The College Fix

Could it be that they reveal a less-than-stellar academic record?

At Breitbart.com, Charles C. Johnson reports that in 1981, the year Obama transferred to Columbia from Occidental College, Columbia recorded below average academic achievement from its class of transfer students. In addition, other anecdotes the president has revealed about is college record don’t mesh with the facts.

In his autobiography, Dreams from My Father, Barack Obama describes himself as an unfocused high school student whose mother scolded him for being a “loafer” (142). He describes his attitude toward his studies at Occidental as “indifferent” (146), calling himself a “bum” who abused drugs (138) and who was notorious for partying all weekend (165).

That has raised questions about how Obama earned a place at Columbia in 1981, paving the way to Harvard Law and beyond. Indeed, like much else in his biography, Obama seems to have fictionalized the process through which he gained admission to Columbia. Obama writes in Dreams: “[W]hen I heard about a transfer program that Occidental had arranged with Columbia University, I’d been quick to apply”(172).

However, there is no record of such a “transfer program” existing at either Columbia or Occidental.

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