What To Do When You're Dumped By Your Law School? pt.1

Nathan Caracter
Jun 28, 2024
3 min read

Updated: Jul 10, 2024

So after my successful bid and entry into the school I've been eyeing for so long, I was academically dismissed after my first year. HOW!? "How is this possible?" I've asked myself over and over again. I mean, I have an undergrad in Law and a masters in legal studies for Christ sake! With GPA's higher than 3.5 in both!

And the answer is....I'm not sure.

I should mention that academic dismissal is due to a cumulative GPA of lower than a 2.0.

Let's go back a little...

In January 2024, I receive this letter...

What are these options you ask? Well 1), I could withdraw from school completely and continue at a future date. Of course, I will lose my 75% Dean's Scholarship, and redo my first trimester completely over again. That seems like a great bargain for CWSL, not so much for me, though.

2) Drop Legal Skills II in the Spring semester and replace it with Legal Methods. A remedial course that shows students how to take tests better. (here's a hint, pick 'c') Here's the thing, if you don't know how to take tests by this point, it's gonna be too late. Now, even though Legal Methods is a 0 credit course, you're not going to get refunded the money spent on Legal Skills II. You know why? Cuz you are going to be forced to take it during the summer. But what about these great summer internships everyone has been talking about?

TOUGH SHIT

Not gonna happen cuz you're in class. But interestingly enough, if you don't hit a 2.0 after that Spring semester, you still don't get to continue on to the summer courses. So yes, they take Legal Skills away from you (the easiest course to excel in), and expect you to get a higher GPA by the time you finish the Spring.

Well, I made the appropriate decision, and told them kindly:

I decided to continue upon my path per usual.

I would like to take this moment to say something about grades in law school. When they say A is excellent, and B is above average, C is satisfactory, D is below average, and F is failing - they really mean that, and they have a way to enforce it! So no matter what the actual scores are, professors assign the majority of grades, a C, less so B's and D's, and even less so A's and F's. It's called a curve. Any of you that took statistics should be familiar with standard deviation and understand how this works....

F D C B A

In essence, what your actual score is matters little compared to everyone else's score. If I get a 95%, but everyone else gets a 96% or higher, I get an F, cuz I still scored less than everyone else. So, from here you can understand that you are being graded against and in competition your peers which is odd to me coming from a societal dogma that has moved from "everyman for themselves" to one of a community based approach.

Also let me mention that "+" and "-" scores are real in law school. Like an A+, is something that's real and quantifiable, not like your elementary school teacher just saying it to make you feel good.

So, without further ado, here are my grades:

GPA was 1.73, which is a C- (slightly below average) And now for Spring:

GPA was 2.25, which is a C+. However the numerical value for my cumulative GPA is 1.98. This is WAY too close to a 2.0! By the way, see the column called "Points"? Remember that, we'll be coming back to that. So, of course I plead my case, hoping for some sort of allowance, and THIS is the XXXXX with split ends who would have none of it. (I can say XXXXX, I'm gay).