UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

[olive16]

How accurate is ATL's claim that the median percentile GPA is a 3.4? Only about 150 names are on the list from what I've heard, and the list is comprised of only those people interested in clerkships, so you would think that those people would have higher GPAs. Did they account for the 150 kids not on the list?

Full disclosure, I haven't had a chance to read the ATL article, and I haven't seen the data set.

[First Offense]

Did UVa change their grading policies? I'm assuming ATL marked the GPAs based on class rank. 3.6 at 25% is a marked difference from 3.48 when I was a 1L.

For classes with a GPA over 3.3, the professor has the discretion to grade curved to the class GPA. I think some people didn't want to take stuff like FedCourts/other gunner classes because it would tank their GPA - so this was the compromise.

[pertristis]

How accurate is ATL's claim that the median percentile GPA is a 3.4? Only about 150 names are on the list from what I've heard, and the list is comprised of only those people interested in clerkships, so you would think that those people would have higher GPAs. Did they account for the 150 kids not on the list?

Full disclosure, I haven't had a chance to read the ATL article, and I haven't seen the data set.

From my understanding, the class ranking listed includes all rising 3Ls, not just those on the clerkship listserv. The rank is out of 344, presumably the number of students in that class; transfers aren't given a rank.

[DMXdawg]

Yea my assumption is that ATL would just look for a number near rank #172 (1/2 of 344) to arrive at the 3.4 median and the other numbers.

[olive16]

Gotcha, thanks.

[TLSNerd]

Did UVA recently raise its tuition?

In-state is now at 51,800, nonresident at 54,800.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospe ... uition.htm

[First Offense]

Did UVA recently raise its tuition?

In-state is now at 51,800, nonresident at 54,800.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospe ... uition.htm

Holy shit... that's like... 4k more than last year.

[Malcolm8X]

Did UVA recently raise its tuition?

In-state is now at 51,800, nonresident at 54,800.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospe ... uition.htm

Holy shit... that's like... 4k more than last year.

The rumor around here is that they are going from a class size of about ~350 down to ~300. This could be seen as a way to make up for the shortfall in revenue.

[Yardbird]

Did UVA recently raise its tuition?

In-state is now at 51,800, nonresident at 54,800.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospe ... uition.htm

Holy shit... that's like... 4k more than last year.

The rumor around here is that they are going from a class size of about ~350 down to ~300. This could be seen as a way to make up for the shortfall in revenue.

Not a rumor, it's been confirmed by admissions and the PA program that there will only be 10 sections of 30 students, down from 12 sections this past year.

[North]

Did UVA recently raise its tuition?

In-state is now at 51,800, nonresident at 54,800.

http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospe ... uition.htm

Holy shit... that's like... 4k more than last year.

The rumor around here is that they are going from a class size of about ~350 down to ~300. This could be seen as a way to make up for the shortfall in revenue.

(Fewer students to teach)

(Raise tuition)

[thesealocust]

If they went after the leaker, it would be a fucking nightmare. UVA would be back on ATL in a second.

In what way would it be bad for the school to be seen to attempt to protect confidential information?

Edited to add, whoever forwarded that email is either very confident that they won't be caught, or has never seen a Bar Association's Character and Fitness Questionnaire. As an aspiring attorney, I wouldn't want to be explaining to the Bar that I have difficulty keeping confidences.

Remind me again how the duty to maintain confidential information falls on the person to whom it is accidentally disclosed rather than on the person who accidentally discloses it? This is like kindergarden law 101 or something, you don't get to accidentally disclose something to hundreds of people AND THEN demand it be kept in the utmost confidence.

BOOM HEAD SHOT

(I'm not supporting leaking shit to ATL, mind you, but it's a little absurd to imagine UVA chasing through email records to hunt down "the leak" given that the leak happened when the data was blasted to everyone, not when it finally trickled down to the ATL inboxes)

[Yardbird]

If they went after the leaker, it would be a fucking nightmare. UVA would be back on ATL in a second.

In what way would it be bad for the school to be seen to attempt to protect confidential information?

Edited to add, whoever forwarded that email is either very confident that they won't be caught, or has never seen a Bar Association's Character and Fitness Questionnaire. As an aspiring attorney, I wouldn't want to be explaining to the Bar that I have difficulty keeping confidences.

