<p>How is the courseload of UPenn? Are marks inflated or deflated? also, what mark do they consider an A, B, C, etc (i.e. 4, 3, 2, etc)? or is the grading system universal?</p>
<p>thanks! post your questions too!</p>
<p>I know the average Wharton GPA is 3.2, which isn't too bad or too grade inflated..</p>
<p>mmm generally professors like standard curves. like a lot, especially in the intro level classes. that doesnt leave too much room for grade inflation. and profs will have different curve systems (ie, every test, or just the final grade) so there's no universal grading system, but i can tell you GPA wise that an A and an A+ both get a 4.0, and A- gets a 3.7, B+ gets a 3.3..etc and that is copied directly from the back of my "grade report" which is this cheap slip of paper u get at the end of semester.</p>
<p>I don't know if it's as much "grade inflation" at Penn as "easiness." I go to a small LAC nearby and a lot of our econ majors cross-register at Penn when they need easy classes. </p>
<p>For Wharton, obviously, they grade really harshly. But the liberal arts courses at the early levels definitely carry a reputation for easily won As. But that's the sad truth of the intro classes at most large, prestigious institutions.</p>
<p>But then again, Penn is a very independent place and if you don't have your stuff together you'll get swept away in the urban college life. Penn isn't as pampered as some of the other Ivies -- besides all those big lecture hall there are locks on all the bathroom doors, alcohol flows like a river, and there are those weird Philly crazy people that follow you down the street muttering jibberish. I love Penn.</p>
<p>Actually, it seems that the intro math classes (going up to multivariable calc) are harder at Penn then they were at UCLA.</p>
<p>i guess what i meant is: did your overall marks go down at Penn, compared with your marks from high school?</p>
<p>"i guess what i meant is: did your overall marks go down at Penn, compared with your marks from high school?"</p>
<p>it depends on what high school you went to. i went to a high school where about 30% of the class got 4.0's (unweighted). my current gpa is 3.22 </p>
<p>the course load depends on which school your in. im in seas and i take 5.5 course units per semester (5.5 is the max per semester for the seas students without filing a petition). i think the min course load is 4 course units for seas. im not too sure on the other schools.</p>
<p>anq, how difficult is it to transfer into a dual degree program as an engineering student after freshman year. I hear the requirement is a 3.7 GPA for the dual degree program and a 3.9 for fisher. How competitive is the dual degree program?</p>
<p>I'm a pre-med in the college, and one of my bio lab TAs once told me that some med schools rank undergrad universities in terms of grade inflation. He mentioned that Penn is around the top 25th percentile in terms of least grade inflation (meaning we have less inflation than most other schools that have kids applying to med school), while Stanford, which is notorious for major inflation for example, is in the bottom 10th or something. I'm not sure how accurate that is because we haven't had that many grades yet, but I think it's in the right ball park.</p>
<p>Regarding how grades are given, it depends a LOT on the type of class you are taking. Intro science and math courses, which are dominated by annoying grade-grubbing pre-meds like me, are usually based on a normal curve, where the mean is a B- or a C+, pretty harsh compared to most Ivy League grading systems. I'm not sure how the other schools handle things, but I've heard the mean SEAS GPA is about 2.7, and the mean Wharton is around 3.2 or something. Whether this means one school grades harder or the kids are just smarter or something probably takes some more in-depth research.</p>
<p>Anyway, hope that helps.</p>
<p>"anq, how difficult is it to transfer into a dual degree program as an engineering student after freshman year. I hear the requirement is a 3.7 GPA for the dual degree program and a 3.9 for fisher. How competitive is the dual degree program?"</p>
<p>it is very difficult to get into dual degree w/ wharton. my advisor told me that a 3.4 GPA minimum is needed to apply for this. if in engineering i was told to get at least a 3.6 GPA. if in the college, i believe at least a 3.9 could get u in. if you want to do dual after freshman year, u need to take a few required courses such as econ1 and econ2. its very competitive because of limited spots. i was told that spots only open up if someone from wharton decides to transfer. i believe the most important thing for getting into dual degrees is getting a high GPA (i know this is true for dualing w/ wharton), especially in courses related to the field you want to dual with.</p>
<p>I heard at Penn it's easy to get a B, and extremely difficult to get an A.</p>
<p>how difficult is it for premed? extremely cut-throat?</p>
<p>o god...im getting scared:O/</p>
<p>chips and dip</p>
<p>I always heard that Penn is actually quite bad for grade inflation? I think it's just something that people are always going to bring up. There are definitely a few people who will grade you quite harshly on assignments but your semester grade will be scaled up to be comparable with other courses. So I guess that in that sense there is grade inflation. A lot of people also talk about profs being 'scared' to grade harshly in case they get bad reviews. Personally I don't rate courses based on how easy it is to get an A but I guess there are plenty of people here that do.
My GPA is pretty comparable to h.s. (or what it would have been if I had one) and I haven't really found many courses to be super easy or super hard. I'm in the college taking mostly social science with a fairly strong bias towards the more biological classes, and I haven't had a hard time maintaining an A-/A sort of average.
If you're in the college, it's definitely very easy to take a lot of easy A classes, if that's your thing.
The frustrating thing is when tests and graded assignments have no real bearing on the class material...and yes, i'm babbling so i will stop now.</p>
<p>lauraane, what is babble to you is golden information to me!</p>
<p>In general, the intro classes do curve and in most cases, it helps everyone's grade. Wharton also has a curve, which is a bell curve, but instead of the average being a C, the average is usually a B. Each class is different in terms of how much a curve would help your grade...for example, it's pretty tough to get an A in MGMT100 because only the top students get A's, no matter what your number grades are for all the assignments. Don't know if that made any sense, but when you get to college, grades mean a lot less and getting a B isn't such a big deal and you stop worrying about it all =P</p>