UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

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YCrevolution

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by YCrevolution » Tue Dec 20, 2011 3:50 pm

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005618502

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by 005618502 » Tue Dec 20, 2011 3:53 pm

YCrevolution wrote:
AssumptionRequired wrote:What is the median GPA, on average? Is it a 3.66 since its a B+ curve?
The overall median GPA should be pretty close to 3.30 (B+ at UVA Law), probably something like a 3.32 given the slight upwards variance that most classes have for adherence to the B+ curve.
Meant to put 3.33, edit came late.

Thank you for the advice. Any idea where a 3.55 put you in the class? I know this seems random, but there is a reason behind it haha

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dailygrind

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by dailygrind » Tue Dec 20, 2011 3:59 pm

Hypotheticals already? Somewhere between the top 15-20%. There's a rank estimator stickied in the forum for law students. The bottom of the OP has an example that is helpful for UVA students.

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thesealocust

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by thesealocust » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:06 pm

Most years UVA's curve conforms closely to the following:

3.12 - roughly bottom 25%
3.3 - median / average / 50th percentile
3.48 - roughly top 25%
3.65 - roughly top 10%
3.80 - roughly top 3%

To the extent that there is variation it won't matter because ranks aren't disclosed to you or employers anyway. There's nothing to be gained from precision beyond that level of ballparking. But grade distributions for 360 students taking 8-9 graded courses each tend to be highly normal within the first and second standard deviations.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by battle_tested » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:10 pm

Is it normal to feel like you did pretty well, then later feel like you missed everything and are going to get a B- in every class? This freakin sucks. I keep going back and forth on assessing how I think I did. Initially I feel good, then I feel like I didn't go into enough detail, then I'll feel good about it again (repeat). I need to quit looking over my exam answers.

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YCrevolution

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by YCrevolution » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:18 pm

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5ky

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by 5ky » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:19 pm

AssumptionRequired wrote:
YCrevolution wrote:
AssumptionRequired wrote:What is the median GPA, on average? Is it a 3.66 since its a B+ curve?
The overall median GPA should be pretty close to 3.30 (B+ at UVA Law), probably something like a 3.32 given the slight upwards variance that most classes have for adherence to the B+ curve.
Meant to put 3.33, edit came late.

Thank you for the advice. Any idea where a 3.55 put you in the class? I know this seems random, but there is a reason behind it haha
1. B+ = 3.3, not a 3.33 at UVA. Similarly, an A- is a 3.7, not 3.67. Etc.

2. You gotta seriously relax brother, you still have 8 months until you start at UVA. You need to stop asking insane questions about grades required for specific firms in specific offices and where a GPA to the hundredth puts you in the class. You will have a mental breakdown next fall when you're taking your exams at this rate.

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5ky

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by 5ky » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:21 pm

YCrevolution wrote:
battle_tested wrote:Is it normal to feel like you did pretty well, then later feel like you missed everything and are going to get a B- in every class? This freakin sucks. I keep going back and forth on assessing how I think I did. Initially I feel good, then I feel like I didn't go into enough detail, then I'll feel good about it again (repeat). I need to quit looking over my exam answers.
There's not really a point in looking over your exam answers until you at least get a grade for the exam (and can review it with the professor). It just causes needless stress and worry.

Also, it is fairly unlikely you'll get a B- in most of your classes (some professors don't even really give out anything less than a B in most cases).
+1, looking over an exam is a losing strategy for your mental health. The likelihood of a B- if you thought the exam went pretty well is very low, I would think, assuming you didn't write like a 3-4 page exam and thought it was complete.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by AriGoldButNicer » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:30 pm

Disclaimer: Off topic

One of the first selling points to me about UVa, and how I first came to research them (I had no idea about how solid of a school Virginia is as I never met anyone who went to Virginia) were the Youtube videos put out by the school. One of them featured 1L's talking about the law school experience. They mentioned that they mostly just relaxed before law school. Looking back on it, is there anything you'd recommend other than relaxing if your goals are to succeed grade wise, career wise and be a good cool member of the UVa beauty now that you are a more seasoned law student?

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battle_tested

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by battle_tested » Tue Dec 20, 2011 4:30 pm

5ky wrote:
YCrevolution wrote:
battle_tested wrote:Is it normal to feel like you did pretty well, then later feel like you missed everything and are going to get a B- in every class? This freakin sucks. I keep going back and forth on assessing how I think I did. Initially I feel good, then I feel like I didn't go into enough detail, then I'll feel good about it again (repeat). I need to quit looking over my exam answers.
There's not really a point in looking over your exam answers until you at least get a grade for the exam (and can review it with the professor). It just causes needless stress and worry.

