Competitive atmosphere at Penn?

hardworking21
Mon, 01 Jul 2013 16:43:11 +0000

As an undergraduate in Wharton myself, I can promise you that it’s competitive, but NOT cutthroat. View it this way: All of the core Wharton courses (Marketing 101, Management 101, Finance 100, Statistics 101 & 102, etc.) are curved to approx. 30% A range, 40% B range, and 30% C (or lower) range. Some professors may vary from this distribution, but for the most part, that’s the distribution. With that in mind, when you walk into, say, STAT 101, you know that not everyone’s getting an A at the end of the day. It’s impossible. So, a competitive environment exists.

However, being competitive doesn’t mean I won’t help my friends study or explain concepts to them. Within my friend group (all of whom are in Wharton or a dual-degree program like me), we tend to help each other out, explain concepts, work on HW together, etc. That doesn’t mean we aren’t competitive people; it just means we still value the balance between friendship/life and getting good grades.