control over 1L class rank

[manofjustice]

Hey bud,

Full ride, t14, over 75% in gpa and lsat, now a 2L who finished 1L well below median. listen to people who know what they are talking about. the worst thing you can do in law school is assume that you can't fail or can't perform poorly. complacency and self-satisfaction lead to below median results.

Above the LSAT 75th percentile and GPA right at the median for the school I chose to attend. Finished below median after 1L.

Same ? for you... Also, what were your guys' majors?

[BoomerLawyer]

Hey bud,

Full ride, t14, over 75% in gpa and lsat, now a 2L who finished 1L well below median. listen to people who know what they are talking about. the worst thing you can do in law school is assume that you can't fail or can't perform poorly. complacency and self-satisfaction lead to below median results.

Above the LSAT 75th percentile and GPA right at the median for the school I chose to attend. Finished below median after 1L.

Same ? for you... Also, what were your guys' majors?

The 75% and 25% are basically identical at law schools. Unless you are insanely overqualified, you get an unnoticeable boost.

[manofjustice]

My guess is another factor is self-critique. Some people are more able to critique their approach and readjust. Others just stick with what they did first day of 1L and it's just wrong. They forget to learn how to do law school along with learning the law school material. Consequently, they don't know how to answer an exam question and don't know how to think like a lawyer.

[manofjustice]

If you look at that video I think it was bk who posted: it's pretty easy to breakdown.

What the LSAT tests, what your UGPA test: each of these things is a component in your 1L success.

There are other components.

Whatever the LSAT tests may be among the biggest components, but if you get the other components really wrong, you're not going to do well, even if you are strong in what the LSAT tests.

Everybody's virtue in each of these components are probably normally distributed, resulting in a somewhat predictable proportion of people with strengths in the most important of these components doing well and doing poorly, based on the proportion of such people who do well or do poorly in the other components.

That's just the way I would conceptualize it.

There is literally nothing anybody can say ITT based on anecdote that would shed any light on this question at all.

[stillwater]

If you look at that video I think it was bk who posted: it's pretty easy to breakdown.

What the LSAT tests, what your UGPA test: each of these things is a component in your 1L success.

There are other components.

Whatever the LSAT tests may be among the biggest components, but if you get the other components really wrong, you're not going to do well, even if you are strong in what the LSAT tests.

Everybody's virtue in each of these components are probably normally distributed, resulting in a somewhat predictable proportion of people with strengths in the most important of these components doing well and doing poorly, based on the proportion of such people who do well or do poorly in the other components.

That's just the way I would conceptualize it.

There is literally nothing anybody can say ITT based on anecdote that would shed any light on this question at all.

my problem is UGPA's predictive power is that it is only a test of effort within a 4 year period. its use degrades over time especially with older applicants.

[manofjustice]

If you look at that video I think it was bk who posted: it's pretty easy to breakdown.

What the LSAT tests, what your UGPA test: each of these things is a component in your 1L success.

There are other components.

Whatever the LSAT tests may be among the biggest components, but if you get the other components really wrong, you're not going to do well, even if you are strong in what the LSAT tests.

Everybody's virtue in each of these components are probably normally distributed, resulting in a somewhat predictable proportion of people with strengths in the most important of these components doing well and doing poorly, based on the proportion of such people who do well or do poorly in the other components.

That's just the way I would conceptualize it.

There is literally nothing anybody can say ITT based on anecdote that would shed any light on this question at all.

my problem is UGPA's predictive power is that it is only a test of effort within a 4 year period. its use degrades over time especially with older applicants.

Yea. I mean that's why LSAT > UGPA in predictive power. I am just not sure that it makes a lot of sense to start laying down hard lines like "if your x is above x, you're good."

Another thing re: UGPA is what a lot of people say in LS: that effort != grades.

[stillwater]

If you look at that video I think it was bk who posted: it's pretty easy to breakdown.

What the LSAT tests, what your UGPA test: each of these things is a component in your 1L success.

There are other components.

Whatever the LSAT tests may be among the biggest components, but if you get the other components really wrong, you're not going to do well, even if you are strong in what the LSAT tests.