Remind me again how the duty to maintain confidential information falls on the person to whom it is accidentally disclosed rather than on the person who accidentally discloses it? This is like kindergarden law 101 or something, you don't get to accidentally disclose something to hundreds of people AND THEN demand it be kept in the utmost confidence.

BOOM HEAD SHOT

(I'm not supporting leaking shit to ATL, mind you, but it's a little absurd to imagine UVA chasing through email records to hunt down "the leak" given that the leak happened when the data was blasted to everyone, not when it finally trickled down to the ATL inboxes)

I would think the most UVA could do would be to ask ATL to delete the spreadsheet that was sent to it with the confidential information. I doubt they can get anything taken down since there's no identifying information posted for public view that can link GPAs to a certain individual.

[McGruff]

n/m

[albanach]

Remind me again how the duty to maintain confidential information falls on the person to whom it is accidentally disclosed rather than on the person who accidentally discloses it? This is like kindergarden law 101 or something, you don't get to accidentally disclose something to hundreds of people AND THEN demand it be kept in the utmost confidence.

BOOM HEAD SHOT

(I'm not supporting leaking shit to ATL, mind you, but it's a little absurd to imagine UVA chasing through email records to hunt down "the leak" given that the leak happened when the data was blasted to everyone, not when it finally trickled down to the ATL inboxes)

Well the duty comes from the university regulations on use of IT. Every student has agreed to both maintain the privacy of other students and to respect the confidentiality of university files.

Kindergarten law 102 must surely be that if you agree to a contract, you should consider the consequences before breaking it?

[thesealocust]

[pertristis]

Well the duty comes from the university regulations on use of IT. Every student has agreed to both maintain the privacy of other students and to respect the confidentiality of university files.

Kindergarten law 102 must surely be that if you agree to a contract, you should consider the consequences before breaking it?

That's begging the question, as you're assuming that whomever disseminated the information broke the Computer Usage Policy. Even if the disseminator broke that Policy, the stated recourse is revocation of computer usage.

[PepperJack]

Remind me again how the duty to maintain confidential information falls on the person to whom it is accidentally disclosed rather than on the person who accidentally discloses it? This is like kindergarden law 101 or something, you don't get to accidentally disclose something to hundreds of people AND THEN demand it be kept in the utmost confidence.

BOOM HEAD SHOT

(I'm not supporting leaking shit to ATL, mind you, but it's a little absurd to imagine UVA chasing through email records to hunt down "the leak" given that the leak happened when the data was blasted to everyone, not when it finally trickled down to the ATL inboxes)

Well the duty comes from the university regulations on use of IT. Every student has agreed to both maintain the privacy of other students and to respect the confidentiality of university files.

Kindergarten law 102 must surely be that if you agree to a contract, you should consider the consequences before breaking it?

Irrespective of this duty jargon, whoever sent it to ATL is a shit face. It devalues everyone's GPA to a certain extent, and in many cases does so unfairly. We don't even know if the ranks are accurate, but this is now probably going to hurt 1L's even though I'm sure it happens everywhere. It might also hurt 2L's hoping to get f/t offers if they're boarder line, and will hurt 3L's still looking. In all likelihood, the turd was just like, "Someone f'd up. I'm going to send it to ATL so I can credit for exposing someone's f-up". That person is an f-er. The bottom line is that UVA is a pretty cordial place, and more so than other places nobody really gives a shit what other people's grades are. Even if a minority did, who cares? No net impact on them. Now there is a net impact on all students because of one turd... likely a browser of this very forum.

[PepperJack]

If they went after the leaker, it would be a fucking nightmare. UVA would be back on ATL in a second.

In what way would it be bad for the school to be seen to attempt to protect confidential information?

Edited to add, whoever forwarded that email is either very confident that they won't be caught, or has never seen a Bar Association's Character and Fitness Questionnaire. As an aspiring attorney, I wouldn't want to be explaining to the Bar that I have difficulty keeping confidences.

Remind me again how the duty to maintain confidential information falls on the person to whom it is accidentally disclosed rather than on the person who accidentally discloses it? This is like kindergarden law 101 or something, you don't get to accidentally disclose something to hundreds of people AND THEN demand it be kept in the utmost confidence.

