Thousands of Penn students rate classes each year. Here’s what they say
Want to coast through spring semester? Avoid LSMP 4210B. Maybe steer clear of FNCE 2570, too.
As Penn students prepare to select classes for the spring semester, The Daily Pennsylvanian analyzed more than 1,500 undergraduate-level courses using Penn Course Review student ratings — which are sourced from end-of-semester surveys — to find which classes students consider to be the hardest, the easiest, and everything in between. Courses are rated on a scale of zero to four in areas such as difficulty, workload, amount learned, and overall quality.
The figures are based on aggregate ratings across all semesters with available data.
Get the DP delivered straight to your inbox.Sign Up
With a 3.83 out of four, LSMP 4210B — a capstone course for students in the Vagelos Program in Life Sciences & Management — has the highest difficulty rating of any course. FNCE 2570: Foundations of Asset Pricing follows at 3.82, and STAT 4760: Applied Probability Models in Marketing comes in third at 3.70.
The easiest-rated non-language class was EAS 2420: Energy Education in Philadelphia Schools, with a 0.58 difficulty. EAS 2420 only ranks behind SPAN 0800: Spanish Conversation, a half-credit course.
Among the 1,271 courses with available ratings in both categories, difficulty and workload show a strong positive correlation. Three courses rank in the top 10 for both most difficult and most work-intensive: LSMP 4210B, CIS 4550, and ESE 4730. LSMP 4210B was rated the most work-intensive class, at 3.95 out of 4, followed by CIS 4550: Internet & Web Systems at 3.85.
