Penn Law Honors Forum

[jmmm224]

Anyone want to share data points on graduation honors in recent years from Penn Law?

[Anonymous User]

Speaking from personal experience. Honors (cum) cutoff is around 3.7.

[Anonymous User]

Shouldn't this be under the law school students forum?

[Anonymous User]

Honors (cum)

This really captures the ethos of TLS

[Anonymous User]

I believe summa is a 3.95

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know Magna, Coif, and Summa? Do all classes count? How do A+s factor?

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know Magna, Coif, and Summa? Do all classes count? How do A+s factor?

Would love to know coif/magna… more like 3.8 or 3.9?

[Anonymous User]

The short answer is that we don't know. There are some 10+ year old threads on AutoAdmit (of all places!) with conflicting information - whether or not 1) A+s count and 2) strength of schedule is taken into account. If you ask the registrar's office, they'll tell you to go pound sand.

Those threads also have some GPA data points, but in those days B-s were on the curve and there was a lot less grade inflation than there is today.

One can, of course, reverse engineer the numbers: for ’21, 7 graduated summa - so the top ~2.8%. 38 got magna, so top ~18%. And 34 got cume, so top ~31%. Coif is 10% by rule, so about 26 students each year. This doesn't help with GPA cutoffs, but, gives you an idea of where you need to be.

I should note that the numbers were thrown way out of whack with c/o 2022 because of COVID. Wiping away one semester's worth of curved 1L was disastrous. I know a guy who ended up with north of a 3.8 and all he got was cum.

[Anonymous User]

The short answer is that we don't know. There are some 10+ year old threads on AutoAdmit (of all places!) with conflicting information - whether or not 1) A+s count and 2) strength of schedule is taken into account. If you ask the registrar's office, they'll tell you to go pound sand.

Those threads also have some GPA data points, but in those days B-s were on the curve and there was a lot less grade inflation than there is today.

One can, of course, reverse engineer the numbers: for ’21, 7 graduated summa - so the top ~2.8%. 38 got magna, so top ~18%. And 34 got cume, so top ~31%. Coif is 10% by rule, so about 26 students each year. This doesn't help with GPA cutoffs, but, gives you an idea of where you need to be.

I should note that the numbers were thrown way out of whack with c/o 2022 because of COVID. Wiping away one semester's worth of curved 1L was disastrous. I know a guy who ended up with north of a 3.8 and all he got was cum.

I was class of '21 and ended up with a ~3.72 and didn't make the cut-off for cum laude FWIW. Also, +1 on the fact that we don't actually know how are GPA's are calculated behind the scenes or if strength of schedule matters.

[Anonymous User]

The short answer is that we don't know. There are some 10+ year old threads on AutoAdmit (of all places!) with conflicting information - whether or not 1) A+s count and 2) strength of schedule is taken into account. If you ask the registrar's office, they'll tell you to go pound sand.

Those threads also have some GPA data points, but in those days B-s were on the curve and there was a lot less grade inflation than there is today.

One can, of course, reverse engineer the numbers: for ’21, 7 graduated summa - so the top ~2.8%. 38 got magna, so top ~18%. And 34 got cume, so top ~31%. Coif is 10% by rule, so about 26 students each year. This doesn't help with GPA cutoffs, but, gives you an idea of where you need to be.

I should note that the numbers were thrown way out of whack with c/o 2022 because of COVID. Wiping away one semester's worth of curved 1L was disastrous. I know a guy who ended up with north of a 3.8 and all he got was cum.

I was class of '21 and ended up with a ~3.72 and didn't make the cut-off for cum laude FWIW. Also, +1 on the fact that we don't actually know how are GPA's are calculated behind the scenes or if strength of schedule matters.

And that means you missed out on a semester of upper class grades because of Covid so the gpa cutoff for cum laude is probably typically even higher in normal years? That seems absolutely insane. How is like a 3.75 not cum laude?Is grade inflation that significant after 1L? Did you take a ton of seminars?

[dealcrusher]

I got right around the same - like a 3.71 or 3.72 or something, I don't remember exactly - a few years before you and got magna but not order of the coif. So that's pretty surprising.

[Anonymous User]

The short answer is that we don't know. There are some 10+ year old threads on AutoAdmit (of all places!) with conflicting information - whether or not 1) A+s count and 2) strength of schedule is taken into account. If you ask the registrar's office, they'll tell you to go pound sand.

Those threads also have some GPA data points, but in those days B-s were on the curve and there was a lot less grade inflation than there is today.

One can, of course, reverse engineer the numbers: for ’21, 7 graduated summa - so the top ~2.8%. 38 got magna, so top ~18%. And 34 got cume, so top ~31%. Coif is 10% by rule, so about 26 students each year. This doesn't help with GPA cutoffs, but, gives you an idea of where you need to be.

I should note that the numbers were thrown way out of whack with c/o 2022 because of COVID. Wiping away one semester's worth of curved 1L was disastrous. I know a guy who ended up with north of a 3.8 and all he got was cum.

I was class of '21 and ended up with a ~3.72 and didn't make the cut-off for cum laude FWIW. Also, +1 on the fact that we don't actually know how are GPA's are calculated behind the scenes or if strength of schedule matters.

And that means you missed out on a semester of upper class grades because of Covid so the gpa cutoff for cum laude is probably typically even higher in normal years? That seems absolutely insane. How is like a 3.75 not cum laude?Is grade inflation that significant after 1L? Did you take a ton of seminars?

