Kevin Smith
This post is dedicated to all those people interested in Kevin Smith. If you don't know why I'm calling this post Kevin Smith, you don't deserve to partake in the discussion. Previous Kevin Smith posts are here, here, here, here, and here.
BTW, as someone who is totally freaking out about passing the bar, let me say something about the 2Ls fascinated by Kevin Smith...chill out. There's 300 crazed zombies plus I don't know how many militant 3Ls banging down her door for rankings. You'll get them. Don't worry. I'd start learning about mortgages if I were you.
BTW, as someone who is totally freaking out about passing the bar, let me say something about the 2Ls fascinated by Kevin Smith...chill out. There's 300 crazed zombies plus I don't know how many militant 3Ls banging down her door for rankings. You'll get them. Don't worry. I'd start learning about mortgages if I were you.
Labels: Kevin Smith
posted by Armen Adzhemyan at 5:28 PM
55 Comments:
Can someone explain the Kevin Smith reference?
(and, in advance: Armen - I don't care to hear your comments about me not "deserving" to partake in this conversation.)
Melodrama coming from you is about as natural as an oral bowel movement.
Get it now?
(re-posted in this thread per Armen's snippy request...)
Has anyone made their "grade sheet" yet for OSCAR? (http://oscar.dcd.uscourts.gov/applicant-resources.html)
Are folks just calculating each semester's GPA and cumulative GPA by themselves?
Much obliged 2:48, it just makes things easier to manage later on.
The CDO has a different grade template posted on its part of the website that doesn't include transcript notes or GPA calculations. It also includes the information about Boalt's grades. I was planning on using that one, but is everyone else going to use the OSCAR one?
Hey Tom - what are your thoughts (on the grade sheet issue)?
Ranking vigil continued. Anyone got their class rank yet, which was allegedly available as of last week?
DeanO was glad handing this morning in Booth before Bar Bri and all I could think about was that she should have been sending out rankings damnit!!! How hard is it to send 150 emails?
Also I don't need the preface of, "Congratulations after 6 semesters at Boalt you are ranked in the top x%." A simple "top x percentile" would do for me
Get to work
Even with the little preface, it takes about 5 seconds to Ctrl+C/V the text into the email line.
So has ANYONE received their ranking? It would be one thing if D.O. started emailing rankings and it's just taking awhile, but if they're available and she hasn't even started the process... that's pretty bad.
Does the school not realize how important this is to the students who requested the information? Do they know that we have professors waiting on our rankings so they can start writing accurate reference letters? Do they know that we can't go to people with judicial connections and start asking about their willingness to go to bat for us because it sounds silly to say "Well, I've got 3 HHs and 4 Hs.... and I might be in the top 1/2 or maybe the top 1/3..."? Do they know that we're trying to put together judge lists and that some judges say they're only interested in top 10% or top 20%, so differences what percentile bracket we're in, even if slight, could affect who we bother applying to?
They do know. They have to know. They go through this every year, yet somehow cannot manage to get anything done on time.
I would at least appreciate a courtesy email saying "We apologize that ranks are not available when we said they would be. We are working on it. Our new ETA is X."
How long would it take to send that message out to the 2L/3L listserve? About 30 seconds?
30 seconds in normal time = 10 days Boalt Registrar/Administration time
So no rankings today? (Aren't summer hours for the registrar/admin like 10a-4pm?)
How about a novel fucking idea for efficiency sake. Just post everyone's ranking in an excel spread sheet anonymized by SID#
Get it done
I'm not saying that there is any excuse for taking so long, BUT...keep in mind that at this point last year, we either didn't have or were just getting grades, and rankings were still a long way off. Two years ago grades definitely weren't out yet.
I'm not saying that it should take as long as it does, but I'm just making the point that they have improved dramatically the past couple of years. It at least seems like they're listening to students and trying to improve. Maybe next year they'll take the obvious step of posting rankings to a site, rather than individual emails, as was just suggested.
With all that said, let me reiterate a point here: STOP RANKING BOALT STUDENTS.
Boalt prides itself on being so non-competitive, and on having a grading system that reduces competitiveness. So why do we rank? It makes no sense. And, as has been pointed out elsewhere, it only hurts Boalt students for clerkships.
Instead of this nonsensical system where you can use them for certain purposes, but not for others, just get rid of them altogether.
Hear hear, Max! Ranking Boalties flies in the face of both our grading policy and our pretensions to be like Yale and Stanford (who don't rank).
somebody please just let me know if i made coif or not, already!
no. you did not make coif.
Just so everyone knows, Dean O has started sending out ranks. I (rising 3L) received an email from her a few minutes ago.
Thanks 2:19! Another rising 3L here... no ranking yet, but it's reassuring to know that it's coming very soon.
sooooo anyone want to preview for us what the class of 2008's curve is like?
3.3 GPA is top 15%
Armen - can you please remove the post at 3:37?? I am unclear where such posts stand with the honor code and would prefer to see it removed. Thanks.
Armen would you remove the stick from the last poster's ass
I'm reluctant to remove either.
GET A GRIP ABOUT THE FUCKING HONOR CODE, PEOPLE.
Re: grade sheet. Pretty straightforward document. I made it using a table in MS Word. One column for classes, one for professor, one for units, one for grades. Attach the school's grading policy explaining the grades and you're set. You can also use asterisks or notes to explain any awards.
One thing that does get overlooked is your projected 3L schedule. I got the impression there are some classes that are simply non-negotiable (Evidence is the best example) that you want on your transcript; Fed. Courts too.
I suppose you could compile the same list in Excel. Shockingly, you could then input a 2, 3 or 5 instead of your grade, multiply the unit column by the grade column, sum the product column and divide by the sum of the units column to get a GPA. If you then did this for everyone in the school, then choose Sort --> Product column, you'd have ranked everyone in the school.
