Perspective | Making the grade: for love, money or GPA?

For Engineering and Wharton sophomore Prateek Bhide, a day doesn't go by without hearing his classmates talk about grades.

Though competition may prepare students for future careers, he said, "most of the people I talk to in the workforce say GPA doesn't matter in the real world in getting promoted and succeeding."

It's hard to make sweeping generalizations about academic culture at a university as large and diverse as Penn - and that's exactly what attracts many students who are striving for academic success.

But often overlooked is what's driving that thirst to succeed: intellectual curiosity or the desire for high grades?

Career aspirations and ambitious personalities seem to be the strongest motivations in the classroom, pushing some Penn students to compete for top marks, cram for tests and choose courses they expect to do in well in.

From Wharton to Wall Street

As midterm season eclipses on-campus recruiting as the stress of the day, it's tough to ignore the perceptible anxiety of students working to maintain that hard-earned 3.9.

"The 'I just want to get good grades' mentality is definitely a little defining here," said Engineering freshman Alp Kutlu, a former Daily Pennsylvanian marketing staff member.

The emphasis on grades over learning might be viewed as an ironic exaggeration of Benjamin Franklin's vision of a university that offered a practical as well as a liberal arts education.

In this sense, high grades represent an edge in potential employment rather than an indication of intellectual aptitude.

From suit-clad undergrads in Huntsman Hall to Nursing students up at the crack of dawn to prepare for clinicals, Penn's focus on careers may stem from its three undergraduate pre-professional schools.

"Many students see a Penn degree as a clear springboard to actually getting a job out of college, whereas they see competitor schools as more of an ivory tower," said College Confidential advisor Sally Rubenstone.

Prospective students may find that Penn's academic appeal lies in its multidisciplinary offerings.

"I have no idea what I want to do, and I wouldn't be able to fit myself into one of the pre-professional schools," said Amy Weiss, an incoming College freshman from New Jersey.

For Penn students who know what they want to pursue after graduation, career-geared academic and extracurricular options open doors, and many say they appreciate the balance between knowledge and practical skills.

"It's a commonly held opinion that you're either pre-professional or academic, but I think it's possible to embrace both," said College junior Alex Berger, chairwoman of the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education.

But those who want to use college to explore their possibilities are sometimes frustrated by Penn's career-focused mind-set.

Even those not pursuing coveted internships feel the "infectious" influence from friends who are, said College sophomore David Saginur, who is now taking his first Wharton class. He said such a mentality creates at times "too much pressure to plan your whole life out."

An edge in the economy

The economy's downturn has also sharpened the desire to obtain an education that translates to a professional career, said Rubenstone, and intensifying job competition may trigger heightened struggles for higher GPAs that offer applicants a boost.

Career Services Director Patricia Rose added that although the "students' market" of the last few years is now an "employers' market," students should not develop tunnel vision.

"To skirt challenging courses just for the sake of a GPA is not taking full advantage of their tuition dollars," she said.

And students seem to be heeding her advice. According to Wharton director of Academic Affairs and Advising Scott Romeika, "the hardest [courses] we have to offer" are the most popular because they're seen as practical.

"When I ask, why do you want to take financial derivatives, the answer is, well it's going to help me in my potential career, not necessarily that it's an easy grade," he said.

Ambition: the chicken or the egg?

In conceptualizing the ideal Penn student, Dean of Admissions Eric Furda highlighted the "work hard, play hard mentality" that academics are most important, but engagement in other activities shouldn't be ignored.

Wharton sophomore Sean Coghlan said he perceives that peer institutions like Brown University have "a much larger emphasis on learning than here, where people learn mostly for tests," possibly due to Penn's larger size or the kinds of people that its business school attracts.

The type of student who chooses Penn, and especially Wharton, would compete "even if there wasn't a curve," Bhide said.

While ambitious workers may self-select for Penn, the nature of impersonal lecture courses, group projects and grading curves can also bring out students' competitive sides.

Coghlan, a teaching assistant for Wharton's teamwork-based "Management 100" course, said although the curve mimics competition students will experience in future jobs, he has sometimes seen it lead to unbalanced work distribution within teams in the short run.

