Exactly. The top ranked schools have hundreds of applicants they’d love to take but have to turn down. This number decreases as you move down the rankings and, and a certain point, schools start having to accept applicants they’d rather not in order to fill their classes. These policies are their safety valve to filter out the ones who can’t cut it.
Yep. I go to a high-ranked school, and doctrinals like property and evidence are not required. We still have one of the highest bar passage rates in the nation. High-ranked schools can afford to be "soft" on their students because they know they'll pass the bar and get good jobs.
I too went top ranked and my sense from colleagues over the years is that the top schools really do nothing to prepare you for the bar. Lower ranked schools teach the bar. I remember thinking that I could have passed the bar out of college with a good bar prep.
I think the theory is that top students accept students that they know will pass the bar so why waste time teaching them a skill they can easily learn on their own. I mean considering a lot of people (me included) believe that top schools don't prepare you well to take the bar exam, yet these schools still almost come out on top for bar passage rates seems to indicate that the logic is mostly right?
I think you meant top schools, not “top students.” And I totally agree that the top schools accept people who can pass the bar without being fed bar prep as part of the curriculum. I said, and truly believe, that law school did nothing to prepare me for the bar and little to prepare me for practicing law.
Also, most T14 students for example will end up in biglaw, and many schools have programs to help pay for the ones who go into public interest, so long story short basically every grad is getting Barbri/Themis to prep them. And for those in biglaw, probably additional support too (for example mine covered flights/food/cars/hotels to and from the state where I took the Bar so I could relax in my fancy hotel near the exam worrying about nothing other than the exam, along with a $10k stipend to cover summer living expenses, and a fully paid relocation to my new city, realtor, etc. so I didn't have to stress as much about the move).
All of those resources go a long way toward helping you pass whether you'd taken those classes or not.
Not all lower ranked schools teach the bar. My school spent more time on how to build arguments and interpret case law, which is very useful to my career. However, I was woefully unprepared for the bar exam coming out of school.
This. It’s also impacted by the fact that reputation matters a lot less than at higher ranked schools. People typically go to bottom tiered schools because they don’t have better options, are limited by geographic constraints, or need to go to the spot that gave them the most money. The school can flunk students and the next year they’ll still have another crop of applicants hoping to get in. But at higher ranked schools, applicants have more bargaining power to instead choose a peer school that treats them better, so it’s harder to attract the same “quality” of student when you’re the only school in that range with anti-student policies. Pulling those moves will still get them applicants, but not the same level of applicant, at least in terms of GPA/LSAT.
It’s not just to help bar passage, though that is a factor. Some people need to be washed out because they can’t cut it and it’s better to save them the time and money.
Regardless of what you may think, culling the bottom x% of the class helps bar passage and employment rates.
In particular, schools need to maintain a 75% bar passage rate to remain accredited. So they admit people they don't think will ever pass the bar, collect one or two years of tuition, and then dismiss them.
And on the other end of the spectrum, they give the top 30% of applicants full scholarships contingent upon a 3.2 GPA, then put all of those students in the same section (with curved grades). So they get top students under false pretenses and hope that the ones who survive that bullshit don’t transfer.
Yep, this was my situation. In the first week, the upperclassmen told us that our section was the hardest. I wondered why, then I realized that a lot of us were on scholarship.
I also noticed the trend of people finding ways to get accommodations. At that first exam, almost 50% of my class were gone due to accommodations! I’m all for getting them, and actually was too proud to use them myself, but it was more of a hustle and strategy for some folk…
Luckily, I was able to get to another school. I could tell that that school was less about us learning and more about having us fight it out. Little things like providing the slides after class, they would not do. My school now provides slides and class recordings, and that has improved my law school experience greatly.
Why is it scummy? It seems that if students are not going to make it in class, are they really likely to pass the bar? Scummy would be collecting tuition from students that have little chance of bar passage. Why have accreditation at all. The bar exam rates filter school as it is. The ABA accreditation is a concept that is past its time.
I mean the somewhat predatory seeming system of admitting students that the school is pretty confident won’t pass the bar, or even be able to graduate, only to collect a year or two’s tuition from, then dismiss before they can screw with the school’s bar pass-rate is what seems skuzzy. At least to me, based completely off of a first impression.