It almost sounds absurdly easy.
Has anyone else gotten rankings?
Nope. I imagine D.O. has only been in the office for an hour and a half, has gotten her coffee and chatted with the BarBri-takers, and is about ready for her lunch break. So really, there hasn't been time to email out rankings.
No word on coif/rankings yet?
Surely faculty are aware of the problem with D.O. and the registrar's office (I know some of the younger faculty are confused and embarrassed by it), but does anyone know if Dean Edley is aware of the problem? Presumably, since he wants to raise more money from alumni and private sources, he would be interested in improving basic services to students, particularly those services crucial to getting gateway jobs such as clerkships. I for one am inclined to withhold any further giving until they clean this mess up.
Why do they persecute us?
I think that DeanO only gives rankings to the students she likes, you know the ones, the ones she talks to every morning at Bar-Bri instead of sending out those precious emails.
I bet that she even waives the honor code restrictions for them. She probably gives them little badges that they can wear which say Top 10%, or Best Boalt Student ever on them.
I hate this blatant favortism!!!
It's 3PM - Do you know where your Dean is?
... hopefully she's still emailing out our rankings, and will be working late (i.e. 5:30 or 6) to get them out today. It's very anxiety-producing to be receiving emails from CDO reminding us how we must have our judge lists submitted by the next two weeks and how we should have our LORS, etc. all ready, and yet neither we nor our recommenders know what clerkships we're eligible/competitive for.
3:08--That's "Assistant Dean". Does D.O. remind anyone else of Dwight from The Office, with the way she insists on referring to herself as "Dean." I don't of any of the other Assistant or Associate Deans who routinely use that title.
Just got mine ... and I'm far from top 10%
Do the commenters here remind anyone else of the Ed Helms character from office with their rabid hypercompetitiveness?
See Max Powers above.
Armen, you're mischaracterizing the comments here. This isn't about competitiveness, it's about sharing information and about expressing frustration with not having the necessary information to put together clerkship apps. There's not much point in anonymous competition.
Spare me. I've had this debate for 3 years. At the bottom it's the unyielding, uncontrollable desire to know where you stand with respect to your fellow classmates.
Not donating because you didn't get your ranking at the snap of a finger? Idiotically commenting about DO's title (hey genius she's the DEAN of Students)? Me smells the Class of 08...or a certain hypercompetitive co-blogger.
And just for kicks..
Homer: Marge, someone squeezed all the life out of these kids. And unless movies and TV have lied to me, it's a crusty, bitter old Dean!
Dean: Hi there! Hello, I'm Dean Peterson, but you can call me Bobby. I just want you to know if you ever feel stressed out from studying or whatever, I'm always up for some hackey sack. Or, hey! If you just want to come by and jam, I used to be the bass player for the Pretenders. [plays a riff]
Homer: [bitterly] Boy, I can't wait to take some of the starch out of that stuffed shirt.
Careful there Armen. I always post under my own name (hence th every circumspect comment on Isaac's recent post). I assume you must have been referring to a different hypercompetitive co-blogger then.
Got rankings today... 3.3 is def not top 15%, nor is 3.4, for the record. This blog is full of misinformation!
sorry, armen, but the website's faculty list calls her "Victoria Ortiz, Assistant Dean, Student Services".
Oh ok, she's not the Dean of Students, she's the Assistant Dean-Student Services. Mea Culpa. Still doesn't change the fact that you're a competitive jerk (and now I guess some are liars to boot).
I'm grinning at this exchange of "information."
Can more people who have received their ranking give those of us still waiting an idea of the bounds.
IE. 3.4 top 15%, 3.2 top 20%, etc.
Also state whether you are a rising 3L, or a Bar candidate please...
A possible explanation for the earlier inconsistencies?
5.0 is top 100%
top 10 % < 3.8 < top 5%
Top 100% < 1.78 < Top 5%
(hoping this doesn't violate the honor code)... Class of '08/~3.4/20%
For crying out loud people, have any of you even read the honor code?
The relevant portion states: Other Uses Impermissible. The Dean, Dean of Students, faculty, and students shall not disclose information about class standing provided by the Registrar under this section for any professional purpose other than obtaining a judicial clerkship or academic position. A student who reveals this information for any other professional purpose is in violation of the Honor Code.
I fail to see how, under any stretch of the imagination, that anonymously posting a rank/GPA correlation on a blog is in any possible way a "professional purpose."
Seems like a lot of you think the blessed honor code means much much more than it says. Scalia would be very very disappointed in this widespread failure to interpret statutory language according to its natural and plain meaning. Tisk tisk.
Has any graduating 3L received a rank yet? I don't want to pester Dean Ortiz if she's still working on it, but then again, she now seems concerned with helping the Elmwood Post Office fix its shipping mistakes, so I'm wondering if she's done and skipped me.
Graduating 3L here,
I haven't heard yet, but I did see DeanO playing Mah Jong from 8-11:45. I think shes at lunch now until about 3:00.
Maybe we will get lucky Tom and be in the 3-4 emails that she has time to painstakingly draft before she goes home at 4:00
3L
got my rank
i think the snarky comments don't reflect well on the commenters - you can have legitimate complaints but there's no need to be mean.
class of 07 got my rank...
Not really mad at D.O., but I do think that the process is ridiculous and that the honor code restrictions are a joke
3.49 doesn't get you top 10%.
so if posting rankings doesn't violate the honor code, let's hear some more cutoffs.
2007
3.52= a disappointing top 15%
I would predict that the curve gets harder from 2L to 3L year, since during 3L year people probably tend to take more seminars and independent study writing projects which have a minimal curve, or none at all.
Post a Comment
<< Home