<p>Is a 4.0 at Penn possible? For those who had 4.0's in high school is it depressing to get lower grades?</p>
<p>You might have also seen similar threads on the HYP boards. Just attempting to receive some thoughts...</p>
<p>Pretty hard. Anywhere.</p>
<p>Very, very, very rare.</p>
<p>Very rare. Don’t know anyone. I know some 3.95s. Also, it’s definitely possible to get a 4.0 for a semester or two (I did). But consistently is very hard. The curves are just tough</p>
<p>One of the hardest parts of my freshman year here has been not knowing what to expect out of myself when it comes to grades. It’s an ongoing process! At the moment I have a 4.0…but that’s only because I have one grade up! (Who knows what it will be come January 4th)</p>
<p>quite possible. I would have had it if my beloved mgmt100 teammates didn’t backstab me so badly. They smiled to my face and told me how much they appreciated me…and then failed me in the reviews.</p>
<p>-ouch-</p>
<p>How is everything curved anyway for, say, bio? Wut percent of a class get A- or above?</p>
<p>depends on the major…i think in engineering its easier.</p>
<p>Depends on the class. Some classes like Accounting will gouge you and only offer 10% A’s or something like that, whereas Writing Seminars are nearly guaranteed A’s if you do a decent job. In Wharton, the average tends to be set at a flat-out B, where the A- cutoff is typically a standard deviation above.</p>
<p>It totally depends on the class. My bio class was curved to a C+, which ****ed some people off. That just means that the average was a C+, so 50% of the class got below that. Probably 20-30% got As. A’s are hard to come by, especially in the sciences. You really have to be on your game. – Also, re: writing seminars-- MOST of them are easy but my teacher didn’t give out a single A. She even admitted it!</p>
<p>mgmt 100 and 101 raped my GPA…curving these soft classes is complete bull</p>
<p>MGMT 100 is a pretty flukey class.</p>
<p>i know someone who got a 4.0 in high school and went to penn. she doesn’t have a 4.0 anymoe</p>
<p>Why exactly do mgmt 100/101 kill your GPA? I was reading the course description and both seem like easy A’s.</p>
<p>I hope a Wharton student will elaborate on this for you but basically, there is a curve and you are competing with your fellow students (and your own team).</p>
<p>Difficulty ratings aren’t that bad actually. On Penn Course review minimum 2.0 maximum 2.95 out of 4.</p>
<p>an0maly: I am going to repost an old post of mine about MGMT 100:</p>
<p>Some parts of it are fun, I won’t lie, but it’s a huge timesink compared to your other classes. You’ll be meeting your group members outside of class a lot. It’s more a social class than anything else, where your grade isn’t necessarily determined by the amount of work you do. If you’re outgoing, you’ll tend to do better because you’ll be more likely to participate and get along with your group members. If you’re not outgoing, you’ll probably participate less and receive lower peer evaluations, or simply get labeled as a data-cruncher.</p>
<p>To get a high grade in MGMT, you need to not only be active socially but also contribute concretely. When you evaluate your peers, you also provide some explanation as to why. If you have contributed something concrete (ie. “She has been taking meeting minutes for the past twenty meetings now” or “He coordinated our trip to the event and provided transportation” or “He gathered up all our research information and created a really useful summary/statistical analysis”), then people will have something to say about you and you’ll get a better peer evaluation. It’s hard to give a good peer evaluation to someone when you can’t think of anything they’ve done over someone who has.</p>
<p>I know a few people including myself who made friends from MGMT 100, but other than that it’s pretty self-contained. The biggest complaint you’ll hear is that the grading seems random. You have people who seemed to be sure-fire A’s but they end up with B’s, and people who didn’t do a whole lot that receive A-'s or better. The people who do absolutely nothing usually get screwed either way, however.</p>
<p>It’s a rather crazy class. The reality though is that although it has good intentions, the execution and grading is horribly skewed. It’s heavily weighted in favor of outgoing, personable people, whereas people who may be shy might be at a disadvantage unless they overcome it (which usually gives people a reason to bump them up in peer evals). The people who participate actively and try to lead tend to get the upper push. My group met at least 2-4 times a week outside of class for roughly 1-2 hours each, roughly estimating. There is also a status report and final presentation, which both contribute a huge portion to your overall grade. If you botch either of those, you’ll lose your A. The people who did well in that class pretty much rocked both of those. Grading for the status report is totally bogus sometimes.</p>
