Living in Pittsburgh,[3] he attended the Haverford College, where he earned a corporation scholarship for 1936–37,[4] and a Clementine Cope fellowship for 1937–38,[5] and was awarded highest honors in mathematical astronomy in 1937.
[6] He was elected to the college's chapter of Phi Beta Kappa society.
[7] In June 1937, he was conferred the Bachelor of Science degree from Haverford.
[8] According to Garrett Birkhoff, Whitman was an undergraduate Harvard student in 1937,[9] and an outstanding graduate student not later than 1940, one of the first who taught elementary courses to freshmen in the mathematics department.
[10] In 1938 he earned his AM,[11] and in June 1941 he obtained his Ph.D. degree from Harvard University.