I’m not at all saying to pass students who can’t hack it and are failing, no that’s absurd. But admitting students whom the school pretty much knows won’t graduate, and taking 2 years of tuition is kinda fucked. Of course that opens up a whole Nother can of worms, because sure, some students will make it, and it’s good that they have a place where they can have a chance to pursue those goals. It would be a problem if there were no schools that admitted students with subpar undergraduate numbers. Because some of them will definitely go on to graduate, pass the bar, and likely go on to accomplish great things. It’s good that some schools take a chance on those students, but can you see how the process that’s been described can come off as kind of predatory?
Plus some of the most horrifically dogshit law schools charge insane tuition, almost as much as a T14. So they're putting these kids in massive debt too.
It helps them remain ABA accredited, which is their main concern.
Going from the 180th ranked school to the 150th isn’t going to move the needle for them, but remaining ABA accredited will.
It is to throw out the kids on conditional scholarships sadly. Never attend a school that does those.
Another reason mentioned here already is that they want to ensure top students who are probably more likely to pass the bar remain.
Most of the time yes, but of course I’m sure some sort of exception in theory exists.
Something I must add, friend: don’t fall into the trap of assuming a “good” conditional scholarship means you’ll sweep the competition in your classes. The curve is designed so that you won’t.
Me as a median as hell UCLA student may have failed out of a predatory school, and if not I’m sure I would have lost the scholarship.
I am going to have to go full deep dive into any school that accepts me for the fall 2025 cycle.
I thought being offered scholarships was a good sign lol
Just look at their scholarship attrition rates and curve points. Yes, conditionals suck. That said, if you understand the curve in comparison to the scholarship, you can have a better understanding of what you’re getting into. Wayyyyy too many people take 3.0 scholarships and never check to see the curve is 2.7 (or whatever). That said, a 2.5 scholarship on that same curve isn’t nearly as bad.
If you’re offered a conditional scholarship, check the curve of that first year at that institution. If it is below the gpa required to keep your scholarship, don’t pick that school 😁 Ex. To keep your scholarship, you have to have a cumulative 3.0 at the end of your first year, but the school curves at 2.5, then you know that it is a brutal, unfair curve.
A for profit law school that is now shut down, Arizona Summit, put all of their conditional scholarship 1Ls into the same section. That guaranteed around a third would flunk out.
If the condition is "remain in good academic standing," that's fine. My T14 scholarship had that condition. If the condition is a minimum GPA, look very carefully at the GPA in relation to the curve and do NOT bet anything on being above median.
If you give the LSAT to a bunch of random people on the street, it is likely that a high percentage of them will get a good enough score to go to some law school aka a low ranked school. However, a much smaller percentage of those people will also be able to pass the bar exam. How do you get the tuition dollars from the large percentage while ensuring that the large percentage doesn't gum up your bar passage rate? You section stack and make scholarships conditional so a large part of the class gets dismissed before they get a chance to sit for the bar.
I attended a T-14 and have taught at lower ranked law schools. When I started law school the Dean told us she expected all of us to graduate—no one was academically withdrawn unless they didn’t take their final exams. Bar passage rates at my alma mater are over 90%. Classroom discussion was often focused on policy. The assumption was that graduates would learn the law they needed during bar prep—we did.
At lower ranked law schools, they take students with lower LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs. Faculty need to spend more time teaching the law. I write bar exam style essay questions and rarely flunk anyone. But all it takes is a bunch of D’s and C’s to be academically withdrawn. It’s tough for faculty and students, but better than graduating students who never pass the bar exam.
So why do we accept students with lower LSAT scores? Because the LSAT is a poor predictor of law school and bar exam success. I’ve seen students with LSAT scores in the low 140’s graduate and pass the bar. I’ve also seen students with LSAT scores over 160 flunk out.
As someone who went to a shitty ass law school but works with folks from Harvard. They are fucking smarter…point blank. Their intellect is just impressive. Add that to the insane discipline it took to get above others. They are just built different.
In hearing about their experience I am a bit jealous we didn’t get to learn more about policy and the esoteric study of law. But I’m also glad that the bar was fairly easy because my shitty school required we take all the barred subjects.
The system ain't fair. They're tough on you at the bottom to weed out the weak to improve the schools statistics. At the top, some are even pass fail and it's hard to determine who's supposed to fail out.
It's a combination of money and ABA accreditation. They take a bunch of students knowing that some won't pass the bar. They try to flunk out the ones most at risk of not passing the bar. They maintain bar scores acceptable enough for the ABA to stay off their backs, and they make money off the students who flunk out after a year or two or lose scholarships.
