Which of these law schools is it the easiest to maintain a high GPA? Forum

[LawMan9000]

Not to sound lack a slacker. I was wondering which of these law schools has the grading system that would be possible for one to maintain a high GPA. Mostly 1L year.
Also, which one out these two would be the easiest to get a higher GPA:
Northwestern vs Cornell??

[KissMyAxe]

This is a really silly question. What does a high GPA even mean? The actual number of your GPA is pretty much irrelevant. All that matters is how you perform relative to the rest of your peers. However, each of these schools has a grade curve, so it's not like any of them are really easier than the others. You're going to have to work hard to do well at any school because of that. If you want to slack, you will very likely perform badly, so just reconsider law school in general (I would say some HYS students slack since work can be found even at the bottom of the class, but you generally won't get into one of them with poor work habits, so I don't think that's an option for you).

I suppose you can technically have a higher GPA at Cornell, since their curve appears to be a 3.35 compared to Northwestern's 3.26. But neither will be easier to perform better compared to your peers since the student bodies will be very similar in makeup. So while you may finish with a slightly higher number of GPA, your class rank will likely be similar at either. If you're choosing between those two schools, you should not be looking at that, but rather cost of each and then where you'd prefer to practice, since Cornell dominates in NYC Biglaw and Northwestern does the same in the Midwest.

But I suppose in relation to the others, you can hypothetically have the best looking transcript from Berkeley, since a higher percentage of the class get Honors than get A's and A-sat any of the others. However the existence of High Honors still means they have a pretty tight curve, so you won't escape class rank by going there.

[Vexed]

There's no way to really say, because these schools are all on a curve. You can't know prior to attending a school how "hard" it will be to maintain a certain GPA because your grades really reflect where you are relative to the rest of the class, not off of a neutral baseline. What counts as an A on a prof's particular curve in a given year may only rise to the level of a B+ in another year's curve. I suppose you could choose based on school's LSAT percentile given the correlation between score and law school success, but I don't know if that's a strong-enough correlation to make a decision based off of. I know enough people that are exceptions to that rule (both good and bad) for me to put too much stock in it.

Only other thing I might consider if I were you would be whether or not a school has graded LRW. Again, whether or not you can get a good grade in that class will really turn on the skill of your classmates and not necessarily which school you attend. And everyone at whichever school you pick will have the advantage/disadvantage of graded LRW to deal with, but if you're really focused on "ease" of a school, not having to worry seriously about the potential grade of your LRW assignments is probably a plus.

[Mack.Hambleton]

i think the only answer is:

1. Yale (ungraded first semester)
2. H/S (generally H/P)
3. Boalt (their HH, H, P thing)

[lymenheimer]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=170599

[bacillusanthracis]

Generally, the higher ranked the school is, the better your grades will be regardless of effort and performance. The establishment of a 3.0+ curve ensures that relatively minimal effort will result in at least a passing grade, average diligence will get you to a 3+, and if you go above and beyond your GPA will look pretty stellar.

Go to a Tier IV and you will fail out with anything less than an above average effort because their curves tend to be in the 2.4-2.7 range.

It's silly how it all works--intuitively it feels completely ass backwards, but that's the way it is.