20% of Hastings Students Get A's, 80% "Unhappy With Grading System"
A commentator below argues bar stats suggest Boalties are soft. Yet meanwhile, a recent survey suggests our friends across the bay wish they could be more like us!*
Okay, that was a bit overstated.
But the survey does reveal that Hastings students wish their grading system was more like ours: about 80% of UC Hastings believe their 20/60/20 grading curve puts them at a disadvantage on the job market against Boalt and UCLA grads.
According to the Hastings 3L who authored the survey, "Those are the schools that our students see themselves as competing with, and they want to appear on paper as close to these students as possible." Orrick's West Coast hiring partner disagrees: " . . . before going on campus to interview, we remind the on-campus interviewers what the specific grading system at that school is so we're comparing apples and apples," he said. "We don't use the Stanford grading criteria to evaluate a Hastings student or vice versa," he added."
It was a second argument for a grading system change that struck me. Buried halfway down the page, the Academic Dean at Hastings remarks: "The curve should be relaxed because it's the right thing to do and because the students become stressed about grades."
Is it the "right thing to do"? And will it relax students about their grades? Are there any Hastings transfer students here who are in a position to answer that question?
*For the record -- I'll bet at least 80% of Boalties have at least a bit of Hastings-envy, too. I know *I* would rather live in the city . . .
Okay, that was a bit overstated.
But the survey does reveal that Hastings students wish their grading system was more like ours: about 80% of UC Hastings believe their 20/60/20 grading curve puts them at a disadvantage on the job market against Boalt and UCLA grads.
According to the Hastings 3L who authored the survey, "Those are the schools that our students see themselves as competing with, and they want to appear on paper as close to these students as possible." Orrick's West Coast hiring partner disagrees: " . . . before going on campus to interview, we remind the on-campus interviewers what the specific grading system at that school is so we're comparing apples and apples," he said. "We don't use the Stanford grading criteria to evaluate a Hastings student or vice versa," he added."
It was a second argument for a grading system change that struck me. Buried halfway down the page, the Academic Dean at Hastings remarks: "The curve should be relaxed because it's the right thing to do and because the students become stressed about grades."
Is it the "right thing to do"? And will it relax students about their grades? Are there any Hastings transfer students here who are in a position to answer that question?
*For the record -- I'll bet at least 80% of Boalties have at least a bit of Hastings-envy, too. I know *I* would rather live in the city . . .
Labels: Grades And Other Neurotic Bullshit, Rankings And Associated Bullshit
posted by Patrick Bageant at 12:05 PM
21 Comments:
Apparently you have never visited Hastings. Living in the Tenderloin is not my idea of an ideal grad school experience.
I thought the survey was hilarious. 80% of them are unhappy with their curve. The curve allows 20% of them to get A's. Reminds me of so many old Boalt Brief surveys where 60% of Boalties expected to get a HH.
haha, that's worthy of a title change!
I bet you'd be hard-pressed to find a Boaltie who would rather be at Hastings (or even one that simply has 'hastings envy"). Like a commentator said above - have you ever been to the 'loin? Worse than Berkeley. Way worse.
I think what I said was, "would rather live in the city . . . "
Not live in the Tenderloin, or stop being a Boaltie.
just to represent for a minute: not only does the tenderloin not fully deserve its bad rep, i'd guesstimate that only those living in the residential tower (small % of students) actually call the tl home.
That small % results from the fact that other hastings students originally lived elsewhere in the loin, and have now all been killed off.
I was in the TL recently and its reputation is well deserved. It really is as bad as most people think it is. Also, I can't think of one Boalt student who has even the slightest bit of Hastings envy. I can always hop on the BART if I want to visit the city.
This sure has been a much stronger reaction to the "Hastings envy" comment than I was expecting.
I will say this: when I was applying to law schools I did wish that Boalt was located in downtown SF. However, now that I've lived here the only thing I wish I could transplant to downtown SF is just our homeless and city council members.
