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In NY, I know one person who got a 150 MBE and still failed overall.

I've heard of low-150's failing in NY. You'd have to write some God-awful essays though.

White Dwarf wrote:I've heard of low-150's failing in NY. You'd have to write some God-awful essays though.

He (or she) probably got sick and had to leave early...a 115 scaled MEE is around bottom 5%

A 145 scaled score really is a magic number of sorts. At that point the ball is truly in your court and you'd have to score lower than average on the remainder of the exam to fail the test. There could be exceptions to this (for example, in California) but I'm writing more generally.

Sean (Silverman Bar Exam Tutoring)

White Dwarf wrote:I've heard of low-150's failing in NY. You'd have to write some God-awful essays though.

people keep saying this, but I still don't know what a "god-awful" essay looks like

Wild Card wrote:

White Dwarf wrote:I've heard of low-150's failing in NY. You'd have to write some God-awful essays though.

people keep saying this, but I still don't know what a "god-awful" essay looks like

My essays. Good thing I took in CA, so I would have failed regardless

Wild Card wrote:

White Dwarf wrote:I've heard of low-150's failing in NY. You'd have to write some God-awful essays though.

people keep saying this, but I still don't know what a "god-awful" essay looks like

I’m wondering that myself. But, I would imagine it to be really bad. A 110 scaled MEE/MPT would place you in the bottom 3.6% in J-17 http://www.ncbex.org/statistics-and-res ... tatistics/

In NY, close to 30% of July takers are foreign educated. https://www.nybarexam.org/ExamStats/201 ... sRates.pdf (I’m not sure how many are from English-speaking countries)

Basically, if you have a 156 MBE, you only need to do better than the bottom 4%—and your pool of “competitors” include 30% foreign-educated attorneys, 18% who are taking the exam for the 2nd, 3rd or x time, and an unknown number who panicked, blanked, got sick, are hung-over, did not study, etc.

A buddy of mine got in the 170s and still failed for Michigan

Then again MI has no MPT, and an essay section (worth 50%) comprising of 15 essays out of 24 possible topics.

MI also included a 2nd Amendment essay question that year. Unless you knew Heller and McDonald, you got a 0 for that one. #PureMichigan

My $.02

b290 wrote:A buddy of mine got in the 170s and still failed for Michigan

Then again MI has no MPT, and an essay section (worth 50%) comprising of 15 essays out of 24 possible topics.

MI also included a 2nd Amendment essay question that year. Unless you knew Heller and McDonald, you got a 0 for that one. #PureMichigan

My $.02

Your buddy must be lying. I doubt they would even *read* his essays if they saw his MBE was in the 170s (99%-ile).

craftyboat wrote:

b290 wrote:A buddy of mine got in the 170s and still failed for Michigan

Then again MI has no MPT, and an essay section (worth 50%) comprising of 15 essays out of 24 possible topics.

MI also included a 2nd Amendment essay question that year. Unless you knew Heller and McDonald, you got a 0 for that one. #PureMichigan

My $.02

Your buddy must be lying. I doubt they would even *read* his essays if they saw his MBE was in the 170s (99%-ile).

Nope, they read all essays now. For years they used to not read essays for applicants that got over 150 (it was known as "multistating out"). But so many of those applicants got cute on their essays (like writing "f- you," etc.), the BLE abandoned that practice.

It also matched his studying (somewhat). He spent so much time on MBE studying, barely any on essays.

My $.02

Well damn, this post hurt my feelings. I got a 152 MBE in February 2018 and failed my state by 3 points (SC). I also know I totally blew my timing for the MPTs and left the second one like in shambles. Felt really good about the MEE but hey, I guess I was kidding myself.