Everybody's virtue in each of these components are probably normally distributed, resulting in a somewhat predictable proportion of people with strengths in the most important of these components doing well and doing poorly, based on the proportion of such people who do well or do poorly in the other components.

That's just the way I would conceptualize it.

There is literally nothing anybody can say ITT based on anecdote that would shed any light on this question at all.

my problem is UGPA's predictive power is that it is only a test of effort within a 4 year period. its use degrades over time especially with older applicants.

Yea. I mean that's why LSAT > UGPA in predictive power. I am just not sure that it makes a lot of sense to start laying down hard lines like "if your x is above x, you're good."

Another thing re: UGPA is what a lot of people say in LS: that effort != grades.

at least personally, i didnt do shit in UG because I didn't care. that's not the case now. the other thing about UGPA is that different schools have very different grade distributions (even within different departments). at my UG no one graduated with a 3.9 or higher.

i agree that hard cutoffs are dangerous though

[manofjustice]

But how much do you study in LS now? Balls to the wall 10 hours every day? Or do you just "give a shit" over "not giving a shit?"

[stillwater]

But how much do you study in LS now? Balls to the wall 10 hours every day? Or do you just "give a shit" over "not giving a shit?"

10 hours a day. I am full business.

[manofjustice]

But how much do you study in LS now? Balls to the wall 10 hours every day? Or do you just "give a shit" over "not giving a shit?"

10 hours a day. I am full business.

What do you study? You must be rereading cases three times or briefing them...

Do you have grades back yet?

[stillwater]

But how much do you study in LS now? Balls to the wall 10 hours every day? Or do you just "give a shit" over "not giving a shit?"

10 hours a day. I am full business.

What do you study? You must be rereading cases three times or briefing them...

Do you have grades back yet?

i mean my hours increase across the semester as things ramp up. the beginning of the semester im not doing as much. but i do love reading supplements in addition to the casebooks.

[manofjustice]

I guess it's probably different for everybody re: best way to work. That's probably the bottom line.

[stillwater]

I guess it's probably different for everybody re: best way to work. That's probably the bottom line.

its certainly a personalized process. i know, for me, that context is essential to be understanding more particular matters, which is why i read supplements.

[ercmilla]

Well, to be honest I think I have zero chance of being below median, but there is a danger of ending up between top 25% and median. And in response to the OP, the question is: how can I control class rank? All of us know that where you finish in your class plays a huge role in your career prospects. I have heard many people say essentially that grades are pure randomness, so and so never worked and is top of class, other people worked 24/7 below median, and I do think that can be true. If you have 1 LSAT point above median or .05 above GPA median you would be misguided to think you have a huge edge. But based on what I've seen at my school I think that a random person has an average chance of median, and I think a full scholarship student is working with the top half of the grade curve. They have an average chance of top 25%, and they may underperform that (25%-50%) or over perform (1-25%). I know this sounds boastful and naive (I am a 1L, no doubt) but i literally cannot find one person who is full ride and bottom half of the class anywhere, from talking to dozens of people who have made this choice, consulting law school stats, looking through threads on TLS, etc etc.

You're deluding yourself if you don't think you can finish below median. You probably have around a 1/4 chance of being below median. This should help clear things up for you (by former LSAC chair): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_xHsce57c&t=15m0s (Ironically you're actually right that someone who dominates their school's medians probably will end up somewhere around top quartile.)

OP asked "how can I control class rank?" You can't control rank. You can control what you do (studying) but at the end of the day you cannot guarantee you will fall anywhere in the curve (except at the bottom if you choose to fail your finals). Grades are not purely random, but that doesn't mean you can guarantee any outcome (even as simple an outcome as top 75%).

Did they ever get rid of that ABA rule the professor speaks about in the end of that lecture? Getting rid of the LSAT would be a huge change (that I DON'T want to happen).

[uvabro]

looking back on it, i would have paid more attention - or some attention to grading style. there are certain structures that play into someone's skill set and some that do not. i think this makes for some predictability.... much more than anything else.