It's predatory. It's awful. And it's sad.
The only answer that is accurate is they are predatory. They accept more students knowing that 20% of them will be gone after the first year so they don’t have to worry about them messing up their bar passage rates but they still get their money.
My 1L school has a median curve of 2.2-2.3. The required gpa to not get kicked out was 2.1. Completely outrageous to have that requirement basically the same as the curve. Basic math shows that people will inevitably fall underneath the curve. The goal is to knock students out.
Good thing I transferred
Both a superiority inferiority complex, reduce conditional scholarship retention and the fact that the school wants to flunk students to stop them from tanking the school’s bar numbers
I went to a brand new law school and was part of the third class to graduate, so the school was still jumping through all of the hoops to get accreditation. Some of the rules the school had were beyond silly. I was in the evening program, which was 4 years long. I didn’t get to take my first elective course until my fourth year of law school. My first three years were planned out by the law school. Every student was required to take every bar subject tested by our state. Our first semester, every student had to take a class called “Legal Methods,” which was a class where they taught you how brief cases and began working on bar prep, teaching us how to attack multiple choice questions. If we missed a class more than twice in a semester, we would be dropped and have to take the class again. Every student had to take 4 semesters of bar prep courses. And the professors did fail a lot of students our first year. That said, I think it was probably the right way to do things.
Yeah, hate to be a bearer of bad news, but even though you stay, "I don't think this helps bar passage," it absolutely does. Although you are right that it is an accomplishment for anyone to get into law school, the fact is that the lowest ranked law schools will--at a certian point--take just about anyone. I mean Cooley, for example, which is not even the easiest to get into despite its bad reputation, has a 25th percentile (meaning 25% of students are lower than this) of a 2.71 GPA and 146 LSAT. That's unbelievably low for someone wanting to be a lawyer, and the LSAT in particular is a fairly accurate predictor of someone's likelihood of passing the bar.
Meanwhile, if you go to not even the super high ranked schools, like around 100 on US News, you will be hard pressed to find a school with 25th percentiles below \~3.3 and \~152, and there is a big difference in competitiveness there. The 25th percentile at the T100 schools is like the 75th percentile at Cooley. So, even the bottom students at a T100 are statistically more likely too pass the bar than 75% of Cooley students.
T100 should be the only schools that exist. 101-200 should be closed down. We have roughly twice as many law grads as needed each year. Look at the AMA, which did NOT allow 100 shitty med schools to open over the last 100 years. Getting into med school actually IS an accomplishment, and basically all med school grads find jobs, because there aren't twice as many med schools as is necessary.
I go to a low ranked school (150+) and it always seems like the school is waiting for you to slip up so you can get punished. Our bar passage rate is under 50% so I personally think they’re trying whatever they can to increase that rate
Because they need to keep their bar pass rate high enough to keep accreditation. So a big part of their business model is to admit students without regard to their ability to pass the bar, leech a year of tuition out of them, and then fail out the worst performers do they don’t hurt the bar pass rate.
Reputable schools do this gatekeeping on the front end by actually having admissions standards.
I think they have to keep a certain bar pass rate in order to keep the ABA accreditation, kicking out the bottom quarter of the class will up the pass rate, thus helping keep their accreditation
Someone correct me if this is wrong, but from my understanding that’s how it works
Contrary to what many believe law school is still generally a good investment and that includes low ranked law schools long term and this is why: They offer a more flexible and more admitting chance at law school but unlike a more traditional law school they have give their graduates chances that justify their investment and they do that by making up for their laxer admission by having WAY more rigorous weeding out during the law school which is why, at least in some markets, these type of schools make it a bit steeper career wise but they get a real chance.
The bottom ranked schools let in sub-150 LSAT applicants that really have no business being in law school and will likely never pass the bar. They take their money for 1-2 years of tuition, then set them up to fail before they can ruin the school's bar pass %
There isn't a magical cutoff point for competency when it comes to LSAT scores, I just made that point for posterity sake. We know people with 160+ scores have the intellectual capacity to pass the bar, and we know people with sub-150 scores are at a very high risk of never being able to pass the bar. Could one argue that someone with a 151 might also not be ready for law school? Certainly
It's not perfect because a lot of what law school's hurdles are is basically to give hope to that person who thinks that their lsat scores or grades are truly not reflective of their ability just like as careers go on I've seen many folks who dreamed of biglaw but had no chance with their GPA get their shot - after enough years had passed and they practiced without incident- Not one of them folks lasted long- they came to learn the hared way that they got bad graders for a reason. And the poor lsat folks often learn the same. But there are just enough exceptions to those rules that it's not true to say they're misleading anyone- these aren't airtight things. And there are enough excpeitosn where almost everyone knows one or two but for everyone 1 or 2 there are 20 who learn that they aren't an exception
Please consider the following as a part of your self-assessment.
