Type 1 Diabetes and exams Forum

[Desert Fox]

Having the school pause your exam because of a medical emergency isn't an accommodation. I've got no disability but if I suddenly felt lathargic and confused id go talk to the proctor dean.

No accommodation would have prevented this from happening.

[rcharter1978]

Do you have accommodations in your home? A med team on standby?

In addition to being a sugar momma, I am a one-woman med team. I'm always there to be like "hey you seem a little out of it, have you tested lately?"

In theory, you definitely have a point. I'm not sure if you have T1 diabetes, I do....and I know when my blood sugar is low enough to be an issue. There are certainly people who have hypoglycemic unawareness....but if OP had such a thing I would think he would know and would have specifically mentioned it to the dean of students. Its only to say that while its certainly possible for a T1 diabetic to have a blood sugar in the teens, most would know that they were running a low blood sugar beforehand. And if they know that they are having a hypoglycemic episode, they should take care of it. And I think you generally have to go pretty low to go into coma, or to faint/experience severe brain damage. I know that I've had blood sugars as low as 27-29 and I've still been able to check my blood sugar and treat my condition.

However, like you said, were the OP to have hypoglycemic unawareness and go so low that they fell out during an exam and no one knew what to do, after the dean of students was on notice....it would be ugly. But perhaps they figure its okay to take that risk, because the risk seems pretty remote.

one of my siblings was first diagnosed after drifting into a coma when they were only about 2. granted, they had lost about 10 pounds, which for babies is pretty intense, but the doctors were dumb and never thought to check. that first shock made us all very attentive to it thereafter, and i think there's probably severity levels even though a non-functioning pancreas is a non-functioning pancreas. i've noticed that those diagnosed when they're very young fluctuate much more than those diagnosed when they're older. with somebody like adam morrison or jay cutler, you never really even hear they're being diabetic mentioned where as with other people it's more of an around the clock concern. obviously morrison and cutler are athletic so have better functioning metabolisms, but they're being diagnosed later on might have a relationship to that.

I think that may be true, but it may also be a variety of other factors. The longer you have diabetes the more likely you are to develop complications -- so it may be that those diagnosed younger simply have it longer or get complications earlier. Additionally, kids have hormones that are going nuts, especially as they go into their teen years that may make their diabetes harder to control, not necessarily that the diabetes is any worse, its just that because of the hormones they go through a difficult period. And of course....kids are just terrible at taking care of their diabetes and generally don't want to be bothered. I was diagnosed at 11....and for many, many years I didn't want to take care of myself. Even now...I do a much better job, especially with the insulin pump....but I'm not perfect. And so, some of it may also be habit. If you've been taking shitty care of yourself from childhood and just trying to avoid your disease since childhood that may be the path you follow into adulthood. I think T1 diabetes is a very difficult and complex disease...which is why, when I found an endocrinologist I liked, I did everything in my power to keep him. I currently drive like 60 miles each way to see him, and will continue to do so.

But being diagnosed later in life means the person may be mature enough to handle a disease state that requires constant monitoring and effort.

Does your sibling have hypoglycemic unawareness, or does he/she know when they are getting a low blood sugar? I certainly hope your sibling is on an insulin pump....the pump literally saved my life.

Yeah, everyone has the pump now. Everyone can sense when they're going low, but sone of the symptoms of going low are mood shifts and cognitive delays so it's still not perfect. There's also the coddling effect. People are less in tune to it if they're used to those around them handling it, and you can't really employ a tough love approach when you're dealing with serious medical issues.

But back on track OP is a fool if they don't push for something here. Law students are notoriously square, and this site attracts the worst of the lot so if there's any support then I'm all for then OP has a great argument. With accommodations, most law schools will generally abide by any doctor's note they get to not risk allegations of violating the ADA. People get extra time all the time for medical conditions that aren't even recognized by the ADA as being anything more than imaginary. In a situation like this, we're dealing with virtually one of the most widely accepted medical ailments requiring testing accommodations that exists so it's a no brainer. OP could also present it in such a way so as to show that the dean not only violated established norms and arguably violated the ADA, but that he also subjected the school to unnecessary risk due to conduct that arguably crossed the line from negligence and into recklessness while acting in his capacity as a dean, and therefore this is really a school problem, not a dean of student life problem.

But what can OP push for? The exam is done and the grades are recorded (even if not posted)

So does OP push to take the same exam again? That seems unfair to the rest of the students in the class, because it not only gives him the "fair" thing....which is the additional time he should have gotten in the first place, but it also gives him an unfair advantage in that he goes in already knowing the question.

Does OP push to take a different exam? Not only is that unfair to the OP who now has to bear the additional burden of studying again for a subject he has let go, but then how does the professor grade the OP's exam and compare it to everyone elses?

Does OP want monetary damages? If so, how are those even calculated? How can he even prove there are any damages or that he would have certainly gotten a higher grade with accommodations?

So -- what is the acceptable remedy here that is fair and equitable?

I'm so glad your sibling has a pump. There are mood shifts, but there is generally also weakness, sweating, and brain fogginess. This is why you need additional time when you get so low, but a T1 diabetic should generally know....no matter who handles their disease state. And honestly, if a person has made it to law school, they should have made it through undergrad where they can't always have a parent around, so there shouldn't be as much of a coddling effect.

[Desert Fox]

I think Honestadvice is looking at this from a persepective of a big brother wanting to make sure his child little brother has someone looking out for him at his elementary/high school.

A law school doesn't have to babysit it's adult students.

