competitive?

[inCA]

is BU pretty competitive?

[Andrew]

I've always had trouble defining "competitive".  In my view, there are only two ways to compete: (1) try to do better than others, (2) try to make others do worse than you.

In the second sense, no I wouldn't say BU is competitive.  My classmates are friendly about sharing notes and exchanging knowledge, and I've yet to see the pages ripped out of any library books.

If the first sense, of course it's competitive.  One has to do better (on exams) than 90% of the others to be in the top 10% of the class.  Simple fact.  The economy sucks and jobs are hard to come by.  The best thing you can do is try to be at the top - but of course that's worthless advice when applied to an entire school - everyone, taken as a whole, will always be average.

I don't mean to dismiss your question by the way - let me know if there's anything specific you were wondering.

[inCA]

Thanks for answering, Andrew.  I meant in the second sense.  How does the grading curve work at BU?

[Andrew]

There is, roughly speaking, a B+ average.  (It's something a little more complicated than that, official info here: http://www.bu.edu/law/jd/curriculum/compregs.html#ArtIX).

Of course the actual GPA doesn't matter so much.  Employers seem mostly concerned with one's rank within the class.  Rank is only determined at the end of each year.  What kind of grades would you need to be to make the 1/3, .25, and .10 cuts?  You can get an idea here:
http://www.bu.edu/law/jd/registrar/grades/awards.html
(they just took down last years numbers, but they'll be out again soon for this year's 1Ls and 2Ls (3Ls get grades early so they can graduate).

The GPA cutoffs should be irrelevant to outsiders of course, because the difficulty of getting a certain GPA is a factor of rank in the first place (because the classes are curved).  In other words - my favorite line: to be in the top x%, you have to do better than 1-x% of the other students.  It's simple, circular logic, but most entering students believe they'll be near the top.  Most are thus wrong.

As far as competition, every year will be different because there are all new students.  I wouldn't say I've experienced any institutionalized competition, but maybe I've been sabatoged and I just don't know it.  After all, shouldn't I be in the top 10%?

Andrew

[km]

Hey i will be applying to law school i was wodnering what type of work or volunteer position i should do to give me an extra edge or what have your classmates done?

[Andrew]

I'm not really sure what types of activities the admissions office likes to see.  It's probably a good idea to do something that sets you apart from people that just watch TV all day.

Thinking about others in my class - there are a lot of people that worked for a year or two before law school - sometimes at law firms, but often at jobs that had little or nothing to do with law.  A lot of people had two majors in college and a lot of people did some sort of study abroad.  I can't say I know much about people's extra-curricular or volunteer activies.  It doesn't come up much in conversation.