USC Law School Considers Boosting Average Grade to B-Plus
The dean of the University of Southern California’s law school fears that his students are disadvantaged in the job market by a low grade curve, so he’s proposing a 0.1 increase that would move the average grade from a B to a B-plus.
The proposal would change the average grade from a 3.2 to a 3.3, the National Law Journal reports.
Dean Robert Rasmussen of USC’s Gould School of Law told the NLJ that the proposal is based on an analysis of grades at two competitor schools. Law students’ grades are lower at Gould than at UCLA and Vanderbilt, yet their scores on the Law School Admissions Test are comparable, he said.
“It’s seems pretty clear that they are giving out higher grades than we are,” he said of the competitor schools. “This is just a small change to bring us in line with our peers.”
The lower grades hurt students’ job prospects, according to the school’s list of “considerations prompting the proposal” posted on Above the Law. The school also says the quality of its students has improved, but the grading curve remains the same.
The new curve would apply only to first-year students at first, then to everyone. A vote on the proposal is scheduled for Dec. 11.
Updated at 12:35 p.m. to clarify in the lede that the story refers to the University of Southern California.
