So, what's the impact of USF's new, unnecessary, inflated curve?

Obviously, it has greatly increased GPAs, which stands to reason. However, it should also be clear how much the altered curve will disadvantage those who have less opportunity to make use of it.

This year's 2nd-year part-timers had an entire first year under the harsher curve, but their class ranking will be negatively impacted during recruiting because, for ranking purposes, they'll be bunched in with students who have had an entire, full-time first-year under the new curve.

This year's 4th-year part-timers like me entered this year, with the gentler curve, with fewer units to take (and one semester entirely scheduled, even if we wanted to do something about it) before graduation.

All told, slipstreaming such a massive change in on everyone else with no method of correcting for the changes is wildly unfair. Next spring, when this year's 2nd-year part-timers are in the same pool as this year's first-year full-timers for rank, what are they going to tell employers who couldn't care less about GPAs (most of them) when their rank is lower, because they had a tougher curve?

The administration claimed they did this immediately because it was the best solution. I think it's pretty clear that they actually did it because it was the expedient solution. Well, they got what they wanted. People have higher GPAs. Yay.

Of course, I don't expect you to agree on this, as I am sure we will have different viewpoints on it. But my feeling is that, as it is, night students at the upper ends of the curve competing for jobs on the basis of class rank with day students have an overall advantage in that while the night curve is easier, they are included with the day students in terms of class rank.

Of course, night students often bristle at the idea that their curve is easier. But unless and until someone can offer me a decent explanation of why competing against a) lower average scores, b) people working full-time, and c) having a reduced work load would not lead to an easier competitive landscape, I will continue to maintain that an A in section 3 is simply not equal to an A in section 1 or 2. Anecdotally, from my observations tutoring evening K's, that is the case... people simply did not bring the same level of vigor to their studies as I observed (albeit as a participant) in first-year day classes.

(Which is not to say that any individual or group of individuals in the night section would not be competitive in day, or even more so... just that in aggregate the evening's performance is lesser than that of the day. It is also not to disparage those that work full-time in the evening and get great grades, but presumably there should be some allowance for that dual performance when it comes to employers that day students simply cannot take advantage of).

But, so be it. The fact of the matter is that life is unfair. This one-time switcheroo affecting a few students in the night section has a marginal effect on their prospects, at worst. And as someone who had to defend the few C's on my transcript with interviewers who graduated from schools with no forced C's, I am pleased to see the upgraded curve. Unfortunately, USF students are really more often compared against students from other schools than we are against our own peers. Getting more alumni into better jobs where they can raise the profile of the school will have a much more dramatic effect on those few night students than their loss of a few percentage points of class rank.

Of course, night students often bristle at the idea that their curve is easier. But unless and until someone can offer me a decent explanation of why competing against a) lower average scores, b) people working full-time, and c) having a reduced work load would not lead to an easier competitive landscape, I will continue to maintain that an A in section 3 is simply not equal to an A in section 1 or 2.

By a), I assume you mean lower average entrance scores. The differences in averages are small. More importantly, many of the people comprising the evening section when starting have a bit more experience doing real things than your average 22 year old student. As for c), it's utter nonsense to even suggest there's a reduced workload when you follow talking about people working full-time. Boo hoo, you had one more class than I did, yet I was working 40 hours each week, commuting during rush hour, and still keeping up with my studies.

But the real failure in this idea comes from some implication that evening students remain a segregated lot throughout, which simply isn't the case. Of my original evening section, there were maybe 15 to 18 students left who were strictly evening students when I started. You want to know where my best grades came from? When I started taking classes with full-time day students.

The beauty of the curve is that an A in section 3 means exactly the same thing as an A in section 1 or 2.

Anecdotally, from my observations tutoring evening K's, that is the case... people simply did not bring the same level of vigor to their studies as I observed (albeit as a participant) in first-year day classes.

Where vigor means what, exactly? Participation? (I can't imagine you could have seen anything else during your time as a participant.) Maybe, us older students who exist in higher, though far from overwhelming, numbers in the evening section have simply learned how to keep their mouths shut sometimes.

Other than that, there's the simple fact that night classes are longer. Students grow weary and professors often wind down.

1. First-year night students carry a class and half less of a load than day students. The half is half of a 4-credit class, and thus it could realistically be seen as two classes less, one three credits and one two credits. Either way, it's five credits less a semester, so I don't know how you come up with one less class since there are no five credit classes. Making it seem that carrying 150% of a night students' load is the trivial matter of an extra class is plainly wrong.

2. You worked 40 hours a week. Good for you... if I were an employer, I would highly value the fact that you worked while getting good grades. But what bearing does it have on whether your curve is easier or harder? From that perspective, the fact that a number of people work full time makes the competition easier, not harder. Yes, from the point of view of an individual who works a full time job, competing against people who do not work is, of course, a huge handicap. But a section with a number of people working full time jobs almost by definition has to make the competition easier, because if they were not working they would have more time to study. That would reduce overall exam performance.

