A Grade Above
Why have a top 10% at all? More accurately, why should the school sanction a gradation (see title for not so subtle humor) of its students? Let firms calculate all they want. Bottom line is the school's policies DICTATE that you're all equal as graduates of ______ School of Law (to a certain degree).Is there enough of a gradation for firms to make meaningful decisions about whom to hire? Yes. Is there enough gradation for clerkships/teaching positions? Yes. Is there an arbitrary line between the P crowd and the H crowd? No not really. The line blurs...instead what we have is a continuum. I mentioned the 40/60 distinction earlier...but that's per class. There are countless (actually quite countable) combinations of P, H, and HH. But given the 40/60 line it's almost inevitable that everyone will have some P's and some H's (including HH). This is true with all grading systems, but again the difference is that there is no ranking and there is no number that spits out to put you in a category. Firms, judges, hiring committees can look and weigh each grade however they want, but us Boalties look at each other and in a naive sense, see ourselves.
This was before I got my grades and immediately went to the tattoo parlor to permanently record the appropriate number of H's. Now going through the third semester of this process, I think I can safely say that while we all hope for those pairs, the grades we get really don't alter our relations with our classmates. And if it does, you should go back to Hastings. More seriously, 1Ls, please don't go out and kill youself if the grades don't turn out as you had hoped...the odds are stacked against you.
UPDATE: Moved up to permit discussion of grades per commentor request.
Labels: Grades And Other Neurotic Bullshit, Rankings And Associated Bullshit
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 12:13 AM
11 Comments:
Armen speaks wise words. Seriously, folks, I was shocked at how little--or rather, the way in which--grades mattered in getting jobs (outside of the top five or so firms). Some people will say "grades don't matter." That's not quite true, I think. Good grades can make getting a job easier. But average grades only mean you have to put some effort into it. People with average grades get great jobs at Boalt because of the school. You just have to try harder (do more interviews, go to the schmooze events, sparkle up your personality, do extra research, make a personal contact). Take heart: people with average grades will be working right alongside people with great grades.
Speaking as someone who scored a painful amount of P's my first semester here, I just want to point out that grades aren't all about getting a job. Many Boalt students got here by getting good grades their whole lives. For some of us, it's all we ever had. Then, the school that admitted us based on these grades tries to tell us that grades don't matter. Whether this is a practical disservice or a useful self-esteem booster is open to question. Personally, all the reassurances in the world could not wash the bitter taste of all those P's out of my mouth. Before anyone tells me to go back to Hastings, I would say in my defense that I saw grades not as a way to measure superiority over my classmates, but as the only validation available for all the hours of work that I had done leading up to finals. Maybe my psyche is overly fragile, but hey, I'm a product of an academic system. It's hard to swallow the idea that what worked so well for me up until now has suddenly ceased to matter.
I guess what I'm saying to 1Ls or whoever is that it's normal to feel shitty about average grades. I guess it's not the most practical advice, but I hated the way everyone kept telling me grades don't matter. If they don't matter, then why do law students work so hard to get good ones?
I agree with Armen that grades don't (and shouldn't) alter classmates' relationships, but as a descriptive matter of fact, they have definitely impacted my personal well-being for better or for worse.
Dear 2L/3Ls
I'm a 1L, and I appreciate everything everyone has written. I got pretty crappy grades this past semester. What bothers me isn't so much the fear that I'm not going to be able to get the job I want, but rather that what I think and say about the law is worthless. I feel like I should preface any comment I make about future estates or mens rea with fair notice that I got Ps in those classes so I probably don't know what the hell I'm talking about. I don't know if I feel worse about the class that I tried hard in and got a P, or the class that I slacked off in and got a P. Why am I such a pussy about this? Will anyone ever want to study with me again? And if so, why? What does it mean if someone I can't stand got a higher grade than me? Am I actually the loser I thought they were?
Sincerely,
1Loststudent
Tacitus, I did say "MORE seriously," as in relatively speaking. :)
1Lost, I don't know what mens rea means and I think future estate is Puerto Rico. MORE seriously, I think Mad J.D. captured things rather well. The problem is people who have excelled academically being graded on a forced curve. Your knowledge, I'm sure, is impeccable. Blah blah blah. The moral of this post is, don't measure yourself against your classmates based on class performance. (1) If you're going to label someone a loser, do it for social reasons, not academic. There are plenty of those at Boalt. (2) The real losers are the ones who are worried about "fitting in" in a law school exam performance sense. My real question is, "Will people do shots with you?"
