curves? i dont get it.

[StevePirates]

http://www.us.mensa.org/Content/AML/NavigationMenu/Join/SubmitTestScores/QualifyingTestScores/QualifyingScores.htm


there's the link in case anyone is curious.  It's based on the percentile now, not the score.  For example when I took the test 167 was good enough for 95%

[veganvenus]

1. Yes, it is nearly impossible to fail out of Harvard. Indeed, it is quite easy to get a B-.

2. Furthermore, most have BigLaw offers by October of their 2L year.

3. This does not mean that all, or even most HLS students then spend all their time drinking, and have no engaging class discussion.  Having the option to do so does not necessitate one take it.

People have a way of adjusting their expectations according to their circumstances. Whereas the same students, were they at Brooklyn, wold be quite happy getting an offer from a top 50 firm, the culture at HLS convinces you that this is not success.  Only an offer from Cravath, which you turn down for an Appellate clerkship, will suffice.  Ergo, many, not all, continue to work hard and remain the same anal-retentive nerds that got them there in the first place.

Yes, absolutely, some spend weekends drinking at the Hong Kong.  But that may well be because those people are more visible.... a vocal plurality?  Perhaps less visible are the hoards that make it difficult to find an open carrel anywhere in the library. 

HLS's curve is favorable, but that does not mean that it is really 'grade inflation'.  It is populated by people who got As all their lives.  If anything, the B/B+ average seems below what many deserve.

There is inflation at the lower end of the curve, for those who don't want a clerkship, have stopped caring, and have discovered the wonders of a scorpion bowl.  Being able to turn in the bare minimum and get a C, to turn in a half-assed effort and get a B- is not quite fair to those who struggle endlessly to get those grades elsewhere. 

However, that should not reflect poorly on the rest of the student body who still slave away just like the rest of you.

[browsingatwork]

Hahaha! Mensa is ridiculous!

LOL - Take a look here, they changed it again! Too bad it's too late!

[17]

[...] In the case of discreditable stigma, the stigmatized individual assumes the source of stigma to be neither known about by those present nor immediately perceivable by them. Having a criminal record or being gay are examples of discreditable stigma, in that there is something about oneself that is not immediately apparent but could diminish oneself in the eyes of others if exposed.

[...] After the grades come out, many people experience a profound loss of self-esteem and confidence, as well as a significant shift in their self-perception -- but no one talks about it. For these people, the information about their grades becomes a discreditable stigma, one that they do their best to hide. This process takes its toll. Those possessing a discreditable stigma must learn to manage their information. [...]

Receiving less-than-perfect first year grades in law school is FAR more discrediting. I've been gay all my life and I can safely say the discreditable stigma in the former case is much more tougher to handle!

[dru]

Hahaha - you're so @ # ! * i n g funny 17!

[mini 6]

Why are people wasting their time comparing harvard and cooley? Obviously they arent equal.  maybe cooley has a few students that could be top students at harvard but as a general rule, the students who are accepted to harvard are simply more qualified students than the ones at cooley. 

Yes. That is true. But the fact that a top student at Cooley would not have a harder time to be at the top at Harvard remains unchanged. One had to take into account the fact that some very good students with high undergrad GPAs end up in lower tiered law school because of their low LSAT scores, not to mention that many law students at top schools get there only because of a high LSAT score, although they did suck as undergrads. Well, you all know what a "good" indicator of academic ability LSAT is ...

BLACK, LATION/A, NATIVE AMERICAN AND OTHER UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITY STUDENTS WHO OVERCOME THE INEQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY IN K-12 EDUCATION AND THE RACIALLY HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES TO EARN THE SAME GPAs AS THEIR WHITE COUNTERPARTS SCORE FAR LOWER ON THE LSAT - FOR BLACK STUDENTS, THE GAP IS 9.2 POINTS ON AVERAGE. IN OTHER WORDS, A BLACK AND U-M GRADUATE WITH A 3.7 GPA WILL SCORE 9.2 POINTS LOWER ON THE LSAT THAN A WHITE U-M GRADUATE WITH THE SAME GPA.

http://www.umich.edu/~daap/facts.htm#3

Latino here – as the Census Bureau applies the term -- no significant drop in result I would presume (GPA 3.5, LSAT 163) – but of course the fact that I came to the US as a child may have to do something with it..

[s.t.]

