1. It's often said that there's no curve, but is there a rough approximation for the H/P breakdown in most BLL classes?
2. Given a sample size of 5 grades (maybe 10 if you include shadow from 1L fall), how does the clerkship office / faculty determine who to push for COAs? I imagine a good number of people must have 8-10 H's, so curious as to distinguishing among them.
Shadow grading at YLS for clerkships Forum
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Re: Shadow grading at YLS for clerkships
As someone who will soon be hiring clerks, I'd be interested in a concise explanation of how exactly I'm supposed to read a YLS app. Judge went to YLS and may just handle it, but my impression is that at least Stanford and Harvard have curves, whereas Yale seems incredibly opaque.
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Re: Shadow grading at YLS for clerkships
HLS does not have a hard curve either. SLS definitely does though.
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Re: Shadow grading at YLS for clerkships
Eh. HLS curve doesn’t exist for seminars, where there’s a rough effort grade split for H vs. P and maybe one or two kids get DSes. For big classes it’s pretty much a strict curve, the only flex is in the DS range (1-3) and the discretionary LP up to 8%. But the H/P split is fairly hard and imo enforced.Anonymous User wrote: ↑Fri Feb 26, 2021 7:26 pmHLS does not have a hard curve either. SLS definitely does though.
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Re: Shadow grading at YLS for clerkships
The YLS guideline (which I've not seen in any publicly available documents, but does exist) is one-third Hs in BLL classes. But like everything else at YLS, it's up to the individual professors to adhere to or not. Many do not. It's generally known who are the tough graders, and that should be known to YLS clerks in chambers.
It's unclear to me how exactly much coordination goes on behind-the-scenes among clerkship recommenders. Some professors must talk, while others likely just do their own thing. But, as you suggest, any coordination and coalescing has to be done, in large part, based on professors' subjective sense of who are the strongest candidates. Though I'm sure professors can read a transcript and can tell who took a more challenging schedule, and who was being excessively strategic.
Anyway, the opacity is the point.
It's unclear to me how exactly much coordination goes on behind-the-scenes among clerkship recommenders. Some professors must talk, while others likely just do their own thing. But, as you suggest, any coordination and coalescing has to be done, in large part, based on professors' subjective sense of who are the strongest candidates. Though I'm sure professors can read a transcript and can tell who took a more challenging schedule, and who was being excessively strategic.
Anyway, the opacity is the point.
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