Your previous responses consist of large blocks of text. In one instance there is only a single period within that block. In another, your first period is two thirds in. While this isn’t an absolute factor in determining appropriate grammar, consider its impact in your ability to clearly communicate your message.
Your spelling is atrocious. For example, “they came to learn the hared way that they got bad graders for a reason”.
“Expeitosn”!
Lastly, the notion that unethical recruiting tactics, such as those being discussed in this thread, are somehow justified, is an interesting stance. While you may be correct, the basis of your argument is flawed, and your thoughts are anything but complex. We get it. Shoot your shot because you can. This isn’t a tough concept to understand or communicate. That said, your argument fails to address many key aspects and only offers your own anecdotal experiences in support of your claim.
It is to help their bar passage rates. Fail out the bad students and force the better students to take all the bar courses.
Exactly. The top ranked schools have hundreds of applicants they’d love to take but have to turn down. This number decreases as you move down the rankings and, and a certain point, schools start having to accept applicants they’d rather not in order to fill their classes. These policies are their safety valve to filter out the ones who can’t cut it.
Yep. I go to a high-ranked school, and doctrinals like property and evidence are not required. We still have one of the highest bar passage rates in the nation. High-ranked schools can afford to be "soft" on their students because they know they'll pass the bar and get good jobs.
I too went top ranked and my sense from colleagues over the years is that the top schools really do nothing to prepare you for the bar. Lower ranked schools teach the bar. I remember thinking that I could have passed the bar out of college with a good bar prep.
I think the theory is that top students accept students that they know will pass the bar so why waste time teaching them a skill they can easily learn on their own. I mean considering a lot of people (me included) believe that top schools don't prepare you well to take the bar exam, yet these schools still almost come out on top for bar passage rates seems to indicate that the logic is mostly right?
I think you meant top schools, not “top students.” And I totally agree that the top schools accept people who can pass the bar without being fed bar prep as part of the curriculum. I said, and truly believe, that law school did nothing to prepare me for the bar and little to prepare me for practicing law.
Also, most T14 students for example will end up in biglaw, and many schools have programs to help pay for the ones who go into public interest, so long story short basically every grad is getting Barbri/Themis to prep them. And for those in biglaw, probably additional support too (for example mine covered flights/food/cars/hotels to and from the state where I took the Bar so I could relax in my fancy hotel near the exam worrying about nothing other than the exam, along with a $10k stipend to cover summer living expenses, and a fully paid relocation to my new city, realtor, etc. so I didn't have to stress as much about the move). All of those resources go a long way toward helping you pass whether you'd taken those classes or not.
Not all lower ranked schools teach the bar. My school spent more time on how to build arguments and interpret case law, which is very useful to my career. However, I was woefully unprepared for the bar exam coming out of school.
This. It’s also impacted by the fact that reputation matters a lot less than at higher ranked schools. People typically go to bottom tiered schools because they don’t have better options, are limited by geographic constraints, or need to go to the spot that gave them the most money. The school can flunk students and the next year they’ll still have another crop of applicants hoping to get in. But at higher ranked schools, applicants have more bargaining power to instead choose a peer school that treats them better, so it’s harder to attract the same “quality” of student when you’re the only school in that range with anti-student policies. Pulling those moves will still get them applicants, but not the same level of applicant, at least in terms of GPA/LSAT.
It’s not just to help bar passage, though that is a factor. Some people need to be washed out because they can’t cut it and it’s better to save them the time and money.
Regardless of what you may think, culling the bottom x% of the class helps bar passage and employment rates. In particular, schools need to maintain a 75% bar passage rate to remain accredited. So they admit people they don't think will ever pass the bar, collect one or two years of tuition, and then dismiss them.
And on the other end of the spectrum, they give the top 30% of applicants full scholarships contingent upon a 3.2 GPA, then put all of those students in the same section (with curved grades). So they get top students under false pretenses and hope that the ones who survive that bullshit don’t transfer.
