Fall Failings or Spring Thaw?

Jannalee mentioned that my blog postings have really slumped since I got out of school. The suggested reasoning is that I no longer had any studying to avoid, so I didn't get around to blogging as often. So you should expect a flurry of blog posts here now that my bar review class has started. Regular law school reading was downright fascinating compared to studying for the bar. Ugh.

Bar review coincided with the releasing of our final grades. I was pretty burnt out by the end of this third year and had stopped going to most of my classes in February, so I was pleasantly surprised by some of the results.

Maybe I shouldn't have been so surprised though. Throughout my law school career I've been pretty mediocre in the fall, and pretty good in the spring. In the 3 fall semesters of law school I've taken 36 graded credit hours with a cumulative fall gpa of 87.02. That's well above the median, but nothing special. This semester has brought my spring results to 37 graded credit hours with a cumulative spring gpa of 92.78. My fall gpa would put me somewhere in the top third of the class, while my spring gpa would put me somewhere in the top 5 kids in the class. As it is, I'll end up somewhere around the bottom of the top 10% of my class of 230 kids.

I have no idea what could explain the discrepancy. I'm typically much more burned out on school during the spring semester and the weather is also much nicer in the winter and early spring so I have more incentive to ditch classes. My job status and law journal work load were pretty consistent across fall and spring terms and the moot court work-load is actually much more intense during the spring semester. I would say the professors are just more likely to give good grades going into the summer, but I think I'm unique in at least the size of the disparity. I do get quite a bit fatter in the spring - maybe the extra calories work on my brain. Or not.

Another disturbing aspect of all this is how I could score 10 full points above the enforced median in classes I had completely written off. I was DONE this semester. Maybe law school should be shortened to 2 years with a 1 year residency requirement after graduation. Or maybe they should just offer classes in the spring.