Waiting for 1L grades...so much worse than waiting for LSATs Forum

[Snooker]

The grade wait is going to be even sicker after 2nd semester. Not looking forward to it.

Perhaps. However, the challange that I had with the wait for the semester is having no real idea of where I stood with respect to everyone else. At least I will have some point of reference next semester.

I have no grades from this semester and you motherfuckers are talking about next semester? omgfuckinggodoneoneoneoneone I am soo close to banning.

do it. please, please do it. the grade drought is unbearable

I am feeling it, too. At the beginning it's OK. Then we're down to classes starting and I still don't know. Today, I almost went stir crazy from the grades draught! When I was in undergrad, we always got our grades back within a week or two. What is this shit?

[BobSacamano]

Question for the prepping advocates - I understand how it might possibly be seen as beneficial for first semester, but how the hell are you supposed to remember anything from the 0L summer by second semester?

[ZXCVBNM]

for those that did well first semester, any advice on keeping it up second semester? any pitfalls to avoid?

[TTT-LS]

.

[vanwinkle]

Very interesting to see that JazzOne wound up in the top 1%* or so of the class after making a hardcore effort to read ahead and learn all the legal rules before starting class. And he's not burned out, I imagine he's quite pumped up after this. That makes 2 cases I've read on TLS of people doing a large pre-study of their classes and placing at the very top of the class. So much for telling him that this was a mistake.



* Rough estimation based on nalp law schools, any student who has 3 of the same grades and qualifies for HYS would be in the top percent.

Hilarious. Are you alleging cause and effect? Does the fact that I was top 1% after 1L year, at a much higher-ranked school and despite doing none of the nonsense you recommend, affect that conclusion?

Haha, pwned.

[superserial]

Very interesting to see that JazzOne wound up in the top 1%* or so of the class after making a hardcore effort to read ahead and learn all the legal rules before starting class. And he's not burned out, I imagine he's quite pumped up after this. That makes 2 cases I've read on TLS of people doing a large pre-study of their classes and placing at the very top of the class. So much for telling him that this was a mistake.



* Rough estimation based on nalp law schools, any student who has 3 of the same grades and qualifies for HYS would be in the top percent.

Hilarious. Are you alleging cause and effect? Does the fact that I was top 1% after 1L year, at a much higher-ranked school and despite doing none of the nonsense you recommend, affect that conclusion?

Haha, pwned.

ugh snooker is such a douchelord.

[agumon]

Hilarious. Are you alleging cause and effect? Does the fact that I was top 1% after 1L year, at a much higher-ranked school and despite doing none of the nonsense you recommend, affect that conclusion?

Lawned.

[Kohinoor]

any pitfalls to avoid?

Helping others.

[Cavalier]

Very interesting to see that JazzOne wound up in the top 1%* or so of the class after making a hardcore effort to read ahead and learn all the legal rules before starting class. And he's not burned out, I imagine he's quite pumped up after this. That makes 2 cases I've read on TLS of people doing a large pre-study of their classes and placing at the very top of the class. So much for telling him that this was a mistake.



* Rough estimation based on nalp law schools, any student who has 3 of the same grades and qualifies for HYS would be in the top percent.

Hilarious. Are you alleging cause and effect? Does the fact that I was top 1% after 1L year, at a much higher-ranked school and despite doing none of the nonsense you recommend, affect that conclusion?

Haha, pwned.

ugh snooker is such a douchelord.

+1

[Snooker]

Does the fact that I was top 1% after 1L year, at a much higher-ranked school and despite doing none of the nonsense you recommend, affect that conclusion?

Not really, if you ever took a basic course on science or logic and understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. If 90% of the people who read as extensively as JazzOne did wind up in the top 1%, and only 15% of the people who took your relaxation approach, then yes we'd have established a correlation. However, I didn't actually allege causation because I pointed out that there's relatively few people who followed that approach. (I didn't even have time to follow it, but I read a few short books while on airplanes and 2-3 on the weekend before law school) I've typically pointed out that nobody has yet to actually study the issue, but there are lots of reasons to think that it would improve performance, but even then the amount of improvement should only be modest. Maybe someone predicted to be at 40th percentile will be in the 50th or 60th percentile. You are misrepresenting my point if you think I am suggesting reading ahead would always result in some sort of outstanding improvement, though to date we've heard a few stories where people who read ahead did extremely well.

