The stable genius college bowl

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.”

Soon, Donald Trump arrived at Penn for the interview, accompanied by his father, Fred Trump Sr., who sought to “ingratiate” himself, Nolan said.

Nolan, who said he was the only admissions official to talk to Trump, was required to give Trump a rating, and he recalled, “It must have been decent enough to support his candidacy.”

[‘I certainly was not struck by any sense that I’m sitting before a genius.’ Listen on Post Reports to the story of how President Trump was admitted to Wharton.]

For decades, Trump has cited his attendance at what was then called the Wharton School of Finance as evidence of his intellect. He has said he went to “the hardest school to get into, the best school in the world,” calling it “super genius stuff,” and, as recently as last month, pointed to his studies there as he awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom to conservative economist Arthur Laffer.

But Trump, who questioned the academic standing of then-President Barack Obama, has never released records showing how he got into the school — or how he performed once he was there. And, until now, Nolan’s detailed account of Trump’s admission process has not been publicly disclosed.

When it comes to self evaluations, Trump gives himself an A-plus a lot

Nolan, who spoke to The Post recently at his apartment here, said that “I’m sure” the family hoped he could help get Trump into Wharton. The final decision rested with Nolan’s boss, who approved the application and is no longer living, according to Nolan.

While Nolan can’t say whether his role was decisive, it was one of a string of circumstances in which Trump had a fortuitous connection, including the inheritance from his father that enabled him to build his real estate business, and a diagnosis of bone spurs that provided a medical exemption from the military by a doctor who, according to the New York Times, rented his office from Fred Trump Sr.

At the time, Nolan said, more than half of applicants to Penn were accepted, and transfer students such as Trump had an even higher acceptance based on their college experience. A Penn official said the acceptance rate for 1966 was not available but noted that the school says on its website that the 1980 rate was “slightly greater than 40%.” Today, by comparison, the admissions rate for the incoming Penn class is 7.4 percent, the school recently announced.

Several early Trump profiles, including a 1973 New York Times piece, stated that he graduated first in his class at Wharton, but that has since been disputed. A 1968 commencement program does not list his name among students who graduated with honors...

At one rally, Trump said his degree proves he’s intelligent: “If I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I’m one of the smartest people anywhere in the world,” but as a conservative Republican, “they do a number ... that’s why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student.”

Wharton listed Trump among its 125 most influential people in a 2007 alumni magazine issue. But it’s not clear how much money Trump has given his alma mater. The school would not comment, saying donations are confidential, but a “draft honor roll” of recent alumni donors that appeared online in March did not have Trump’s name on it. The student paper, The Daily Pennsylvanian, reported that a real estate center was established at Wharton in 1983 with Trump as one of 100 founding members, and that Trump once gave Penn over $10,000, but the exact amount was not disclosed.

In contrast, Penn’s West Philadelphia campus reflects the generosity of other wealthy alumni. There’s Wynn Commons, named for Las Vegas impresario Steve Wynn; the Perelman Quadrangle, named for financier Ronald Perelman, and an entire Wharton building named for billionaire Jon Huntsman.

Trump’s name can be found in one spot on campus, but you have to hunt for it. Inside Van Pelt library, in an area called the Weigle Information Commons, there’s a seminar room. A small plaque on the wall thanks the Class of 1968 for funding the room on the occasion of their 35th reunion, and Trump’s name is one of 27 alumni listed.

In the Penn ’68 yearbook, Trump’s name appears on a list of “students not photographed.” He went home to New York City most weekends, skipping study groups other students attended, according to his Wharton ’68 classmate Lou Calomaris.

“He wasn’t going to have to study a lot. He was going to get a gentleman’s degree,” said Calomaris, who, like Trump, was one of a handful of students who concentrated on real estate.