What about our 10/30/60 curve? I know others will disagree with this, but personally I always bought into the idea that HH/H/P is equivalent to A/B/C. (And actually, given the way GPAs are calculated, the difference between a HH and a H is way bigger than the difference between an A and a B).
The A/B/C grading is okay for firms, because they still prefer a Boalt student with B's and C's over a lower tier student with A's and B's (partly why no Boalt students have Hastings envy). It doesn't go over so well with judges though--they want mostly HH's, which are a whole hell of a lot harder to get than A's.
The other thing our grading system does is ghettoize top performers. Because there are so few HHs to go around, they are often dominated by a few top students. If there were more to go around, students would have a bigger spread of grades, and while a few more students would probably get nearly all HHs, it wouldn't be at the expense of other students to the same extent.
It drove me nuts that boalt would screw over its clerkship applicants by having so few top grades. Why not go to a 30/40/30 spread, or something like that?
Hastings is at the edge of the tenderloin, lets be clear about that. Things are different in the heart of the 'loin and around its border. Also, Hastings is great... only a few people were battered by the homeless last semester and we only had one suicide scare! Fantastic!
I believe the curve at Hastings is that the top 8-12% of students get A's, because I think they use the curve suggested by the CA bar.
No matter how the curve is changed, even if it was changed to a system similar to Boalt's, a student at Hastings would need to be ranked in the top 15% give or take to get a firm job.
Belittling Hastings - really? I think we got them to hate us enough after last year's incident.
And, yeah, we are lucky enough to get some awesome jobs, perhaps even deservedly so. But don't underestimate a top Hastings student's ability to take the jobs away. Those students have chips on their shoulders and will fight hard.
Hmmm . . . I'm not sure where 9:47 gets the number 15% -- maybe some super-secret NALP spreadsheet . . . . presumably divided into two big columns: "FIRM JOBS" and "NOT-FIRM JOBS."
Or something.
Hopefully nobody here is belittling Hastings. That would be as embarrassing as it is pointless.
I was caught off guard by their Academic Dean's suggestion that the school should relax their curve because it is "the right thing to do." That seems like almost the same as saying, "We (as in almost all law schools) are going about this grading thing all wrong -- our system should be more like Boalt's because that is the right system."
That is quite a statement. People at Boalt have some concerns about the way our grades are distributed (see Max Power above for an example) but the usual argument for change is more practical than ethical.
I donno. I shared because it was startling to me.
And because I don't have access to the super-secret spreadsheet.
Only sheltered folk from square states like Utah are afraid of the Tenderloin.
Law firms tend to use class rank for cutoffs, so for most firms the proposed changes won't make anyone more hirable. For firms that rarely recruit there, a reduction in C grades might make a difference on the margin every once in a while.
My understanding of the curve is that it has a B average. Profs can give 10-30% A's but they must give a corresponding amount of C's. The Orrick guy is right that it doesn't matter for OCI. The top half of the class is ranked so employers can compare Hastings students to each other. The problem occurs when someone applies for government, public interest or small firm jobs, particularly outside the Bay Area. Changing the curve may help for those jobs (and morale) but it won't change the reality that most Hastings students cannot get firm jobs.
And the Hastings trash talk is pretty old.
Haha---touche. I'm not afraid though, I just think it is a really crappy place to live/go to school.
Who said I was afraid of the TL? I just don't like the smell of piss. Still, Hastings does have a beautiful library. I'm still not envious though.
I've worked with Hastings and UCDavis students in several settings, and there is absolutely no difference between them and Boalties. The only difference is that we were lucky enough to get the acceptance letter. Admit it, with 7000 applicants, almost all offers have an element of luck. One far-left admissions committee member does not consider anyone who does not have a professed interest in a public interest career. If you get in that prof's pile and you want to do IP, tough titties - you're not getting into Boalt.
Difference b/t Berkeley & Hastings students: cocky sense of self-entitlement and overall jerkiness. One has it, one doesn't; you decide.
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