How much can rank improve during 2L? Forum

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thriller1122

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Re: How much can rank improve during 2L?

Post by thriller1122 » Mon Jun 25, 2018 3:43 pm

At my school the curve gets easier after the mandatory classes are done. So it is easier to raise your GPA. However, as people have pointed out, everyone else has that same opportunity to do better. What I do (and I reccomend you do the same if the information is there) is look at the historical numbers of graduating classes. Generally, the 25th percentile is more or less the same from year to year. You can better predict what you need to get to to earn whatever rank you want. For example, I was at 3.08 after my first year as an evening student. That put me at the 50th percentile. The average graduating class for the last 4 years had 3.52 as the top 25% (my goal). Based on the fact that I still had 65 credits to go, I was able to determine that I needed 299.2 points total to hit my mark. Therefore, for my remaining classes I needed a 3.66 (or better). Fwiw, I ended up with a 3.72 for my second year (which still included the B-curved classes), so its definitely possible.

Halltheway

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Re: How much can rank improve during 2L?

Post by Halltheway » Sun Jul 15, 2018 7:24 am

I went up around 25%. There are honestly so many factors involved but it is definitely possible. It really comes down to what classes you're taking and how your school's curve works for classes after 1L.

hoos89

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Re: How much can rank improve during 2L?

Post by hoos89 » Sun Jul 15, 2018 2:26 pm

Bildungsroman wrote:
How much can rank improve during 2L?
Calculate what your GPA would be if you took a full course load and got straight As.
Calculate what rank that would give you.
Calculate the difference between that rank and your current rank.
That much.
No, there's grade inflation at a lot of schools in 2L/3L. Better answer would be to look at the 2L cut-offs if those are posted and calculate based on that.
andythefir wrote:I've heard this a couple places, but I don't understand it. There are still curves in 2L, although they are more generous. Does this mean that 1L top 35% folks will fall below median? Do the top handful transfer, the next tier get overwhelmed with law review, and the tier after that check out because they have jobs? Why doesn't the top of the class keep their foot to the gas to get a clerkship? With a curve for some to go up others must go down.
If you're outside the T14, the top students have mostly transferred out and been replaced by students who probably aren't quite as good at law school exams, on average. Also, those with jobs don't care as much unless they're gunning for clerkships, and those without jobs are probably more focused on getting jobs. Not to mention that at least at some schools, the curve is class specific (at mine it was based on the GPA of the average student in the class) so you can game it a bit. So I think there's an argument to me made that it really is easier to move up at a lot of schools (although maybe harder at HYS because you're getting an influx of top performers from other schools).
chasgoose wrote:At my school another factor that helps the curve is an influx of LLM's.
I know at my school they weren't counted on the curve with everyone else so it had no effect (also aren't LLMs primarily in 1L classes?).

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