Professor Anne Greenhalgh, who runs "Management 100," said grade distributions ensure fairness across different class sections and prevent grade inflation, but she understands the system takes time to adjust to. "If I set foot in Management 100 as a freshman, I would have been terrified," she said.

Bhide added that the competition is self-perpetuating. "Students aren't naturally that way, but if everyone next to them is studying five more hours for the finance exam, that's when people feel they, too, need to work harder."

A result is what Kutlu dubbed the "two-day intense studying" period - most students know pulling all-nighters doesn't work but don't have the time to start weeks in advance. But Bhide, who frequently doesn't begin school work until 10 p.m., attributed such habits to packed extracurricular schedules rather than an indifference to learning.

Great expectations

That balance between satisfying intellectual curiosity and maintaining a high GPA can require trade-offs, which some students attempt by enrolling in classes perceived as easier - often College courses with more subjective grading structures.

Bhide called it "a huge misconception because what it takes to succeed in science class is not the same as what it takes to succeed in liberal arts class."

College Director of Academic Affairs Kent Peterman said humanities students rarely take courses in the sciences beyond what is required, while science students frequently take humanities and social science classes.

"You can't help but wonder if that's not due to expected grades," he said.

Peterman explained that since the 1960s, when male students required certain grades for a draft deferment, college grades nationwide have slowly but persistently trended upwards. In the last 15 to 20 years, inflation has grown to impact humanities the most, natural sciences the least and social sciences in between.

Though not one of the Ivies known for grade inflation, Penn still witnesses its share. In 2004-2005, 54 percent of students in College classes received A's, up from 50 percent in 1999-2000 and from 40 percent in 1992-1993. From 1992-1993 until 2004-2005, the mean GPA rose from 3.16 to 3.39 - and the nearly linear increase shows no sign of slowing.

"You used to be able to graduate number one with a 3.7," said Political Science professor Henry Teune. "Now you can't even get into Phi Beta Kappa [honor society] with less than a 3.8. Now you go through the grades and count all the non-A's instead of the A's."

To grade or not to grade?

If grades are the primary incentive for hard work, then life without grades wouldn't bode well for the Penn population.

Penn allows students to take a limited number of courses pass/fail to encourage exploration of unfamiliar subjects and upper-level courses.

But some schools take that philosophy further. Brown students can take as many pass/fail courses as they wish, and Johns Hopkins University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology use variations of pass/fail for freshmen.

"Having that policy would allow students to find their niche before sitting down and focusing," Kutlu said.

But College sophomore Michelle Perlin, who transferred from Hopkins, said some students consider it a chance to slack off and "bank on the fact that they can just get a C and it has no ramifications, which causes problems later down the line, especially in math or science where you learn cumulatively."

Weiss agreed a pass/fail system would make learning less stressful but recalled disliking Brown during her college search because it "was too laid back."

History department undergraduate chairwoman Ann Moyer said while such policies would give professors an incentive to rein in inflation by "giving low grades again," they would have driven down performance.

Peterman and Romeika agreed, adding that it would disable honest evaluation through which advisers can guide students.

Is it worth it?

Ranjeeta Pal, a Ph.D. student in communications, said graduate study emphasizes mastery of the material rather than grades. "After you graduate, no one's going to look at your GPA," she said.

University President Amy Gutmann - who entered college as a math major before taking several unrelated courses that persuaded her to switch to political science - encouraged students to be adventurous rather than focus simply on grades. Challenging courses are also viewed favorably by graduate schools, which consider not just grades but courses taken in making admissions decisions.

Gutmann said, "If you come to Penn, you've chosen to be in a very intensely academic environment - you don't come to Penn to play it safe."

**This article was edited at 12:24 p.m. on Tuesday, February 24, 2009. Phi Beta Kappa was initially referred to as a political science honor society. It is an academic honor society to honor distinguished undergraduate research or liberal arts study.

Please note All comments are eligible for publication in The Daily Pennsylvanian.