What was the HLS magna cutoff last year? Forum

[Anonymous User]

3L thinking about post-graduate clerkship applications now. Will end up somewhere between 3.95-4.0 if I get straight Hs in my last semester, depending on how many credits I take. Trying to increase my chances at hitting a magna by adding/dropping certain classes or taking certain classes p/f. Heard that the 2022 magna cut-off was above 4.0 ... trying to see if it was because of real inflation or just Covid p/f. Any insights are much appreciated.

[Anonymous User]

3L thinking about post-graduate clerkship applications now. Will end up somewhere between 3.95-4.0 if I get straight Hs in my last semester, depending on how many credits I take. Trying to increase my chances at hitting a magna by adding/dropping certain classes or taking certain classes p/f. Heard that the 2022 magna cut-off was above 4.0 ... trying to see if it was because of real inflation or just Covid p/f. Any insights are much appreciated.

I like how I went to YLS so I don't have to indulge in the class rank rat-race

[Anonymous User]

2023 was somewhere between a 3.99 and a 4.02. I know someone who missed with a 3.98 and someone who made it with a 4.03. Consensus was that was a bit higher than expected.

2022 was supposedly above a 4.1 though; very close friend missed with a 4.06 and was furious

[Anonymous User]

2023 was somewhere between a 3.99 and a 4.02. I know someone who missed with a 3.98 and someone who made it with a 4.03. Consensus was that was a bit higher than expected.

2022 was supposedly above a 4.1 though; very close friend missed with a 4.06 and was furious

Thank you so much. In that case, I guess I can't really get there by playing with the credits . . . I'll need another net DS. It'd be heartbreaking if I ended up missing it by something like .01 but it is what it is.

[Anonymous User]

2023 was somewhere between a 3.99 and a 4.02. I know someone who missed with a 3.98 and someone who made it with a 4.03. Consensus was that was a bit higher than expected.

2022 was supposedly above a 4.1 though; very close friend missed with a 4.06 and was furious

Thank you so much. In that case, I guess I can't really get there by playing with the credits . . . I'll need another net DS. It'd be heartbreaking if I ended up missing it by something like .01 but it is what it is.

I was speaking in the third person for no good reason lol, I missed it by .002 (3.988 vs 3.99). The HLS system is a good shield for obscuring in the middle but the margins are brutally fine at the top

[Anonymous User]

2023 was somewhere between a 3.99 and a 4.02. I know someone who missed with a 3.98 and someone who made it with a 4.03. Consensus was that was a bit higher than expected.

2022 was supposedly above a 4.1 though; very close friend missed with a 4.06 and was furious

Thank you so much. In that case, I guess I can't really get there by playing with the credits . . . I'll need another net DS. It'd be heartbreaking if I ended up missing it by something like .01 but it is what it is.

I was speaking in the third person for no good reason lol, I missed it by .002 (3.988 vs 3.99). The HLS system is a good shield for obscuring in the middle but the margins are brutally fine at the top

Thanks for the info! The margins are indeed brutally fine... Well, at least I still have a chance. I'll try my best and live with the results.

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

[Anonymous User]

HLS 2L here--how are y'all calculating GPAs?

[Dcc617]

Harvard counts DS at 5, H as 4, and P as 3.

But Harvard also does a weird thing where when calculating Latin honors, they don't calculate the transcript as a whole. Instead, you calculate the grade for each year, then each year is weighted equally regardless of credits.

So your 1L year is weighted identically to your 3L year for your overall calculation , even though you likely took less credits your 3L year.

Also this doesn't matter outside of a super small context. Nobody really cares in the real world.

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

Just hopping on to say that I think your year might be an aberration. I'm a 3L with substantially higher grades than what you just listed and I didn't get either 1L or 2L Sears.

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

Just hopping on to say that I think your year might be an aberration. I'm a 3L with substantially higher grades than what you just listed and I didn't get either 1L or 2L Sears.

I saw a clerkship applicant who had 4 or 5 DSs after 1L without Sears.

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

Just hopping on to say that I think your year might be an aberration. I'm a 3L with substantially higher grades than what you just listed and I didn't get either 1L or 2L Sears.

I saw a clerkship applicant who had 4 or 5 DSs after 1L without Sears.

This sounds right to me.

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

Just hopping on to say that I think your year might be an aberration. I'm a 3L with substantially higher grades than what you just listed and I didn't get either 1L or 2L Sears.

I saw a clerkship applicant who had 4 or 5 DSs after 1L without Sears.

That's fucking crazy, and to think I felt p good about graduating with 5 in the aggregate lmao

[Anonymous User]

Wow there's that much grade inflation at Harvard? The magna cutoff for my T-14 is around a 3.2~

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

Just hopping on to say that I think your year might be an aberration. I'm a 3L with substantially higher grades than what you just listed and I didn't get either 1L or 2L Sears.

I saw a clerkship applicant who had 4 or 5 DSs after 1L without Sears.

That's fucking crazy, and to think I felt p good about graduating with 5 in the aggregate lmao

You'd probably need at least 7 DS's 1L to get Sears, maybe more.

