July 2014 Bar Exam results thread Forum

[cojsterling]

Colorado up.

[fundamentallybroken]

Passed! THank god I don't have to go through that shit again.

Overall pass rate looks to be 75%.

[Denverlaw2014]

Passed Colorado! What a relief, this is truly an a feeling that is difficult to describe!! Good luck to everyone else. I'll update with score information as soon as I get it just in case it helps anyone.

[LAWYER2]

Congrats guys!!

I swear the anxiety and nausea is starting to set in. Had no less than six people inquire if I passed this morning all before I made it to my office! Results are released tomorrow @ 4:45pm!

[adonai]

Congrats to all. Reddit says Colorado pass rate is down 15%. I think that's the most this season.

[hoppingabird]

Congrats to everyone who passed Colorado.

If Colorado's pass rate is down 15% that is certainly significant; however, it is not the most drastic drop in a percentage rate we have seen this season. The overall pass rates for the July 2014 exam in Idaho was 65% and North Dakota was 56%. Both down more than 15% compared to their average July pass rate.

The pass rates this year are down, no doubt about it. One would expect this trend to continue nationally as exam results are published throughout the next few months. I need to satisfy my own curiousty as to WHY they are down.

[adonai]

Congrats to everyone who passed Colorado.

If Colorado's pass rate is down 15% that is certainly significant; however, it is not the most drastic drop in a percentage rate we have seen this season. The overall pass rates for the July 2014 exam in Idaho was 65% and North Dakota was 56%. Both down more than 15% compared to their average July pass rate.

The pass rates this year are down, no doubt about it. One would expect this trend to continue nationally as exam results are published throughout the next few months. I need to satisfy my own curiousty as to WHY they are down.

CA and NY are definitely gonna be something. It's most likely due to the MBE. The only other competing theory is worse test takers, which doesn't really make sense because c/o 2014 was one of the more competitive classes in recent history.

[crysmissmichelle]

Congratulations all! And good luck tomorrow Lawyer2!

[Johann]

None of these states pulled a Michigan and said they were aiming for less passers? This is good news though. The bar should be more than a minimum competency exam.

[GW2k14]

Any chance scores are down b/c of the ExamSoft debacle? Assuming that these are states that used ExamSoft and people were really thrown off their game by it?

[Bildungsroman]

Colorado pass rate did not drop 15%. Pass rate for first-time takers this July was 78%. Last July it was 84%. Colorado publishes this information. That's a sizable drop, but it's not huge.

Also, it is inconceivable that ExamSoft difficulties could cause even an additional 6% of test takers to fail the bar.

[Prairie]

Passed Colorado... unless they pull a Nebraska on me...

[LeDique]

Colorado pass rate did not drop 15%. Pass rate for first-time takers this July was 78%. Last July it was 84%. Colorado publishes this information. That's a sizable drop, but it's not huge.

Also, it is inconceivable that ExamSoft difficulties could cause even an additional 6% of test takers to fail the bar.

Well, the more interesting thing is that CU & DU's pass rates both dropped pretty far. ie: the decrease isn't attributable to OOS TTTs

[2807]

I have a friend or two who are waiting on CA results.

Am I correct in reading some of these posts that CA folks can learn from other state's MBE/pass rates to daydream about the pass rate for CA?

Meaning: is the MBE scored the same across the nation, so if other state takers get MBE results/stats -- the #'s correspond to CA too?

This question is hard to frame. I hope someone understands me.

Thanks

[Denverlaw2014]

Overall First-Time Pass rate in Colorado was 78% which seems like it was down from last year if I remember correctly. DU's pass rate was 84% for first time takers which was down from last July I believe, but not my too much if I am remembering correctly. I know that the repeaters pass rate was only 26% which had an effect on the overall pass rate.

[LeDique]

Overall First-Time Pass rate in Colorado was 78% which seems like it was down from last year if I remember correctly. DU's pass rate was 84% for first time takers which was down from last July I believe, but not my too much if I am remembering correctly. I know that the repeaters pass rate was only 26% which had an effect on the overall pass rate.

I thought DU beat CU last year, and both were right around 90% like they have been for the past few years. So a drop from ~90% to 84/82% mirrors the overall drop.

[Denverlaw2014]

Overall First-Time Pass rate in Colorado was 78% which seems like it was down from last year if I remember correctly. DU's pass rate was 84% for first time takers which was down from last July I believe, but not my too much if I am remembering correctly. I know that the repeaters pass rate was only 26% which had an effect on the overall pass rate.

I thought DU beat CU last year, and both were right around 90% like they have been for the past few years. So a drop from ~90% to 84/82% mirrors the overall drop.

I think you are right about that. I was thinking about the February overall pass rate which was closer to these July numbers I believe.

[justrmor]

The pass rates this year are down, no doubt about it. One would expect this trend to continue nationally as exam results are published throughout the next few months. I need to satisfy my own curiousty as to WHY they are down.

It could be a combination of examsoft, slightly harder MBE and a weaker pool of test takers. Unless, NCBEX just decided they wanted to lower the pass rate this year, which I find hard to believe.

[sherpaorlawschool]

The pass rates this year are down, no doubt about it. One would expect this trend to continue nationally as exam results are published throughout the next few months. I need to satisfy my own curiousty as to WHY they are down.