[rcharter1978]

she basically told me that if I have it figured out, there's no need for accommodations, and I really didn't think there was any problem.

yeah i'm sure that lawsuit will go great. sounds like OP didn't really think the were needed, didn't formally request them, and then found out they might be needed during the exam

and btw the accommodation for diabetics is generally being allowed to bring in food and juice, not more time

I think thats unfortunate. When your blood sugar goes low there are cognitive changes/brain fogginess/confusion.....and so those things make it impossible to think clearly. You must see that with your boyfriend, even though you can't see it, I'm sure he has described it to you at some point. I've had to explain it to an ex normally as I'm apologizing for my behavior. And so you need time for your blood sugar to go back to normal so you can think clearly and rationally again....so I'm surprised that the accommodation doesn't include additional time.

That would be the thing that OP should push for, because it takes about 20-25 minutes to resolve a really low blood sugar (gotta check the sugar, gotta eat the glucose, and then wait for the glucose to push the sugar back to normal). Even with fast acting glucose. Glucose tabs don't work as fast for me, but even with orange juice its at least 15-20 minutes from drinking the OJ to feeling better. In a 2-3 hour racehorse exam 20-25 minutes is a pretty severe disadvantage.

[HonestAdvice]

Having the school pause your exam because of a medical emergency isn't an accommodation. I've got no disability but if I suddenly felt lathargic and confused id go talk to the proctor dean.

No accommodation would have prevented this from happening.

The accommodation would have been the option to retake the exam and/or have the exam paused once they were hypoglycemic.

At least in my state that's standard for high school students, and also a standard accommodation for juvenile Diabetics on the SAT, ACT, LSAT, GRE, GMAT, etc. It should have been in place at OP's law school, and the fact the school made a mistake shouldn't mean OP's out of luck.

To put it in perspective, this is like if in Brown vs. Board of Ed, the Court said, "Yeah, you're right separate isn't equal, but we kinda built a curve and job market around it so uh, yeah, you folks will just have to deal. Changing it now would be a whole thing. We might even have to past 5 a couple days, so you understand. Now, look, we'd really love to stay and chat but this is the white court house so you gotta go, like right now or we'll arrest you."

[CaptainLeela]

Welcome to TLS

[Desert Fox]

OP didn't even try to contact someone when it happened. I'd totally agree that if the OP went to someone and said, I'm hypoglecimic, i need an extension on my test until it pass, that he should get it. But by just keeping going taking it, he missed the shot.

[HonestAdvice]

OP didn't even try to contact someone when it happened. I'd totally agree that if the OP went to someone and said, I'm hypoglecimic, i need an extension on my test until it pass, that he should get it. But by just keeping going taking it, he missed the shot.

I discussed this earlier. Assuming OP had this from childhood, standard procedure is these kids visit the nurse multiple times a day, and in many instances have a shadow in the class during first grade up until junior high.

Now picture your first day of first grade. You got your shirt buttoned, tucked in and your mom's walking you to your seat on the school bus and kisses you. You're wiping her lipstick off your cheek, and begging her to stop making you look like a baby. You got all that awkwardness, but on top of it, when you get to a school there's a 40-year old medical shadow sitting by your side in every class. The other kids notice, the teachers notice. If this doesn't make fitting in tough enough, you can only hang out with kids outside of school if they convince their parents and because of liability issues, the school that they could handle their blood sugar. Every time you want to go to your friend's house, get a slice of pizza around the block, go play soccer, every time, you have to say, "Yes, mom, my blood sugar's good." "Yes, Mrs. Smith, I have it under control." "Don't worry, Tommy, I can make the game. I'm fine."

OP is now obviously an adult, but think for a second about if this were your childhood, and about whether you'd be psychologically hardwired to answer, "Yes, I have it under control" when asked. In addition, there is discrimination in the work place that one would encounter if they didn't have their blood sugar under control. They're walking into job interviews with wires in them so if they didn't present themselves as having it under control, is it far fetched to believe they'd have a rough go?

So OP is coming into the dean's office with all these things hanging over their head. The dean probably wasn't aware of all this, fine, which is why standard operating procedure is to advise OP to go speak to health services, to follow up with OP, to make sure that OP is getting what he needs and not simply relying on, "Well, if you think you got it..."

Now we all agree that OP had a bundle of rights before he walked into the dean's office, that he might be entitled to accommodations under the ADA. What DF and El Polito are saying is that OP waived these rights when he led the dean to believe that the hypoglycemic aspect was under control.

To stop going in circles, let's say that DF and El Pollo (the chicken girl, I'm sorry, my spanish sucks) are 100% right - that OP had rights that could be waived. If this is the case then shouldn't the dean have made OP aware that these rights would be waived? Shouldn't there have been a discussion of the legal ramifications of this discussion? I'm not saying OP needed counsel, but that OP should at least have been made aware that his rights under the ADA would be forfeited. Based on the context of this informal conversation, I don't believe that OP or most 1L's in OP's position would have been aware that the conversation could have legal ramifications.

You people are approaching this with a JD, bar passage and several years of legal experience. OP had 12 weeks of 1L torts, intro to contracts and maybe wrote a brief or two about some ridiculous topic that has no basis in reality. You're expecting them to behave like a 5th year associate walking into a deposition when they walk into the dean of students office for what they're led to believe is an informal conversation. The very fact that OP wanted to have this conversation should have put the dean on notice - make OP sign something, anything that would communicate that this informal conversation was actually a legally significant event in which the dean concluded that OP had forfeited his rights.

[theshorthappyguy21]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

[Chrstgtr]

Do law schools have nurses or someone responsible for knowing someone's medical information. I don't remember that. If they'd really be liable for someone passing out from the beetus, they'd probably make you wear a medical bracelet.