And as far as whether the predominance of older students in the night section makes it more difficult to compete, remember that the day section has older, more experienced students as well, but the difference is that they are not working full time. Most of the older students in the night section have jobs.

2. I'm not sure what scale you are using that has determined that the differences are "small," particularly since I, at least, am not sure where the statistics comparing the two are to be found. The fact remains that there are differences, and that there are people in the night section who are there because the school only offers them admission to the night section based on their entrance scores. Entirely coincidentally, I am sure, is the fact that they do not have to report part-time student's scores to US News & World Report. Maybe they actually do, but they don't have to (and if they do, they are pretty dumb for doing so).

3. You wrote: "But the real failure in this idea comes from some implication that evening students remain a segregated lot throughout, which simply isn't the case. Of my original evening section, there were maybe 15 to 18 students left who were strictly evening students when I started. You want to know where my best grades came from? When I started taking classes with full-time day students."

I don't know what implication you are referring to. Yes, night students eventually take classes with day students. And you have provided us with anecdotal evidence that your best grades came when you mingled with day students. Why should we extrapolate from that that this is a common experience? Unless you have data showing that *as a group* night students get better grades than day students in the same classes, I'm not sure what your point is here, and I'll stick to my hypothesis that better entering scores plus more time trumps lower entering scores and less time.

5. Vigor. My experience as a night section tutor was that a number of the working people (not all, but some) were simply looking to pass, not excel. By week 3 of first semester there were a number of people, both working and not, who were copping to not having done the reading when cold-called. That is simply unheard of in the day section. It had nothing to do with people being respectful of others. Rather, it was just a simple matter of lackadaisical preparation. Many people would approach me and ask me how Fre-wald expected them to work full time and prepare in the manner she expected them to at the same time. I had to admit: I did not know. The truth is that I found the night students woefully underprepared compared to my section-mates. Yes, this is entirely based on my observation, but confirms the general hypothesis (high scores + more time > lower scores + less time).

Are there unprepared people in the day sections? Of course. And while I understand you would like to have some recognition of your individual achievement of working and getting good grades, you have still not given me any reasons to believe why doing less work and at the same time competing against *groups* of people who have lower scores and less time available to them is harder than having a heavier burden while competing against people with higher scores and more time available. Objectively, exam performance is going to be reduced *as a group*. Might some individuals perform very well, even better than many or all days students? Sure. But not in the aggregate.

And it is all beside the point. I am not complaining; rather, I am simply offering a counterpoint to your perception that this one anomaly of being lumped in with the day students is terribly unfair to the part-timers. Most day students perceive being lumped in with the night students as sort of unfair, but generally accept it as simply one of those things. You can't control for everything... some things just give particular groups advantages (first-year day students are also lumped in with part-time day students, who take the same classes and exams but just carry 5 less credits than the rest of the section. But you don't hear that complaint nearly as much as you hear about how unfairly the night students have been treated by the GPA adjustment). I agree with you that there is a disadvantage given to some night students because of the GPA adjustment, but it is so slight that it hardly bears all of this gnashing of teeth. As a friend once told me, pass and move on.

1. First-year night students carry a class and half less of a load than day students. The half is half of a 4-credit class, and thus it could realistically be seen as two classes less, one three credits and one two credits. Either way, it's five credits less a semester, so I don't know how you come up with one less class since there are no five credit classes. Making it seem that carrying 150% of a night students' load is the trivial matter of an extra class is plainly wrong.

Odd that I wrote it was only one. I know very well it is one-and-a-half.

Nonetheless, carrying 150% of a night student's class load in the absence of working is hardly a feat. Now, can I appreciate the complaints as it relates to those who didn't work? Probably. But there's no way you're going to convince me that 5 units of class (and only one additional substantive area of law) is the equivalent of working a full-time job.

Vigor. My experience as a night section tutor was that a number of the working people (not all, but some) were simply looking to pass, not excel. By week 3 of first semester there were a number of people, both working and not, who were copping to not having done the reading when cold-called. That is simply unheard of in the day section.

That wasn't my experience.

And while I understand you would like to have some recognition of your individual achievement of working and getting good grades, you have still not given me any reasons to believe why doing less work and at the same time competing against *groups* of people who have lower scores and less time available to them is harder than having a heavier burden while competing against people with higher scores and more time available. Objectively, exam performance is going to be reduced *as a group*. Might some individuals perform very well, even better than many or all days students? Sure. But not in the aggregate.

Night students in the aggregate isn't an important grouping with a narrower upper curve (like we used to have.) For the top grades, the competition is among those who are trying to excel.

