I give a speech every semester to my 1Ls, and I know other professors do as well. You are not your grades. I inform my students that they do not need to pass by me in the hall and hang their head in shame if they did not get an A. They are more than their grade. They are a whole person, and that grade, based upon one data point, does not draw a unique picture of who that student is as a human being. I’ve written many letters of recommendation to the point.
Chances are, I don’t know my students’ grades. Unless the students come to review their exams with me, I choose not to look. If they do review their exams, I focus on what is important: Not the grade itself. Rather, what were the weaknesses of the exam, what can be done to improve, and the student knowing that this is a single data point, not their whole existence.
So, let’s review some basics of grading and what I mean (I presume not to speak for others) when I say “you are not your grades.” TLDR: Your grade is a temporary marker of the information you conveyed from your brain to the exam. That conveyance isn’t necessarily what is in your head. And what is in your head at the time of exam may increase over time as you continue to learn.
Your grade is one data point. Nothing more. One of my coauthors (may he rest in peace) expressed it as follows: “An exam is an indication of how you did that day.” There is much noise to an exam that has nothing to do with your knowledge as to a body of law. Did you have a fight with your romantic partner? Was someone you care about in the hospital? Did you have indigestion? Did you lack sleep? Were you having a panic attack for the first hour of the exam? Were you worried about money or how to pay rent? Were you able to afford to eat before the exam? Are you a slow typist? There are many factors that go into exam writing that have nothing to do with knowledge.
Even under perfect conditions, what you know may not transfer to the paper. You may have absorbed all that knowledge but are unable to convey it in an efficient manner under time constraints. That is an additional step in learning that sometimes comes too late for the exam.
Your grade does not reflect your future career trajectory. I often tell the stories of students who did not excel in law school who turned out to be excellent attorneys. I have referred people who I care about to those attorneys. They work hard. They have empathy. In many cases, the lack of a good grade was an impetus to be better.
I’m not saying that students with great grades are bad lawyers. They can be, just as those with bad grades can be bad lawyers. I’m suggesting that the correlation between great grades and great lawyering isn’t clear cut.
Your grade does not reflect the purpose of the exam. The goal of any exam worth its salt, in my opinion, is to continue the learning process. What has the student learned, and can the professor make the student extend it in an exam format? An exam is teaching and learning.
For that reason, I encourage students to meet with their professors about their exams, regardless of whether they got an “A” or a “D+.” The exam is a basis to learn and build strengths from where you were weak. Meeting with your professors and finding consistent themes of weaknesses means remedying a problem going forward.
Sure, some professors actively discourage students from meeting with them about exams. They hide. They reschedule appointments. They say “look at the sample answer and figure it out.” Those are guaranteed ways to do great disservice when an opportunity exists to teach. As you pay the overhead for the place, it’s important to acquire the knowledge from the exam experience you deserve.
Your professor potentially didn’t experience grades like you do. It’s easy to say “you are not your grades” if you’ve never actually received any. For example, Yale offers the following grading system. Honors and Pass are the most common. In most law schools, grades create invidious distinctions based upon mandatory grade curves and caps. The difference between an A and an A- gets accentuated. Perhaps Yale is right and we give too many grades, and that creates fetishism about the difference between an A and an A- and distorts the purpose of learning.
Your grade does not reflect who you are as a human. There are many more components to being a member of this profession than your grade. Are you kind? Did you help colleagues when they needed notes? Or were you selfish? Were you hiding resources from colleagues instead of sharing? Did you constantly talk smack about your colleagues or the professor? Did you blame the professor for your grade? Were you more interested in the grade than understanding and learning?
The answers to those questions say more about you than your grades ever will.
LawProfBlawg is an anonymous law professor. Follow him on X/Twitter/whatever (@lawprofblawg). He’s also on BlueSky, Mastodon, and Threads depending on his mood. Email him at lawprofblawg@gmail.com. The views of this blog post do not represent the views of his employer, his employer’s government, his Dean, his colleagues, his family, or himself.
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