The Volokh Conspiracy

Does the California Bar score exams any differently based on the exam takers race?

Eh... 12% of Stanfordites underestimated the amount of preparation they needed, while only 11.3% of UCLAers, 5% of Yalies and 6% of BYUers did the same thing.

It's hardly surprising that, among those who took the California bar, Stanford students were more slightly more likely to overestimate themselves than UCLA students. The real surprise is that more Yalies didn't overestimate themselves.

I don't know how well Hastings usually does, but I'm glad to see that my class did well. Beating the trojans, and running away from Davis. Now can we put to rest the US News and WR ranking that puts Davis ahead of Hastings. In the words of George Oscar Bluth (GOB) "Come On!"

The BYU and Arizona rates are interesting, but I can't help but wonder if there's some kind of selection going on, in the sense that the better BYU grads (and Arizona) are going to be the ones taking the California Bar (by virtue of having a job lined up out here most likely). As a result, they're getting to skim a little in pass rankings. Still good for them.

And to the quibblers who say the 88.7% is 88.0% difference isn't significant, I say: Is too! Is, is, is!

Haha, who cares about statistical significance, it's bragging rights and that's far more important. 24-23 may not be statistically significant in the Super Bowl, but only one team takes the Lombardi trophy home. Statistical significance or not, and it ain't the team scoring 23.

Isn't Bar-Bri wonderful?

Bulldog - note I was only addressing BYU and Arizona, yale is diff I grant readily.

Frank Drackman: No, the testing and scoring do not vary by race. The passage rate varies greatly by race. The passage rates for first-time takers from ABA approved schools in California was 75% for whites, 67% for Asians, 58% for Hispanics, and 46% for blacks. (The passage rate for "Other minority" was 63%.)

For ABA-approved schools outside of California, whites passed at 72% and blacks at 30%.

If (like me) you would like to see continuing and even increased participation in the legal system by groups traditionally excluded, these numbers are awful.

Shouldn't the numbers also be normalized for some sort of "capabilities and knowledge before they got to law school" baseline (if what you're trying to determine is "which is the best school")?

Most out of state schools don't send people to California in sufficient numbers for a year's worth of statistics to mean much, so I wouldn't attribute anything to Yale's percentage this year. Next year a couple of guys from Yale could fail and the percentage would drop noticably.

I would have guessed that USC would edge out Hastings, though not by much. Perhaps I overestimated them a bit. I think Hastings is often underestimated, so I'm not suprised to see them doing so well.

These pass rates are all quite high, and congratulations for all who passed. There has been much pissing and moaning in the WSJ lately about how hard the California Bar Exam is. Apparently, for those who went to good schools, it isn't any harder than those given in other states.