New Loyola - CA grading system Forum

[helfer snooterbagon]

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So now you can have a 4.66 GPA out of Loyola!

[nealric]

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[trinacria1383]

This type of horse shit is beyond typical from Loyola.

[Connelly]

This could screw some of the FT kids at the top of the program. PT students last year may have 4.67's on their transcript, and there's no way for the new FT students that just started (and who I would assume would be ranked against the PT students with inflated A+'s) to get 4.67's. But perhaps Loyola ranks their students separately.

[macattaq]

This could screw some of the FT kids at the top of the program. PT students last year may have 4.67's on their transcript, and there's no way for the new FT students that just started (and who I would assume would be ranked against the PT students with inflated A+'s) to get 4.67's. But perhaps Loyola ranks their students separately.

Uh no.

They had to change the curve for all students, not just retroactively for graduates. So, where 2009 grads got a grade bump, the current students will have seen the same. As an earlier commenter on the article pointed out, the students who are screwed are those who graduated before 2009. Then again, if they didn't already have jobs, they were screwed with or without the school changing the curve post-graduation.

[Connelly]

This could screw some of the FT kids at the top of the program. PT students last year may have 4.67's on their transcript, and there's no way for the new FT students that just started (and who I would assume would be ranked against the PT students with inflated A+'s) to get 4.67's. But perhaps Loyola ranks their students separately.

Uh no.

They had to change the curve for all students, not just retroactively for graduates. So, where 2009 grads got a grade bump, the current students will have seen the same. As an earlier commenter on the article pointed out, the students who are screwed are those who graduated before 2009. Then again, if they didn't already have jobs, they were screwed with or without the school changing the curve post-graduation.

Ah, I didn't see that they were giving out 4.67's going forward. My understanding was that they were not. I didn't think they would actually give out A+* grades in the future. This is madness.

Grade conversions usually suck. This one is no different.

[macattaq]

This could screw some of the FT kids at the top of the program. PT students last year may have 4.67's on their transcript, and there's no way for the new FT students that just started (and who I would assume would be ranked against the PT students with inflated A+'s) to get 4.67's. But perhaps Loyola ranks their students separately.

Uh no.

They had to change the curve for all students, not just retroactively for graduates. So, where 2009 grads got a grade bump, the current students will have seen the same. As an earlier commenter on the article pointed out, the students who are screwed are those who graduated before 2009. Then again, if they didn't already have jobs, they were screwed with or without the school changing the curve post-graduation.

Ah, I didn't see that they were giving out 4.67's going forward. My understanding was that they were not. I didn't think they would actually give out A+* grades in the future. This is madness.

Grade conversions usually suck. This one is no different.

Why?

[RayFinkle]

Your mom goes to college.

[zeth006]

Your mom goes to college.

Non sequitur?

[quickquestionthanks]

At my UG, if you had an 7.9, you were pretty much failing out of school.

[Bert]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

[Danteshek]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

I think it's a pretty lame move. 3.0 curve I can understand. 3.3 is a little much.

[legalease9]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

It's utterly meaningless. Law firms will see right through it. Since ranking is in no way effected, firms will still take the same percentage of top ranked students that they did before, and reject everyone else. This is more about convincing students to attend then actually pulling one over on firms, which they wont be able to do.

[legalease9]

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YES!

[arhmcpo]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

In the long term probably nothing besides a minor reputation hit if that. UCLA and USC also bumped up their curves from a B to a B+ (I think). Doing this makes Loyola the subject of scorn for some, since bumping up grades is a way to look like your helping students with job prospects while actually doing little or nothing, since each person's ranking stays the same. Regardless of whether you think grade bumping helps, we can all agree that a law school can and should do much more to help their students get jobs.

However, Proponents claim that some employers will look at applicants gpa's heavily, and are more likely to ignore the curve at the school or the relative rank of the applicant at their law school (i.e. rewarding applicants with high gpa's without looking at the relative merit). Don't know if there is any proof of this working, its just something that some law school's seem to assume to be true: that if their students have higher gpa's they will be more likely to get a job.

From a purist's prospective, grade bumping seems cheap, like selling out the academic integrity of the traditional Bell Curve, in order to attempt to improve short term job prospects of applicants. Also in order to grade bump, a school has to basically admit that their students are having a hard time finding jobs, thus necessitating the grade bump.

Basically, claims that grade bumping helps students get jobs or alternatively hurts the reputation of a school and does nothing for jobs, are just opinions at this point and their accuracy won't be known until someone can provide some real facts on the subject. I would hope employers are smart enough to see through this ploy.

