Think getting a job at Goldman Sachs is hard without a perfect grade point average?
Try law school.
Gaining entrance to top graduate and professional schools today is tough without a high GPA.
But as grades rise at colleges and universities around the country, officials of many graduate programs at peer institutions say that Penn's GPAs are not as inflated as some -- and as a result, Penn students' grades carry more weight.
During the 2004-2005 academic year, 54 percent of all grades given in the College of Arts and Sciences were A's or A-minuses.
But according to the University of Michigan Law School's Assistant Admissions Dean Sarah Zearfoss, grade inflation is not as big an issue at Penn as it is at other Ivies.
"I would say of the Ivies, [Penn's GPAs are] in the middle, and it's certainly not as bad about grade inflation," she said. But "there is more grade inflation [at Penn] than at, say, Georgia Tech."
Derek Meeker, the assistant dean of admissions at Penn Law School, agrees.
Penn is "not at the high end, but it's certainly not at the other end," he said. "You have schools like Harvard or Brown or Stanford where there may be a bit more grade inflation."
Having a strong GPA, however, remains imperative for consideration by top graduate schools.
"Low GPAs are going to rule people out; high GPA [is] not necessarily going to get you in," said Alastair Bellany, vice-chairman of the Rutgers University graduate program in history.
The Rutgers history department typically looks for A's and A-minuses in upper-level history courses, Bellany said.
But rising GPAs have made it harder to judge academic ability from grades, putting weight behind a longstanding admissions credo: While good grades are important, they're only one part of the picture.
"Lots of people apply with great GPAs and great letters" of recommendation, Bellany said. "What separates people out in the end is the writing sample."
At the University of Michigan's Law School, admissions officials compare students' GPAs to their schools' averages to help level what they see as inflated grades. The average GPA of accepted students is a little above 3.6, according to Zearfoss.
"We're looking for evidence of academic ability," she said. "GPA standing alone doesn't tell us that if we don't know what school, what major and what they pursued."
And while good grades help keep students in the running, schools stress that a tough freshman year isn't cause for despair.
"People find their stride at different places in college and we have ways of reading [that]," Bellany said, adding that good recommendations from faculty can help.
Gaye Sheffler, director of admissions for Penn's School of Medicine, says officials "just don't look at overall GPA" but at trends in the GPA. She added, though, that GPAs above 3.5 are typical of applicants to the Medical School.
Some Penn students say they've noticed that in the grad school application process, there are more important things than grades.
College senior Anne Henochowicz was recently accepted to the master's program in ethnomusicology at Cambridge University. At Penn, she dedicated herself to her classes and hoped her grades would speak for her effort.
Grades are "not the focus of your application," she said. It's "the personal statement and your letters of recommendation. You have to show not only why you like the school, but what you plan to do."
But even students with mediocre GPAs have a chance at top schools, college guidance counselors say.
"If you have a low GPA, crank out that [Graduate Record Exam] score, get some great recommendations, and that will help you a lot," said Liz Wands, head of graduate school guidance for the Princeton Review.
