Northwestern 1L/2L/3L/Grads Taking Questions and Challenges Forum

[Eugenie Danglars]

Grades. Huh.

[Sauer Grapes]

Everything was going great til my last grade was released...tanked my frickin perspective elective...

Jurisprudence?

[splitmuch]

Everything was going great til my last grade was released...tanked my frickin perspective elective...

Jurisprudence?

I wish. Narrative structures. Something about getting my worst grade in a class half based on watching movies is a swift kick in the balls

[homestyle28]

Now that grades are out and I can begin coping, does anyone have a sense of GPAs and class rank (I know the first rule of NULS fight club is we don't talk about class rank, but help me out).

[attractive_NUisance]

ha I was in narrative structures too what a complete joke of a class.

Ended up with a good term, glad they finally released the grades

[dru617]

Everything was going great til my last grade was released...tanked my frickin perspective elective...

Jurisprudence?

I wish. Narrative structures. Something about getting my worst grade in a class half based on watching movies is a swift kick in the balls

Narratives is not a class for those looking for GPA security (or at least the ability to get a good grade through proving you've learned material in any objective way). It's known as the school's biggest grading crapshoot.

[crumpetsandtea]

Congrats on FINALLY getting grades, y'all!

[Holly Golightly]

Now what will everyone bitch about?!

...oh yeah, the grades they got instead of the grades they're waiting for.

[splitmuch]

Now what will everyone bitch about?!

...oh yeah, the grades they got instead of the grades they're waiting for.

haha....well played

[rayiner]

Handy-dandy GPA/class-rank break down, for after 1L:

4.00+ - top 3-5 people
3.85+ - top 10%
3.75+ - top 15%
3.65+ - top 25%
3.50+ - top 35%
3.30-3.40 - median
3.20 - 3.30 - slightly below median
3.00 - 3.20 - quite below median

This is very approximate, but it doesn't really matter because firms don't try to divine your exact class rank.

Nobody really knows what the bottom half of the curve looks like, because the curve is not symmetric.

[VulcanVulcanVulcan]

Someone on an earlier page said that 3.85 is the GPA needed to grade/write-on for NULR. Can someone confirm this? Does that mean there's no-one on NULR with a lower GPA that didn't 100% write-on?

[rayiner]

Someone on an earlier page said that 3.85 is the GPA needed to grade/write-on for NULR. Can someone confirm this? Does that mean there's no-one on NULR with a lower GPA that didn't 100% write-on?

There is no grade-on GPA for NULR. There are a substantial # of 3.8-3.9's who are not on LR, and a substantial number of 3.7-3.8's who are.

NULR has 26 spots for grades+writing (another 10 writing only), for about 230 entries (AJD's and transfers compete for different slots). If grades and writing competition score are completely independent, then top 1/3 on each measure is enough to get the top 10% combined to get on. Top 1/3 GPA is roughly a 3.5. If there is a perfect correlation between grades and writing competition, then you'd need to be top 10%, which is say 3.85 (it varies).

In practice, there is some correlation between grades and writing competition scores, but less than you'd think. I hear a 3.7+ and a great writing competition entry is enough to get you on, and so is a 3.9+ and an above-average entry.

[09042014]

No bragging about, false modesty about or discussion of your grades is allowed in this thread.

And you reallt shouldn't do it anywhere. It's rude.

People on tls have gotten bad reputations for bragging online about grades.

And the guy who was bragging in the atrium last year got oci pwned.

[rayiner]

No bragging about, false modesty about or discussion of your grades is allowed in this thread.

And you reallt shouldn't do it anywhere. It's rude.

People on tls have gotten bad reputations for bragging online about grades.

And the guy who was bragging in the atrium last year got oci pwned.

+1.

I'll share some advice I got as a 1L: don't talk about grades, nothing good can come of it. Only bad things, like social ostracization and herpes.

[IAFG]

No bragging about, false modesty about or discussion of your grades is allowed in this thread.

And you reallt shouldn't do it anywhere. It's rude.

People on tls have gotten bad reputations for bragging online about grades.

And the guy who was bragging in the atrium last year got oci pwned.

+1.

I'll share some advice I got as a 1L: don't talk about grades, nothing good can come of it. Only bad things, like social ostracization and herpes.

dm;hs?

Let me add though, telling people your bad GPA may not be rude exactly, but it's incredibly uncomfortable.

[dru617]

No bragging about, false modesty about or discussion of your grades is allowed in this thread.

And you reallt shouldn't do it anywhere. It's rude.

People on tls have gotten bad reputations for bragging online about grades.

