Friday, November 11, 2011

Property Mid-Term Results

Finally got my property mid-term results.  This is essentially the only feedback we're going to get on how we're doing until our report cards.  (I suppose there's an outside chance that we might get our grades in Legal Research and Writing a little earlier than that, but probably not much.)

Of course, thus endeth our season of self-delusion.  The tough thing about Law School is not so much that you have to master the material, but that your grades depend on how well you are doing relative to your peers.  The much discussed "class rank" is everything in LS, specifically because you are constantly assessed relative to your peers.

Everybody who came here either thought, "I've always been an academic winner and I'll be a winner, here", or "I haven't done so well in the past, but that's because I wasn't giving it my best, and I'm going to give it my best, here" or maybe "I have good skills, but have always been able to out-work everybody and have always been successful because of it."

Regardless of what folks may think of lawyers, law schools really are filled with some smart people.  A top class rank depends on being smart, and hardworking and not just learning the material, but learning how to answer law school type exams which are a different animal than the types of exams people are used to.

Anyway, so how did I do?  Looked it up and was in the 2nd quartile in results.  Towards the top, but still far enough from the best scores in the class to know I won't be booking anything with these smart muthas all around me. 

This does put me in the range of people who might end up with a good enough GPA to keep a scholarship, though.  The school just lowered my scholly renewal requirement to 3.2 from 3.3.  So, if I can manage an A in just one class per semester, I'll scoot by.  Of course, that's hard to do.  Means you really kicked ass in the class relative to your classmates.

The prof said something sort of interesting.  It goes along with what I saw when I was in b-school.  By about the middle of 2L year, most students sort of accept their place in the class ranking.  The stop trying to think of, "gee, what can I do to get better grades?" and start thinking in terms of, "how little work can I do and still get the same grades?"

The mid-term is only 30% of our grade in the class, and I did well enough that it is basically a non-factor for my final grade.  I can ace the final and get a good grade in the class, and I could bomb the final and still bomb the class.  The mid-term won't do much for or against me.

So, it's intense here.  Everybody is going at it full-blast and nobody has resigned themselves to anything, yet.  Tough to stand out with this crowd. 

All in all, not happy with the results of the mid-term, but not unhappy, either.  I had hoped to do better, but it's going to take a little more.

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