Robert Anderson

Professor of Law Pepperdine University School of Law

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08/12/2013

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Where is Washington??? Do you not care about their bar, are you leaving them out because they 're about to change their archaic exam format, or did they recently secede from the Union and I just missed that bit of news?

Hi Erin,

Washington is left out for the reason you guessed, that they have changed their bar exam and therefore I have no data for the current exam. I believe they have adopted a 135 passing score (on the MBE scale) so I would guess they'd be similar to Texas (and a large number of other states in difficulty). We won't really know until we get data, because there are many factors besides the passing score that affect exam difficulty.

Best,
RA

Thank you SO much for making this program. I've been trying to figure out where to try passing and where not to bother. I know this is only provisional, but it confirms most major conclusions from my own (rudimentary) research. The only surprise was S.C. Wow, I wonder what is the point of having a 3-day exam if nearly everyone passes.

MultiStateScarredExam,

Thanks for the comments! SC is an interesting case because my original model of bar exam difficulty (which indicated a difficult exam) disagreed sharply with the multistate passing score (which indicated an easier exam). I averaged the two approaches in this calculator, so it's possible that SC ended up looking easier in the calculator than it really is. The reason is likely that SC is one of the few states that has a so-called "conjunctive" passing rule (you need to receive a minimum score on individual parts, not a minimum total score). That makes the exam more difficult than the MBE passing score would indicate. When (or if) schools provide me with data to validate the calculator I will be sure to revisit SC with special attention.

Best,
RA

I passed sc in 2010 july on first try and ca in 2012 on first try. Ca was exponentially harder than sc a big reason is sc bar tells you what subjects are tested on what day.

What is NaN%?

That's a bug. If you let me know what you put in I will fix it.

No Alaska?

I get NaN% no matter what I put in.

Chetsbabe, If you give me an example of what you put in that didn't work I will try to fix! It's working for most people though.

I have tried my real scores, school, etc., as well as various others - including LSAT 155, 165, 170; States Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, New Mexico (I just picked some); schools top 50, 100-150, out of 150; class rank top 10%, 10-20%, 20-30%. All give me the same result NaN%.

Chetsbabe,

Sorry for the late reply. For some reason the comment went into a spam filter. Could you give me one specific combination of inputs that gave NaN?

Has anyone else been experiencing this?

Comedian/Magician Harry Anderson wrote a book called "Bets You Can't Win" in which he wrote: "Suckers want to know what their chances are. Gamblers want to know the odds." A resource that helped me greatly was a book called "Pass This Bar." This was many years ago.

I'm concerned that my school's curve (grade inflation) is biasing results. How would an excessively favorable curve impact my calculation-should I rank myself as though I did worse than I did in school?

I have tried putting my information into the calculator multiple times and it does nothing when I click on calculate. No error code, no information, it just sits there.

Hi Amanda,

Thanks for letting me know. It obviously broke for some reason, but I believe it should be working correctly now.

RA

still doesn't work

Should be fixed now

Hi:

This calculator no longer works. Is this just me? I'd like to see my results.

Still does not work.

It should be working now. It periodically breaks for an unknown reason.

This is interesting, but I would take it with a grain of salt. According to this, I only had a 10% chance of passing California, and I passed on the first try with no problem. I was laying out by the pool and shopping the day before the exam, and had about an hour to spare at the end of each session.

Your calculator matches well with our data on our graduates in Ohio, for what it's worth.

Ohio Law Prof,

Thanks for the feedback! I wish more people would leave that type of feedback as it's valuable for students studying for the bar.

Rob

25% to pass
First bar percentage rate 36% - pass
Different jurisdiction with different law system and different language. Pass rate 50%.
Second bar - pass
Your calculator fails.

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