Post
by eluvium » Sun Aug 30, 2009 11:04 am
IMO there's no point in trying to decipher which section has what or who is going to do well. Even of the gunners I knew last year, maybe 1% of them had the grades you somewhat intimidatedly thought they would have. When it came down to it, the people I know with the 4.0+s were super-quiet, super-awesome, really friendly people who wouldn't for the life of them want to tell you that they have those grades (but you know they do because you can find their name on the book awards listserv).
And what's even freakier is that, in my opinion, there's nothing you can do about them. Sure, if you put in the work and study intelligently, it's possible you'll get straight As/A-s, maybe even mostly As and one or two A-s. From what I've seen, though, the straight A+s/As came from people who gave no impression–at least to me–that they were in the library until 2am every night. It just ostensibly came from natural ability (a friend of mine is as bewildered as I as to how he/she got his/her grades). To those people, IMO, exam-writing and lawschool-prep just come naturally. In fact, I don't think I knew a single A+/A student who I felt slaved at books for hours on end. It makes me feel pathetically stupid that I work harder and still can't do as well, but also honored that I get to work alongside such intelligent people.