This isn't the time to evaluate the people around you based on criteria that is better suited for a partnership determination. Enjoy your last few years of freedom with people you can shoot the shit and not feel guilty that you're skipping a day's worth of reading on Lady Palsgraf. If you are concerned about exam performance, or more accuratley if you wish to improve your performance, follow the advice of Tacitus (and hope that 60% of those in your class don't).
"Lady Palsgraf?" Man, I love that. That is good stuff right there. 1Lost: seriously, man (I'm assuming man given the usage of "pussy") I know it's cold comfort, but thousands before you have been there, including me. Maybe even including Armen, and look at him now: the most influential blog in school...actually he probably got really good grades...bad example.
Look here, your current grades are going to be like breaking up with someone: the crappy feelings you have are valid, no matter how many people tell you to put it out of your mind. It's going to suck for a while, but it hurts a little less every day. Just try not to let it turn you off of other...classes.
I'm a 3L at Boalt, and I am continually surprised by the fragile egos of my classmates, and the unjustified belief/expectation that they should get good grades here, because they have "always gotten good grades." Fact is, *most* of us came to Boalt having breezed through college with easy majors, and many of us came from easy colleges at that -- and now we're competing with a not insignificant number of people who got the same GPAs in actual difficult subjects in college. Those who get mediocre grades here shouldn't be depressed or let it affect one's self-esteem; rather, they should just be glad that, regardless of how they compare to their peers or if they even belong here, they will be able to take advantage of the Boalt name during OCIP and for many many years after graduation. Revel in your privilege.
I'm a 2L and I don't really know what IRAC is. And I got a bunch of Ps and a great job. But I am still curious about this IRAC thing. How do I find out how to IRAC? I hear I need to be able to do it for the bar exam.
And here's something to cheer up the 1Ls: at this point I am content to get Ps from here on out so I'm one less person that you'll have to compete with next year.
Any 1L feeling insecure about their grades or future career potential should check out anonymouslawyer.blogspot.com. I know that it always helps put me in a better mood.
I'm a 3L and my grades have improved dramatically since 1L year, and that's without putting in as much effort as I did my 1L year. You learn how to take law school exams. For most people, it's an acquired skill. And, gradually, you learn how to actually study for a law school exam -- and usually, it's not about cramming every last detail about every damn case in the book & notes.
I ditto Tacitus' comment -- don't try for HHs in every class. Focus. Pick a couple of classes in which you think you have some likelihood of getting an H and then study more for those and accept a P in the other.
Getting a HH in a class really means that you knew how to take the exam for that subject for that professor. It doesn't not necessarily mean that you know infinitely more than someone who got a P. After all, when you practice law, no one is going to give you an issue spotter -- you'll likely work on a discreet problem with a lot more facts in hand.
After a couple of semesters, more than half of my grades are HHs -- so I must know what I'm doing, right? However, I do not. For each class I just try to understand the stuff, and then on the final I just try to answer the questions. I don't know what more there is to say. What I do know is that my success in law school will have little bearing on my future success as a practicing attorney, and *that* is what makes me sweat.
This one is for all you out there who think the whether grades matter question is just dumb. It's true that they matter, so don't think that anyone really denies that. Even people who slack because good grades aren't worth their time would like to be able to slide by without any work and get that HH the way they used to slide by and still get the A's in undergrad.
The point that my wise fellow Boalties are making is that there are many other things that also matter, and you need to get your priorities right. You notice that you don't see people freaking out like they do about grades when they miss out on some resume-building opportunity that doesn't show up on their transcript? Why not? It's because there's no shortage of valuable experiences, networking functions, fun and satifying student organizations, and endless other opportunites. If you missed all of that to get better grades, you would be a fool.
You don't need to have regrets every time you miss out on something (whether it's a HH or a chance to meet a possible mentor at the "life of a document" IP lunch). Just make sure that the reason you missed out is that you were taking advantage of some other opportunity. There is so much going on at Boalt, the only real mistake is to focus on one thing (whether that's grades or something else) at the expense of everything else. I tried not to care too much about grades after I had a bad semester in my 1L Spring, but it didn't work. So I just make sure it isn't all I care about.
I know lots of people who knew what job they wanted and did everything they could to get it. That usually included trying for HH's, but it always included other things too. Most of those people didn't get so many HH's, but I don't know anyone like that at Boalt who didn't get where they wanted to go. The people who are unhappy are the ones who don't know what they want, or the ones who were slackers about the rest of law school, not just about classes & grades.
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