Wharton School (undergraduate) when he applied to college. He spent his first two years at Fordham University, a respectable school, but no where near as rigorous as Wharton (either undergraduate or graduate). The circumstances of his admissions are not clear, but the Daily Caller suggested Trump may have used a family connection to gain admittance.

So instead of saying "I'm smart because I went to Wharton!" Trump should be saying, "I'm smart because I went to Fordham for two years, and then Wharton for my final two years!"

Trump apparently graduated Wharton without any honors. Like Obama, he refuses to release his grades.

Asked by The Daily Caller if Trump was willing to release his college records before he officially entered the race for the White House, a spokesman for Trump said Team Trump would "pass" on the opportunity in April.

In sum, Trump has no graduate degree from Wharton, or anywhere else, and there is no evidence that he was a distinguished student.

Why does any of this matter? Trump seems to be implying that he has an MBA from the top business school in America. He doesn't.

And worst of all, he doesn't talk like a smart person. He often doesn't even speak in complete sentences. He often speaks in a kind of abbreviated fashion that people have trouble understanding. Here is just one example:

Look, having nuclear-my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart-you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world-it's true!-but when you're a conservative Republican they try-oh, do they do a number-that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune-you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged-but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me-it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right- who would have thought?), but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners-now it used to be three, now it's four-but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years-but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.

"Having nuclear"? "It would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are"? "Nuclear is powerful, my uncle explained that to me"? "the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years"?

This is how a child talks. A smart person doesn't have to repeatedly say that he is smart; Ted Cruz doesn't start every speech by mentioning he went to Harvard; a smart person doesn't use words like "stupid" or "dumb" to explain their opponents; and so on.

Donald Trump is not only pretending to be conservative, he's pretending to be brilliant. He's not, and it is comical how people listening to his Gollum-like stream of consciousness self-dialogues think that he is. Even when he explains how it is simply not possible for a Wharton graduate to accuse Megyn Kelly of menstruating.

When I graduated at the top of the bottom half of my prestigious New England prep school in 1968 I was told that my grades weren’t good enough to get into any of the Ivy League schools EXCEPT...

...U. of Penn had this Wharton School of Finance and Commerce that was EASIER to get into and that I could transfer into the regular U. of Penn after a year if I didn’t want to get a business undergraduate degree to become a CPA.

That is what I did. I applied to Wharton undergrad and got in arriving in the fall of that fateful year, 1968, just after The Donald left.

Yes, Trump is hyping the Wharton name to imply he has a Wharton MBA. We all knew that as Wharton undergrads we were scum and that the “real” Wharton was the Wharton MBA program to which most of us were unlikely to gain admission.

As it happened, seventeen years later I used my Wharton credits to obtain my Florida CPA under their program where you could get a CPA with 150 hours of undergraduate and graduate business credits earned in graduate studies at Temple U. and NOVA U. in Florida.

Truth be told I screwed up a couple of choice opportunities presented to me due to my “white privilege” and had to regroup later in life!

But I did end up with a U. of Penn. Ivy League degree on my wall, even though it was a Sociology degree earned in 1972 during the war years. They just about let the university out early that last semester with all of the anti-war demonstrations and the Sociology Dept. declared any course I had taken “major related” or I never would have graduated with a degree that year.

Of course I couldn’t find a job in the private sector with that degree so I worked in the US and state government for 7 years until I got the courses comprising an MBA at the Temple U. night school, then later got a master in Accounting and a CPA.

“He says heâ€™s smart, he is.” True. Says it almost every single time he is in front of someone.

“He says Wharton was tough, it is.” Also true. He says it every single time he is in front of someone.

“Whatâ€™s the problem?” He says it every single time he is in front of someone.

Constantly.

All the time.

Makes me wonder who he is trying to convince.... Hmmmmm.

“”His audience is generally able to follow along quite easily. I don’t have any trouble.””

You will pardon me if I don’t believe that you or anyone else can follow the gibberish below. Other posters agree that his speeches and interviews are disjointed but they all offer a reason for it - brain works too fast etc. You don’t believe he speaks any different than the rest of us. Good grief. Heaven help us if we had to contend with daily conversations with friends/associates/relatives who speak like this. I for one, would cut off communication with them.

“”Look, having nuclear-my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart-you know, if you’re a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world-it’s true!-but when you’re a conservative Republican they try-oh, do they do a number-that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune-you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we’re a little disadvantaged-but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me-it would have been so easy, and it’s not as important as these lives are (nuclear is powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what’s going to happen and he was right- who would have thought?), but when you look at what’s going on with the four prisoners-now it used to be three, now it’s four-but when it was three and even now, I would have said it’s all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don’t, they haven’t figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it’s gonna take them about another 150 years-but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us.””

You don't believe he speaks any different than the rest of us

I didn't say that. Why would you make something up? You have trouble understanding Trump you say, but you make things up.

He starts off with nuclear because he's talking about the nuclear deal, which he gets back to after explaining why he is often prefacing with his credentials. He explains if he were running as a liberal they would take it as face value, but the conservatives question his background so he has to offer up the yadayada story. Then he talks about the deal and how the lives were more important (and if you'd listen to any rallies you would know he always says the prisoners' freedom should have come first before he even sat down at the table). He throws in an anecdote about his uncle telling him nuclear power would change the world. He throws in a compliment to women saying the negotiators were 'fellas'. None of this is hard to understand. I do think it is easier to follow his sort of stream of consciousness talking when you are listening. He jumps around and touches on a number of topics, doesn't always finish a sentence but neither my husband nor I have any trouble following what he is saying. And, the more rallies he does, the better he gets.

I don’t think it is correct that Fred Trump began developing Alzheimer’s Disease when he was around the age that Donald Trump is now.

Fred Trump died in 1999 at age 93, about six years after his Alzheimer’s diagnosis. He probably had undiagnosed early symptoms for several years before that, which would mean he began developing Alzheimer’s in his early 80s.

But Donald Trump is only 69-1/2, right now.

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