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Is Law School Grading Arbitrary?

By admin

In this video, law professors discuss the challenges of grading. One law professor presents a disturbing viewpoint: law school grading is somewhat arbitrary because grading is so subjective. What do you think?

Click here to view the embedded video.

I agree that law school grading is not precise—and some law school professors are worse than others.

For most law professors, it is hard to differentiate between a B+ grade and an A- grade. However, there is normally a noticeable difference between an A and a C.

While the lack of accuracy between grades in close proximity to each other is unfortunate, there is little that can be done about it if humans do the grading (instead of computers). By nature, human grading of essay-style exams is subjective.

Statistically, a law student will benefit from adjustments in their favor and adjustments downward during their time in law school. As a result, the inaccuracy in law school grading doesn’t have a major affect on law student’s GPA.

Of course, some law school professors are a bigger problem than most. You wonder if they throw the exam papers down the stairs and give an A to papers that land on the top stair, A- to papers on the next step, B+ to papers on the next step, and so on down the stairs.

That’s my opinion. What do you think?

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Full post as published by Law Student on March 30, 2009 (boomark / email).