Second Semester Grade Effect

Well, grades were released last Friday.  I've had a week to digest the results.  I am not happy with three of my grades.  Of course, the comment should be said with a grain of salt because of my overall average and ranking among my classmates.

My grade actually did not change in Civ Pro or Legal Skills from first semester.  Torts is new; thus, nothing to compare this class to.  Both Property and Contracts dropped.  And these are where the second semester effect can be seen.

In Contracts I improved my multiple choice grade and my essay had "excellent" written on it.  Last semester I had "very good" on my essay.  Based on these two facts, my grades should've gone up.  Right?  Wrong!

My grade slipped a few points.  Not devastating but enough to annoy.  But what does this really mean?  How can I improve yet drop?  Simple:  everyone else improved MORE than I improved.

Remember the grade is not an objective grade.  Your semester grade is based on your performance compared to everyone else.  Answer more questions correctly, get a better grade than the person who did not.  But, isn't that how it works any way?  You answer more questions right you get a better grade?  Well yes but not exactly the same in law school.

Your semester grade is not the number of questions you got right on the exam.  Your semester grade is the number of questions you got right on the exam compared to everyone else.  Thus, if everyone else scored a 90% raw score on the multiple choice exam, and you scored 85%.  You FAIL.  That is the difference in law school final grades versus final grades for other graduate schools and your undergrad institution.

Because everyone who was below me last semester improved more than I did, many improved the overall score to be better than me.  Thus I drop in the final ranking.  But that is law school and that is the way it is.

I did worse in Property.  I stumbled while everyone else improved.  Thus I dropped even further in Property.  I dropped from #2 to #18 in the class in property because of my stumble.  Again, that is the way it is.

When going to law school, you cannot slack off the second semester.  People are gunning to improve to stay.  You don't want them to improve more than you and put you at the bottom.  You must work harder than everyone else.  No matter what your grade was the first semester.  That's the second semester grade effect.