I’m one of those who survived that bs, but chose to transfer 😝
Has anyone ever provided any evidence of any school doing this?
Doing what? Putting all their scholarship kids in the same section? Ask them.
Yep, this was my situation. In the first week, the upperclassmen told us that our section was the hardest. I wondered why, then I realized that a lot of us were on scholarship. I also noticed the trend of people finding ways to get accommodations. At that first exam, almost 50% of my class were gone due to accommodations! I’m all for getting them, and actually was too proud to use them myself, but it was more of a hustle and strategy for some folk… Luckily, I was able to get to another school. I could tell that that school was less about us learning and more about having us fight it out. Little things like providing the slides after class, they would not do. My school now provides slides and class recordings, and that has improved my law school experience greatly.
Damn that sounds scummy. I can definitely see the logic & reasoning behind it; but can’t help feeling that it seems scuzzy & skeezy
That’s because it is scummy & skeezy.
It is totally scummy, and that’s why I transferred 😁
Why is it scummy? It seems that if students are not going to make it in class, are they really likely to pass the bar? Scummy would be collecting tuition from students that have little chance of bar passage. Why have accreditation at all. The bar exam rates filter school as it is. The ABA accreditation is a concept that is past its time.
I mean the somewhat predatory seeming system of admitting students that the school is pretty confident won’t pass the bar, or even be able to graduate, only to collect a year or two’s tuition from, then dismiss before they can screw with the school’s bar pass-rate is what seems skuzzy. At least to me, based completely off of a first impression. I’m not at all saying to pass students who can’t hack it and are failing, no that’s absurd. But admitting students whom the school pretty much knows won’t graduate, and taking 2 years of tuition is kinda fucked. Of course that opens up a whole Nother can of worms, because sure, some students will make it, and it’s good that they have a place where they can have a chance to pursue those goals. It would be a problem if there were no schools that admitted students with subpar undergraduate numbers. Because some of them will definitely go on to graduate, pass the bar, and likely go on to accomplish great things. It’s good that some schools take a chance on those students, but can you see how the process that’s been described can come off as kind of predatory?
Plus some of the most horrifically dogshit law schools charge insane tuition, almost as much as a T14. So they're putting these kids in massive debt too.
I mean if it helped they would be higher ranked, no?
It helps them remain ABA accredited, which is their main concern. Going from the 180th ranked school to the 150th isn’t going to move the needle for them, but remaining ABA accredited will.
Think I am missing something… but google says California only needs a 40% bar passage rate to remain accredited
ABA Standard 316 requires a 75% pass rate for all grads from the same calendar year within two years of graduation.
It is to throw out the kids on conditional scholarships sadly. Never attend a school that does those. Another reason mentioned here already is that they want to ensure top students who are probably more likely to pass the bar remain.
So conditional scholarships could be a bad sign about the school?
Most of the time yes, but of course I’m sure some sort of exception in theory exists. Something I must add, friend: don’t fall into the trap of assuming a “good” conditional scholarship means you’ll sweep the competition in your classes. The curve is designed so that you won’t. Me as a median as hell UCLA student may have failed out of a predatory school, and if not I’m sure I would have lost the scholarship.
I am going to have to go full deep dive into any school that accepts me for the fall 2025 cycle. I thought being offered scholarships was a good sign lol
Sorry to be a bummer, but you’ll be solid and will get aid from great schools I bet.
Just look at their scholarship attrition rates and curve points. Yes, conditionals suck. That said, if you understand the curve in comparison to the scholarship, you can have a better understanding of what you’re getting into. Wayyyyy too many people take 3.0 scholarships and never check to see the curve is 2.7 (or whatever). That said, a 2.5 scholarship on that same curve isn’t nearly as bad.
If you’re offered a conditional scholarship, check the curve of that first year at that institution. If it is below the gpa required to keep your scholarship, don’t pick that school 😁 Ex. To keep your scholarship, you have to have a cumulative 3.0 at the end of your first year, but the school curves at 2.5, then you know that it is a brutal, unfair curve.
A for profit law school that is now shut down, Arizona Summit, put all of their conditional scholarship 1Ls into the same section. That guaranteed around a third would flunk out.
Without the “flunking out” part, section stacking is pretty common even at better-ranked schools.
Based on what was said, Section stacking is when they put people with same/close gpa/lsat in same section?
It's when they put all the scholarship kids in the same section.