[ksllaw]

You cannot guarantee your class rank in any way. You can and should work hard, but that does not mean you will do well. Plenty of smart, hard-working people end up below median.

This isn't exactly true. Attend a school where you are above the 75th percentile of LSAT and GPA, and you will be getting a lot of scholarship money + much better chance of high class rank.

oh not this bullshit again

The LSAT has a predictive power and correlation with law school performance of .36 median (1.00 being a perfect match between LSAT and performance and 0 being a complete non-match and only coincidental relationship). According to UVA Law Professor Alex Johnson, it's a pretty good, though not perfect, predictor:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7_xHsce57c

you know, it's annoying to have this type of idiotic response. I have news for TLSers: if you are 4.0 180 LSAT and you attend Thomas Jefferson Law School you have a better than 50% chance of being above median. In fact you have an excellent chance of top 10%.

Nice straw man.

It's a straw man example, but the concept behind it may still apply to more realistic examples.

Coincidentally, there was a past poster/law student on the TLS Forums, who seemed to fit the description above:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 4&t=194500
4.0 transfer/ Lower T14/ current COA clerk taking questions

[ksllaw]

I'm sorry this happened, if true. You are literally the first person to report this (factual or not). I made a thread on this topic http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=187209 with 2-3k views, and I've heard from no credible poster there say the same thing or anywhere else on TLS, on the internet, or in real life.

I wonder if there is possibly a shame and/or pain factor to this?

I think it is reasonable to believe that for some people who've "failed" at something in life, they are not likely to openly share such information about themselves. There can be shame of being identified or simply pain from having to "relive" that experience through telling it.

LAST and GPA have an extremely high correlation to law school performance. It seems like a low number (it's like a .40 coeffecient or something), but that's about as high as you'll ever see with real world regression analysis. The problem is, as others have said, it's not clear that this is enough to justify picking a lower ranked school. After all, the correlation between school rank and job placement is also extremely high. But, yes, if you're looking at a full ride at a regional school in the region in which you want to practice, that might be a good choice.

I think it depends on what payoff one wants to have from this scenario (we could design a payoff matrix possibly to reflect this).

If having zero debt is factored in, then one may well find that it is justified to go with the lower ranked school in this case.

But, you're also correct that a .40 correlation is extremely high in real world scenarios.

[ksllaw]

5) Don't go through a breakup or divorce or pregnancy or death/illness of a loved one, etc...

I know many law students aren't big on math, but DF's point about the margin for the LSAT is key. When you're looking at the top 50 schools, the range of LSAT scores is relatively small, and many are within each others' margins. If you look at the LSAT scores of those same schools, there is often a 2-3 point range from the 25th percentile to the 75th percentile. So yes, on the macro scale, people who earn 170s on the LSAT tend to do better than those who earn 150s. However, when the differences are between 164 and 168 or 168 and 174, while the score differences can have a huge impact on admissions, they're actually incredibly close generally and probable not that indicative of performance in law school.

Having read through most of this thread, I find that many of the comments, though germane to a particular sub-aspect of the problem and question at hand, don't truly get at, nor refute the more general claim that one can use UGPA and LSAT numbers to provide a probabilistic assessment of a person's chances of success at a law school.

It's a fairly straightfoward probabilistic argument. And it should be relatively uncontroversial that we can show that there is a good probability that a person with both a signicantly higher UGPA and LSAT score over his or her school peers will likely do better than most of them most of the time (granted there is some variation of predictive power between schools, such as in instances raised by Lwoods quoted above).

But a probability is just that. Unfortunately, it's not something that can absolutely guarantee a certain level of success (e.g. top 5%) for a random individual with those features, much less for a specific individual (the OP). It's still only a likelihood.

So for the OP, he or she needs to understand that there is no absolute guarantee that using Hutz and Goodman's strategy would result in his or her desired outcome at a particular law school (it's technically possible that one may end up at the bottom of their class in such a situation - even if not probable). Whether that means H & G's strategy is justified on other grounds (when considering other factors deemed important to a particular person's desired goals), however, is a different question. It might still be justified on other grounds, I believe.