That you got good grades and went to a good school without reading ahead ultimately just confirms what we knew all along - many people went to good schools and got good grades without reading ahead. I will be happy to point out to future 0Ls that you got good grades without reading ahead. In fact, I'll post both sides and say which I think has the stronger point.

You provide some very useful advice about jobs and the social aspects of law school, but I have yet to see you seriously discuss this particular issue. Do you think you could lay the evidence out for your position without resorting to some sort of flame war? All I have ever seen you write is that most 2Ls posting here think that reading ahead isn't helpful, and that you got really good grades without reading ahead. But what you need to prove your point is to find that the people who read ahead didn't rank any better than people who spent the summer relaxing, and we need to hear from a large number of people on the issue. A secondary means would be to rely on our understanding of what it means to learn the law and come up with some theoretical basis for why reading ahead shouldn't be effective. Your library probably has a book shelf dedicated to this issue. Don't try to turn it into some sort of internet bragging contest, since nobody will take that seriously, and I do not really care about internet flame wars.

[Esc]

Does the fact that I was top 1% after 1L year, at a much higher-ranked school and despite doing none of the nonsense you recommend, affect that conclusion?

Not really, if you ever took a basic course on science or logic and understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions. If 90% of the people who read as extensively as JazzOne did wind up in the top 1%, and only 15% of the people who took your relaxation approach, then yes we'd have established a correlation. However, I didn't actually allege causation because I pointed out that there's relatively few people who followed that approach. (I didn't even have time to follow it, but I read a few short books while on airplanes and 2-3 on the weekend before law school) I've typically pointed out that nobody has yet to actually study the issue, but there are lots of reasons to think that it would improve performance, but even then the amount of improvement should only be modest. Maybe someone predicted to be at 40th percentile will be in the 50th or 60th percentile. You are misrepresenting my point if you think I am suggesting reading ahead would always result in some sort of outstanding improvement, though to date we've heard a few stories where people who read ahead did extremely well.

That you got good grades and went to a good school without reading ahead ultimately just confirms what we knew all along - many people went to good schools and got good grades without reading ahead. I will be happy to point out to future 0Ls that you got good grades without reading ahead. In fact, I'll post both sides and say which I think has the stronger point.

You provide some very useful advice about jobs and the social aspects of law school, but I have yet to see you seriously discuss this particular issue. Do you think you could lay the evidence out for your position without resorting to some sort of flame war? All I have ever seen you write is that most 2Ls posting here think that reading ahead isn't helpful, and that you got really good grades without reading ahead. But what you need to prove your point is to find that the people who read ahead didn't rank any better than people who spent the summer relaxing, and we need to hear from a large number of people on the issue. A secondary means would be to rely on our understanding of what it means to learn the law and come up with some theoretical basis for why reading ahead shouldn't be effective. Your library probably has a book shelf dedicated to this issue. Don't try to turn it into some sort of internet bragging contest, since nobody will take that seriously, and I do not really care about internet flame wars.

I read the Glannon E&Es for Torts and CivPro before starting. I think it was a good idea. I didn't take either class this semester, but the reading helped me be more familiar with a lot of the concepts mentioned in passing but necessary to have a deeper understanding of the material. Will it help my grades? Probably not.

Seems like a dumb thing to argue about from, from either perspective. Some people like me probably would enjoy a bit of 0L study. Others/most won't.

[legends159]

I doubt the issue is whether one should do what one enjoys. If you enjoy doing 0L prep then by all means go ahead.

But as to whether 0L prepping will help one excel in law school, that's debatable. I tried reading the torts EE the summer before and couldn't get past the first 2 chapters. It took about 10 minutes to read a single page because I had to re-read constantly.