Same anon here. I took two seminars and two clinics, but otherwise had a very standard schedule 2L and 3L year with plenty of curved doctrinal courses (i.e., Corps, Secured Trans, Antitrust, Evidence, etc).

I think grade inflation was just more rampant during the pandemic. I was pretty much median during my 1L year, but got A-‘s and A’s my one (graded) 2L semester and all A’s and a couple A+’s 3L. So, take that for what it’s worth i guess

[Anonymous User]

I got right around the same - like a 3.71 or 3.72 or something, I don't remember exactly - a few years before you and got magna but not order of the coif. So that's pretty surprising.

Do you know if most of your upper level classes had generally hard curves?

[Anonymous User]

Or rather - how many doctrinals did you take?

[Anonymous User]

Or rather - how many doctrinals did you take?

Interested in this as well. However, there are vastly different curves for doctrinals. Some doctrinals give like 50% of students an A while others are basically on the 1L curve.

[dealcrusher]

Pretty much all doctrinal. I think one seminar. Also, I got some A+s and don't know if those do anything or not. If I remember right I calculated GPA without those. I don't imagine they would move it a ton.

Or rather - how many doctrinals did you take?

Interested in this as well. However, there are vastly different curves for doctrinals. Some doctrinals give like 50% of students an A while others are basically on the 1L curve.

[Anonymous User]

Shouldn't this be under the law school students forum?

[Anonymous User]

Jesus, this is nuts. I'm sitting at a 3.85 at the beginning of 3L and I'm worried I'm not even going to swing cum.

[Anonymous User]

Jesus, this is nuts. I'm sitting at a 3.85 at the beginning of 3L and I'm worried I'm not even going to swing cum.

Would much prefer that, then needing to be in the top 5% of my class just to get a 3.8 because NYU refuses to grade inflate.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

Jesus, this is nuts. I'm sitting at a 3.85 at the beginning of 3L and I'm worried I'm not even going to swing cum.

Would much prefer that, then needing to be in the top 5% of my class just to get a 3.8 because NYU refuses to grade inflate.

This seems shortsighted - one imagines that the Latin honors/Order of the Coif will make up for any "low" GPA. Meanwhile, at Penn there's some ambiguousness regarding whether straight grades alone is enough to allow Latin Honors at graduation... that's pretty darn rough. See the thread in judicial clerkships for the degree of confusion - nobody has a clue where they are.

[Anonymous User]

Jesus, this is nuts. I'm sitting at a 3.85 at the beginning of 3L and I'm worried I'm not even going to swing cum.

Would much prefer that, then needing to be in the top 5% of my class just to get a 3.8 because NYU refuses to grade inflate.

This seems shortsighted - one imagines that the Latin honors/Order of the Coif will make up for any "low" GPA. Meanwhile, at Penn there's some ambiguousness regarding whether straight grades alone is enough to allow Latin Honors at graduation... that's pretty darn rough. See the thread in judicial clerkships for the degree of confusion - nobody has a clue where they are.

Who is digging back into December to revive threads that ought to be on another part of the forum?

[Anonymous User]

Jesus, this is nuts. I'm sitting at a 3.85 at the beginning of 3L and I'm worried I'm not even going to swing cum.

Would much prefer that, then needing to be in the top 5% of my class just to get a 3.8 because NYU refuses to grade inflate.

This seems shortsighted - one imagines that the Latin honors/Order of the Coif will make up for any "low" GPA. Meanwhile, at Penn there's some ambiguousness regarding whether straight grades alone is enough to allow Latin Honors at graduation... that's pretty darn rough. See the thread in judicial clerkships for the degree of confusion - nobody has a clue where they are.

I wonder if this is worse for OCI than clerking. No info on where you stand in the class = clueless bidding. But do judges know about grades at each school? (To be fair, NYU has 2L honors for judges.)

[existentialcrisis]

Jesus, this is nuts. I'm sitting at a 3.85 at the beginning of 3L and I'm worried I'm not even going to swing cum.

Would much prefer that, then needing to be in the top 5% of my class just to get a 3.8 because NYU refuses to grade inflate.

This seems shortsighted - one imagines that the Latin honors/Order of the Coif will make up for any "low" GPA. Meanwhile, at Penn there's some ambiguousness regarding whether straight grades alone is enough to allow Latin Honors at graduation... that's pretty darn rough. See the thread in judicial clerkships for the degree of confusion - nobody has a clue where they are.

I wonder if this is worse for OCI than clerking. No info on where you stand in the class = clueless bidding. But do judges know about grades at each school? (To be fair, NYU has 2L honors for judges.)

Isn’t that literally the entire point of the opaque system/grade inflation though? Firms at OCI also have trouble telling where you stand but your transcript looks decent enough so they decide your grades are good enough.

[Anonymous User]

Jesus, this is nuts. I'm sitting at a 3.85 at the beginning of 3L and I'm worried I'm not even going to swing cum.

Would much prefer that, then needing to be in the top 5% of my class just to get a 3.8 because NYU refuses to grade inflate.

This seems shortsighted - one imagines that the Latin honors/Order of the Coif will make up for any "low" GPA. Meanwhile, at Penn there's some ambiguousness regarding whether straight grades alone is enough to allow Latin Honors at graduation... that's pretty darn rough. See the thread in judicial clerkships for the degree of confusion - nobody has a clue where they are.

Who is digging back into December to revive threads that ought to be on another part of the forum?

For what it's worth... someone DID try to put this thread in the proper place (viewtopic.php?f=3&t=313310&p=10531092#p10531092), and got 0 meaningful replies. Probably since the people who actually have this information are graduates and no longer lurking on the law student threads.