Or you could just have a system that allows the person to retake a portion of their exam in the event that they have an incident. We're not talking about a crazy plan here.

Do we know if OP alerted anyone during or immediately after the attack that he just had one and requested a pause of time?

Basically - do we know if at any point the OP said "this accomodation is necessary" or that he needed one at that moment because of a sudden appearance of his condition?

The law mandates a plan to accommodate. It does not matter whether OP notified anyone at the time of the event. OP notified the school of his disability and how it limits his meaningful access to OP's education. Once put on notice, the school is required to develop a plan

[rcharter1978]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

Do not write any letter explaining anything. The last thing any employer wants is someone that they think is going to rely on an illness to explain away what they may see as poor performance. Just take the hit. A B+ is really not such a bad grade.

However, I still think it was up to the dean of students to do some research and not rely on your responses. You're not a medical doctor and neither is she. Its not up to you to come up with all the solutions, she is the dean of students, she could have damn well googled T1 diabetes. And she could have requested a letter from your doctor. But now you can move forward with accommodations that work for you.

Either way, I can't imagine what the remedy would be at this point, even though I think your DOS is in the wrong.

[HonestAdvice]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

[rcharter1978]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

Yeah, but what if the school decides to punish him by giving him a worse grade? Or OP catches professor on a bad day? Or professor is just upset that he has to read another exam instead of binge watching "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. Law school exams are super subjective....if the grade was in the C range it might be worth the risk....but a B+ isn't a terrible grade. And I suspect that if OP is super bummed about it, its because they are doing amazingly well in other classes so the B+ isn't going to drag down OPs GPA too much.

[HonestAdvice]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

Yeah, but what if the school decides to punish him by giving him a worse grade? Or OP catches professor on a bad day? Or professor is just upset that he has to read another exam instead of binge watching "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. Law school exams are super subjective....if the grade was in the C range it might be worth the risk....but a B+ isn't a terrible grade. And I suspect that if OP is super bummed about it, its because they are doing amazingly well in other classes so the B+ isn't going to drag down OPs GPA too much.

I don't think many professors would do that. Most of them take their duty to be objective seriously, know the importance for 1L grades, and aren't going to fuck OP over just for inconveniencing them. Grading isn't a science, but 99% of the time there's an intent to be objective, even if the outcome is subjective.

It doesn't matter how OP's GPA is in other classes. The issue is (1) whether OP would have done better if given the accommodations that dean should have implemented, and (2) whether OP can do anything about it. The GPA in other classes is irrelevant.

[landshoes]

You might ask them to change it to a pass, with a note that there was a problem with the exam that led it to be impossible to assign it a letter grade. (I don't know if your school has this; A lot of schools have it for things like exams that are blatantly unfair or the professor dies before writing the exam or something like that where grading it is impossible.)

That takes the grade out of the equation. You tell employers there was some kind of problem with your exam (or whatever career services tells you to say).

If you've already requested accommodations, it should be clear that this is something that actually happened and not you disliking your B+. Given that, I think it's more than fair to take it out of your GPA for things like class rank and assigning honors.

[rcharter1978]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

Yeah, but what if the school decides to punish him by giving him a worse grade? Or OP catches professor on a bad day? Or professor is just upset that he has to read another exam instead of binge watching "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. Law school exams are super subjective....if the grade was in the C range it might be worth the risk....but a B+ isn't a terrible grade. And I suspect that if OP is super bummed about it, its because they are doing amazingly well in other classes so the B+ isn't going to drag down OPs GPA too much.

I don't think many professors would do that. Most of them take their duty to be objective seriously, know the importance for 1L grades, and aren't going to fuck OP over just for inconveniencing them. Grading isn't a science, but 99% of the time there's an intent to be objective, even if the outcome is subjective.

It doesn't matter how OP's GPA is in other classes. The issue is (1) whether OP would have done better if given the accommodations that dean should have implemented, and (2) whether OP can do anything about it. The GPA in other classes is irrelevant.

At this point, even if the professor wanted to be objective, how can he remember how the OP did in relation to everyone else in the class? 1L grades are meant to be on a curve, so how does the professor even place OP. And thats even saying that professors are really working double time to be objective....if this was the case, I don't think schools would need a blind grading system because they could count on professors to be objective. Given that OP got a relatively good grade, its not worth the risk of catching the professor on a bad day, or pissing him off enough to that he reads the exam while upset and is just looking for things to grade down.

It actually should matter how the OP's GPA in the macro view. Your points are more about looking at the trees instead of the forest.

The most important thing for OP is whether he can gain some benefit at this point. Without considering that, this is really just a theoretical discussion. Which is fine. But in reality, there is absolutely no way to know if OP would have done better with accommodations.....even without the blood sugar drop he would have written a B+ exam. Maybe the time to bring his blood sugar back up gave him time to re-focus and he wrote a better exam. Once you lose a moment in time, you can't get it back. Second, what exactly can OP do about it at this point? Get an attorney, fight to retake a portion of the exam for material he is already done with? To be graded by a professor that can barely remember the question, or how everyone else did? Thats a good way to write an even worse exam. And its an even better way to make enemies. And thats assuming that the attorney can even get that concession out of the school. If the school says no, then what? The time and expense of filing a complaint?

And realistically, all of this may be worth the effort if OP had gotten a C, or even a B- because the risk would be worth the reward of having a chance to better the grade. And the risk might be worth the reward if OP had a crappy GPA and was on the verge of getting booted from law school, or if the grade was so bad that it was dragging down a truly remarkable GPA.

