Harvard Class Rank Forum

[John Denver]

I got Hs in my four substantive classes this semester, and a P in LRW. Any guess at where this would put me in my class after first semester?

[smittytron3k]

Top 10%-15%

[John Denver]

.

[GertrudePerkins]

Certainly above median, but beyond that nobody knows. No offense to smittytron3k, but I don't think there's actually any hard evidence to suggest you're top 10-15%. Maybe you are, but maybe not. Which is one downside to attending HLS. But the major upside is that your grades essentially don't matter. The only sense in which they might matter is clerkships, and only for really prestigious ones.

[John Denver]

Certainly above median, but beyond that nobody knows. No offense to smittytron3k, but I don't think there's actually any hard evidence to suggest you're top 10-15%. Maybe you are, but maybe not. Which is one downside to attending HLS. But the major upside is that your grades essentially don't matter. The only sense in which they might matter is clerkships, and only for really prestigious ones.

I agree that it might not be certain enough given the school's stance on not publishing class rank, but if 37% of the class gets an H, then the average GPA should be somewhere around a 3.4. It seems like a 3.8 has to be safely within the top quarter, if not closer to top 10-15%, right?

[smittytron3k]

Certainly above median, but beyond that nobody knows. No offense to smittytron3k, but I don't think there's actually any hard evidence to suggest you're top 10-15%. Maybe you are, but maybe not. Which is one downside to attending HLS. But the major upside is that your grades essentially don't matter. The only sense in which they might matter is clerkships, and only for really prestigious ones.

I agree that it might not be certain enough given the school's stance on not publishing class rank, but if 37% of the class gets an H, then the average GPA should be somewhere around a 3.4. It seems like a 3.8 has to be safely within the top quarter, if not closer to top 10-15%, right?

Since apparently it's not OK to make guesses that are not backed up by "hard evidence", and it's not even clear what the curve is now, I will leave you with the following pieces of anecdotal wisdom and leave you to decide for yourself where your GPA is:
-The magna cutoff (top 10%) is widely rumored to be between 3.9 and 4.0 at graduation. GPA typically rises in the 2L and 3L years because people take uncurved classes and clinicals and self-select into classes they are more interested in.
-There is a strong clustering effect at both the top and the bottom of the curve.
-Median is rumored to be around 3 H's for 1L year.

Again, these are all rumors, not based on "hard evidence," so take them with a grain of salt. I will add that grades do matter a lot for basically any Art. III clerkship if that's something you care about in the future, but I agree that they matter very little for jobs unless you want to work at a handful of very choosy firms.

[InLikeFlint]

Certainly above median, but beyond that nobody knows. No offense to smittytron3k, but I don't think there's actually any hard evidence to suggest you're top 10-15%. Maybe you are, but maybe not. Which is one downside to attending HLS. But the major upside is that your grades essentially don't matter. The only sense in which they might matter is clerkships, and only for really prestigious ones.

I agree that it might not be certain enough given the school's stance on not publishing class rank, but if 37% of the class gets an H, then the average GPA should be somewhere around a 3.4. It seems like a 3.8 has to be safely within the top quarter, if not closer to top 10-15%, right?

Since apparently it's not OK to make guesses that are not backed up by "hard evidence", and it's not even clear what the curve is now, I will leave you with the following pieces of anecdotal wisdom and leave you to decide for yourself where your GPA is:
-The magna cutoff (top 10%) is widely rumored to be between 3.9 and 4.0 at graduation. GPA typically rises in the 2L and 3L years because people take uncurved classes and clinicals and self-select into classes they are more interested in.
-There is a strong clustering effect at both the top and the bottom of the curve.
-Median is rumored to be around 3 H's for 1L year.

Again, these are all rumors, not based on "hard evidence," so take them with a grain of salt. I will add that grades do matter a lot for basically any Art. III clerkship if that's something you care about in the future, but I agree that they matter very little for jobs unless you want to work at a handful of very choosy firms.

TY

[hulahoop]

is that 3 H's total in 1L year or each semester?

[123kl]

For the year. I've heard the same thing.