BOOM HEAD SHOT

(I'm not supporting leaking shit to ATL, mind you, but it's a little absurd to imagine UVA chasing through email records to hunt down "the leak" given that the leak happened when the data was blasted to everyone, not when it finally trickled down to the ATL inboxes)

I would think the most UVA could do would be to ask ATL to delete the spreadsheet that was sent to it with the confidential information. I doubt they can get anything taken down since there's no identifying information posted for public view that can link GPAs to a certain individual.

I think there is a difference between looking at the spreadsheet because you're curious, maybe even discussing it with friends and sending it to a news outlet. There are levels of wrongdoing. You must also never forget this was intentional, and the bottom line is this - even if you did read it, you forget, don't care, realize you shouldn't have seen that so kinda don't think about it. The effect is much worth than UVA's mistake, and we must not forget there was a difference of intent. People screw up. If everyone actually deleted it, the screw up wouldn't have been that big of a deal.

Maybe the followup email should have said, "Hi there's grades in there belonging to other people so don't open vs. please don't open" which really is another way of saying, "OPEN. OPEN. OPEN." Personally, if I knew there were grades on it initially, I wouldn't have opened it. When it says don't open, I figure it's something important. You learn in an office pretty quickly the best way of getting your e-mail read is to label it "Unimportant".

[albanach]

That's begging the question, as you're assuming that whomever disseminated the information broke the Computer Usage Policy. Even if the disseminator broke that Policy, the stated recourse is revocation of computer usage.

"If abuse of computer systems occurs, those responsible for such abuse are held accountable and may be subject to disciplinary action."

UVA Law is a wonderful place because of the trust we enjoy with one another. The person could just have emailed ATL that the leak happened, but from the article it appears they went much further than that and emailed the entire file. In doing so they not only upset and disappointed scores of their classmates, but they also damaged that community of trust.

I agree with PepperJack that whoever forwarded it is a shitface. If they used their UVA account to do so, it would take all of five minutes to establish that fact. All inbound and outbound emails go through the UVA email servers. My details weren't in the email, but if they were I'd have no hesitation in calling on the Dean to investigate this.

[kingjones59]

It should have no effect on rising 2Ls going to OCI. 1L is still a hard 3.3 curve - the grade adjustment only occurs in non-solely 1L classes which 1Ls only get to take two of. That email was sent to rising 3Ls, their grades are more inflated because they have had at least an additional full semester potentially median-adjusted classes.

And, the person who leaked it is definitely a prick. Probably the TLS-mega poster type, a complete weirdo that spams messages boards during all of his waking hours crying about the job market because they lack any type of social skills whatsoever that could get them a job.

The people who are bullshitting about who had what duty to do what are just the type of assholes that would do this sort of thing. Do everyone a favor and honestly just go away, if you love to screw over your school, alumni and fellow classmates, nobody will ever miss you if you are gone. Sad life to live. Bottom line is Ruth's mistake, albeit a terrible and probably negligent one, was not a deliberate action. This prick deliberately violated everyone's trust and smeared the name of his school. I hope he/she gets kicked out and the name of the person is made public.

[pertristis]

It should have no effect on rising 2Ls going to OCI. 1L is still a hard 3.3 curve - the grade adjustment only occurs in non-solely 1L classes which 1Ls only get to take two of. That email was sent to rising 3Ls and those who just graduated, their grades are more inflated because they have had at least two full semesters of potentially median-adjusted classes.

I believe that only rising 3Ls got the email, as I did not.

[TFALAWL]

Do You guys think the leak could be an honor code violation? seems like that would be the easiest way to expel the bastard

[albanach]

Do You guys think the leak could be an honor code violation? seems like that would be the easiest way to expel the bastard

Nope. The honor code is lying, cheating, or stealing. Unless they were to deny having done it and then be found to have done so I think that's unlikely. Still, the school has a disciplinary process that exists outside the honor system.

[Mount Elbrus]

I took a class at the Army JAG school at UVA (not a JAG) hooked up with UVA 1L - perky perky boobs

[sprezz]

lying about sending it out would not be an honor code violation. the honor code is after all an incredibly well executed joke.