Law-less but not CD-Legal at Law Schools

NYT reports on GPA adjustment in some Schools, even retro-actively.

Schools argue that they are trying to keep with their peers- the same argument used to justify the gross compensation of Corporate and University CEOs. Positive Feedback Loop.

The current grading system makes a mockery of learning. Combining this with student evaluations yields the "don't worry be happy" state for students, faculty and administrators- at least in the short run. Learning, in the meantime, is shedding her tears.

In Law Schools, Grades Go Up, Just Like That - NYTimes.com: "One day next month every student at Loyola Law School Los Angeles will awake to a higher grade point average.
But it’s not because they are all working harder.
The school is retroactively inflating its grades, tacking on 0.333 to every grade recorded in the last few years. The goal is to make its students look more attractive in a competitive job market.

In the last two years, at least 10 law schools have deliberately changed their grading systems to make them more lenient. These include law schools like New York University and Georgetown, as well as Golden Gate University and Tulane University, which just announced the change this month. Some recruiters at law firms keep track of these changes and consider them when interviewing, and some do not...

The process schools refer to as grade reform takes many forms. Some schools bump up everyone’s grades, some just allow for more As and others all but eliminate the once-gentlemanly C.

Harvard and Stanford, two of the top-ranked law schools, recently eliminated traditional grading altogether. Like Yale and the University of California, Berkeley, they now use a modified pass/fail system, reducing the pressure that law schools are notorious for. This new grading system also makes it harder for employers to distinguish the wheat from the chaff, which means more students can get a shot at a competitive interview.

Students and faculty say they are merely trying to stay competitive with their peer schools, which have more merciful grading curves. Loyola, for example, had a mean first-year grade of 2.667; the norm for other accredited California schools is generally a 3.0 or higher."