Top Law Schools

EDIT: The original data yielded a very top-heavy distribution (50% of respondents self-reporting in the top decile), so on advice of counsel I've edited the poll to include more gradation among the very top ranks. Please recast your votes, or vote for the first time if you haven't yet done so.




I just wanted to gauge where TLS users stand vs. the curve in general. So this is an anonymous poll for those currently in law school, 1L through 3L. Right now, where does your cumulative GPA put you in terms of class ranking? If you can only take an educated guess/ballpark it, then do so.

Obviously if you polled every student in a school you should get an even distribution, but my working hypothesis is that TLS users will be more skewed towards higher GPAs.

Wish I knew. Have only received one grade from the spring term.

Good idea, should be interesting to see if there are a lot of responses.

PSA: top 10% is a big place. Your poll should include more gradation.

lol what if im a 0L?

solidsnake wrote:PSA: top 10% is a big place. Your poll should include more gradation.

i totally agree.

KingJames6 wrote:lol what if im a 0L?

"Forum for Law School Students", don't click on it.

,

I would say I am surprised by the results of the poll, but I would be lying.

Just like 35 or so of the responders to this poll.

That'd skewed top 10% reminded me of this:

http://xkcd.com/715/

solidsnake wrote:PSA: top 10% is a big place. Your poll should include more gradation.

Well, arguably, any decile is just as big a place. I figure that "top 10%" is equivalent to "top of the class" any way you slice it. At most schools, top 10% after 1L will get you onto law review.

KingJames6 wrote:lol what if im a 0L?

Just don't vote. That would be polluting the data. You don't have law school grades.

I recognize there's still a big potential for bias in this poll: schools that publish only top 10% cutoffs, etc. don't give students an accurate idea of where they fall if they're in the bottom ranks. Anyone who did fall in the bottom 10% is more likely to drop out (survivor bias.) Those in the bottom rungs maybe are spending more time studying these days and less time clicking around TLS. But if you can trust the current data to be even remotely accurate, I think you can say that the majority of TLS users score in the upper echelons of the grading scale in law school.

This is along the lines of another poll I ran about a month and a half ago to find out how many TLSers are in the T14. Take from the data what you will, I was just curious.

vexion wrote:

solidsnake wrote:PSA: top 10% is a big place. Your poll should include more gradation.

Well, arguably, any decile is just as big a place. I figure that "top 10%" is equivalent to "top of the class" any way you slice it. At most schools, top 10% after 1L will get you onto law review.

Right, but since the TLS sample has such a skewed distribution your poll would be more useful if it operated a premise other than top 10% being equivalent to "top of the class," as it would tend to 1) show gradation in the one percentile range where the overwhelming majority of respondents have placed and 2) use a more precise definition of "top." E.g., In a school of 400ppl/class, top 10% can include 1-40, some of whom hardly being at the "top" in the plain-meaning sense. As an aside, ITE has made the blanket top 10% distinction all but meaningless (although not for L. Rev. at some schools, as you pointed out) at anywhere outside the t14 (and perhaps within as well). That being said, you would be better served to reevaluate your assumption and devise a poll that had top 1, top 2, top 3, top 5, top 10, top 15, down to top 50%, as anything below that is a dark, murky abyss of failure and self-loathing (which would likely affect reporting integrity moreso than that of those who placed above the median).

Hmm... analysis?

(a) Only the people who did well are responding to the poll.
(b) TLS is a great place for information, so those who come to TLS and read threads like Arrow's, Scribe's, etc. do better.
(c) The kind of people who come on TLS are the kind of people who are going to do well anyway.
(d) Something else?
(e) Combination?

traehekat wrote:Hmm... analysis?

(a) Only the people who did well are responding to the poll.

Well, this is another bias in self-selecting samples. Hopefully the anonymity of the poll encourages everyone to respond.

traehekat wrote:Hmm... analysis?

(a) Only the people who did well are responding to the poll.
(b) TLS is a great place for information, so those who come to TLS and read threads like Arrow's, Scribe's, etc. do better.
(c) The kind of people who come on TLS are the kind of people who are going to do well anyway.
(d) Something else?
(e) Combination?

Combination of (a) and other: people exaggerate.

edit: n/m

how about law students answering that suck at math (as the pages of rank calculations prove) trying to figure out 'deciles' instead of how being able to chose 'top 6%'. clearly a 0L poll?