[Arrow]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

It's utterly meaningless. Law firms will see right through it. Since ranking is in no way effected, firms will still take the same percentage of top ranked students that they did before, and reject everyone else. This is more about convincing students to attend then actually pulling one over on firms, which they wont be able to do.

With one year of Loyola grades under my belt, I have to admit this is a huge boost to my GPA. Seriously, now that one year of GPA is above 4.0! Receiving an A++/A+*/4.66 is well, a bit, weird. Before the change, my GPA was under 4.0, so any grade inflation was not obvious. But now, if you put a 4.46 down on your resume, for example, it looks super obvious that something is amiss.

I do agree that law firms will see right through it. This is definitely true for big law firms, who look more at rankings for standardization among the many law schools. However, is it possible it "subjectively" affects their perspectives? Maybe a little? For smaller and other out-of-statement law firms though, especially ones not familiar with Loyola, they might not know about its former death curve. So, it might help out there. I do agree that some government/firm jobs often have GPA cutoffs, and people might not be able to apply to these jobs simply because of the harsh curve, so a grade inflation in this economy does make sense.

I do think that a 0.33 boost is a bit high though, though perhaps justified by our harsh curve. The top 10% cutoff in some years is a mere 3.45, and top 15% is a 3.33, which sounds like straight B+'s. Perhaps 0.15 boost is more appropriate, but I do see how the lowest possible boost they could give is a 0.33, since they are changing all the letter grades too, not must the mere GPA number.

The Dean admitted that there will be controversy, and there definitely is. However, he weighed the pros and cons and said the benefits outweighs the cons, and I agree (though it is a close call). Employers should see through the ploy, but for now, I feel like some employers won't, and the fact that some won't will help out the students. While many disagree with the GPA boost, I think we should give credit to the school for trying to help out its students and its alumni.

I hope the GPA boost doesn't demotivate people though =P, if I knew my GPA was suddenly going up 0.33 for no apparently reason I might...just... Nah. Everyone's a winner. =P

[tortbook]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

I think it's a pretty lame move. 3.0 curve I can understand. 3.3 is a little much.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this an accurate list of median grades for LA schools:
Loyola - 3.3
Pepperdine - 3.0
Southwestern - 2.9 (1L) / 3.0 (2 & 3L)
UCLA - 3.3
USC - 3.3

If so, I'll bet Pepperdine and Southwestern follow suit and raise to 3.3 soon enough...

[Bert]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

I think it's a pretty lame move. 3.0 curve I can understand. 3.3 is a little much.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this an accurate list of median grades for LA schools:
Loyola - 3.3
Pepperdine - 3.0
Southwestern - 2.9 (1L) / 3.0 (2 & 3L)
UCLA - 3.3
USC - 3.3

If so, I'll bet Pepperdine and Southwestern follow suit and raise to 3.3 soon enough...

And then what, UCLA and USC raise their medians to maintain that an average student at UCLA/UCLA is better than the average student at LLS, thus starting the cycle again? These schools are playing games with peoples educations and careers and everybody just accepts it as a legitimate game play? I do understand that there is no simple solution (especially if the ABA is unwilling/unable to do anything about anything), but it seems like the wild west all over again.

[tortbook]

Curious what people actually think about LLS's decision to bump up grades. LLS is in the running for me, and I wonder how people think this will affect the school and its students, or if people think this is just another example of a school playing games.

I think it's a pretty lame move. 3.0 curve I can understand. 3.3 is a little much.

Please correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this an accurate list of median grades for LA schools:
Loyola - 3.3
Pepperdine - 3.0
Southwestern - 2.9 (1L) / 3.0 (2 & 3L)
UCLA - 3.3
USC - 3.3

If so, I'll bet Pepperdine and Southwestern follow suit and raise to 3.3 soon enough...

And then what, UCLA and USC raise their medians to maintain that an average student at UCLA/UCLA is better than the average student at LLS, thus starting the cycle again? These schools are playing games with peoples educations and careers and everybody just accepts it as a legitimate game play? I do understand that there is no simple solution (especially if the ABA is unwilling/unable to do anything about anything), but it seems like the wild west all over again.

Yeah, if the ABA put a cap on how high schools could raise their medians then all the schools would probably just match that number right away and then it wouldn't matter as much. But even then the schools will still find ways to game the system... The more things change the more they stay the same.

[Danteshek]

I would like to see ABA require 3.0 mean for all large classes. 3.0 would be recommendation for classes under 30 students, with periodic review from ABA to make sure recommendation policy isn't being abused.

However, I wouldn't mind Southwestern staying at 3.0 even if all the other schools are at 3.3. We need a little wiggle room to distinguish ourselves against students from other schools.