<p>How is atmosphere on campus in general and specificly in classrooms?
Is it a competitive environment or more cooperative? And what about grade in-/deflation?</p>
<p>By and large very good, particularly once you get to the upper level classes. </p>
<p>In Classics things are very friendly. We have weekly colloquia as well as other get-togethers. Getting together in study groups for exams is typical.</p>
<p>Obviously, languages (the core of Classics) are a lot like math, you either know it oor you don't so there is no real grade inflation there. Non-language classes vary depending on the professor. That said, all the professors I've had have had VERY clear ideas of what constitutes "A" level work and it's generally been a pretty high bar. </p>
<p>That said, at the introductory level, there are plenty of relatively easy classes - so you will have the opportunity to build up a GPA base with electives and so forth.</p>
<p>Even the Wharton (where you'd think the competition would be worst) people I know seem to be pretty collegial. I think the competition thing is mainly a high-school disease - once you get here you start to realize that (except for a very few classes) the "A" grade is not a limited resource - do "A" work and you'll get an "A".</p>
<p>Agreed with the above.</p>
<p>However for some classes competition for grades is quite tough, not cutthroat type competition, but everyone study as hard as possible competition. These classes would be Intro Economics for Wharton kids, Chem 101, and Organic Chem for pre med students, that sort of thing.</p>
<p>environment is fantastic... it made me choose penn, even though they still hadn't sent me my fin aid info until like 3 months after they were supposed to... anyway, it's a fun, competitive, social and connected campus. you can get an A on your own terms... without going crazy and backstabbing or ripping pages out of reserved research books in the library the way people did at my old university before i transferred (yeah some people are insane...).
just do A-level work... no need to be particularly complex about it. profs have high expectations for what constitutes an A, and a lot of classes have very tough curves, but overall it's pretty straightforward what profs are looking for so it all just comes down to you.</p>
<p>honestly, the notion of a strong competitive atmosphere is unfounded. it's kind of a joke actually.</p>
<p>i'm in wharton, and though we have the rep as having the toughest curve, it usually helps you more than it hurts you. on some smaller projects where everyone gets in the 90s, sure, it kind of sucks to get a 94 when the mean is 97, but those are projects easy enough where honestly, if everyone is getting a 97, you should too.</p>
<p>on midterms, and actually hard projects, the curve only helps. everyone does poorly generally, so the mean (generally equating to a B or B-) can be in the 50s or 60s. it's times like those when the curve is awesome. but i digress.</p>
<p>people help each other a lot. it's not cut throat at all. in fact, the amount of cheating i've seen on projects from people of all different types (nerdy kids, athletes, dumb girls, dumb guys, etc) is rather high. so don't worry about everyone being jerks about helping one another; the problem is quite the opposite.</p>
<p>and that's wharton, the most cut throat college in the school. everything else: a piece of cake compared to wharton's supposed hard-core rep.</p>
<p>that could be true, for sure, but i do find some classes to be competitive. my benjamin franklin seminar is sort of discretely competitive and cooperative at the same time. i really like the ben franklin classes for that reason.</p>
<p>psych they say is deceptively easy because the curve often hurts people who originally thought they were in for an easy year. my huntsman program friends who take both wharton and college courses say that many of their college courses are more difficult, like organic chemistry versus something so simple as statistics or management. but that may be an unfair comparison since i imagine stats is straightforwardly easy for mostly everyone, wharton or non-wharton, whereas not everyone can do organic chem or write a truly good research paper. </p>
<p>many philosophy courses are difficult for people who just don't really get the abstract concepts... not to stereotype but thats all of the wharton kids in my class. most had dropped it by the deadline.</p>
<p>lastly, it's possible that the environment seems competitive for some people and uncompetitive for others... the best you can do is visit the campus and sit in on some classes that you'd want to take if you end up attending penn.</p>