Looked over the torts EE again 2/3 into last semester and read that thing cover to cover in about 3 hours. It's a lot easier to read something when you already know a lot about a subject and know what parts are essential and which ones are not.

FWIW I didn't do any 0L study besides read GTM, which I didn't read again and which I didn't find helpful and I did fine.

I think TTT is dead on when it comes to certain people, such as myself, and 0L prepping. If you're the kind of person that enjoys studying for the sake of studying then by all means 0L prep it up. Prep over winter break for spring semester etc. But if you're like me, who sees studying as a necessary means to an end then it might not be as helpful.

[heyguys]

I think TTT is dead on when it comes to certain people, such as myself, and 0L prepping. If you're the kind of person that enjoys studying for the sake of studying then by all means 0L prep it up. Prep over winter break for spring semester etc. But if you're like me, who sees studying as a necessary means to an end then it might not be as helpful.

I think I largely agree with this, but I also think that folks like legends and I don't have the same perspective as the vast majority of law students: if I were a 1L at, say, Baylor or somewhere like that, I would almost certainly have spent the summer before law school studying my ass off. I can't say for sure that it would have helped, but at that point in time it would have been hard to say that it would hurt. And in the end, in this economy, I would want to feel like I had exhausted all avenues. Thank God I am not having to do that though--honestly, if it had come down to that I probably just would have done something besides law school.

[twistedwrister]

I'm with TTT-LS when it comes to 0L prep. I did absolutely none and ended up top 5% at a top school. Here's a true story from my 1L year that shows the potential dangers of trying to learn substantive law as a 0L. A friend of mine read E&E's before school started and also used them throughout the semester. He probably prepared part of his outline using E&E's and/or other supplements, but I'm not positive about that. He seemed to know exactly what he was talking about during our study group, but when grades came out, he got a B-. He talked to the prof, who mentioned a few things he did wrong. (1) He discussed issues that we had never talked about, or even touched on, in class, instead of focusing on the issues the professor was most interested in, and (2) he misinterpreted some of the more complex/controversial cases. He said that when he looked back through his notes and the supplements he used, the professor had a slightly different take on certain doctrine than the supplements, but he didn't pick up on it.

I guess this shows the potential problems w/ using supplements in general, at least if you rely on them too much. However, the general takeaway is that you should focus on what your professors focus on, and that is impossible to do as a 0L.

This is not to say that prepping as a 0L can never help -- I'm sure it does help some people get acquainted with a subject so they feel more confident and prepared when dealing with the material in school. However, be wary of trying to learn too much detailed, substantive law before you know your prof's point of view.

[BobSacamano]

Reading the Torts and Crim E&E's before class started would not only have been unhelpful, it could have been damaging. We didn't cover half the stuff either supplement did (we did nothing about rape and theft, for example), but we did cover plenty of stuff not in the E&E's. Also, we learned damages in a completely different way than the Torts supplement and barely focused on the difference between the common law and MPC in Crim.

I'm still convinced that the best way to succeed in law school is to go to class, take good notes, don't miss the forest for the trees, and prepare for exams in whatever way makes you comfortable. Law students talk about outlines like they're some mythical key to the conquest, but the reality is that they may not work for you. My outlines, when I made them, were just my notes cut and pasted into my professor's syllabus.

[thesealocust]

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[vanwinkle]

Not really, if you ever took a basic course on science or logic and understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions.

WTF, you're going to defend the concept of people studying as 0Ls based on a single point of data, and then respond to someone responding with a single counter-point of data as claiming they don't understand basic logic? Fail.

[Snooker]

I doubt the issue is whether one should do what one enjoys. If you enjoy doing 0L prep then by all means go ahead.

But as to whether 0L prepping will help one excel in law school, that's debatable. I tried reading the torts EE the summer before and couldn't get past the first 2 chapters. It took about 10 minutes to read a single page because I had to re-read constantly.

Looked over the torts EE again 2/3 into last semester and read that thing cover to cover in about 3 hours. It's a lot easier to read something when you already know a lot about a subject and know what parts are essential and which ones are not.

FWIW I didn't do any 0L study besides read GTM, which I didn't read again and which I didn't find helpful and I did fine.