It could be a combination of examsoft, slightly harder MBE and a weaker pool of test takers. Unless, NCBEX just decided they wanted to lower the pass rate this year, which I find hard to believe.

I believe it was the MBE. I don't really buy the weaker applicant pool explanation because the number of LSAT takers and applicants to law school peeked in 2009-10 and 2010-11, the years most us taking the bar would have applied to law school. It was only in the 2011-12 cycle that we started to see the precipitous declines in applications. Now the class of 2014 might have been weaker at the bottom of the law school spectrum because those were the first schools to feel the pinch. But my school saw the class of 2014 raise its median LSAT and GPAs to record highs, so the weakness in the applicant pool can't be uniformly distributed even if it exists. It may be that schools at the top have stronger graduates and schools at the bottom have weaker graduates for the July 2014 exam, but only first time passage rates will see if that theory is borne out.

Regardless, there is a lot of MBE data from past years available, and I became curious as to how some of the pass rates compare to previous years. So far, this year's pass rates look similar to July 2004. Interestingly, July 2005 was the last year the nationwide MBE average was below a 143, but 2004 looks similar to many states. After that, the MBE average jumped above 143 and stayed that way through July 2013, which had an average score of 144.3. I suspect we are seeing a return to an average of somewhere between 141 and 142, which would account for the drop in passage rated when we take into account the fact that so many states scale their essays to the MBE. I also think it is because the MBE changed in its content focus, and I think it will continue to do so as it adds the civil procedure section. We will see if my theory stands up over the next few months, though. I could simply be wrong.

[adonai]

I have a friend or two who are waiting on CA results.

Am I correct in reading some of these posts that CA folks can learn from other state's MBE/pass rates to daydream about the pass rate for CA?

Meaning: is the MBE scored the same across the nation, so if other state takers get MBE results/stats -- the #'s correspond to CA too?

This question is hard to frame. I hope someone understands me.

Thanks

I don't think the curve is uniform. CA has a higher MBE score requirement to pass, so I assume they compute the scores a little differently. But the higher score requirement alone I think almost guarantees there will be less MBE passers, if not less overall passers.

[cooperlaserpup]

Can someone who won't mock me for my suckiness at math explain why a more difficult MBE wouldn't be dealt with by the scaling of the MBE? Isn't the scaled score of the MBE meant to account for difficulty changes across different administrations?

Is the percentage of first time takers down (or the number of repeaters up)? That would be a viable reason.

[sherpaorlawschool]

Can someone who won't mock me for my suckiness at math explain why a more difficult MBE wouldn't be dealt with by the scaling of the MBE? Isn't the scaled score of the MBE meant to account for difficulty changes across different administrations?

Is the percentage of first time takers down (or the number of repeaters up)? That would be a viable reason.

Edit: I think the person below me is correct about the way the MBE is scaled.

Also, in response to the poster above, I believe there is only one MBE scale nationwide. This would make sense because the NCBE doesn't send states raw scores, just scaled scores. However, I believe states give out the percentile rank based on the scores of the examinees in each state. Thus, Illinois could have a higher average MBE than Indiana (I have no idea if this is true) simply because Illinois had more examinees get a higher scaled score. At the same time, the nationwide average would remain the same.

[Tanicius]

Can someone who won't mock me for my suckiness at math explain why a more difficult MBE wouldn't be dealt with by the scaling of the MBE? Isn't the scaled score of the MBE meant to account for difficulty changes across different administrations?

Is the percentage of first time takers down (or the number of repeaters up)? That would be a viable reason.

I believe the NCBE only scales questions on the MBE that show some kind of problem from the statistical layout of answers or an obvious grammatical problem with the question/answer selection. So, if a question is just really fucking hard, that wouldn't necessarily mean that it gets scaled. If the test overall is harder than usual but the answer choice selection by the test takers shows a statistically reliable indication that there is a correct answer, it will not be scaled so high.

[cooperlaserpup]

Can someone who won't mock me for my suckiness at math explain why a more difficult MBE wouldn't be dealt with by the scaling of the MBE? Isn't the scaled score of the MBE meant to account for difficulty changes across different administrations?

Is the percentage of first time takers down (or the number of repeaters up)? That would be a viable reason.

I believe the NCBE only scales questions on the MBE that show some kind of problem from the statistical layout of answers or an obvious grammatical problem with the question/answer selection. So, if a question is just really fucking hard, that wouldn't necessarily mean that it gets scaled. If the test overall is harder than usual but the answer choice selection by the test takers shows a statistically reliable indication that there is a correct answer, it will not be scaled so high.

Interesting. That was NOT my understanding and makes me a little angry. It would make more sense to me to scale it to be equivalent difficulty. I wonder if this will hit one "type" of test taker more- like those who would normally be below average but passing will now fail? That would make the most sense to me conceptually but clearly I don't have a firm grasp on how all the scaling works. I read an explanation posted on reddit that looked specifically at missouri- first time takers were down a couple percentage points in pass rates but second time takers were like waaaaaay down- maybe 10%. Maybe this is the group that suffered most- people who have been hammering down the "old" MBE for two years and now it has changed up on them....

I guess its good my state is 66% essays....I felt miserable about the MBE

[glitter178]

this thread makes me hyperventilate.