"I did it! I knocked over the president of the university!" shouted the jubilant senior, raising his can of Schlitz in a toast as the sodden but smiling administrator pulled himself out of the dunking booth.

The place was the Lower Quadrangle at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, where two weeks ago students were celebrating the last week of classes and blowing off a little pre-finals pressure at the annual Spring Fling. In the carnival-like atmosphere, filled with strains of rock and the smell of hamburgers and beer, thousands of students relax under the approving eye of the administration. The first impression the outside observer gets is that Penn students take themselves seriously, but not too seriously to preclude a weekend of total chaotic fun.

Although this weekend is certainly atypical of normal life, many students agree with freshman Sarah K Wolf, who thinks "the atmosphere here is fantastic People know when to study, and know when to have fun." Hope R. Kider, a sophomore who transferred from the University of Rochester, says she found at Penn the perfect mix of academics, extracurriculars, and social life.

Yet, first impressions can be deceiving "After Spring Fling, you'll never see these people out again. It's the only weekend many people put down their books," comments Dante A. Goreno, a sophomore in Penn's Wharton School, a business undergraduate and graduate school.

For the outside observer, this seeming paradox becomes the key to understanding Penn. With 9000 students divided among four undergraduate schools, it is not surprising to find that the University of Pennsylvania is an institution of contradictions and contrasts. On one level, the students and the administration seem well satisfied with the university and the direction in which it is going. But underneath lies issues and problems that are only beginning to be addressed.

While Spring Fling has been a fixture at Penn for over 10 years, it has become increasingly valuable as a respite from academic pressure, which both officials and students claim are more prevalent this year than ever before Dr. Sam Fager, director of Penn's student health and counseling services explains that this buildup of stress has become so noticeable recently that it prompted health officials to call for a two-day break from classes in late October to help students to "depressurize." Administrators were interested in the idea, and say they will include the break in the 1984-85 calendar.

"Students are finding Penn to be a more competitive place than it was several years ago, and they get depressed by all that work," Fager says, adding that the increased concern with grades and achievement is due to economic factors such as the high cost of a private education and the difficulty in finding jobs after graduation.

Many students claim that the pressure they feel is due to an excessive amount of grade consciousness and pre-professionalism, problems intensified by the presence of three undergraduate schools--the Wharton School, the Engineering School, and the Nursing School--which prepare their students specifically for a career. Among the students in the College of Arts and Sciences--which includes more than 60 percent of the undergraduate population--there are complaints that the pre-professionalism affects more than just the pre-med or pre-law students.

"There's a definite emphasis on taking courses that will get you a job rather than courses that you'll enjoy," says James R. Ojemann, a senior in the college who plans a government career in national security. "Seventy-five percent of these people don't care what they learn, but what kind of grade they get," he adds.

Pam S. Seidenman, a junior in the college and chair of the Student Committee on Undergraduate Education, explains that when the Faculty recently proposed the addition of plus minus grading to the present straight letter mark scheme, the majority of students were against it.

"The professors felt it would lead to more accurate grading, but the students argued that it would lead to increased stress and wouldn't make a difference, since grading is really arbitrary anyway and to make it more arbitrary would be a farce." Seidenman says, adding that some students feel that grade competition is already so bad that the plus minus change will not really matter.

It would not be fair to say that all Penn students are caught up in this preoccupation, and certainly the concern for grades and jobs is found on campuses throughout the nation. However, the difference here between Penn and several other Ivy League schools lies in the preprofessional undergraduate schools, and the attitude the administration is only beginning to change.

"Preprofessionalism has been Penn's personality for a long time--excellent preprofessional preparation," explains university president Sheldon Hackney, adding that the challenge now is to combine that with a strong liberal arts education. "The opportunity to do that is better here than anywhere else," Hackney says, "because we have built-in mechanisms for student-faculty interaction across the schools and across disciplinary barriers."

While administrators like to emphasize their "One University" concept--a place where all students can benefit from the resources of the undergraduate schools and the eight graduate schools--the reality is far from the ideal, especially in the case of Wharton.

Wharton began as an independent entity in 1881, the oldest collegiate school of business in the United States. Now absorbed into the University, Wharton retains much of its independence and limits the use of its separate facilities by other university members. Consisting of both undergraduate and graduate divisions, Wharton is regarded as one of the finest business programs in the nation, ranking up with Harvard, Stanford and other top graduate schools.