Yes, Columbia. All those “C” colleges in NY look the same… 
Really? Because he sounds like an ignoramus.
John McCain was ranked 894 out of 899 students at Annapolis. Would that have made him a better President?
John McCain wasn’t able to get good grades for five years! 
Yeah, but at least it was Annapolis and not some east-coast, ivory tower, librul arts hippie school.
You’re right. That’s the least.
My two cents.
If you use “I went to HAWVARD” as one of your selling points, IMO you should release your transcripts. If you try to sell yourself on being “the smart guy in the race”, you should release your transcripts. You can’t have your cake and eat it too (sorta).
Not saying Obama has or hasnt done that. Just saying on general principle.
I think it’s unfortunate people put so much importance on stuff like “Harvard.” The reason the Ivy League schools have so much prominence is because of the huge portion of the rich elite who send their kids there (and who went to Ivy League schools themselves.) This ends up creating schools with massive endowments and also creates a network of elites helping elites, so that the children of elites are guaranteed good jobs right out of college.
I don’t have a problem with it per se, I would actually think the more “equality of result” oriented leftists would have a big problem with it, though.
You can be just as good a lawyer as someone graduating top of their class from Harvard Law School if you graduate from Stanford or even a public school like the University of Texas or University of Michigan.
Personally I don’t care if Obama got into a school because of affirmative action or because of him being the son of an alum, I don’t care what grades he got when he was a student at Harvard.
He’s not running for office anymore, so we don’t need to use details about his past life to try and guess as to what kind of President he’ll be. Now that he’s in office the only thing that matters at all is the job he’s doing. FWIW, he’s doing a horrible job and is easily the worst President in my lifetime (usurping that title from Jimmy Carter), I doubt he’ll rank as bad as Warren G. Harding, Grant, or Buchanan, but he’s definitely moving towards that level of infamy and failure.
I can’t recall any candidate making a big deal about where he went to school. Maybe Wilson used his former Presidency of Princeton as a selling point, though.
Suppose it was.
He still graduated magna cum laude and was elected editor of the Law Review.
The problem, such as it is, with affrimative action is placing unqualified people in positions. Obama was evidently qualified to attend Harvard Law School, as evidenced by his performance while he was there.
Why? Just because you say so? The school(s) a candidate graduates from are just a part of a candidate’s biography, just like his wife’s (or husband’s) name and the number of kids he/she has.
It was not a “selling point” during the 2008 campaign and we wouldn’t even be talking about to this extent if the, uhm, transcripters didn’t keep bringing it up.
Besides, if he didn’t go to Harvard and graduate from there, don’t you think Harvard would have said something by now? Other than that, what does his unreleased college transcript have to do with anything? Even if it surfaced and it turned out that he was at or near the bottom of his class (which as editor of the Law Review is impossible), what would that prove? If it did surface, all that would happen is that it would become fodder for pointless discussions.
Oh, wait.
They don’t have a letter grade system now, but they only got rid of that in 2008. I think they had a letter grade system when he was there.
Although, like you said, he graduated magna and was on law review, so his grades must have been pretty good.
He hasn’t.
Did we actually see Bush’s and Kerry’s transcripts, or just their SATs and GPAs? It was awhile ago, and I don’t remember.
When I first heard about this “controversy”, I thought they were trying to imply that maybe Obama didn’t actually attend Harvard, or maybe that he didn’t graduate. I know these folks tend to be nutters, but is it really thought that he could pull off claiming to have attended Harvard when he didn’t? That no one would out him? Or was I just mistaken in what the whole “controversy” was about?
I put my crack research team on it, and they all went and smoked crack. So I googled. Comes up with something from NewsMax, the rightarded drivel geyser. Allegedly, it is titled “Obama’s Harvard Years - Questions Swirl”. I ain’t going there.
The Fu is with me today.
Here’s what I found:
Suspicion that Obama got into Columbia on an Affirmative Action program, and that he may not want to let people know what he studied there (maybe too many Black Studies courses or something).
He is listed only as a “graduate” of Columbia, and did not graduate with honors. So how did he get into Harvard Law?
Of course, Bush got into Harvard Biz school with only a “C” average from Yale, and that doesn’t seem to be a problem…
John, his dad went to Harvard. That might just count a little.
Ahhh. The parallels w/ Bush continue…
But I assume Obama Sr went as an undergrad. Not sure that legacy is relevant for the Law School.
Perhaps presidents generally reveal what their college transcripts were for the same reasons they reveal their (previous) tax returns; to give a glimpse into the kind of person they are, beyond their standard bullshit speeches.
For the record, according to this, looks like it went Gore - Bush - Kerry on the smartest-to-dumbest continuum.
To answer the OP, in my opinion he should release them - otherwise it looks like he’s hiding something. It’s never the story, always the coverup. Release them and you remove that criticism (unless there’s something shocking in them, which I doubt).
No, Obama Sr. did his grad work there. Got a Masters in Economics. That’s what he left his family in Hawaii for.
[quote=“Martin_Hyde, post:27, topic:548752”]
You can be just as good a lawyer as someone graduating top of their class from Harvard Law School if you graduate from Stanford or even a public school like the University of Texas or University of Michigan. QUOTE]
Michigan and Berkeley are national law programs. They’re already in the same playing field as the Ivy law schools, and often above many of private schools you’d guess would be ranked higher (they usually outrank Georgetown, Cornell, Duke and Northwestern for instance).
Just saying that when people hear that you went to Michigan or Berkeley Law, the reaction usually isn’t “there there, I’m sure you got just as good as an education as someone at Harvard.”