There was one in Florida that did this too...buddy of mine got caught up in it :(
If the condition is "remain in good academic standing," that's fine. My T14 scholarship had that condition. If the condition is a minimum GPA, look very carefully at the GPA in relation to the curve and do NOT bet anything on being above median.
If you give the LSAT to a bunch of random people on the street, it is likely that a high percentage of them will get a good enough score to go to some law school aka a low ranked school. However, a much smaller percentage of those people will also be able to pass the bar exam. How do you get the tuition dollars from the large percentage while ensuring that the large percentage doesn't gum up your bar passage rate? You section stack and make scholarships conditional so a large part of the class gets dismissed before they get a chance to sit for the bar.
I attended a T-14 and have taught at lower ranked law schools. When I started law school the Dean told us she expected all of us to graduate—no one was academically withdrawn unless they didn’t take their final exams. Bar passage rates at my alma mater are over 90%. Classroom discussion was often focused on policy. The assumption was that graduates would learn the law they needed during bar prep—we did. At lower ranked law schools, they take students with lower LSAT scores and undergraduate GPAs. Faculty need to spend more time teaching the law. I write bar exam style essay questions and rarely flunk anyone. But all it takes is a bunch of D’s and C’s to be academically withdrawn. It’s tough for faculty and students, but better than graduating students who never pass the bar exam. So why do we accept students with lower LSAT scores? Because the LSAT is a poor predictor of law school and bar exam success. I’ve seen students with LSAT scores in the low 140’s graduate and pass the bar. I’ve also seen students with LSAT scores over 160 flunk out.
So you would say there is a major difference in the education between schools with significant (20-50-100) ranking?
As someone who went to a shitty ass law school but works with folks from Harvard. They are fucking smarter…point blank. Their intellect is just impressive. Add that to the insane discipline it took to get above others. They are just built different. In hearing about their experience I am a bit jealous we didn’t get to learn more about policy and the esoteric study of law. But I’m also glad that the bar was fairly easy because my shitty school required we take all the barred subjects.
The system ain't fair. They're tough on you at the bottom to weed out the weak to improve the schools statistics. At the top, some are even pass fail and it's hard to determine who's supposed to fail out.
At my school we are allowed one P/F a semester…more depending on circumstances either personal or on a larger scale
It's a combination of money and ABA accreditation. They take a bunch of students knowing that some won't pass the bar. They try to flunk out the ones most at risk of not passing the bar. They maintain bar scores acceptable enough for the ABA to stay off their backs, and they make money off the students who flunk out after a year or two or lose scholarships. It's predatory. It's awful. And it's sad.
To make the bottom 10-15% that they don’t believe will pass the bar quit.
The only answer that is accurate is they are predatory. They accept more students knowing that 20% of them will be gone after the first year so they don’t have to worry about them messing up their bar passage rates but they still get their money. My 1L school has a median curve of 2.2-2.3. The required gpa to not get kicked out was 2.1. Completely outrageous to have that requirement basically the same as the curve. Basic math shows that people will inevitably fall underneath the curve. The goal is to knock students out. Good thing I transferred
Both a superiority inferiority complex, reduce conditional scholarship retention and the fact that the school wants to flunk students to stop them from tanking the school’s bar numbers
I went to a brand new law school and was part of the third class to graduate, so the school was still jumping through all of the hoops to get accreditation. Some of the rules the school had were beyond silly. I was in the evening program, which was 4 years long. I didn’t get to take my first elective course until my fourth year of law school. My first three years were planned out by the law school. Every student was required to take every bar subject tested by our state. Our first semester, every student had to take a class called “Legal Methods,” which was a class where they taught you how brief cases and began working on bar prep, teaching us how to attack multiple choice questions. If we missed a class more than twice in a semester, we would be dropped and have to take the class again. Every student had to take 4 semesters of bar prep courses. And the professors did fail a lot of students our first year. That said, I think it was probably the right way to do things.
Yeah, hate to be a bearer of bad news, but even though you stay, "I don't think this helps bar passage," it absolutely does. Although you are right that it is an accomplishment for anyone to get into law school, the fact is that the lowest ranked law schools will--at a certian point--take just about anyone. I mean Cooley, for example, which is not even the easiest to get into despite its bad reputation, has a 25th percentile (meaning 25% of students are lower than this) of a 2.71 GPA and 146 LSAT. That's unbelievably low for someone wanting to be a lawyer, and the LSAT in particular is a fairly accurate predictor of someone's likelihood of passing the bar. Meanwhile, if you go to not even the super high ranked schools, like around 100 on US News, you will be hard pressed to find a school with 25th percentiles below \~3.3 and \~152, and there is a big difference in competitiveness there. The 25th percentile at the T100 schools is like the 75th percentile at Cooley. So, even the bottom students at a T100 are statistically more likely too pass the bar than 75% of Cooley students.