In all things, people should weigh the risk and reward. Not just push through because they may theoretically be right. What exactly does the OP win here? He only gets the chance to rewrite the exam. A B+ is the third highest mark you can get in a class (or fourth, if your school gives A+'s) which means that there is a good chance that OP rewrites the exam and ends up with a lower grade...or the professor just re-reads the exam and decides its a median effort because he can't remember the other exams and gives OP a B....which is a lower grade than what he has now. Or the professor realizes the inherent unfairness in allowing a student to rewrite a portion of the exam weeks after the rest of the class wrote the exam....and no matter how good the paper is, the OP ends up getting a B in the interest of "fairness."

And so with a high risk of going through a bunch of trouble to end up with a lower grade its not worth the very, very slim chance of the reward of getting an A- or better.

[First Offense]

You might ask them to change it to a pass, with a note that there was a problem with the exam that led it to be impossible to assign it a letter grade. (I don't know if your school has this; A lot of schools have it for things like exams that are blatantly unfair or the professor dies before writing the exam or something like that where grading it is impossible.)

That takes the grade out of the equation. You tell employers there was some kind of problem with your exam (or whatever career services tells you to say).

If you've already requested accommodations, it should be clear that this is something that actually happened and not you disliking your B+. Given that, I think it's more than fair to take it out of your GPA for things like class rank and assigning honors.

If it were a doctrinal exam, that might seem worse than a B+, honestly.

[HonestAdvice]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

Yeah, but what if the school decides to punish him by giving him a worse grade? Or OP catches professor on a bad day? Or professor is just upset that he has to read another exam instead of binge watching "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. Law school exams are super subjective....if the grade was in the C range it might be worth the risk....but a B+ isn't a terrible grade. And I suspect that if OP is super bummed about it, its because they are doing amazingly well in other classes so the B+ isn't going to drag down OPs GPA too much.

I don't think many professors would do that. Most of them take their duty to be objective seriously, know the importance for 1L grades, and aren't going to fuck OP over just for inconveniencing them. Grading isn't a science, but 99% of the time there's an intent to be objective, even if the outcome is subjective.

It doesn't matter how OP's GPA is in other classes. The issue is (1) whether OP would have done better if given the accommodations that dean should have implemented, and (2) whether OP can do anything about it. The GPA in other classes is irrelevant.

At this point, even if the professor wanted to be objective, how can he remember how the OP did in relation to everyone else in the class? 1L grades are meant to be on a curve, so how does the professor even place OP. And thats even saying that professors are really working double time to be objective....if this was the case, I don't think schools would need a blind grading system because they could count on professors to be objective. Given that OP got a relatively good grade, its not worth the risk of catching the professor on a bad day, or pissing him off enough to that he reads the exam while upset and is just looking for things to grade down.

It actually should matter how the OP's GPA in the macro view. Your points are more about looking at the trees instead of the forest.

The most important thing for OP is whether he can gain some benefit at this point. Without considering that, this is really just a theoretical discussion. Which is fine. But in reality, there is absolutely no way to know if OP would have done better with accommodations.....even without the blood sugar drop he would have written a B+ exam. Maybe the time to bring his blood sugar back up gave him time to re-focus and he wrote a better exam. Once you lose a moment in time, you can't get it back. Second, what exactly can OP do about it at this point? Get an attorney, fight to retake a portion of the exam for material he is already done with? To be graded by a professor that can barely remember the question, or how everyone else did? Thats a good way to write an even worse exam. And its an even better way to make enemies. And thats assuming that the attorney can even get that concession out of the school. If the school says no, then what? The time and expense of filing a complaint?

And realistically, all of this may be worth the effort if OP had gotten a C, or even a B- because the risk would be worth the reward of having a chance to better the grade. And the risk might be worth the reward if OP had a crappy GPA and was on the verge of getting booted from law school, or if the grade was so bad that it was dragging down a truly remarkable GPA.

In all things, people should weigh the risk and reward. Not just push through because they may theoretically be right. What exactly does the OP win here? He only gets the chance to rewrite the exam. A B+ is the third highest mark you can get in a class (or fourth, if your school gives A+'s) which means that there is a good chance that OP rewrites the exam and ends up with a lower grade...or the professor just re-reads the exam and decides its a median effort because he can't remember the other exams and gives OP a B....which is a lower grade than what he has now. Or the professor realizes the inherent unfairness in allowing a student to rewrite a portion of the exam weeks after the rest of the class wrote the exam....and no matter how good the paper is, the OP ends up getting a B in the interest of "fairness."

And so with a high risk of going through a bunch of trouble to end up with a lower grade its not worth the very, very slim chance of the reward of getting an A- or better.

I think you're overhyping the whole thing. Most people who become professors become professors because they don't want to work insanely hard, want to research what they like and want a cushy gig. The last thing these people want is to be the reason why somebody gets/doesn't get a job. They could give a new test - it's not hard to grade a law school exam. Even as 1L's, friends and I could reach each other's tests before grades were posted and predict the range of the grade (A-/B+/B).

[rcharter1978]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

Yeah, but what if the school decides to punish him by giving him a worse grade? Or OP catches professor on a bad day? Or professor is just upset that he has to read another exam instead of binge watching "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. Law school exams are super subjective....if the grade was in the C range it might be worth the risk....but a B+ isn't a terrible grade. And I suspect that if OP is super bummed about it, its because they are doing amazingly well in other classes so the B+ isn't going to drag down OPs GPA too much.

I don't think many professors would do that. Most of them take their duty to be objective seriously, know the importance for 1L grades, and aren't going to fuck OP over just for inconveniencing them. Grading isn't a science, but 99% of the time there's an intent to be objective, even if the outcome is subjective.

