<p>I was just wondering if there's anywhere where we can access information on average GPAs by major? I'm considering majoring in philosophy at Penn, and typically grades aren't a big deal for me, but I'm interested in graduate school (where GPA matters a bit in admissions). </p>
<p>Is there someplace I can find the average GPA for this particular major in philosophy at least? Or could anyone give me this information directly? Thanks in advance for your help!</p>
<p>I’m not sure what the average major is, but if you are good at philosophy and making coherent, cohesive points in writing, you should be able to get a good major GPA. </p>
<p>Honestly, most people have trouble with the distribution credits - if you’re interested in social sciences and humanities, you might have a hard time getting good grades in the classes that fulfill Physical World, Living World, etc. Fortunately, you can choose those classes, so if GPA is a major concern (pun intended), just do your research on the classes to be sure that they’re a) interesting and b) not impossible.</p>
<p>Penn’s philosophy department is phenomenal, by the way.</p>
<p>IIRC the average for the Wharton school is 3.3-3.4.</p>
<p>GPA is not overly important in graduate school admissions, not so much that you need to choose your major around it. The main factors for grad school admissions are good letters of recommendation from professors you’ve worked with (not just taken a class with) and good research experience in college. And to some extent how well you match with the graduate school you’re applying to, in terms of research interests. You should focus on taking classes that interest you (which will probably be in your intended major), getting to know those professors, and doing some independent study with them leading to original research.</p>
<p>Also your undergraduate major should be in the same field or at least a closely related field to what you want to do in grad school. This is because you need to know the material as an undergraduate before going off to grad school, so you’ll probably be taking most of the major classes anyway.</p>
<p>As for sectors you can take psychology courses for living world, and I think there’s a philosophy course that fulfills physical world (philosophy of space & time or something like that).</p>