Law Schools
USC Law School Considers Boosting Average Grade to B-Plus
Posted Dec 3, 2008 9:03 AM CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
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.
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Comments
karina rivera
Dec 3, 2008 10:07 AM CST
i think this web site is great . thank you
Christy
Dec 3, 2008 10:30 AM CST
I agree wholeheartedly with USC’s approach—of course, I am a student at a law school whose median/average grade for the curve is a C.
Christy
Dec 3, 2008 10:32 AM CST
see above comment—our curve makes me badly want to transfer.
USC football sucks
Dec 3, 2008 12:01 PM CST
Grades don’t mean anything at top law schools. As long as you show up you get an A or a B. Top 20 law schools don’t want to hurt their reputation so they don’t give out bad grades.
Mary
Dec 3, 2008 12:34 PM CST
Debra, USC is the University of Southern California, a private school that is not affiliated with the University of California, which has a number of campuses with law schools. The law schools of the University of California include King Hall (UC Davis) and Boalt (UC Berkeley).
Neil Gillespie
Dec 4, 2008 9:16 AM CST
Fudge a few grades, what’s the harm? It’s not like it could lead to overrating securities on Wall Street, or “borowing” from a client’s trust fund. Let’s call it the Lake Woebegone scheme, where all law students are now above average.
Mmoore80
Dec 5, 2008 5:42 AM CST
I echo some of the previous posters. At my law school the average/median grade for the curve is around the C to C+ range.
If only I could have scored 5 points higher on the LSAT to get a 170. My grades would have been set!
James
Dec 5, 2008 6:04 AM CST
How does a person find out what the “average” grade is at their school?
Barrister2010
Dec 5, 2008 6:07 AM CST
This is disgusting on so many levels!
Moral of the story: do great on the LSAT and cruise through law school. Microcosm of the world: Wall Street is too big to fail & the tuition of these law schools is TOO BIG TO FAIL THEIR STUDENTS.
I’m totally grossed out, especially since I’ve lost many of my colleagues to a VERY rigid academic policy.
Brian
Dec 5, 2008 7:06 AM CST
This is a joke, right? Are legal employers really so stupid they fall for this kind of garbage? So, the schools get rid of class ranking and engage in rampant grade inflation, and we are supposed to happily hire new recruits without any meaningful measure of their abilities? That will make sorting through all these resumes even more of a treat.
Dumas
Dec 5, 2008 7:27 AM CST
Without knowing the entire scope of the grading/retention system the numbers don’t mean much.
First, is the “average” median or mean? Second, what is the minimum GPA permitted? Third, wat is the distribution curve and the SDs? etc.
If a school requires a 2.0 minimum then a mean GPA of very close to 3.0 should be expected from a valid grading system. If however, a school requires a 2.5 GPA then the mean would be expected to be approximately 3.25.
Only in a situation where students are permitted to remain students with poor grades would one expect the mean to be a “C.” As most law schools set either a straight “C” or higher average requirement it follows that the mean GPA will be significantly higher than.that. In theory the poor performers should be weeded out. and thus have lesser impact on the school’s mean GPA because they are gone after the first year.
That’s the way it was when I went to school and a great many people were dismissed for poor grades. Now, if today students are given charity “C” grades and far fewer flunk out that’s a different story.. If the poor students get Cs then the average to slightly below average students are probably given Bs and many only slightly above average students are given As. This would result in grade inflation, so if you see a school with both a miniscule dismissal rate and an “average” GPA well above 3.0 then you know there is serious grade inflation.
Who does this really hurt? some would say no one because if everyone does it then all are on a level field. One problem is that while it seems every school does do it these days, they don’t all do it to the same extent. even if they did all do it to the same extent though some people are harmed.
Does it not hurt the truly superior students who earn “real” A grades? They are not distinguished from those given As only because they need to be given a better grade than people given Bs only because those B students need to be distinguished from those given charity Cs who in the past would have been failed.
Grades are not important
Dec 5, 2008 7:34 AM CST
“Excelled academics” required to get a job - lol that only means your law school gave you an A for playing soliatare in the back row at USC.
Law school grades don’t mean anything anymore. Our firm doesn’t even ask about them.
Last canidate had to explain the various provious of a Series B financing document to get the job. We don’t care if his school gave him an A or he got a C.
Prior Art
Dec 5, 2008 7:40 AM CST
The best curve I ever saw was a “dumbbell” curve (pretty much the opposite of the gaussian curve), where the most possible A’s and the most possible F’s were awarded. It made us study like hell to avoid the F (instead of hoping relying on the fact that we could just settle into a B). Then again, law school grades are overrated.
asw
Dec 5, 2008 7:40 AM CST
Post #4’s comments are a bit bitter and unrealistic. I went to Vandy, a school they list as competitive with USC, and I had many friends who got C’s and D’s because they weren’t good test takers or they just didn’t study. You did NOT simply get an A or B for showing up. Kids who thought that tended to be in for a rude awakening come grade time and some frankly didn’t care if they were just getting a degree to go to mommy and daddy’s firm, which is fine. -their prerogative. Having met many kids at USC law from attending one of Gould’s conferences, I would say they could use a little less “entitlement” and maybe they’d grade higher. Just getting into law school should not be a “get a job free card” and I think the poster who said “don’t legal employers see through this,” yes, they do. The more important column in US News that law school deans refuse to acknowledge is the reputation in the legal community and that is affected by meaningless grade inflation.
