Michigan Bar Exam Grading Changes Forum

[jigglypuffdreams]

So I'm not sure how many other people are taking the Michigan Bar Exam, but I was wondering what everyone else thought this announcement from the Michigan Board of Law Examiners.

Specifically this announcement: http://courts.mi.gov/News-Events/press_ ... elease.pdf

Apparently BarBri's calling it good news. Themis has told us nothing about it haha. I'm not sure if Kaplan's said anything about it. I think scaling to past administrations of the bar exam might be beneficial if we're suddenly stuck with a more difficult bar exam, but it's a bit scary that they're announcing changes to the bar exam 20 days out. Any thoughts?

[TheGreatWhiteHorse]

Honestly, under the old scoring system of the past few years with no scaling, almost half of us are doomed. I will take whatever I can get.

But we probably won't know what this means until after the results come back. They are playing it really close to the vest and the press release is vague.

[jigglypuffdreams]

Agreed, part of me is hoping that the scaling means more of a return to the 80% pass rates from the good old days. Might be overly wishful thinking, but a girl can dream, right?

[navalspartan]

Agreed, part of me is hoping that the scaling means more of a return to the 80% pass rates from the good old days. Might be overly wishful thinking, but a girl can dream, right?

I do wish that they were more forthright about how they will grade the essays. But the changes can only mean higher pass rates. I have a feeling that MI will not reach the 80% pass rate of the old days, but I bet we see 70-75%. The most important line in the letter was the one about the law school deans being happy about the new scoring changes. If the changes placated the deans, then we can safely expect better essay grades.

[jaskat]

I went on the http://www.michibar.org website and under the FAQ section for "How are scores calculated?" I found the following:


Each essay question has 10 possible points for a total of 150 possible points on the essay portion of the exam. There are 200 possible points on the Multistate (MBE) portion of the exam. A combined score of 135 or above is necessary to pass the exam using the following formula:


Combined score = [equated essay score + MBE score] / 2


where the equated essay score is the score resulting from the linking of the raw essay score to the MBE scale using linear equating adjusted for the relative difficulty of the two portions of the bar exam as measured by the difference in the mean scores on the MBE scale for each portion of the exam averaged over six exam administrations.

Now, is this the new scoring system, or was that there from before?

[jigglypuffdreams]

I'm honestly not sure how it's calculated still, way too confusing. But the results page is refusing to load for me... so I feel like something's going on... right? http://courts.mi.gov/courts/michigansup ... fault.aspx

[jaskat]

Honestly, I just used your link and everything works and refreshes for me. I'm in the middle of them wanting to come out and them not coming out. Ostrich reflex much?

[jigglypuffdreams]

Haha yeah, it was down when I posted it, I swear! But yeah for February 2014 they posted results online by seat number in the middle of May. But last year most people I know got results in the mail on October 26th or the monday afterwards. This last week or so has been the worst haha.

[jaskat]

I'm trying to stay calm and not faint or something in the middle of the work room. For what it's worth I looked at other forums and they were hinting that results come out today at 5:00 pm.

[jne381]

Forget you guys, I had to take it in July 2012, with the 55% passing rate.

I think everyone should have at at least as hard as we had it.

[mrosmith]

So... we thinking this week some time?