Penn Psychology Graduate Manual
CHAPTER 2
GRADES AND EVALUATIONS
Grades
The standard letter grading system employed by the Graduate
Division of Arts and Sciences will be used to evaluate
performance in all graduate courses in psychology. The summary
at the end of this section lists the verbal equivalents of these
grades as they apply to our graduate program.
Evaluations
As noted in the next section a student must be in good academic
standing to remain in the graduate program. For a student to be
in good-standing at the end of the first year, the student must
have a grade of A- or better for at least one Proseminar (or
Proseminar equivalent) or on the student’s Independent Research
(699). And the student may have no more than 1 c.u. at a grade
of B- or worse. In subsequent years good academic standing means
having: no more than 1/8 of all c.u. with grades of B- or worse,
and no fewer than 1/8 of all c.u. with grades of A- or
better. (NB: Our students take eight c.u. in each of their first
two years and four c.u. in their fifth semester.)
M.A. Degree
The Graduate Group does not have a Master's program and does not
admit students who merely wish to obtain an M.A. degree. However,
a student who has successfully completed the first year of
studies for the Ph.D. and has been asked to remain in the program
may apply for an M.A. Degree. If the Graduate Group asks a
student to leave the graduate program, it also decides whether
the student's performance to date merits the award of a terminal
M.A. degree.
Summary of Grades and Grade Requirements
| A+ | Outstanding |
| A | Excellent |
| A- | Very Good |
| B+ | Good |
| B | Minimally Acceptable |
| B- | Poor |
| C | Failure |
To be in good academic standing in our program, at least 1/8th of
student's grades must be A- or better, and no more than 1/8th of
student's grades may be B- or below.
June, 2003
Jonathan Baron
Last modified: Mon Jul 24 11:56:22 EDT 2006