But to those of you who had C averages, I can tell you that one of my professors worked at a lower tiered state school before she came to Vandy and she was MANDATED by the administration to fail 10% of the first year class because that was how many students they calculated were admitted to law school but would not be able to pass the bar. That way, they failed them out before they failed the bar and their bar passage rates weren’t in the toilet. Now, don’t ask me if that’s right or wrong, but the considerations and grading are frankly different once you get past a certain tier of school. The rationale for setting a grading average higher is that the average student at a USC, UCLA or Vandy, based on admittedly questionable identifiers such as the LSAT, is going to be competing against more qualified students so the “average” at those schools would be a B/B+ whereas the average student at a lower tier school would, competing against the same students, achieve a C/C+. Now, that’s of course a gross over generalization, but the reality is that by going to a higher tier school, you’re paying for the presumption of qualification and intelligence. Law school’s a product -if you pay for the Lexus, most people will assume it’s better than a Toyota even though they basically have the same parts. That’s just the way things work.
Older Guy
Dec 5, 2008 8:26 AM CST
Dean Wormer, just boost the average grade to A+. Problem solved.
Dan
Dec 5, 2008 8:48 AM CST
I don’t get this… curves? My law school doesn’t mandate curves. Many professors don’t use them. You get what you get.
Of course, we don’t have class rank or GPA either - So I guess we’re just different altogether.
4th tier phenom
Dec 5, 2008 9:06 AM CST
Bottomline, despite the posts here. Plenty of firms disseminate through the masses by looking at rank (based on GPA) or GPA itself. One school having a C, C+ curve and another having a, now, B+ curve is hopelessly unfair, and there should be SOME consensus in the legal academia world
realist
Dec 5, 2008 9:13 AM CST
I attended a third tier school. The difference between an A and a C on our Con Law final was 2 questions. 2 questions! The curve in law school is artificial, arbitrary and hurtful. The schools take in way more people than needed in the field and purposefully diminish 80% of them. I think the corruption of the grading system encourages corruption on many levels.
In my humble opinion the entire law school culture needs to be transparent and subject to regulation form a non-lawyer entity like the AMA or something.
Sadly the grades in law school are a bunch of bullshit.
g
Dec 5, 2008 10:13 AM CST
my school didn’t give in to the grade inflation engaged in by surrounding schools and it hurt in the employment race for many.
adjustment is a good idea where comparably required.
JME
Dec 5, 2008 11:10 AM CST
Law schools could help more by eliminating grade inflation entirely. Why not grade according to the paper or exam submitted? Soon, as other schools see the need to catch up, all students will automatically recieve A’s, or maybe grades will be eliminated and it will all be pass/fail. It’s a stupid policy.
Free
Dec 5, 2008 11:46 AM CST
It’s not just law schools. Way back in the 80s, while in grad school I was an instructor in the History department at a Tier 1 school . After i filed the grades the 1st semester, i was called in by the dean and told to raise every grade by a letter because i graded too hard. I complained that was not right but was told we had to be in line with the general school curve and that in the undergraduate colleges the average GPA was a 3.37. My having a class where the average was a “C” (which until then I had thought meant average) was not permissible. I was told that if the history department got the rep for grading harder than, say Poli Sci, Sociology and Econ, fewer students would take history and the Department would lose funding and positions. thus, the intra-university competition too attract and retain students resulted in massive grade inflation. The grades given were essentially meaningless and all pegged to an arbitrary and inlated standard designed to make sure all but the worst students graduated with high GPAs. that keeps the students (and the parents paying the tuition) happy.
In those days most law schools were different and people regularly flunked orschools had a substantial number of students who survived by the C- =JD equation. In my graduating class 3.3 something put people in the top 10%. it’s somewhat amazing that would be the median these days at many schools.
dlb
Dec 5, 2008 12:06 PM CST
The problem with the differences in grade curves between schools is that is doesn’t allow students from different schools to compete evenly with each other. In an environment where hiring partners review hundreds of applications very quickly, the grade is an easy way to judge quality of work, but often a flawed way nowadays.
Annoyed
Dec 5, 2008 1:25 PM CST
I’m so tired of hearing about schools doing similar things to make themselves look good. Law schools don’t care about their students - USC is doing this for their alumni, in the respect that it will in turn make USC look better if more students are employed a year after graduation. Seems like a scapegoat to me. The job market is not good right now…. “low” grades are not the problem. Personality, work ethic and diigence are much more important.
j
Dec 5, 2008 1:37 PM CST
Its been mentioned above but here is a perfect example of grade inflation. Schools do not grade evenly and creates a system where two individuals with the same amount of skills receive two different grades. I argue that schools should get rid of the curve .