It doesn't matter how OP's GPA is in other classes. The issue is (1) whether OP would have done better if given the accommodations that dean should have implemented, and (2) whether OP can do anything about it. The GPA in other classes is irrelevant.

At this point, even if the professor wanted to be objective, how can he remember how the OP did in relation to everyone else in the class? 1L grades are meant to be on a curve, so how does the professor even place OP. And thats even saying that professors are really working double time to be objective....if this was the case, I don't think schools would need a blind grading system because they could count on professors to be objective. Given that OP got a relatively good grade, its not worth the risk of catching the professor on a bad day, or pissing him off enough to that he reads the exam while upset and is just looking for things to grade down.

It actually should matter how the OP's GPA in the macro view. Your points are more about looking at the trees instead of the forest.

The most important thing for OP is whether he can gain some benefit at this point. Without considering that, this is really just a theoretical discussion. Which is fine. But in reality, there is absolutely no way to know if OP would have done better with accommodations.....even without the blood sugar drop he would have written a B+ exam. Maybe the time to bring his blood sugar back up gave him time to re-focus and he wrote a better exam. Once you lose a moment in time, you can't get it back. Second, what exactly can OP do about it at this point? Get an attorney, fight to retake a portion of the exam for material he is already done with? To be graded by a professor that can barely remember the question, or how everyone else did? Thats a good way to write an even worse exam. And its an even better way to make enemies. And thats assuming that the attorney can even get that concession out of the school. If the school says no, then what? The time and expense of filing a complaint?

And realistically, all of this may be worth the effort if OP had gotten a C, or even a B- because the risk would be worth the reward of having a chance to better the grade. And the risk might be worth the reward if OP had a crappy GPA and was on the verge of getting booted from law school, or if the grade was so bad that it was dragging down a truly remarkable GPA.

In all things, people should weigh the risk and reward. Not just push through because they may theoretically be right. What exactly does the OP win here? He only gets the chance to rewrite the exam. A B+ is the third highest mark you can get in a class (or fourth, if your school gives A+'s) which means that there is a good chance that OP rewrites the exam and ends up with a lower grade...or the professor just re-reads the exam and decides its a median effort because he can't remember the other exams and gives OP a B....which is a lower grade than what he has now. Or the professor realizes the inherent unfairness in allowing a student to rewrite a portion of the exam weeks after the rest of the class wrote the exam....and no matter how good the paper is, the OP ends up getting a B in the interest of "fairness."

And so with a high risk of going through a bunch of trouble to end up with a lower grade its not worth the very, very slim chance of the reward of getting an A- or better.

I think you're overhyping the whole thing. Most people who become professors become professors because they don't want to work insanely hard, want to research what they like and want a cushy gig. The last thing these people want is to be the reason why somebody gets/doesn't get a job. They could give a new test - it's not hard to grade a law school exam. Even as 1L's, friends and I could reach each other's tests before grades were posted and predict the range of the grade (A-/B+/B).

Precisely....they don't want to work too hard.....they don't want to have to read another essay and try to remember the question and how everyone else did and so on and so forth. And so, the most likely result for OP is that the professor gives him a B, or resolves to give him the same grade. That is the easiest thing to do, and arguably, the most equitable thing to do.

Writing a new exam question is even more work for the professor. And now the professor has to get that new exam question reviewed and approved, and the compare the new answer to everyone else's answer to a different question in the class. Its more and more work for a professor who does not want to do any additional work. And given the subjectivity of grading and inherent unfairness of the situation, the professor is more likely to either give the same grade, or a B (which would be worse).

A B+ is not going to ruin OP's job prospects, nor would a B....which is very likely the grade that the OP would get if he pushed the issue. The safest route for a professor to go is to give OP a B because: 1) its inherently unfair to the rest of the class for OP to get additional time to study/prepare for the exam that other students didn't get, 2) the professor can't properly compare an A exam from the initial final to a new question to determine what grade to give OP on the curve, and 3) its where the majority of students in the class should place....so its the easiest grade to give.

It actually is difficult to fairly grade a law school exam when you're supposed to be grading them on a curve....and especially if you have to grade an entirely new question and compare it to the old ones.

The most likely result is that OP gets the exact same grade or worse....and both the professor and the OP have to do more work to get the same or worse result. A professor is much more likely to simply think its fair and reasonable to judge OP's efforts as median, because its the easiest thing to do, and as you pointed out, professors prefer less work to more work.

I have no idea what you and your friends were doing, I was only able to pick up exams after grades were posted. Be that as it may, you and your friends are maybe 10 people......a professor in a 1L class is generally grading many, many more papers than that.

[HonestAdvice]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

Yeah, but what if the school decides to punish him by giving him a worse grade? Or OP catches professor on a bad day? Or professor is just upset that he has to read another exam instead of binge watching "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. Law school exams are super subjective....if the grade was in the C range it might be worth the risk....but a B+ isn't a terrible grade. And I suspect that if OP is super bummed about it, its because they are doing amazingly well in other classes so the B+ isn't going to drag down OPs GPA too much.

I don't think many professors would do that. Most of them take their duty to be objective seriously, know the importance for 1L grades, and aren't going to fuck OP over just for inconveniencing them. Grading isn't a science, but 99% of the time there's an intent to be objective, even if the outcome is subjective.

It doesn't matter how OP's GPA is in other classes. The issue is (1) whether OP would have done better if given the accommodations that dean should have implemented, and (2) whether OP can do anything about it. The GPA in other classes is irrelevant.