And the guy who was bragging in the atrium last year got oci pwned.

+1.

I'll share some advice I got as a 1L: don't talk about grades, nothing good can come of it. Only bad things, like social ostracization and herpes.

dm;hs?

Let me add though, telling people your bad GPA may not be rude exactly, but it's incredibly uncomfortable.

But it is easily trumped in terms of uncomfortability by starting a conversation with someone who is not you're not BFF under the assumption that they too received a post 2L SA permanent job offer, only to have them tell you that they got no-offered. Been there, done that, never again...

[bk1]

No bragging about, false modesty about or discussion of your grades is allowed in this thread.

And you reallt shouldn't do it anywhere. It's rude.

People on tls have gotten bad reputations for bragging online about grades.

And the guy who was bragging in the atrium last year got oci pwned.

I suspect if people didn't realize this after first semester grades they aren't gonna realize it now.

[dru617]

Nope, but I'd guess low-mid 3.9s.

That high, huh? That's what I was afraid of. I know that last year was an anamoly (i.e., an incredibly high number of people graduating magma). However, I was told that for c/o 2010 someone right around a 3.84 would have just made the cut.

Also, transfers don't count for Coif, but are eligible to receive magna. So if 30 people graduated with Coif last year and there were ~300 people in the class, after you factor remove the 30-40 transfer students, doesn't it appear that Coif is actually the top 11-12% of people who are eligible.

Sooo, let's geek out on this for a moment -

If your numbers above are correct (30 Coif and 300 total graduating JDs), I think our school might be calculating it wrong.

Here is an excerpt from the Coif's constitution -

SECTION 5.1. Eligibility of Law Students.

a) For each academic year, measured from July I to June 30, or any other twelve-month period
designated by a member school, a Chapter may elect to membership in The Order any graduating
senior (1) who has completed at least 75 percent of his or her law studies in graded courses and
(2) whose grade record ranks in the top 10 percent of all the graduating seniors of the school.
"Graded courses" are those for which academic accomplishment is recorded on the basis of
educational measurement involving four or more discriminators.

http://www.orderofthecoif.org/COIF-const.htm

From browsing several (but not many; I'm lazy) other schools' webpages about Coif, they construe (1), above, to be the source of the no transfer student rule (they read "graded courses" to mean graded courses taken AT THEIR SCHOOL (because schools accept transfer CREDITS, but don't accept your grades for purposes of calc'ing your GPA going forward)), which would shut out all transfers on the standard 3 yr schedule).

And then when you read (2), it refers to "all the graduating seniors . . ." Therefore, it seems impossible that 30 people could have gotten Coif out of 300, because 10% of the class should not be eligible. Only a subset of that 10% - those who completed 75% of their classes at the school - should be eligible, which, if there are any transfer students, must bring the number of electees to less than 10% of the total graduating class, e.g., less than 30 out of 300.

So what am I missing here?

[dru617]

Also, fun fact i just learned for students of Prof. Crane (current president - who knew? not me.)

http://www.orderofthecoif.org/COIF-officers.htm

[Blumpbeef]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

[dru617]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

[attractive_NUisance]

Most schools also don't have Summa set so high that only 1 person gets it every 10 years. Magna is high too relative to other schools. I applaud your initiative in looking into Order of the Coif rather than studying for the bar. However, unlikely that the school will change anything since they've presumably been doing things the same way for a while.

[IAFG]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

In my experience, they're average relative to the average non-transfer, as long as they're employment-secure.

[Sauer Grapes]

Most schools also don't have Summa set so high that only 1 person gets it every 10 years. Magna is high too relative to other schools. I applaud your initiative in looking into Order of the Coif rather than studying for the bar. However, unlikely that the school will change anything since they've presumably been doing things the same way for a while.

But on the bright side, you can barely make Cum Laude and no one will know you were .3 grade points under someone who barely missed Magna.

I agree that Magna is set really high, but we do have pretty ridiculous grade inflation after 1L. Summa might as well not exist at NU though.

[attractive_NUisance]

Most schools also don't have Summa set so high that only 1 person gets it every 10 years. Magna is high too relative to other schools. I applaud your initiative in looking into Order of the Coif rather than studying for the bar. However, unlikely that the school will change anything since they've presumably been doing things the same way for a while.

But on the bright side, you can barely make Cum Laude and no one will know you were .3 grade points under someone who barely missed Magna.

I agree that Magna is set really high, but we do have pretty ridiculous grade inflation after 1L. Summa might as well not exist at NU though.

True I guess that's where Order of the Coif comes in, to differentiate a little. Although apparently that doesn't help the transfer students.