Go Texas
Dec 5, 2008 1:53 PM CST
top grades required on a job application doesn’t mean jack shitz anymore - grades are so inflated
Jelana
Dec 5, 2008 2:16 PM CST
#10—yes, often employers do not know. As a mid-level associate for a large firm, I assisted with interviewing law students. When I was interviewing, I did not realize that my own alma mater had reduced the average grade from B to B-. The candidates therefore all looked a little worse than they should have to me. I did not learn of the change until later, when I became an adjunct professor at the school. And as for the value of grades, I would not consider hiring a student with a poor legal writing grade.
Slingshot Willy
Dec 5, 2008 4:48 PM CST
Perhaps the Dean has been influenced by the BCS ranking? Grades are frequently BS, but often so is the name of the school on the diploma.
dan
Dec 5, 2008 5:01 PM CST
While the article is about grades, a similar situation occurs with respect to recognition of academic achievement from school to school. For example, at the law school that I went to, only those in the top 10% were recognized academically, while the same-tiered schools that I was competing with jobs for were all over the board and recognized anywhere from 20% to 50% with some sort of academic achievement recognition. Being part of the 90% that wasn’t in the top 10%, I didn’t get the academic recognition that I would have gotten at the other schools (keep in mind same tiered).
Adam
Dec 5, 2008 5:41 PM CST
My school actually changed mean grade after my first year of school, as I went into my second year. My “report card” looks as though I suddenly started cracking down harder on the books, getting grades better than students at other schools. Most employers know the deal. But go ahead and work for any that are dumb enough not to, provided they shovel enough cash at you and you’re into that sort of thing. Many law schools assign a coefficient to different colleges and multiply it by each student’s GPA to be able to rank different students against each other for their admission process. There’s really no reason that law firms couldn’t collectively do the same thing to cut through this B.S. At the end of the day, though, hopefully they are more interested in who each applicant is and only look at transcripts to see course choice and any grades that deviate considerably from the mean for better or worse.
Richard Dent
Dec 6, 2008 1:25 AM CST
I graduated from law school 30 years ago. My grades were good, but not great. Can I get a retroactive grade inflation? I sure would feel better.
B. McLeod
Dec 6, 2008 2:03 AM CST
I heard a funny story once, probably just a law school “urban legend,” but who knows? The gist of it was that a lawyer years out of school, who had established a name in a particular legal field (but had a poor grade in that class in law school) wrote his old professor to seek a change in grade. Supposedly, the letter said the grade had always bothered him, and that years later, as a well-recognized practitioner in the field, he was confident his exam should have been scored one letter grade higher. And, the story goes, the professor, still on faculty, agreed, and raised the grade. Anybody else hear a version of this?
professor longhair
Dec 6, 2008 9:41 AM CST
As Monthy Python says ” And now for something completely different “: How about giving them the grades they earn ? nah, never work.
Bleeding Heart
Dec 6, 2008 12:27 PM CST
Why not give everyone at all law school’s A’s? Afterall, NO ONE who goes to law school deserves a dose of humility, nor should they be expected to learn or apply some sort of skills other than legal skills. Why not have career service personnel start interviewing for law students too? Everybody deserves everything! No one should be sorted out of the race. Life is fair!
31
Dec 6, 2008 5:24 PM CST
A lot of people get their grades changed after theygraduate. They just cut the law school a check and ask them to bump up their grades.
Common practice.
MIchael
Dec 6, 2008 5:47 PM CST
Hey post #31, where was the funny part of your story?
Doug
Dec 6, 2008 11:52 PM CST
Post #26 - Legal writing is typically taken in the first year. Would you really limit a hire based on that grade? Writing does nothing but improve with practice. A writing sample seems like a much more reasonable factor than does any one grade in the 1L year, likely taught by a low-level faculty member.
m
Dec 8, 2008 8:34 AM CST
our school’s curve is even lower than this. studying usually helps. i find it disappointing to know that i work hard to get a high average from a tough school while others may have a decent average just because of a higher curve at their schools.
Top Grades A Must
Dec 8, 2008 11:13 AM CST
I only hire someone if they got an A in property their first year of law school. It doesn’t matter what they have done the last 15 years.
Vande
Dec 9, 2008 5:18 PM CST
My top-10 school set a median grade of 3.1, but in some circumstances it could be set at 3.2, and the best score was generally a 4.0, but could go up to a 4.5. The school does not release class rankings.
In what world is this useful to ANYone?
Benj
Dec 10, 2008 2:14 AM CST
This is actually a real issue. When I went to SC ten years ago, they were grading on some crazy, institutional-specific 65-90 scale, and I had to explain on almost every interview how my 81.2 GPA REALLY WAS top 10%. It’s not just getting past the recruiting coordinator at a law firm, or whomever makes the objective cuts on candidates; I felt like I spent almost as much time talking about USC’s grading system with each individual lawyer who interviewed me on a callback schedule as I spent talking about myself and my qualifications.
Also at a mid-first tier
Dec 15, 2008 2:22 PM CST
to #40 how many legal interview ifor first year adn second year internships ask about qulaifications, it’s mostly a personality interview to see if you fit/
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