At this point, even if the professor wanted to be objective, how can he remember how the OP did in relation to everyone else in the class? 1L grades are meant to be on a curve, so how does the professor even place OP. And thats even saying that professors are really working double time to be objective....if this was the case, I don't think schools would need a blind grading system because they could count on professors to be objective. Given that OP got a relatively good grade, its not worth the risk of catching the professor on a bad day, or pissing him off enough to that he reads the exam while upset and is just looking for things to grade down.

It actually should matter how the OP's GPA in the macro view. Your points are more about looking at the trees instead of the forest.

The most important thing for OP is whether he can gain some benefit at this point. Without considering that, this is really just a theoretical discussion. Which is fine. But in reality, there is absolutely no way to know if OP would have done better with accommodations.....even without the blood sugar drop he would have written a B+ exam. Maybe the time to bring his blood sugar back up gave him time to re-focus and he wrote a better exam. Once you lose a moment in time, you can't get it back. Second, what exactly can OP do about it at this point? Get an attorney, fight to retake a portion of the exam for material he is already done with? To be graded by a professor that can barely remember the question, or how everyone else did? Thats a good way to write an even worse exam. And its an even better way to make enemies. And thats assuming that the attorney can even get that concession out of the school. If the school says no, then what? The time and expense of filing a complaint?

And realistically, all of this may be worth the effort if OP had gotten a C, or even a B- because the risk would be worth the reward of having a chance to better the grade. And the risk might be worth the reward if OP had a crappy GPA and was on the verge of getting booted from law school, or if the grade was so bad that it was dragging down a truly remarkable GPA.

In all things, people should weigh the risk and reward. Not just push through because they may theoretically be right. What exactly does the OP win here? He only gets the chance to rewrite the exam. A B+ is the third highest mark you can get in a class (or fourth, if your school gives A+'s) which means that there is a good chance that OP rewrites the exam and ends up with a lower grade...or the professor just re-reads the exam and decides its a median effort because he can't remember the other exams and gives OP a B....which is a lower grade than what he has now. Or the professor realizes the inherent unfairness in allowing a student to rewrite a portion of the exam weeks after the rest of the class wrote the exam....and no matter how good the paper is, the OP ends up getting a B in the interest of "fairness."

And so with a high risk of going through a bunch of trouble to end up with a lower grade its not worth the very, very slim chance of the reward of getting an A- or better.

I think you're overhyping the whole thing. Most people who become professors become professors because they don't want to work insanely hard, want to research what they like and want a cushy gig. The last thing these people want is to be the reason why somebody gets/doesn't get a job. They could give a new test - it's not hard to grade a law school exam. Even as 1L's, friends and I could reach each other's tests before grades were posted and predict the range of the grade (A-/B+/B).

Precisely....they don't want to work too hard.....they don't want to have to read another essay and try to remember the question and how everyone else did and so on and so forth. And so, the most likely result for OP is that the professor gives him a B, or resolves to give him the same grade. That is the easiest thing to do, and arguably, the most equitable thing to do.

Writing a new exam question is even more work for the professor. And now the professor has to get that new exam question reviewed and approved, and the compare the new answer to everyone else's answer to a different question in the class. Its more and more work for a professor who does not want to do any additional work. And given the subjectivity of grading and inherent unfairness of the situation, the professor is more likely to either give the same grade, or a B (which would be worse).

A B+ is not going to ruin OP's job prospects, nor would a B....which is very likely the grade that the OP would get if he pushed the issue. The safest route for a professor to go is to give OP a B because: 1) its inherently unfair to the rest of the class for OP to get additional time to study/prepare for the exam that other students didn't get, 2) the professor can't properly compare an A exam from the initial final to a new question to determine what grade to give OP on the curve, and 3) its where the majority of students in the class should place....so its the easiest grade to give.

It actually is difficult to fairly grade a law school exam when you're supposed to be grading them on a curve....and especially if you have to grade an entirely new question and compare it to the old ones.

The most likely result is that OP gets the exact same grade or worse....and both the professor and the OP have to do more work to get the same or worse result. A professor is much more likely to simply think its fair and reasonable to judge OP's efforts as median, because its the easiest thing to do, and as you pointed out, professors prefer less work to more work.

I have no idea what you and your friends were doing, I was only able to pick up exams after grades were posted. Be that as it may, you and your friends are maybe 10 people......a professor in a 1L class is generally grading many, many more papers than that.

This whole thing is a digression, and I'm guilty of it too as I responded twice, but the issue here isn't about law school grading. Whatever you're saying about OP can go both ways, and is indicative of your personal experience/feelings related to law school grading, and not necessarily how it affects OP.

B+ is not the likeliest grade. For the most part, most professors would give mostly A's if they could: they too are incentivized by the school having good employment #'s, and people normally like seeing those who they know do well, and don't care a whole lot about other people - just human nature.

Of course, it's getting off track. The question is whether OP should be entitled to a retest, and I think the answer is unequivocally yes. How a retest will affect OP's GPA is up for debate, but I think it wouldn't. I think that if the professor was aware of the circumstances then they would morally support OP having a retest. It's important to also consider the personalities of those who become law professors - normally they're fascinated by justice, game theory, etc., and in terms of fairness, I think OP wins.

Most of the reasons against a retest are related to the curve, but OP can be removed from the curve, have a fair test and then everyone wins.

[landshoes]

You might ask them to change it to a pass, with a note that there was a problem with the exam that led it to be impossible to assign it a letter grade. (I don't know if your school has this; A lot of schools have it for things like exams that are blatantly unfair or the professor dies before writing the exam or something like that where grading it is impossible.)

That takes the grade out of the equation. You tell employers there was some kind of problem with your exam (or whatever career services tells you to say).