Also, it is fairly unlikely you'll get a B- in most of your classes (some professors don't even really give out anything less than a B in most cases).
+1, looking over an exam is a losing strategy for your mental health. The likelihood of a B- if you thought the exam went pretty well is very low, I would think, assuming you didn't write like a 3-4 page exam and thought it was complete.
I agree. Idk why I do it. I guess my biggest thing is someone has to be bottom of the class in every class, and honestly I think everyone here is smart enough to at least pull a B+ on the exam (but obviously this just can't happen). IMO, I think it would be more difficult determining who gets the B's and B-'s than who gets the A's. I just don't want to be below median more than anything.

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thesealocust

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by thesealocust » Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:04 pm

battle_tested wrote:Is it normal to feel like you did pretty well, then later feel like you missed everything and are going to get a B- in every class? This freakin sucks. I keep going back and forth on assessing how I think I did. Initially I feel good, then I feel like I didn't go into enough detail, then I'll feel good about it again (repeat). I need to quit looking over my exam answers.
It's definitely not normal to feel like you did pretty well after a law exam. That being said, feeling like you missed everything and are going to get straight B-s or worse is perfectly normal. I can still probably tell you why I screwed up and deserved to fail every question of every exam 1L year, yet I somehow managed to pass.
AriGoldButNicer wrote:Disclaimer: Off topic

One of the first selling points to me about UVa, and how I first came to research them (I had no idea about how solid of a school Virginia is as I never met anyone who went to Virginia) were the Youtube videos put out by the school. One of them featured 1L's talking about the law school experience. They mentioned that they mostly just relaxed before law school. Looking back on it, is there anything you'd recommend other than relaxing if your goals are to succeed grade wise, career wise and be a good cool member of the UVa beauty now that you are a more seasoned law student?
Given how important 1L year / law school in general can be, there is an obvious motivation amongst the type-A types that law school attracts to try and find some way to prepare. Fortunately for them (and for everyone else) there's very little that can be done in advance that will materially benefit you by the time you start law school. In no particular order, I would recommend:

1) Going to the beach and warm climates a lot.
2) Getting into or staying in shape.
3) Behaving recklessly prior to entering an environment where Above The Law tracks each student paparazzi style.
4) (optional) reading law school confidential. It provides a very nice overview of the law school experience, 1L classes, and the calendar of events you'll see during and after law school (from classes to extracurriculars to on campus/grounds recruiting to clerkships).
5) (optional) Skimming - once - Getting to Maybe. This will give you some understanding of what you'll be up against in December.
6) Heavy drinking.
7) Skyrim.

I would explicitly counsel against trying to substantively prepare for law school classes. There are a plethora of reasons. Most importantly, it is VERY unlikely to help. Each professor teaches a tiny subset of the material plausibly covered in every 1L class so you wouldn't even know what to look at. On top of that, memorizing legal rules is not what the first year of law school is about, and few people really need help with it. Just about every 1L professor gives an open book, open note exam. The horse race isn't in learning the material, it's in learning what to do with it on an exam (which is why skimming getting to maybe can help get your brain on the right track). I know many people who didn't do substantive pre-1L prep and a few who did, and I don't know a single person who either regrets not doing it OR didn't do it and wishes that they had. Come late November, nobody is wishing they'd read a torts hornbook in July. Nobody.

Beyond that, it's just gunnery as fuck and the last thing law students - especially 1Ls - need is more arms race mentality when it comes to law school. You really, really don't want to be 'that guy' who raises your hand and asks a question about something you read over the summer during the first week of classes, or has a smug attitude in general because you think you've found a leg up.

TL;DR - drink a lot before coming to law school so your liver is ready for the challenege

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YCrevolution

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by YCrevolution » Tue Dec 20, 2011 5:18 pm

..

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5ky

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by 5ky » Wed Dec 21, 2011 12:28 am

A friendly tip for the 1Ls about grades:

1. No grades are going to get posted until after the holidays. In fact, the majority probably won't get posted until you get back to Charlottesville, depending on your section and whether you come back a bit early or not. The grade deadline is probably February 1st, so you should probably anticipate hilarious scenarios where you've had a week of your spring semester classes and still don't know how your first semester shook out.

2. SIS has now posted a helpful tip that grades get posted at 7am and 7pm. If you check immediately following those times and there's nothing up, there's no point in checking again until the next round, I guess is what Cary is trying to say.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by desertlaw » Wed Dec 21, 2011 1:55 am

Also, the 1L hatred for Dean Bennett will probably begin in about 10-15 days.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by RVP11 » Wed Dec 21, 2011 9:03 am

desertlaw wrote:Also, the 1L hatred for Dean Bennett will probably begin in about 10-15 days.
Yet another UVA rite of passage.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by AriGoldButNicer » Wed Dec 21, 2011 6:33 pm

Thanks sealocust and Ycrevolution: I know studying before the 1L yr is gunnery, but I don't intend to be a gunner, and being socially accepted in the community is very important to me. It's more an issue of I just wanna be the best I can be as opposed to a me vs. my peers mentality. I am a little nervous because I have an atypical background, and while I could prob match the average student on a thinking test, I am at a loss at the mere substantiative knowledge and intellect students accepted into lower top 25s I checked out like IU and USC seem to have.

