Now this is not the end

It is not even the beginning of the end.  But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.

-- Winston Churchill, London, 1942

Finals are almost over for my first semester.  I took my first final yesterday, and then have two finals next week.  One on Monday and one on Wednesday.  Then I am off to Vegas on Thursday for a few days.

On my midterms, I got two A's and a B.  The B was in Torts, on a multiple choice exam, which I very much dislike, but will need to get used to it, as part of the California Bar Exam, is multiple choice.  On Civil Procedure which was just an essay, I did well, and on Criminal Law, I got one of the highest grades in the class.  The Criminal Law midterm was a combination of an essay and multiple choice.  The criminal law midterm multiple choice was extremely challenging.  After the exam, I thought to myself, self, there was only 1 question out of 9, that I actually know I got right.  The other 8, I had to think about and make arguments for why each answer could be correct, and then pick the best one.  It turns out, I got 7 out of 9 correct on the multiple choice and when I went to look at my exam, figured out why I missed the other two.  Interestingly enough, the professor posted the raw exam scores and the distribution was very telling.

The distribution approximates a mirrored chi-squared with a long tail, or another way of thinking about it is a "chi-squared" distribution with a long left handed tail as opposed to the normal long right handed tail.  What does all of this mean?  Well, law school is interesting in that raw scores don't really matter all that much.  Mean and standard deviation aren't really relevant.  What's relevant is the median and your ranking.  And the distribution is telling.  There are a couple of outliers at the far right, who did very well on the exam, and then you have a large middle section where lots of people are bunched together and all within a few points of each other, and then a very long tail as you get to people who clearly either a) are not getting it, b) don't belong in law school, c) don't care, or d) all of the above.  So why does all of this matter?  Because USD School of Law, and many other law schools have a mandatory curve for their 1L class.

Grading for all first-year courses, except Introduction to the Study of Law, can use any grade from A+ to F on a mandatory curve. The average of the grades for each course must be between 2.95 and 3.05. The grade distribution must be as follows.

• 20-25% of all grades for the class must be above B+. Within this group of grades, the mean must not exceed 3.85.
• AND 20-25% of all grades for the class must be below B-. Within this group of grades, 8-12% of all grades for the class must be below C.

The class average must be a B.  No more than 25% of the class can get {A-, A, A+}.  And at least 20% of the class must get  {C+, C, C-, D+, D, F}, and within that set at least 8% of those grades must be in {C-, D+, D, F}.  And the overall mean still needs to be met.

So there's a couple of quick observations I have about this system, both from a personal practical point of view, and from a 10,000 foot view on institutional implications of law school and grades.  From a personal practical point of view, EVERY LITTLE POINT MATTERS, and it matters a lot.  Because your grade is determined, not by how well you do in the abstract, but it is determined by how well you do relative to everyone else in the class.  I guess this is why I've heard the stories and I'm sure others have as well, as to why law school can be so competitive and cut-throat.  There are two ways to get a better grade, get your score to go up, or make someone else's score go down.

So instead of the mean giving you a wealth of information about the class, it is now all centered on the median.  And remember how the distribution looks?  Yep, lots of people clustered together in a big center of mass.  And remember those arbitrary lines and GPA's that need to be set?  That means 1 point, yes 1 point, simply because it kicks you in into the next highest grouping could make a very significant difference in your grade.  And since a lot of financial aid in law school is also tied to your ranking within your class, well you see where this is going.

Next, there is an inherent bias in the system across the different sections and professors.  You'll notice the rules simply say the class average must be between 2.95 and 3.05, and what the requirements are on the top and bottom.  No requirements that says something like students ranked in the top 5% will receive an A+, etc, etc.  What are the implications of this?  Well a professor, who really doesn't want to fail anyone, or give grades no lower than a C-, or to minimize D's and F's, can help push the average down, by giving everyone in the top 20% A-.  There is nothing explicitly in the rules against this, and it would conform.  Now, it may not be in spirit with the rules, but aren't lawyers by nature, trying to push the rules at every possible corner?  So what is the impact of this?  Well, at USD at least, there are approximately 225 total students in the 1L class, divided into 3 sections of approximately 75 each.  But your class rank is not specific to your section, but to the overall class.  Each section takes its substantive law classes together and will do so for the full year, consisting of 26 units.  So there are some potential issues, if let's say Crim Professor I versus Crim Professor II and Crim Professor III don't get together and grade similarly.  If one professor wants to give 2 or 3 A+'s, but another doesn't, well that's going to have an effect on class rank when the entire 1L class of 225 is ranked.  And since there's money on the line, as well as things like admission on to law review, well yeah, stuff like this kind of matters.  Now, maybe the school has this stuff all figured out, and behind the scenes they take steps to make sure that things are done properly.  But then, again, maybe they don't.

What's the point of all this?  In the sense of having a mandatory curve, and assigning what the average grade should be?  Unless you attend an elite school like Harvard or Yale, where everyone who graduates from there is going to get a job that they want, you need a way of evaluating your students.  But, there has been a problem with grade inflation among higher education institutions for decades now.  Mommy and Daddy, want to make sure little Junior is getting good grades, and since they are paying so much, the school feels compelled to hand out the grade.  Take a look at this article.  So what, you say?  Well, think about if you are USD and you need your graduates to compete with other graduates from like institutions and those institution's graduates have GPA's higher than yours?  That doesn't look good.  Well how do you fix it?  Renorm the average, that's how.  So instead of the average being a C, (which I recall it being that way when I was an undergraduate), it has been inflated to a B.  And with the way things are going, I wouldn't be surprised to see it go higher, as other schools will be tempted to make their graduates look better, and what you end up having is a nuclear arms grade race, also known as an unstable positive feedback system.  So in reality what does all of this mean?  Once again, your grade doesn't really matter.  What matters is your ranking.  And employers know how law school works.  And guess what employers want to know?  Are you in the top 10% of your class, top 15%, top 25%, top 33%, top 50%, etc.  At the more prestigious universities, the lower they are willing to dip to find talent.  At the weaker schools, the higher up you need to be, in order to be even considered.

So where am I?  I don't know.  The official rankings for the 1L class, don't come out until after spring grades are released in May.  From what I have seen so far, I should be in the top 25% without a problem after the fall term ends, even though it will be unofficial.  I hope I can get at least a B+/A- in Torts.  Getting that B on the midterm, really sucks, and it is going to be hard to overcome, now that I know a little better how the system actually works.