BLACK, LATION/A, NATIVE AMERICAN AND OTHER UNDERREPRESENTED MINORITY STUDENTS WHO OVERCOME THE INEQUALITY OF EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY IN K-12 EDUCATION AND THE RACIALLY HOSTILE ENVIRONMENT ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES TO EARN THE SAME GPAs AS THEIR WHITE COUNTERPARTS SCORE FAR LOWER ON THE LSAT - FOR BLACK STUDENTS, THE GAP IS 9.2 POINTS ON AVERAGE. IN OTHER WORDS, A BLACK AND U-M GRADUATE WITH A 3.7 GPA WILL SCORE 9.2 POINTS LOWER ON THE LSAT THAN A WHITE U-M GRADUATE WITH THE SAME GPA.

http://www.umich.edu/~daap/facts.htm#3

Have you ever heard about Stereotype Threat? That when a person's social identity is attached to a negative stereotype, that person will tend to underperform in a manner consistent with the stereotype?! The underperformance is to be attributed to a person's anxiety that he or she will conform to the negative stereotype. It manifests itself in various ways, including distraction and increased body temperature, all of which diminish performance level. The two researchers who coined the term, Steele and Aronson, originally speculated that anxiety and narrowed attention, resulting from attempts to suppress stereotype-related thoughts, contribute to the observed deficits in performance. In 2008, an integrated model of stereotype threat was published. It focused on three interrelated factors: 1) stress arousal, which impairs the processing of information in the prefrontal cortex; 2) performance monitoring, which narrows attention; 3) efforts to suppress negative thoughts and emotions. Stereotype threat has been shown to disrupt working memory, increase self-consciousness about one's performance, and cause individuals to try and suppress negative thoughts as well as negative emotions such as anxiety.

Stereotype threat thus can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby a person comes to resemble his or her reputation, living up or down to social expectations.

[p r i m e]

Have you ever heard about Stereotype Threat? That when a person's social identity is attached to a negative stereotype, that person will tend to underperform in a manner consistent with the stereotype?! The underperformance is to be attributed to a person's anxiety that he or she will conform to the negative stereotype. It manifests itself in various ways, including distraction and increased body temperature, all of which diminish performance level. The two researchers who coined the term, Steele and Aronson, originally speculated that anxiety and narrowed attention, resulting from attempts to suppress stereotype-related thoughts, contribute to the observed deficits in performance. In 2008, an integrated model of stereotype threat was published. It focused on three interrelated factors: 1) stress arousal, which impairs the processing of information in the prefrontal cortex; 2) performance monitoring, which narrows attention; 3) efforts to suppress negative thoughts and emotions. Stereotype threat has been shown to disrupt working memory, increase self-consciousness about one's performance, and cause individuals to try and suppress negative thoughts as well as negative emotions such as anxiety.

Stereotype threat thus can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby a person comes to resemble his or her reputation, living up or down to social expectations.

Assuming such a Stereotype Threat thing exists, you are not making things better by mentioning it - B I T C H !!!

[svedka]

Have you ever heard about Stereotype Threat? That when a person's social identity is attached to a negative stereotype, that person will tend to underperform in a manner consistent with the stereotype?! The underperformance is to be attributed to a person's anxiety that he or she will conform to the negative stereotype. It manifests itself in various ways, including distraction and increased body temperature, all of which diminish performance level. The two researchers who coined the term, Steele and Aronson, originally speculated that anxiety and narrowed attention, resulting from attempts to suppress stereotype-related thoughts, contribute to the observed deficits in performance. In 2008, an integrated model of stereotype threat was published. It focused on three interrelated factors: 1) stress arousal, which impairs the processing of information in the prefrontal cortex; 2) performance monitoring, which narrows attention; 3) efforts to suppress negative thoughts and emotions. Stereotype threat has been shown to disrupt working memory, increase self-consciousness about one's performance, and cause individuals to try and suppress negative thoughts as well as negative emotions such as anxiety.

Stereotype threat thus can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy whereby a person comes to resemble his or her reputation, living up or down to social expectations.

Assuming such a Stereotype Threat thing exists, you are not making things better by mentioning it - B I T C H !!!

prime, you appear to have a low coping sense of humor ..

[G Yalo]

niki, Freudian theories do not necessarily rule out a free, non-repressive society. Freud's speculation that civilization is originally based on a necessary sexual repression recognized for its merits, it has been suggested that:

(1) only a part of this has come from the conditions of scarcity which obliged humans to work, with another part coming from living in class-divided societies where ruling classes impose an extra repression over and above that arising from natural scarcity,

(2) with the coming of automation and the like, scarcity has now been conquered. This being so, sexual repression - that imposed by natural conditions as well as that imposed by class-divided society - is no longer necessary. Civilization need no longer be based on sexual repression. A free, non-repressive society is possible.

Herbert Marcuse has in fact explained why people accept capitalism -- they have been psychologically manipulated into wanting it. In other words, their basic "instincts" have been remoulded so as to fit in with capitalist society. The issue now is how will such people come to want to get rid of capitalism.

[...]