I've been doing the fitness thing, and am in the best shape I've ever been in - beyond a means I thought was possible for anybody who was not an athlete as a kid. I'm actually a bit nervous about prob not having 20 hrs a week to spend at the gym after this yr, but this is the way it is with most careers. Regarding drinking, I try to limit it for fitness reasons but live with some law students (not in va), and man do they drink. My liver's up to the challenge. It's doing work hung over that seems to be what separates them from me.

Regarding prep, would you recommend reading novels if I literally haven't read a full book since grade school, and really just read ny times, sports illustrated, ask men, etc.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by pjo » Wed Dec 21, 2011 7:31 pm

desertlaw wrote:Also, the 1L hatred for Dean Bennett will probably begin in about 10-15 days.

When are grades supposed to be released?

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thesealocust

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by thesealocust » Wed Dec 21, 2011 8:11 pm

AriGoldButNicer wrote:Regarding prep, would you recommend reading novels if I literally haven't read a full book since grade school, and really just read ny times, sports illustrated, ask men, etc.
(caution: what follows is extremely profound advice for everything that will come after this moment in your life, and not just what you should read before you begin law school)

I recommend that you spend a lot of time figuring out what makes you happy, and then a lot of time doing that.
pjo wrote:When are grades supposed to be released?
April.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by AriGoldButNicer » Wed Dec 21, 2011 10:57 pm

thesealocust wrote:
AriGoldButNicer wrote:Regarding prep, would you recommend reading novels if I literally haven't read a full book since grade school, and really just read ny times, sports illustrated, ask men, etc.
(caution: what follows is extremely profound advice for everything that will come after this moment in your life, and not just what you should read before you begin law school)

I recommend that you spend a lot of time figuring out what makes you happy, and then a lot of time doing that.
pjo wrote:When are grades supposed to be released?
April.
Money, food and football tend to make me happiest.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by battle_tested » Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:05 am

thesealocust wrote:
AriGoldButNicer wrote:Regarding prep, would you recommend reading novels if I literally haven't read a full book since grade school, and really just read ny times, sports illustrated, ask men, etc.
(caution: what follows is extremely profound advice for everything that will come after this moment in your life, and not just what you should read before you begin law school)

I recommend that you spend a lot of time figuring out what makes you happy, and then a lot of time doing that.
pjo wrote:When are grades supposed to be released?
April.
Funny. I think grades are supposed to be out by the end of January. I don't even know how to check grades though. I just wish I could stop thinking about it. I know I didn't cover a major issue extensively enough on my K's exam. Seriously, I don't know how I can understand a concept so well prior to the exam and then just not address it when it comes up on the exam.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by Gecko of Doom » Thu Dec 22, 2011 12:46 am

battle_tested wrote:
thesealocust wrote:
AriGoldButNicer wrote:Regarding prep, would you recommend reading novels if I literally haven't read a full book since grade school, and really just read ny times, sports illustrated, ask men, etc.
(caution: what follows is extremely profound advice for everything that will come after this moment in your life, and not just what you should read before you begin law school)

I recommend that you spend a lot of time figuring out what makes you happy, and then a lot of time doing that.
pjo wrote:When are grades supposed to be released?
April.
Funny. I think grades are supposed to be out by the end of January. I don't even know how to check grades though. I just wish I could stop thinking about it. I know I didn't cover a major issue extensively enough on my K's exam. Seriously, I don't know how I can understand a concept so well prior to the exam and then just not address it when it comes up on the exam.
SIS.

Also, I promise you all of us are kicking ourselves over missed/not thoroughly covered issues on one or more exams.

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by desertlaw » Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:11 am

Still kicking myself for not spotting the Confrontation Clause issue in my Evidence exam last spring. I think I tried to 803(3) it.

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thesealocust

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by thesealocust » Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:53 am

I did damages all wrong on both questions of my contracts final (2 years ago). Mixed up parties so bad on civ pro that I wrote a note apologizing for one of my answers being nearly totally incoherent on the exam.

Nauseating anxiety after exams is half the fun!

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dailygrind

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by dailygrind » Thu Dec 22, 2011 4:42 am

You people are crazy.

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jawsthegreat

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Re: UVA Law Students Taking Questions

Post by jawsthegreat » Thu Dec 22, 2011 1:34 pm

Three was absurd

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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