February 14, 2007

posted by Dave Hoffman

Though I often comment here I want to do so annonomously this time since I'd rather not have my former school's name made to look bad since I suspect that what I'll say isn't that unusual and not particular to my former school. But, I suspect that rather serious screw-ups on grade _reporting_ are more common at law schools than students or professors might care to thing. Twice while in law school such things happend on a class-wide scale for me. Thankfully both times it either left my grade the same or improved it. But, once the professor had an exam with both an essay and a multiple choice part but entered the grades w/o including the multiple choice part. Grades were sent out to everyone that were wrong and so had to be re-calculated. The second case was even more awful. A fairly well known but quite old professor gave a machine-graded multiple choice exam. I got a grade that was, by far, my worst in law school so asked to meet to go over the exam. I didn't think about arguing about the grade, assuming that since it was machine graded it must be right. But, shockingly enough, he had taken the answer sheets that had already been graded by a machine and tried to grade them all by hand and had screwed it all up by being unable to go across the rows of bubbles correctly. My grade improved by quite a lot when we just read the actual number right printed by the machine at the bottom of the page. He's messed up nearly every exam and so several people's grades went up and some went down. If I'd not gone to see him it just would have stood as it was. I'd be shocked if such things happend only these few times. So, this is one more reason to go review your exams if you think you did unusually low (but don't beg for a higher grade!), and should encourage professors to be careful.

I too will comment anonymously, as I'm a student at Hoffman's school, though not one of Hoffman. I take issue with two points in his post:

1. I am heartened to see you agree that GPA is not a meaningful scale. understanding that current grading policies leave students in the middle is admirable, but the lack of a better solution is troubling. I have noticed a sharp discrepancy in my grades between the massive lecture courses and the smaller writing seminars. Perhaps I'm a student who responds better to smaller groups, and learning material in that forum, but it has left me believing that the basic way you teach and test the law in school is unrelated to real life. It does not encourage creative thinking. It does not encourage understanding the nuances of the material.

Had I known about this discrepancy earlier, I would have taken as many writing courses as possible after first year, and seen a significant spike in my GPA as a result.

I should note two things here, before I get written off as just another disgruntled student. First, my work product both summers was exemplary, got a lot of praise and notice, and was used verbatim. This indicated to me that at least in terms of research and writing, that I could function at least as well as currently practicing lawyers. This was heartening. It has been less heartening to be struck out of the running for certain jobs because my overall GPA did not fit a certain number. One other thing I should note. Up until this point I went to very very selective institutions, and thrived at them. I went to Temple because of the cost. I was used to working my ass off and doing well. I am not saying this to be snotty. The current discrepancy between real life lawyering and my law school experience has me very disillusioned.

My disillusionment is amplified because I am facing graduating with a significant debt burden. Also because for the first time in my educational career, I know how students who are not doing so well in a class are treated by professors. Some professors, who are geniune teachers, take time and patience with these students. With other professors, it becomes very apparent, once your end of term grade comes out and you go to them, that they are less interested in you now that you are, in their eyes, no longer the student who contributes consistently in class and has a good grasp of the material, but now are reduced to the student who got a B minus on their exam. It is a form of intellectual snobbery that is new to me, and more infuriating because I have been able to produce good work in a real setting.

2. The stories about grading mishaps are not "fun stories". The stories about students getting their grades bumped up due to errors make other students wonder if they should have gone in and asked the professor to go over the exam closely with an eye to changing the grade. I have gone over my exams with professors, and never has the question of regrading the exam come up. Perhaps because I was not as pushy as some of my compatriots. I didn't realise you were allowed to question grades. At my prior schools, it was seen as extremely poor form to whinge about grades. Reviewing exams was fine, but pressuring a professor to change the grade was not.

I too will comment anonymously, as I'm a student at Hoffman's school, though not one of Hoffman. I take issue with two points in his post:

1. I am heartened to see you agree that GPA is not a meaningful scale. understanding that current grading policies leave students in the middle is admirable, but the lack of a better solution is troubling. I have noticed a sharp discrepancy in my grades between the massive lecture courses and the smaller writing seminars. Perhaps I'm a student who responds better to smaller groups, and learning material in that forum, but it has left me believing that the basic way you teach and test the law in school is unrelated to real life. It does not encourage creative thinking. It does not encourage understanding the nuances of the material.

Had I known about this discrepancy earlier, I would have taken as many writing courses as possible after first year, and seen a significant spike in my GPA as a result.

