Law Schools

You Are Not Your Grades

Law students have the opportunity to take this adversity and improve from it. They can change. 

By  
on

Dear 1Ls,

Several of you have emailed me from around the country asking me questions about grades.  Grades are the things that one gets after putting in a lot of hard work, tears, and suffering after a long journey of seeking knowledge and understanding. They are to learning as scales are to weight loss.  In short, grades can be degrading.

There’s a lot riding on grades, especially the first year of law school.  They determine how things will pretty much end at graduation, whether a student will be on law review, clerk, and in effect perhaps the whole course of a student’s career.  Such pressure to get good grades can make students suffer emotionally and even physically as they seek to get the best grades possible.

The worst feeling, at the end of all of that, is to find out that one’s best efforts did not get that high prize, the “A.”  It can be jarring.  Do my grades mean I shouldn’t be a lawyer?  Do they mean I’m stupid?  What does this grade tell me about me?

I see students acting differently after getting grades.  They talk less in classes.  They are less confident in their answers.  They hold their heads differently.  They walk less upright.  It is as if they had a tremendous weight on their shoulders, and that weight is their grades.  Guilt.  Shame.  And they look at me differently, too.  It is as if they have a letter grade pinned to their forehead and because theirs is not an “A,” I’ll somehow talk to them differently, or not at all.  They’re shook.

There are many blog posts about this topic, so many that I scarcely need to write another.  But my answer to you is the same as all those others:  You are not your grades.  However, I would add: Unless you fail to deal with the issues underlying them.

A grade usually measures one temporary thing: How well you were able to translate your understanding of the course into the final exam answer, expressed either in writing or in your ability to correctly fill in bubbles with a number 2 pencil.  All a grade measures is a snapshot of your understanding of a class, on a particular day, at a particular time.  And there’s no footnote that comes with the grade that would tell employers looking at them whether you had been in the emergency room with the flu the night before, had a panic attack, completely skipped that one endnote upon which the professor tested, or a myriad of other issues that might have affected the outcome.

Sponsored

An undergraduate final exam from my favorite professor brought home to me the impermanence of what a grade measures. The essay question was completely lost on me.  I had no idea how to answer it.  I flat out panicked.  I was going to fail.  Prof would think I’m an idiot.  There goes grad school.  There goes my life.  Then, my professor handed me a note that I have kept with me, some 26 years later:  “You are an excellent writer and thinker:  Write what you know.”  It was his way of saying that no matter how abysmal my grade, he knew something about me I didn’t know about myself: I could do better.  I could improve.  My understanding of the course didn’t have to end when the course did.  I knew more than I thought I did.

That’s the thing that students who don’t perform well their first semester out of law school don’t get:  There is a large silver lining to this enormous cloud that looms over their heads.  They have the opportunity to take this adversity and improve from it.  They can change.  What did they do wrong?  What did they miss?  Are there common themes across classes in terms of what they did wrong?  They have the opportunity to improve, if they invest in that chance.  No, it won’t change their grade, but it can be the way to develop skills necessary to tackle the upcoming semester.

It is rare that I get students who come talk to me about grades, absent a devastating grade (or even a good one).  There is a keen desire to move on from that past semester.  It is like students, to varying degrees, got through the graveyard in the middle of the night without getting attacked by zombies: No need to go through that place again!  It was creepy!

That fear is what causes those grades to attach permanently to your psyche.  By avoiding talking about them, you fail to correct the issue that caused them.  You fear them, and that fear causes you to be more anxious in tackling this semester’s exams.   Fearing them and avoiding them means not dealing with them.  You have given your grades the permanence they do not deserve.

So repeat after me:

Sponsored

  1. I am not my grade. There is more to me than this one snapshot in time.  I am a complex individual who can’t be pigeonholed by a moment in time.
  2. My understanding of a course is not permanent. It can change.  It can expand and improve.  I can even surpass the grader’s understanding of the course, over time.  I can even get so great an understanding as to teach the course (although I don’t recommend that if your grade is in Tax Law or Property).
  3. I’m going to win. The negative self-doubt that the grade gave me is not going to get the best of me.  Self-doubt is my worst enemy.  And I won’t let it win. I’m going to win.
  4. I’m going to fearlessly learn from my mistakes. I am going to (respectfully) email my professors to ask they sit down with me and help me understand what went wrong.  I’m going to make my final exam a learning experience.
  5. I believe in myself. I have faith in me.  I’ve got this.

LawProfBlawg is an anonymous professor at a top 100 law school. You can see more of his musings here.  He is way funnier on social media, he claims.  Please follow him on Twitter (@lawprofblawg) or Facebook. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com.

Topics

, , , , ,