It could not be otherwise. If the humanization of the oppressed signifies subversion, so also does their freedom; hence the necessity for constant control. And the more the oppressors control the oppressed, the more they change them into apparently inanimate "things." This tendency of the oppressor consciousness to "in-animate" everything and everyone it encounters, in its eagerness to possess, unquestionably corresponds with a tendency to sadism. Fromm maintained that,

The pleasure in complete domination over another person (or other animate creature) is the very essence of the sadistic drive. Another way of formulating the same thought is to say that the aim of sadism is to transform a man into a thing, something animate into something inanimate, since by complete and absolute control the living loses one essential quality of life -- freedom

Sadistic love is a perverted love -- a love of death, not of life. One of the characteristics of the oppressor consciousness and its necrophilic view of the world is thus sadism. As the oppressor consciousness, in order to dominate, tries to deter to search, the restlessness, and the creative power which characterize life, it kills life. More and more, the oppressors are using science and technology as unquestionably powerful instruments for their purpose: the maintenance of the oppressive order through manipulation and repression. The oppressed, as objects, as "things," have no purposes except those their oppressors prescribe for them.

[...]

I can make sense of this - in the Western world people tend to treat each-other as objects when it comes to sex too - people collide, go to bed because of some kind of "chemistry," and then "split" when the chemistry is "gone," veering off in different directions until they each collide with someone else. They can go through dozens of relationships in this way, blind to their own feelings and oblivious to the feelings of their lovers. Nothing changes in these relationships — and nothing changes from one relationship to the next — because nothing is revealed.

In the matings based on "chemistry", as opposed to romantic love, people never open themselves up emotionally and so they can never break down the wall that separates them from the other "body" in bed. Even the sex is often only "intercourse" in a technical sense because there isn't any real commingling of pleasure, only an exercise in mutual masturbation.

Freud once described every sexual act "as a process in which 4 persons are involved,"  by which he meant, among other things, the fantasy that each person takes to bed along with his or her lover. In sex without tenderness, you never escape that fantasy because you never have any contact emotionally with the other person: you are making love, not to them, but to an image in your head. You are locked up inside yourself, as is your partner, and so it helps if you don't have to look at his or her face, which accounts to some extent for the growing popularity of oral sex.

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/index.php?topic=3002385.msg5398986#msg5398986

Interesting take on the subject, eli!

Whatever the case may be, one thing is for sure - nowadays we are definitely having sex like automatons, displaying no tenderness, emotion and the like!

Long gone are days of those deep French kisses - the barometers of love!

I connect here to another great post:

When people stub their toe, they get angry, curse, and through hobbled grimace and gritted teeth, ignore the pain. How much quicker the heal and more pleasant the day, if that poor throbbing toe were held and its pain acknowledged instead.

Then comforted by warm, sympathetic hands till pain eases and ends. After all, no matter the shoe, the speed, or the rocky path pointed, the toe never lets body down.

If small this change in thought does seem, apply that small principle to a larger scale, and note what differences result with change of belief. When the body is sick or diseased, the prescribed policy is to view the disease with winner-loser hostility. Rather than stiffening resolve and muscle and steadying nerve to control pain, rather than declaring all-out war and focusing energy and resources on destroying the invader, flip perspectives instead.

Focus light on body's plight, for it's every bit in need of caress as that stubbed toe once was. Accept the pain, validate its existence. The body system may be confused as to which is friend and which is foe. The body for allowing disease to enter or disease for daring to enter? Wars are always confusing. As peace can follow surrender in war, heal and cure can follow surrender in body disease.

[...] Applying the simple principle further, farther, wider; how far from acceptance and cooperation ever healing is? Both come inextricably bound and wound when love visits. When children stub their toe, they cry out in acknowledgment of pain.

With love in heart and hand, adults comfort and massage their sore wee toe and kiss and cuddle to ease pain.

I wonder if we do not view each other as stubbed toes too-often, and too-readily in life. It seems avoidance is easier than care, anger is faster than understanding, complaint is quicker than compliment, and ignoring common, if not prevalent.

When others hurt, they are generally left to fend for themselves, as stubbed toe often must do. When our children hurt, we hurt too. What's the difference?

Other than pedigree and proximity, nothing.

injunction, these are some great words, but truth-be-told, we're not taught to "acknowledge the pain," (we're actually told to "take it like a man")!

When love visits?! As things are - as you even say it yourself - those visitations are "allowed" for children only, so to speak! I mean, would you expect much tenderness and affection displayed before (let alone after) the, let's say, average sexual relationship? With people going thru hundreds of partners - and with your wife having become like your sister to you - what kind of affection would you expect to show towards your partner? It's more like sex conducted in a militaristic manner, just like you do it in the middle of a mess (all that other stuff you've to do)!

But your idea, of love being an end in itself, is truly great!

http://www.lawschooldiscussion.org/index.php?topic=3004539.msg5398920#msg5398920