1L Town Hall, Part I
The 1L Town Hall is coming up (sort of -- March 11) and suggestions are being solicited for topics to be explicitly addressed by DE.
Three things I am burning to know:
What do you wish you had asked as a 1L?
Three things I am burning to know:
- Boalt's bar passage rate has been declining, with a substantial drop last July. How is the UC Berkeley School of Law responding?
- To what extent will the imminent Boalt construction affect my quality of life as a student here? E.g., will jackhammers, dump trucks, and dudes with suspenders and tin lunch-boxes be the new backdrop for my study time?
- Pleaded or pled?
What do you wish you had asked as a 1L?
Labels: 0L/1L Advice, Bar Exams, DE, LRAP
posted by Patrick Bageant at 5:24 PM
39 Comments:
I second Patrick's bar passage rate concern. I also wonder how the LRAP will overlap/interact with the college cost reduction act loan forgiveness program.
I echo the bar passage rate concerns. What the hell is wrong with you guys? Slackers are making it embarrassing to have gone to Boalt.
True slackers get p's, then pass the bar and laugh at the gunners that fail it.
There are also plenty of slackers who fail the bar, then blame the school.
Kinda cocky there, McWho. Isn't there enough pressure on the bar without the knowledge that everyone who remembers your statement will feel great schadenfreude if you fail?
Is DE's town hall a legitimate reason to be excused from jury duty? I'll let you know tomorrow.
When you ask DE about the bar pass rate, don't forget that our low rate includes a substantial amount transfer students who pass at no-doubt incredibly high rates (I'm guessing around 100%)... that means the "organic" student pass ratio is likely even lower than it appears.
It doesn't help that Boalt isn't being very accommodating to students who want to take BARBRI in Berkeley.
12:10 am...why would that be true (that transfers pass at 100%)?
12:10 must be a transfer student. And why is Boalt 06 so cocky about that class's pass rate? I don't recall it being all that high...
12:10: yeah, cause transfer students have shown such great aptitude for stardardized tests in the past...
(not to knock the transfers, you guys are kicking ass. but it's ridiculous to assume that you'll "no-doubt" pass the bar).
Perhaps the low bar-passage rate is associated with the general softness of Boalt students (see, e.g., a certain K professor's zero tolerance policy)...
11:39--yeah, but Boalt students have always been soft. It's not like the classes that had much higher passage rates were Spartan warriors.
~suspenders and lunch boxes--oh shit, hipsters are invading the school?
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I'll tell you one set of questions I'm glad I never asked when I was a 1L: anything having to do with the school's bar passage rate.
Whatever you think about the implications of Boalt's "declining bar passage rate" (I guess I'd be more worried if a decline was evident over a period of years, rather than small year-on-year fluctuations), I think bar passage is mostly an individual effort. I suppose there are certain institutional steps that could be taken, but I don't think students really want Boalt to "teach to the test" and I don't think it's really necessary (also, that would be a huge blow -- bigger than fluctuations in bar passage rates -- to Boalt's national prestige: top law schools just don't do that). Anyway, that's really not my point.
The point is: you 1Ls have plenty of time (and you will expend all the energy you will ever want to) worrying about bar passage between May and late July after your 3L year. If you must stress about something academic, gunners, worry about your grades, your summer job and how you want to approach OCIP in the fall. All of those have more bearing on your immediate post-law school future than the bar anyway.
I would ask the administration to disclose the demographics of those who failed the bar so we could stop all of this pointless speculating about whose fault it is.
Like Hastings' grades, 82% of Boalt grads are happy with the bar passage rate, anyway?
Nah, bar passage rate reflects on the school, so I would guess more like 95% care about it.
2/26/2008 9:27 AM:
I am not cocky about my year's passage rate. I was and continue to be very angry with the many people in my class who blew it.
I agree with Tacitus that the school should not take "remedial" steps to address the bar passage situation such as "providing more support for bar takers." Let's try to maintain at the least the illusion that this is an elite (or at least, good) law school.
I've tried to be a generous donor to Boalt since graduation and I plan to continue doing so for the rest of my life, but if the school starts spending money to hold special bar prep sessions, I'll start diverting my funds elsewhere. I doubt I'm alone in thinking this way.
Here's my own theory re the bar passage rate: Boalt students, if not soft coming in, become spoiled and lazy by the incredibly generous grading system, and become accustomed to not working hard. (Or, they forget how to.) Then they get reamed when they actually have to cram in a massive amount of data in a short period of time. Going back to letter grades, with the possibility of getting Cs, should put the fear back in.