[Anonymous User]

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

Just hopping on to say that I think your year might be an aberration. I'm a 3L with substantially higher grades than what you just listed and I didn't get either 1L or 2L Sears.

I saw a clerkship applicant who had 4 or 5 DSs after 1L without Sears.

That's fucking crazy, and to think I felt p good about graduating with 5 in the aggregate lmao

You'd probably need at least 7 DS's 1L to get Sears, maybe more.

You take 7 doctrinals + an elective 1L lol

[Anonymous User]

You'd probably need at least 7 DS's 1L to get Sears, maybe more.

You take 7 doctrinals + an elective 1L lol

You can get DS's in Legal Research and Writing

[Anonymous User]

You'd probably need at least 7 DS's 1L to get Sears, maybe more.

You take 7 doctrinals + an elective 1L lol

You can get DS's in Legal Research and Writing

2 credits tho

[Anonymous User]

You'd probably need at least 7 DS's 1L to get Sears, maybe more.

You take 7 doctrinals + an elective 1L lol

You can get DS's in Legal Research and Writing

2 credits tho

Yeah, for that reason, 5 DSes that consist of three doctrinals and two LRWs is usually not good enough for Sears 1L. But 5-6 DSes in all doctrinals may be good enough (if no Ps).

The person graduating with the Fay/summa will usually have like 13-15 DSes and 0-2 Ps. What's crazy is that doesn't even get you close to the "true summa." Hard to tell if anyone's gotten that since the switch to the new grading system, but assuming 4 classes per semester and 2 graded J-term classes (26 graded classes total), you'd need roughly 20 DSes and 0 Ps. The handful of people who've gotten that in the past were simply built different lol

[Anonymous User]

What's a "true summa"?

[Anonymous User]

What's a "true summa"?

Historically, you could only get summa if you pulled a GPA over a 5.0; so - a GPA of the highest grade you can receive under the current system.

[Anonymous User]

I'm shocked there's a magna cutoff that low at a good school!

Tbh though, I dont really think you can have meaningful grade inflation when people are on a curve - the thresholds for opportunities track class ranking over flat GPA.

For HLS, I think it is kinda just by virtue of the H/P system, you either get a 4.0 or a 3.0 and the top students consistently get Hs so magna ends up near a 4.0.

I'd be very curious what the distribution looks like - since consensus for cum laude and median are around a 3.6 and 3.4, respectively.

Yeah, grades at HLS exist within a pretty unique context, so outside a very narrow set of circumstances, it doesn't really make sense to talk about "grade inflation." A couple points (ultimately not that important, but a good excuse to procrastinate):

1. It doesn't make sense to compare a GPA at HLS to a GPA at a T-14. At HLS, you get a 5.0 for a DS, a 4.0 for an H, and a 3.0 for a P. For a class w/ 30+ students, there's supposedly a curve where the top ~30% of students get Hs and ~5-10% can get DSes. For seminars, no real restrictions AFAIK.
2. A GPA of 4.0 historically guarantees magna, which means that if you can be in the top 30% of every big class you take and do a decent job in your seminars, you can get there. But realistically, even top students get a P or two, so you also need to get a DS or two.
3. By the same token, to be comfortably w/in the top tier of the class, you need multiple DSes. The very top will have something like 10-12 DSes and 1-2 Ps at the end.
4. The magna cutoff has slowly creeped up over the years, mostly b/c professors give out more DSes than they did when the grading system just debuted. Anecdotally, I've heard that professors initially thought that giving a DS was the same as giving an A+ in the old system, maybe 1-2 for a class of 80. That attitude has changed, so now professors will give out 4-5 for a class of 80, if not more.
5. It only makes sense to talk about grade inflation when comparing an applicant from HLS with an applicant from SLS. At SLS it's both harder to get an H and harder to get a book prize. So if you're comparing an HLS student who's top 15% w/ an SLS student who's top 15%, the HLS student is likely to have more Hs and DSes.

#3 seems a bit high. The person who won Sears for 2L in my class posted their DS's on linkedin (lol) and they had 5 across 1L and 2L, but only 2 from 2L classes. If 2 DS's is high enough to pull Sears, no way there's a tier of student graduating with 10-12.

Just hopping on to say that I think your year might be an aberration. I'm a 3L with substantially higher grades than what you just listed and I didn't get either 1L or 2L Sears.

I saw a clerkship applicant who had 4 or 5 DSs after 1L without Sears.

That's fucking crazy, and to think I felt p good about graduating with 5 in the aggregate lmao

You'd probably need at least 7 DS's 1L to get Sears, maybe more.

I have seen a transcript of a rising 3L with Sears. They had 6 DS's 1L year and 7 DS's 2L year, no P's.

[Anonymous User]

What's a "true summa"?

Historically, you could only get summa if you pulled a GPA over a 5.0; so - a GPA of the highest grade you can receive under the current system.

I think it's 4.75, but yeah, the #1 student wouldn't automatically get Summa. If they were below 4.75, they'd get magna and the Fay prize