In an effort to explain why U.S. President Donald Trump's administration targeted Harvard University for funding cuts during his second term, social media users claimed that his son, Barron Trump, had been rejected from the elite institution.
The rumors spread on Facebook, X and other platforms.
Harvard needs to release Barron's application AND HIS REJECTION LETTER and then the whole world will know exactly why Trump is going after them. pic.twitter.com/8RdYLpG6Jf
— Jen?? (@JenTusch) May 22, 2025
Similar claims circulated previously amid the president's broader threats and efforts to cut funding from other top schools; many posts claimed Stanford, Columbia and Harvard all rejected Trump's youngest son.
One Democratic senator, Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, implied that the president may be freezing funds to Harvard because of a personal quest for revenge, writing on X and Threads above an Esquire story about Harvard's feud with Trump: "Can't help but wonder how many Trumps got rejected by Harvard."
However, there is no evidence that these universities rejected Barron Trump, a New York University student. Stanford, Harvard and Columbia did not return requests to confirm or debunk that they rejected admission to the 19-year-old; this story will be updated if they respond.
As first reported by USAToday, the first lady's office categorically denied that Barron Trump even applied to Harvard.
"Barron did not apply to Harvard, and any assertion that he, or that anyone on his behalf, applied is completely false," said Nick Clemens, spokesperson for the Office of the First Lady, in an email to Snopes. (USAToday reported receiving the same statement.)
Clemens did not respond to repeated inquiries as to whether the first lady's son was rejected from Columbia or Stanford.
Google searches for "Barron Trump Harvard rejection," "Barron Trump Stanford rejection" and "Barron Trump Columbia rejection" returned no results showing evidence that these universities rejected him as of this writing. Similarly, Google searches for "Barron Trump applied to Harvard," "Barron Trump applied to Columbia" and "Barron Trump applied to Stanford" returned no relevant results as of this writing.
A search of the president's Truth Social posts also found no mention of "Barron" in conjunction with any university; searches for "Harvard," "Columbia" and "Stanford" also found no posts which mentioned Barron Trump or any of the Trump children as of this writing.
Barron Trump broke from his family's tradition when he decided to attend NYU; in the past, Trump's children have gone to either the University of Pennsylvania or Georgetown University, or both.
While reports do not appear to show the Trump administration targeting Georgetown's funding, he and his allies reportedly targeted Georgetown Law in other ways. Trump has also frozen funding to the University of Pennsylvania, his own alma mater, citing the school's policy on transgender athletes.
Thus, universities that have accepted Trump family members are not exempt from the president's funding cuts, suggesting that alleged retaliation against the universities that supposedly rejected Barron Trump was not necessarily driving his decisions.