I think TTT is dead on when it comes to certain people, such as myself, and 0L prepping. If you're the kind of person that enjoys studying for the sake of studying then by all means 0L prep it up. Prep over winter break for spring semester etc. But if you're like me, who sees studying as a necessary means to an end then it might not be as helpful.

I agree about the reading speed thing. I did not read any E&Es, I did some light conceptual reading on airplanes, but found that when the term started I was able to get through material a lot faster than other classmates. If anything, it just made law school less stressful. It's pretty much an undisputed point in psychology that the more you know about a particular subject, the better your reading comprehension will be when presented with that field's materials (they call it schema building / scaffolding). I never read the E&Es and am not sure how helpful that would be.

I did disagree with JazzOne in the past that reading so intensively could be so helpful, but he responded that it seemed to be really helpful for him. That method shouldn't be just dismissed out of hand. The answer to these questions would probably come from surveying 1L classes and such. We do know from studies that working hypos increases grades, and what JazzOne reported doing was basically pre-learning all of the BLL and then spending his time working on problems. I found I had a lot of spare time to work on problems, too, but not to the extent that JazzOne did.

[Snooker]

Not really, if you ever took a basic course on science or logic and understand the difference between necessary and sufficient conditions.

WTF, you're going to defend the concept of people studying as 0Ls based on a single point of data, and then respond to someone responding with a single counter-point of data as claiming they don't understand basic logic? Fail.

It was TTTrolling. Don't take it so seriously. To put the conversation in context, I made the point several months ago that reading ahead should help. TTT's response was that I should post my grades when they come out, and then we'd know whether I'm right or not. JazzOne just got his grades recently and advocated reading ahead to a more serious extent than anyone else did, then turns up in the top 1%. I posted a single data point because TTT asked for a single data point.

If you saw my other posts, you will have seen me, on at least 10 occasions, suggesting that a larger sample is needed, but TTT has never made such a suggestion. In these above posts, I am just responding to TTT along the lines of the logic he has suggested. If anything, this conversation should more or less show that nothing can be proven by such a small sample size.

[Esc]

Let's go back to waiting for grades. And complaining about them. FUCKING SLOW ASS PROFESSORS!

[vanwinkle]

If you saw my other posts, you will have seen me, on at least 10 occasions, suggesting that a larger sample is needed, but TTT has never made such a suggestion. In these above posts, I am just responding to TTT along the lines of the logic he has suggested. If anything, this conversation should more or less show that nothing can be proven by such a small sample size.

Actually, the idea of studying as a 0L being good can be sufficiently disproven with a single data point, if that data point effectively conveys that there can be a real negative impact your grades. Someone in fact provided such a data point just a few posts ago, indicating someone got a B- in a class because they had studied as a 0L and relied on that knowledge on the test, and it was knowledge that was not discussed in class or appropriate to be discussing in the test.

Small sample sizes don't often prove anything in the affirmative, but they can and do sometimes prove something in the negative.

[mallard]

Most people whose stuff I've read who got top grades didn't use E&Es except to clarify issues anyway, rendering this idea of studying over the summer pretty silly.

[thexfactor]

Most people whose stuff I've read who got top grades didn't use E&Es except to clarify issues anyway, rendering this idea of studying over the summer pretty silly.

I think that it might be the case for the "top" 10% of students at any given school. However, I dont think its true if you look at the majority of students who did well IE top 1/4 or top 1/3. All I know is that E+E and hornbooks saved my ass.
I think you also have to realize that while you have to be creative with your arguments you cant bring in things that the professor NEVER talked about.

[apper123]

When I used my Glannon or other supplements, I took special care to highlight in the table of contents all the subjects covered in class or listed in the syllabus. This way I didn't make the mistake of discussing or learning something we didn't cover, and then focusing on the wrong stuff on the exam. I also noted with a highlighter stuff that disagreed with the professor in Glannon (and this DID happen often across all subjects). If I had prepped over my 0L summer, I would have been unable to do this. I did 0 work over the summer, and I am likely top 5 % of my class.

[thesealocust]

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