And to 12:27 -- I think I know what you're thinking, but I don't think it's just that. The passage rate is too low for us to be able to pin it on just one or two groups. 83% suggests a system wide breakdown.
pleaded for sure.
This isn't my fight, but if I was a 1L, I'd certainly heed Tacitus' advice.
I don't want to inject my own views on what should/should not be raised at a 1L Town Hall, but I just feel too strongly about the crappy state of Boalt and Berkeley's IT.
(a) A discussion board. In March of 2005 Boalt's director of IT was supposedly programming one. Three BTLJ nerds can program one in 20 minutes for a latte.
(b) Why does Boalt depend on main campus to release grades? If we're emulating our "peer" schools in fees charged, maybe we can emulate them in services provided, starting with effective online presence for the law school that current students can use.
(c) See b, throw in every other current student service: (i) enrolling in classes (ii) planning/choosing classes (iii) professor review (iv) accessing CDO services more easily (v) Fin Aid/Loan information (vi) etc. Every single one of the things I listed suck. They're horrid. Eight years ago I was using FAR more advanced layouts to register for classes at UCLA, check my Fin Aid awards, etc.
(d) USF beat us in bar passage rates. USF also allows its students to study 24 hours a day by simply swiping their ID cards to get in. Shouldn't we install that relatively simple technology as well?
12:10 here.
From what I understand (and don't ask me to go find a link, because I'm too lazy, so take it with a grain of salt) First year LS grades are as good, if not better, a predictor of bar passage than LSAT scores. So I'm not worried about transfers failing due to their difficulties with standardized tests in the past. Any transfer student who got into Boalt has shown that the LSAT score was much less indicative on their law school performance than their peers' scores were respectively.
However, there are also "organic" Boalties, that is, Boalt students who started here as 1Ls, who have low LSAT scores, comparable to most transfers (e.g., 150s). These students have not necessarily aced all their first year classes. I have no idea how they did, but I'd guess average/average low. (Please now come forward with anecdotal evidence about how your friend who got in with a 152 received straight HHs).
In any case, I think the transfers can take care of themselves, as they've already disproved the predictive value of LSAT scores for them ***as individuals***. But, if Boalt continues to find value on admitting students with low predictive factors of success (LSAT), but refuses to offer any remedial services because it's a TOP SCHOOL, and TOP SCHOOLS don't teach to the bar (no doubt for fear of public mockery and alumni shame), then I think those students are being set up for failure.
People on this blog, and at Boalt in general, like to dance around this issue but its no secret that underrepresented minorities are let in with much lower numbers, and anecdotally fail the bar at MUCH higher rates.
Now, before another anonymous commenter releases the hounds and tells me to go join the KKK or the federalist society or whatever other organization is commonly synonymous with racist white people, I'm not saying that members of these minority groups are dumb, or lack aptitude for law, etc. I think the situation would be the same if there was one targeted group of white people who were consistently let in with lower predictive factors than others, lets say white people who like to skateboard. I'm guessing that when a group of skateboarding white folks who all came in with 150s/low 160s compete with a majority of people who were closer to 170s, the skateboarders will round out the bottom of the class, and probably kickflip their way to failing the bar.
9:33: I promise I am not accusing you of anything, but why do you say minority passage rates are no secret? Is that based on published data about Boalt students (and if so where can I find it), or just collective, communal wisdom?
Tacitus: point taken on having plenty of time to worry about the bar later. But I'll bet two of out of every ten Boalt bar takers can see at least some wisdom in worrying earlier.
If the school wants to take reasonable steps to teach to the bar, that's okay with me. I can't imagine it will take ALL of our time, ALL three years. Maybe it could be made an elective. As a commentator remarked on another thread, all the 'top school' education is great, but can only be applied if one passes the bar.
If, on the other hand, the school thinks it wise to NOT teach directly to the bar, then someone official should come out and say why -- tell me a little bit about how my carriculem is structured. I do not think that's an unreasonable or whiny request.
But what doesn't seem wise is not teach to the bar, not explain why, and let the issue dangle out there for people to interpret however they want. I think that's one of the ways (but obviously not the only) that speculation about minority passage rates, LSAT scores, transfer status, and all the rest gets put on the table. They may or may not be factors. But even the discussion about it reflects, as McWho said, on the school. It would be nice if the Dean offered his assessment, and the rational for his response, whatever it may be.