If you've already requested accommodations, it should be clear that this is something that actually happened and not you disliking your B+. Given that, I think it's more than fair to take it out of your GPA for things like class rank and assigning honors.

If it were a doctrinal exam, that might seem worse than a B+, honestly.

yeah not sure how employers would react, honestly, but if it makes it look like it's the school's fault and it substantially improves his class rank maybe it would be worth the risk. especially because his other grades are consistent As so it's not like he has an A here, a B- there, where they can let their imaginations run wild.

if it doesn't affect his gpa or class rank enough for it to be a big deal, maybe it's not worth the risk of it looking weird. seems pretty contextual. but I wouldn't take a B+ that screwed my class rank and be fine with it. nor would I want to retake a test that I hadn't studied for in months. ultimately there are no great options, which is really too bad.

[HonestAdvice]

You might ask them to change it to a pass, with a note that there was a problem with the exam that led it to be impossible to assign it a letter grade. (I don't know if your school has this; A lot of schools have it for things like exams that are blatantly unfair or the professor dies before writing the exam or something like that where grading it is impossible.)

That takes the grade out of the equation. You tell employers there was some kind of problem with your exam (or whatever career services tells you to say).

If you've already requested accommodations, it should be clear that this is something that actually happened and not you disliking your B+. Given that, I think it's more than fair to take it out of your GPA for things like class rank and assigning honors.

If it were a doctrinal exam, that might seem worse than a B+, honestly.

yeah not sure how employers would react, honestly, but if it makes it look like it's the school's fault and it substantially improves his class rank maybe it would be worth the risk. especially because his other grades are consistent As so it's not like he has an A here, a B- there, where they can let their imaginations run wild.

if it doesn't affect his gpa or class rank enough for it to be a big deal, maybe it's not worth the risk of it looking weird. seems pretty contextual. but I wouldn't take a B+ that screwed my class rank and be fine with it. nor would I want to retake a test that I hadn't studied for in months. ultimately there are no great options, which is really too bad.

Something to keep in mind is that a lot of people in the legal world may be surprisingly unknowledgeable of something like Diabetes. While most of the people you'll be meeting will be intelligent and well educated, the nature of such a time intensive profession is that they aren't exactly keeping up to date with things outside of their practice area. If someone didn't understand Juvenile Diabetes, this is really just a variation on the test wasn't fair argument. In addition, you're unintentionally expressing the fact that your diabetes may impact your work performance, which actually gives a valid basis upon which to discriminate against you for being a Diabetic so doing this really leads you to the worst case scenario: (1) you look like you're giving excuses and (2) you provide a legal rationale upon which to ding you for being Diabetic. As is probably clear, I'm the most pro-your argument here, and even if I were the interviewer, I too would hold mentioning it against you, because my assumption would be if your blood sugar really was low you'd have had options available so I'd think you were bs-ing.

You will be surprised at how quickly you can remember things from a previous semester. THe more time you wait the weaker your argument as I said before. If you're going to make a move you need to do it ASAP. Like I said before, the greatest fact against you is how you waited. If you went right after the test your argument would be much better than it is now, and in a few weeks your argument will be dead. Make a decision, and behave based off that decision ASAP. Speak to your parents, your doctor, etc. DO NOT SIT, AND WALLOW.

[rcharter1978]

Hello all OP here,

Thank you for the all the responses. I want to clear up more of the story. Basically, I went and talked to the dean at the beginning of the year and I told her about my condition. She then asked if she thought it was worthy of accommodations. I told her that my last A1Cs have been great and just allowing me to have food and be able to check my sugars should be okay , but I did express to her hypoglycemic attacks can hit anytime and I was nervous about that happening during an exam. She got...I don't want to say hostile, but she asked very pointed questions like "are you officially requesting accommodations" "What kind of accommodations do you think are fair?" And honestly this was during like the first few weeks of law school and my head was already swimming. Looking back I should have been more assertive, but I wasn't. I did tell her I have it under control very well and she seemed to pretty much dismiss the issue after that.

My grade was a 3.3/B+, its about exactly median at our school. I just know I could have done so much better, and Its by far my lowest grade so far. Would getting some sort of letter written explaining what happened impact any employers or would that just be a waste of time?

I take the blame here, really. I should have asserted accommodations and I didn't. Just having it hit me during an exam was a cruel joke. I now have accommodations in place so that I take the exam in a separate room, and if I feel an attack coming on I inform the proctor and they pause the time for the time necessary to get me back to normal, which I think is very fair.

Like someone earlier said, I think I just have to bite the bullet on this exam and hope it doesn't mess up my job prospects too badly. Definitely still semi-depressed over it though. God law school grading systems....:/

It would sound like an excuse, and would only hurt more than the B+ will hurt.

If this is what happened then you should push the university to allow you to retake the test notwithstanding the fact that grades are in. With that story, you still have a decent argument. To be honest, not doing anything between when you posted this and now is the biggest strike against you, because it looks like you weren't happy with the grade, and are pretending you were hypoglycemic. I don't think that, but that's what some people will argue. The more time you wait, the weaker your argument gets. It sounds like the dean became aggressive, and led you to not formerly request accommodations. I think using the argument I made above about why your saying you have it under control, if it is true, is a good argument. The more time you wait, the less options you have and the more unlikely you are to get a good outcome.

Yeah, but what if the school decides to punish him by giving him a worse grade? Or OP catches professor on a bad day? Or professor is just upset that he has to read another exam instead of binge watching "Grace and Frankie" on Netflix. Law school exams are super subjective....if the grade was in the C range it might be worth the risk....but a B+ isn't a terrible grade. And I suspect that if OP is super bummed about it, its because they are doing amazingly well in other classes so the B+ isn't going to drag down OPs GPA too much.