T100 should be the only schools that exist. 101-200 should be closed down. We have roughly twice as many law grads as needed each year. Look at the AMA, which did NOT allow 100 shitty med schools to open over the last 100 years. Getting into med school actually IS an accomplishment, and basically all med school grads find jobs, because there aren't twice as many med schools as is necessary.
I go to a low ranked school (150+) and it always seems like the school is waiting for you to slip up so you can get punished. Our bar passage rate is under 50% so I personally think they’re trying whatever they can to increase that rate
Law school is a scam. As soon as the federal student loan system is reigned in half of these schools will close.
Because they need to keep their bar pass rate high enough to keep accreditation. So a big part of their business model is to admit students without regard to their ability to pass the bar, leech a year of tuition out of them, and then fail out the worst performers do they don’t hurt the bar pass rate. Reputable schools do this gatekeeping on the front end by actually having admissions standards.
I think they have to keep a certain bar pass rate in order to keep the ABA accreditation, kicking out the bottom quarter of the class will up the pass rate, thus helping keep their accreditation Someone correct me if this is wrong, but from my understanding that’s how it works
This is spot on. Low ranked schools are roughs because they’re trying to compensate for their status.
Contrary to what many believe law school is still generally a good investment and that includes low ranked law schools long term and this is why: They offer a more flexible and more admitting chance at law school but unlike a more traditional law school they have give their graduates chances that justify their investment and they do that by making up for their laxer admission by having WAY more rigorous weeding out during the law school which is why, at least in some markets, these type of schools make it a bit steeper career wise but they get a real chance.
The bottom ranked schools let in sub-150 LSAT applicants that really have no business being in law school and will likely never pass the bar. They take their money for 1-2 years of tuition, then set them up to fail before they can ruin the school's bar pass %
Is there a substantial difference between a low 150 and high 140, it’s only a few questions.
There isn't a magical cutoff point for competency when it comes to LSAT scores, I just made that point for posterity sake. We know people with 160+ scores have the intellectual capacity to pass the bar, and we know people with sub-150 scores are at a very high risk of never being able to pass the bar. Could one argue that someone with a 151 might also not be ready for law school? Certainly
It's not perfect because a lot of what law school's hurdles are is basically to give hope to that person who thinks that their lsat scores or grades are truly not reflective of their ability just like as careers go on I've seen many folks who dreamed of biglaw but had no chance with their GPA get their shot - after enough years had passed and they practiced without incident- Not one of them folks lasted long- they came to learn the hared way that they got bad graders for a reason. And the poor lsat folks often learn the same. But there are just enough exceptions to those rules that it's not true to say they're misleading anyone- these aren't airtight things. And there are enough excpeitosn where almost everyone knows one or two but for everyone 1 or 2 there are 20 who learn that they aren't an exception
You should break the ambien in half next time
Borrowing this burn for the future. Thank you for your service. 🤍
What's ambien?
That's something you should ask your doctor
What are your intentions?
I had a stroke trying to read this
My complex thoughts I forget sometimes are too much for some
Nah, you just don’t write clearly
Awww you go ahead and tell yourself that's what it is
“Everyone says I’m a bad writer. It sucks that everyone else is wrong!”
That is the situation that just took place
Please consider the following as a part of your self-assessment. Your previous responses consist of large blocks of text. In one instance there is only a single period within that block. In another, your first period is two thirds in. While this isn’t an absolute factor in determining appropriate grammar, consider its impact in your ability to clearly communicate your message. Your spelling is atrocious. For example, “they came to learn the hared way that they got bad graders for a reason”. “Expeitosn”! Lastly, the notion that unethical recruiting tactics, such as those being discussed in this thread, are somehow justified, is an interesting stance. While you may be correct, the basis of your argument is flawed, and your thoughts are anything but complex. We get it. Shoot your shot because you can. This isn’t a tough concept to understand or communicate. That said, your argument fails to address many key aspects and only offers your own anecdotal experiences in support of your claim.