Why do people say 1L performance is unpredictable? Forum

[koalacity]

Do you just go around asking how people did last quarter?

Sometimes people ask me. Some hearsay. One guy posted on facebook. What can I say, #gunnersection

Meh, I only know the grades of two people (and one of those is purely from hearsay), so this can't really be attributed to being in a particular section.

[romothesavior]

This is exhausting. Law school exams are. not. random. Nobody would seriously argue they are truly random, like a roll of the dice at a casino. Some of you are fucking the corpse of a long-dead straw man ITT.

The point is that the correlation between intelligence/hard work and grade success is pretty tenuous. A ton of factors are at play.

[Chevron Deference]

Anecdata re: the two classes I did best in 1L year. <1 week before the exam, the professor replied to a question I emailed with, "I am very concerned that you would think this. Please reply."
In the other, during one of the prof's last office hours session (and only one I ever attended), he said I was asking all the questions the students who do the worst in his class tend to ask. I think blind grading helped me.

Samesies. My best class first semester, by a long shot, was the one that I hardly attended, barely read the casebook, and did no practice tests for. Did pretty average in the class I studied the most for.

That has happened to me multiple times, I believe I make the best arguments for both sides when I truly believe that the course is my weakest subject. The "next level shit" that the other guy is talking about is the bullshit I pull out of my ass is when I scour the text for the ambiguity in the fact pattern because I have no confidence in my previous answers.

Conversely, I tend to do shittier in a course I think I know the most about because I gloss over the fact pattern or a miss an issue because I am too confident.

[AReasonableMan]

This is exhausting. Law school exams are. not. random. Nobody would seriously argue they are truly random, like a roll of the dice at a casino. Some of you are fucking the corpse of a long-dead straw man ITT.

The point is that the correlation between intelligence/hard work and grade success is pretty tenuous. A ton of factors are at play.

I'm really special, and all of my childhood friends would tell you I'll make the Supreme Court one day. I went to all the preppiest prep schools, and my parents poured six-figures into private tutoring since kindergarten. I have double rimmed glasses, always tuck my shirt in, own 6 pairs of New Balance sneakers, never even saw a footlocker and was president of the college debate team. Nevertheless, I only got median. It is 100% impossible for law school grades to be random.

[Chevron Deference]

This is exhausting. Law school exams are. not. random. Nobody would seriously argue they are truly random, like a roll of the dice at a casino. Some of you are fucking the corpse of a long-dead straw man ITT.

The point is that the correlation between intelligence/hard work and grade success is pretty tenuous. A ton of factors are at play.

I'm really special, and all of my childhood friends would tell you I'll make the Supreme Court one day. I went to all the preppiest prep schools, and my parents poured six-figures into private tutoring since kindergarten. I have double rimmed glasses, always tuck my shirt in, own 6 pairs of New Balance sneakers, never even saw a footlocker and was president of the college debate team. Nevertheless, I only got median. It is 100% impossible for law school grades to be random.

URM?

[pancakes3]

1 - The title states unpredictable - not random.
2 - Constantly reasserting that one is not being arrogant in the face of accusations of arrogance is probative of arrogance.
3 - It's Friday/Saturday in goddamn January 0L year. WTF is going on? I've got a memo to write. What's the 0L's excuse?

[AReasonableMan]

This is exhausting. Law school exams are. not. random. Nobody would seriously argue they are truly random, like a roll of the dice at a casino. Some of you are fucking the corpse of a long-dead straw man ITT.

The point is that the correlation between intelligence/hard work and grade success is pretty tenuous. A ton of factors are at play.

I'm really special, and all of my childhood friends would tell you I'll make the Supreme Court one day. I went to all the preppiest prep schools, and my parents poured six-figures into private tutoring since kindergarten. I have double rimmed glasses, always tuck my shirt in, own 6 pairs of New Balance sneakers, never even saw a footlocker and was president of the college debate team. Nevertheless, I only got median. It is 100% impossible for law school grades to be random.

URM?

lol no way. more like spoiled and entitled kid in a bubble. i meant new balance as a socioeconomic thing.

[jbagelboy]

Do you just go around asking how people did last quarter?

Sometimes people ask me. Some hearsay. One guy posted on facebook. What can I say, #gunnersection

And they say stanford is so chill

[BVest]

Just to add, my Civ Pro prof 1L told us the point differential between the top exam and the bottom exam was like 16 points. SIXTEEN! That means basically everyone knew almost everything.

That means your prof wrote a terrible exam for a curved class. That should never be the case, especially for a large section class of 60-80 students. The problem is that there's not enough range to allow the differences in scores to fall along the distribution that the prof is required to use.

My civ pro exam, OTOH, had a total of 200-something points. The high grade in the class (A) was 155 and the low grad (C) was a 67.

[Chevron Deference]

Just to add, my Civ Pro prof 1L told us the point differential between the top exam and the bottom exam was like 16 points. SIXTEEN! That means basically everyone knew almost everything.

That means your prof wrote a terrible exam for a curved class. That should never be the case, especially for a large section class of 60-80 students. The problem is that there's not enough range to allow the differences in scores to fall along the distribution that the prof is required to use.

My civ pro exam, OTOH, had a total of 200-something points. The high grade in the class (A) was 155 and the low grad (C) was a 67.

open book, closed book or take-home?

[koalacity]

Do you just go around asking how people did last quarter?

Sometimes people ask me. Some hearsay. One guy posted on facebook. What can I say, #gunnersection

And they say stanford is so chill

It's a terrible lie.