I don't think many professors would do that. Most of them take their duty to be objective seriously, know the importance for 1L grades, and aren't going to fuck OP over just for inconveniencing them. Grading isn't a science, but 99% of the time there's an intent to be objective, even if the outcome is subjective.

It doesn't matter how OP's GPA is in other classes. The issue is (1) whether OP would have done better if given the accommodations that dean should have implemented, and (2) whether OP can do anything about it. The GPA in other classes is irrelevant.

I think you're overhyping the whole thing. Most people who become professors become professors because they don't want to work insanely hard, want to research what they like and want a cushy gig. The last thing these people want is to be the reason why somebody gets/doesn't get a job. They could give a new test - it's not hard to grade a law school exam. Even as 1L's, friends and I could reach each other's tests before grades were posted and predict the range of the grade (A-/B+/B).

Precisely....they don't want to work too hard.....they don't want to have to read another essay and try to remember the question and how everyone else did and so on and so forth. And so, the most likely result for OP is that the professor gives him a B, or resolves to give him the same grade. That is the easiest thing to do, and arguably, the most equitable thing to do.

Writing a new exam question is even more work for the professor. And now the professor has to get that new exam question reviewed and approved, and the compare the new answer to everyone else's answer to a different question in the class. Its more and more work for a professor who does not want to do any additional work. And given the subjectivity of grading and inherent unfairness of the situation, the professor is more likely to either give the same grade, or a B (which would be worse).

A B+ is not going to ruin OP's job prospects, nor would a B....which is very likely the grade that the OP would get if he pushed the issue. The safest route for a professor to go is to give OP a B because: 1) its inherently unfair to the rest of the class for OP to get additional time to study/prepare for the exam that other students didn't get, 2) the professor can't properly compare an A exam from the initial final to a new question to determine what grade to give OP on the curve, and 3) its where the majority of students in the class should place....so its the easiest grade to give.

It actually is difficult to fairly grade a law school exam when you're supposed to be grading them on a curve....and especially if you have to grade an entirely new question and compare it to the old ones.

The most likely result is that OP gets the exact same grade or worse....and both the professor and the OP have to do more work to get the same or worse result. A professor is much more likely to simply think its fair and reasonable to judge OP's efforts as median, because its the easiest thing to do, and as you pointed out, professors prefer less work to more work.

I have no idea what you and your friends were doing, I was only able to pick up exams after grades were posted. Be that as it may, you and your friends are maybe 10 people......a professor in a 1L class is generally grading many, many more papers than that.

This whole thing is a digression, and I'm guilty of it too as I responded twice, but the issue here isn't about law school grading. Whatever you're saying about OP can go both ways, and is indicative of your personal experience/feelings related to law school grading, and not necessarily how it affects OP.

B+ is not the likeliest grade. For the most part, most professors would give mostly A's if they could: they too are incentivized by the school having good employment #'s, and people normally like seeing those who they know do well, and don't care a whole lot about other people - just human nature.

Of course, it's getting off track. The question is whether OP should be entitled to a retest, and I think the answer is unequivocally yes. How a retest will affect OP's GPA is up for debate, but I think it wouldn't. I think that if the professor was aware of the circumstances then they would morally support OP having a retest. It's important to also consider the personalities of those who become law professors - normally they're fascinated by justice, game theory, etc., and in terms of fairness, I think OP wins.

Most of the reasons against a retest are related to the curve, but OP can be removed from the curve, have a fair test and then everyone wins.

I have no idea what you're basing a professors desire to give A's on. I've never heard that from a professor. Even in classes where professors don't have to follow a curve, there generally isn't a class full of A's. And those classes are generally taught by the same professors. So where does that assertion come from?

So, a B, B+ is the likeliest grade. It has the benefit of not being a difficult choice for the professor and likely not being something that screws the OP. Most of the students get B's in a curved class, and arguably that is the grade that allows most students to do fine in life.

As for human nature, a student who complains after the fact about a low blood sugar and now demands a test be re-written so he can take it is just as likely to look like he just wants a re-do. And that isn't going to necessarily play into everyone sense of fair play.

The question is not whether the OP should be entitled to a re-test, the question for the OP is whether he is likely to gain any benefit from pushing for a re-test.

The answer is no. He is likely to get the same or a worse grade (I still have no idea where you come up with the idea that professors love giving A's since even in classes without a curve there aren't all A's), and he has to re-study material that he is already done with in order to get that B, and then if the school just tells him to pound sand, he has to get an attorney and fight them. All with the likely outcome being lower than his original grade.

I think the professor would be more likely to want to help out the OP if the grade was a stinker, but a student who is demanding the professor put in all this extra work over the third highest grade in the class is not going to be a sympathetic character. You've mentioned that the professors feelings and subjectivity will affect a grade (professors would give A's if they could, so OP is more likely to get an A). The professor is more likely going to just give him the median grade because its the easiest and fairest thing to do. So instead of a B+, he will end up with a B.

If we're considering fairness and personalities, a professor is more likely to think its patently unfair to all the other students that the OP gets a re-do when he never mentioned his low blood sugar during the test. So, in terms of fairness, I think if he gets a re-test, the professor just gives him a B, or the exact same grade. Even if the professor was understanding, the easiest thing to do is give the median grade. Being taken out of the curve is also inherently unfair to other students....if the curve was tight there are students that wrote A- papers, but ended up with a B. Its unfair to them that another student gets to have their work judged off the curve.