More importantly, I'm not a big fan of assessing a person's academic quality based on their inbound scores. For one thing, I had lousy numbers -- a lousy undergrad GPA, in any case. Should that really suggest that others in that situation, along with me, couldn't handle it if we had been lumped in with day students? Somehow, I doubt it. And we're talking 1 LSAT point at the top end and 3 at the bottom end, and GPAs 0.1 point lower at the top end and 0.2 point lower at the bottom end. I'm pretty sure even those of us with such lousy numbers can still tie our shoes.

To your earlier point, night students aren't competing only against students who have a lighter load and less available time. Many night students have a lighter load and more available time than day students. At that point, the only argument is that "lower scores" simply dilutes the pool into a bunch of losers.

I agree with you that there is a disadvantage given to some night students because of the GPA adjustment, but it is so slight that it hardly bears all of this gnashing of teeth. As a friend once told me, pass and move on.

I'm sure that advice was merely offered through a friend. :)

So, here's another way of looking at the altered curve, using your position of the advantaged night students. Most of this first-year class -- if it's like mine, 2/3 -- will convert to full-time after this year. Those second year night students presumably suffer much greater in comparison.

In any event, I really didn't know I was doing that much teeth-gnashing. I think they should have considered the impact on other students USD did. I don't think it's unfair just because of the impact on second-year evening students or my fears over the impact of the A+ on movement at the top. I think changing the rules in the middle of the game is just generally unfair, when there were ways to avoid it.

(I guess I'll avoid further rants about the shift to 3 significant digits from 4.)

Of COURSE the night students in the top 10 my year are not, with one exception I know of, people who worked 40 hrs/week. And I know a bunch of 'em. Some were people who worked, but far less. How much this individual or that one worked is hardly the point: if there was any variance in credit-load or work-commitment, there was not a level playing field. Ex- PT students in the day section (those who dropped crim in their first year)- they went PT feeling it would give them an advantage, and speaking with a knowledge of their ranks, so it did.

Now, this does not mean it is "easier" to be in the night section or PT. By and large, most night students have work commitments that make law school that much more difficult- but not all do. Many students do law school at night to get JDs- very few day students accept this as their goal. While I recognize that this is a generalization, I know alot of students from all sections, and this simply is my experience.

The larger point is that any system with built-in inequality, which compares two unlike things to one another, is flawed. I don't think you can remedy such inequalities by changing night student grades or anything, because that doesn't cut down on the abuseability factor. Honestly, the only way to make everything equal would be the abolition of Sec. 3 (ex- Hastings does not have one). Of course, that will never happen for several reasons, some of them excellent. I only hope employers will look critically at our resumes to evaluate grades in light of work- and credit-load.

- FT 3L

Obviously, it would be great if all employers looked at all factors. All but the biggest employers probably are going to, anyway.

As to this notion of inequality, it seems you (and Dave, for that matter) are ignoring the inequality of professors between day sections. Surely, we must also ensure that all day section classes are taught by the same professors. Some might give more reading. Some might do more with class participation. Some might grade down in the curve while some grade up. That I took a course (in the day, by the way) with a professor who grades more harshly in the curve than he had to surely means that my grades from that semester can't be used to compare against others.

The curve allows for all of this. If professors who teach in both sections believe, as Dave has told me at least one does, that the quality of the evening students' work is lower, there's no requirement to meet the maximum boundaries of the higher grades in the curve.

In the end, we all take different classes, classes with different professors, different numbers of classes, and classes with varying grading methods. That's hardly a system that's well designed to compare students. But that's the system we have.

Even assuming that students in the PT program have lower scores on average, I don't think you can necessarily say that lower scores correlate with less time. In last year's 1PT program, only about a third of the students were working full time; and, among the people whose entering scores I know, the students with the lowest scores were also the most likely to not be working (under the theory that they could get ahead by competing against all the working PT students).

Nothing in my year of law school has amused me more than talking to some of the students who hadn't been working during the school year who are, during the summer, taking 6 units and working full time at externships, etc. They complain bitterly about how hard it is.

But a little overblown. I agree that they way they introduced the new grading system was unfair. Actually the administration sucks in many respects. However, it kind of reminds of the discussion about how USF is always teetering on the edge of the 2nd and 3rd tiers.

By choosing to go to USF, you have implicitly accepted the reality that you will have to hustle for a job using your connections or whatever else you bring to the table. (in my case a lengthy career in tech).

This makes the career path for USF law grads a little more circuitous. If you want to work at MoFo or Skadden or whereever, you may have to work at some lesser-known and smaller firms first. But, that's the reality for most people. A friend went to University of Iowa law school, supposedly a top 20 school. She had a hard time finding a job in the Bay Area because no one knew squat about the University of Iowa. Employers are similarly clueless about grades and class rankings. Do you think man people know what the McAuliffe honors society is?

In certain respects however, learning how to hustle is a good thing. In my pre-law school career I was most happy working at places where I got the job because a friend already worked there.