I think that part of the reason that the speculation gets thrown out there is this:
Say DE's office does an assessment. And say they find out that yes, there is a correlation between low LSAT scores and low bar passage, and yes, there is a correlation between admitting underrepresented minorities with lower 'numbers' and low bar passage. Is that data DE can release? I mean, do the political implications even allow us to have that discussion?
And once those questions are asked, the next step in logic (for a lot of people) probably goes something like this: that is the precise reason we haven't heard from DE regarding low bar passage. Those correlations exist in fact.
And then we have 'anecdotal' evidence and disclaimers about not being members of the KKK to cover up for these rather inconvenient jumps in logic (and perhaps unjustifiable assumptions, because, after all, it is possible that they haven't done a study and don't plan to because DE may believe that there are more important goals of a legal education than just the bar passage rates in the end.)
Perhaps it is no secret that the minority pass rate is lower, but I think the problem at Boalt is that, due to the illegality of affirmative action, and the often misguided desire of our admissions committee to let in "interesting people," we get a lot of non-minority students with "low" numbers too. They probably fail the bar at above averages rates too.
Non-CA schools and private schools don't have that problem. If I ruled the world, I'd stop admitting those people.
As far as the school having to tell prospectives/students why they don't teach the bar: entering students should know perfectly well that Boalt isn't that kind of school. Each person who bitches about the lack of "bar prep" at Boalt came in with eyes open, and could have easily matriculated at a lower ranked school with a more bar oriented curriculum.
Is that data DE can release? I mean, do the political implications even allow us to have that discussion?
Really?
People are HAVING the discussion. You are right on point when you say that the silence can create an inference, whether the inference is correct or not. Even an imaginary 400 pound gorilla is yuckier than any candid discussion. In my opinion.
Anybody have a scapegoat--LSAT scores, demographics, admissions requirements--that explains why Boalt's passage rate dropped *this* year? Or why other schools' rates have stayed the same or gone up? What was different for Boalt '07? The first year grades at Boalt don't predict much, because a strict curve ensures that these grades are an annual constant for each class, while bar passage rates fluctuate.
I agree that more information from the administration might inhibit the random assignment of blame.
The overall pass rate in CA was higher this year than last, but Boalt's rate declined. Also, Boalt's CA pass rate has declined each year since 2003 (holding steady one year).
I feel proud to be among the 'few' who passed and am not, at this very moment, starting the second half of the feb '08 MBE.
I think it is certainly an individual effort. I think no one applies to a top ten law school to be taught bar law, but I also think...
DEAN O, ETC ARE YOU LISTENING...
there has GOT to be a better venue for bar study than booth. Such as a venue in which you can actually take out your books, use your computer, one that provides desks for everyone, desks you can get to w/o injuring someone on your way to one that is empty.
Daily, during bar review, people had to sit outside booth. This is condusive to mentally checking out and physically staying home (and stressing about whether you should've gone to barbri) and a multitude of other stressors that are piled on top of the normal bar stressors for Boalties. The setting was unacceptable, crowded, people were cattier than bar-study warrants due to seat-stealing, etc, some people would show up 1.5 hrs early just to save seats and ended up not working at all during that time.
What we should be asking is not why our pass rate was so low, but how any of us passed at all.
I don't get it. Do they not let people study in the library?
9:33 here.
Patrick - Yes, Really. Us talking about it on N&B is not the same as the student body talking about it in an "approved" manner, e.g. with a town hall, BHSA-signed letter, or whatever other nonsense construction of legitimacy that is normally used to show that students have an opinion on something.
@Boalt '06--thanks. See, this is information that 1) I didn't have (as an alumnus) and 2) might actually explain the situation.
I would quibble with the assertion that the passage rate has declined since 03--it's accurate, but ignores the fact that the rate leapt 6 points from 02 to 03. 07 is significant because, of all the data available from the state bar (since 1997), this is the first time that Boalt's passage rate for first timers on the July exam went below 85%.
1:26,
I believe it's a petition. Nothing is official at Boalt until there's a petition.
The town hall is for all students, not just 1Ls.
Heh! Right you are.
Comparing us to USF really doesn't make much sense for a few reasons. (1) USF teaches to the bar, (2) USF teaches to the CALIFORNIA bar.
Also, way back there to 2/25 @ 9:45 am, why did you assume I was talking about myself? I don't really think I'm a "true slacker". But I know how they roll.
My reference was tongue-in-cheek. But I am serious about permitting access to study space 24/7.
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