[AReasonableMan]

Just to add, my Civ Pro prof 1L told us the point differential between the top exam and the bottom exam was like 16 points. SIXTEEN! That means basically everyone knew almost everything.

That means your prof wrote a terrible exam for a curved class. That should never be the case, especially for a large section class of 60-80 students. The problem is that there's not enough range to allow the differences in scores to fall along the distribution that the prof is required to use.

My civ pro exam, OTOH, had a total of 200-something points. The high grade in the class (A) was 155 and the low grad (C) was a 67.

you're asusming both tests were outta 200 pts

[utahraptor]

Do you just go around asking how people did last quarter?

because you're more likely to play ball, how many tests has this guy taken before dishing out his hot hot takes??

[fats provolone]

(super chill stanford student, sitting in back of class quietly preparing very chill spreadsheet of classmates' mental acuity and exam results)

[BVest]

Just to add, my Civ Pro prof 1L told us the point differential between the top exam and the bottom exam was like 16 points. SIXTEEN! That means basically everyone knew almost everything.

That means your prof wrote a terrible exam for a curved class. That should never be the case, especially for a large section class of 60-80 students. The problem is that there's not enough range to allow the differences in scores to fall along the distribution that the prof is required to use.

My civ pro exam, OTOH, had a total of 200-something points. The high grade in the class (A) was 155 and the low grad (C) was a 67.

open book, closed book or take-home?

Open book, but timed/scheduled.

[BVest]

Just to add, my Civ Pro prof 1L told us the point differential between the top exam and the bottom exam was like 16 points. SIXTEEN! That means basically everyone knew almost everything.

That means your prof wrote a terrible exam for a curved class. That should never be the case, especially for a large section class of 60-80 students. The problem is that there's not enough range to allow the differences in scores to fall along the distribution that the prof is required to use.

My civ pro exam, OTOH, had a total of 200-something points. The high grade in the class (A) was 155 and the low grad (C) was a 67.

you're asusming both tests were outta 200 pts

No, I'm not. I assume that the previous exam was out of 100 actually. It's still not enough separation for a large-section curved class, and makes the results -- while not random -- closer to random than they reasonably should be.

[pancakes3]

Just to add, my Civ Pro prof 1L told us the point differential between the top exam and the bottom exam was like 16 points. SIXTEEN! That means basically everyone knew almost everything.

That means your prof wrote a terrible exam for a curved class. That should never be the case, especially for a large section class of 60-80 students. The problem is that there's not enough range to allow the differences in scores to fall along the distribution that the prof is required to use.

My civ pro exam, OTOH, had a total of 200-something points. The high grade in the class (A) was 155 and the low grad (C) was a 67.

you're asusming both tests were outta 200 pts

No, I'm not. I assume that the previous exam was out of 100 actually. It's still not enough separation for a large-section curved class, and makes the results -- while not random -- closer to random than they reasonably should be.

Unless the test was out of 16 points.

[rehbands]

.

[fats provolone]

aaand bingo

[Mal Reynolds]

lol

[fats provolone]

i already got bingo you can't take it away from me by editing it out

[jarofsoup]

The lower 25% of your class GPA/LSAT wise may be in the top 5% after the first year and then transfer the hell out. The whole fact that there is a large transfer market shows that performance is really unpredictable. Law school grades depends on how well you write law school exams and there is not much that predicts that. I did well my first year I think because as an undergrad 90% of my exams were in class essays, so it was something I was comfortable with.

[AReasonableMan]

Just to add, my Civ Pro prof 1L told us the point differential between the top exam and the bottom exam was like 16 points. SIXTEEN! That means basically everyone knew almost everything.

That means your prof wrote a terrible exam for a curved class. That should never be the case, especially for a large section class of 60-80 students. The problem is that there's not enough range to allow the differences in scores to fall along the distribution that the prof is required to use.

My civ pro exam, OTOH, had a total of 200-something points. The high grade in the class (A) was 155 and the low grad (C) was a 67.

you're asusming both tests were outta 200 pts

No, I'm not. I assume that the previous exam was out of 100 actually. It's still not enough separation for a large-section curved class, and makes the results -- while not random -- closer to random than they reasonably should be.

you realize you're talking about the separation b/w the #1 and #last person in a class, not a median? you're speaking about 4 people total, and extracting from the 4 something about hundreds of people? It's very possible the #1 kid in that class had an amazing test, and the #100 kid drew a smily face (I'm assuming a smily face was not the correct answer).

[lawschoolftw]

In my experience, the people who worked harder (and smarter) did better than those that didn't. There's a level of randomness to it, but, contrary to the image one might garner from reading TLS, there's a lot of lazy people in law school who get sucked in by a new city and new friends and are more interested in socializing than working. There were exceptions to the rule, but the people on law review also tended to be the ones who "gunned" the hardest. Bottom line OP, work hard and smart and you'll give yourself a shot. Also, relax. You will spend the next forty years obsessing over the law, no need to start now.

[chuckbass]

The lower 25% of your class GPA/LSAT wise may be in the top 5% after the first year and then transfer the hell out. The whole fact that there is a large transfer market shows that performance is really unpredictable. Law school grades depends on how well you write law school exams and there is not much that predicts that. I did well my first year I think because as an undergrad 90% of my exams were in class essays, so it was something I was comfortable with.

The plurality of us are poli sci kids that also had 90% essay exams in undergrad. Most of the kids you go to school with will count writing as one of their strengths.