<p>I took a friend’s advice by going early in status reports “because they go easier on you,” and I think it was a bad choice. There’s no real link between average grade and the round in which you give your status report. You will have both good and bad ones all the way through, and the grading seems more or less the same in each case. Everyone in my class’ second round of status reports got absolutely raped grade-wise because we had tough topics and we didn’t know how we were being graded. You get graded down for little things wrong in your slides (e.g. title styles, picture styles, structure, etc) or the way in which you deliver your presentation (e.g. not walking enough, hand gestures, voice, eyes, etc). There are things you get graded down for that you could have easily fixed had you heard about it. Nobody will tell you “Be sure to verbally mention the article and author of the source when you use one of the source’s facts” until somebody gets graded down for it. Even if you take your TA’s advice in terms of structuring your slides and information, those same pieces of advice can get you graded down!</p>
<p>By the time you hit the last round, you should have a huge list of criteria that will make it easier to refine your status report. I highly advise holding it off until later, because by then you can see what works and what doesn’t. They say the later-round status reports are harder because “they expect more from you,” but in my opinion, it’s a huge advantage. You’re better off doing everything right and getting graded down for something lame like hand gestures as opposed to getting graded down for stupid things you could have prevented/changed AND hand gestures on top of it.</p>
<p>You get assigned this huge packet of readings but few people actually read them all, and it makes discussion in class a little dull sometimes. However, I guess this provides incentive for people to actually do the reading so they can participate and have something to talk about. The status reports are flawed for the reasons I said above, and likewise for the peer evaluations. Some people act really fake or “suckuppy” just because they know there are peer evaluations, even though they aren’t a huge percent of your grade. It happens, regardless.</p>
<p>My main complaint is that the activities in the course encourage a lot of BS. People have to sometimes make up stories about their team in order for things to fit the structure of the task at hand. Some of the tasks just feel out of place (again, just my opinion), such as writing a business memo. Things like that just felt like a grand waste of time. And then, at the end of the day, everything you do in MGMT is only like 50% of your grade, and the teachers decide the rest based on your final presentation and an essay you write.</p>
<p>I feel that a more obvious grading scheme with different weights would make the class more enjoyable. Peer evaluations are <em>generally</em> pretty fair, but sometimes the extroverted people get the upper hand even if an introverted person has contributed more to a team. Status reports either need to be removed from the class or graded differently with a more specific grading scheme. I can’t count the number of times I’ve heard “Why the hell did they grade me down for this? We were never told we had to do this!” or “They never said we could get graded down for that!”</p>
<p>Other than that, it’s a good course to just get to know new people and have fun coming up with ideas and solutions to various aspects of your semester project.</p>
<p>So, if I had to give someone a key recipe to owning MGMT 100, this would be it:</p>
<p>Speak up, give concrete contributions, raise your hand and have something to say whenever possible, make an effort to get along well with your teammates and try to include everyone in discussions, take a later-round status report so you have a better idea what makes a good report versus a lesser one, dominate your final presentation and head it with the best speakers of your team (if that is yourself, then that’s even better)</p>
<p>MGMT 101 actually isn’t so bad – just very fluffy. It’s just a course where you show up to class, participate, memorize a bunch of definitions/slides/management buzzwords and terms, and then regurgitate it all on a test. It’s much easier than MGMT 100.</p>
<p>the kids from my school have a 4.0 so far [1st semester]</p>
<p>1 at nursing
3 at SAS
1 at Huntsman</p>
<p>And don’t the students grade each other as well? MGMT 100 drama has been afoot all semester. </p>
<p>Also, whoever said the curve in engineering is easier does not know what they are talking about. The poor engineers have it the hardest (or if not, definitely not easy curves). </p>
<p>Concerning Writing Seminars, it seems to depend on the professor. Biomajor said her professor gave out no As, while all my friends say they think their professor gave everyone As.</p>