I should note two things here, before I get written off as just another disgruntled student. First, my work product both summers was exemplary, got a lot of praise and notice, and was used verbatim. This indicated to me that at least in terms of research and writing, that I could function at least as well as currently practicing lawyers. This was heartening. It has been less heartening to be struck out of the running for certain jobs because my overall GPA did not fit a certain number. One other thing I should note. Up until this point I went to very very selective institutions, and thrived at them. I went to Temple because of the cost. I was used to working my ass off and doing well. I am not saying this to be snotty. The current discrepancy between real life lawyering and my law school experience has me very disillusioned.

My disillusionment is amplified because I am facing graduating with a significant debt burden. Also because for the first time in my educational career, I know how students who are not doing so well in a class are treated by professors. Some professors, who are geniune teachers, take time and patience with these students. With other professors, it becomes very apparent, once your end of term grade comes out and you go to them, that they are less interested in you now that you are, in their eyes, no longer the student who contributes consistently in class and has a good grasp of the material, but now are reduced to the student who got a B minus on their exam. It is a form of intellectual snobbery that is new to me, and more infuriating because I have been able to produce good work in a real setting.

2. The stories about grading mishaps are not "fun stories." Perhaps they are fun to law professors who generally went to elite institutions and did well. The stories about students getting their grades bumped up due to errors make other students wonder if they should have gone in and asked the professor to go over the exam closely with an eye to changing the grade. I have gone over my exams with professors, and never has the question of regrading the exam come up. Perhaps because I was not as pushy as some of my compatriots. I didn't realise you were allowed to question grades. At my prior schools, it was seen as extremely poor form to whinge about grades. Reviewing exams was fine, but pressuring a professor to change the grade was not.

I graduated from a second tier school, with a GPA just above 3.0, but still in the bottom half of the class. For some reason that cast a gloom on all three years of law school, despite many positive experiences. There is definitely a realistic presumption that being in the bottom half ranking (despite GPA) is a ball-and-chain. Yet if I had done what many other students did, and taken classes that were reputed to be easy rather than ones I thought I might need for practice, I would have been in the top half.
I'm curious, Prof. Hoffman, what do you honestly recommend for current students? I would be tempted to counsel 1L's to find out from 2L's and 3L's what the easier classes (and professors) are, and avoid the difficult ones. My finding a job was not easy, although fortunately something opened up that has worked out well. My GPA and rank could have been much higher, and my job seeking much easier, if I had been shrewd rather than naive about scheduling. And as one commenter already said, once you have experience with a real legal job (as an intern or whatever) while you are still a student, then law school becomes a very cynical enterprise. My motivation suffered in my 3L year because I could no longer take it seriously after working at the real thing.

I do like the culture of exam-review at Temple, although I've only used it perhaps twice, when my grades were FAR below what I expected in the class given my perceived understanding of the material. Both professors expressed surprise at my low grade when I brought it to their attention (probably based on my performance and participation in class). One went so far as to assure me that "sometimes the worst students make the best attorneys" and that I shouldn't worry about it too much. That's great, really, and my work experience has borne him out so far (in summer and part-time clerkships), but hard to indicate on one's resume when the hiring partner is asking why you haven't listed your GPA.

I've stopped worrying about it at this point because a) as a 2nd semester 3L there isn't much I can do to pull up my GPA at this point (and hasn't been for over a year if we're honest about it), and b) as one commenter on my blog rightfully indicated - GPA ceases its death grip on your life once you have a bit of experience under your belt.

But given my experiences, and those of the other blogger, and commenters here, and thousands upon thousands of students just like us, it's probably not hard for professors to connect the dots and understand that a lot of law students outside the consistent top 10-20% feel disenfranchised by the system of legal education. This becomes even more pronounced when, in a school with an artificially low curve to begin with, you end up in the bottom-half of the class with an astoundingly awful raw GPA number.

(I do realize the above rant is not entirely on point with your topic, but it's corrolary to grading and GPA in the fact that at some point you will have students who drop out of the race, figuratively, and pursue their legal education by other means while putting in the face time to get the JD.)

As a student at Temple I will agree with others that the curve is harsh. When I started law school I had no intention of staying in Philly after graduation, however now I am forced to because of my lackluster performance (I'm not too upset about this because I have grown to like the city). One of the most troubling things about Temple, and perhaps all law schools, is the evening division. After my first year I started to take some night classes and found something shocking, compared to the day classes they are easy. The professors are more lax on policies regarding attendance and participation, and more importantly my grades were much higher. I don't know if this was due to a more lenient curve, no curve, or dare I say "weaker competition"; but the results were much better. The point here being that people who take all night classes are not recieveing the same 'A' or 'B' that the day students are, which defeats the point.