Are these bad grades/feeling dissapointed

[whatisenough]

1L first semester grades:

- Contracts: B

- Crim Law; B

- Torts: C

- PubCon is only 50% of the grade: C+ 

Very upset about torts and pubcon, funny thing is thought they were my best classes. Am I screwed?

 

Edited February 18, 2023 by whatisenough

[LMP]

Well you aren't screwed, you're passing. But they aren't strong marks and it's going to hurt you when it comes to certian opportunities.

[Turtles]

To answer your question more objectively, a B + B + C (not counting PubCon because it's not a final mark) averages out to a high C+ (5.33 on the Osgoode scale, the threshold to raise it to a B would be 5.50). For 1Ls last year, 1% had an F average, 2% a C average, and 9% a C+ average. So your grades are probably better than around 8-10% (ish) of Osgoode 1Ls and lower than 90-92% of them. You have room to grow but are not dead last by any means. https://www.osgoode.yorku.ca/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/Grade-Profiling-Sheet-2021-2022.pdf

It's good you're passing and Cs get degrees. There's probably some things you can re-work in your routine and in your approach that can help you bring up your grades. I suggest reviewing your exams with your profs for feedback and taking time to understand what they were looking for, where you lost marks, and why you made the mistakes you did. Osgoode also has academic counselling options you can probably reach out to the Assistant Dean to explore.

You're not in a great position but you're not "screwed". It goes almost without saying but if you can bring up your grades this semester and through 2L, you could be much better positioned for job hunting. But that will likely require figuring out what's wrong and quickly adapting, rather than simply trying to press your luck. 

[TobyFlenderson]

Echoing what others have said, you’re not screwed with these grades. You’re also not doomed to repeat them, if you take action now.

If you haven’t already, I recommend talking to your profs and seeing what went wrong. Maybe you had the right idea but your application of the law was lacking. Maybe your application was good, but you applied the wrong principles. It’s important to understand where the error is, so you can work on that.

You might also find reflection helpful. Did you do something different for those classes? Maybe because you thought they were your best? It’s possible you got Bs in the other classes because you thought you didn’t know the material as well, so you hustled extra hard to make up that difference. If so, now you know that’s the hustle you need even for the classes you think you’ve got a good grip on. Take some time to think about how you approached your classes, what you did differently between them, and what you think you could improve.

For what it’s worth, a lot of people get grades in 1L, especially first semester, that freak them out. For some people, that means getting a B when they’re used to getting As. For others, it’s getting a C and panicking that they’ll fail out.

My 1L midterm grades were not great. C, C, C+, B-, B. I thought I had made a mistake going to law school. I thought I was done for, that I had ruined my transcript and shot myself in the foot and that this was an insurmountable obstacle that would follow me forever.

Now, in fairness, my 1L year was the beginning of COVID, so my grades went pass/fail, and ultimately they didn’t matter. But I knew I couldn’t repeat it in 2L, so I worked harder. I read every assigned reading (not the optional ones, though). I took my best ever notes. I treated law school like a 9-5 job, and I did better. My 2L average was a firm B, and I took that as a win. By 3L, I had a better sense of what I was doing and my last semester of law school was an A- average. Not at all what I, or anyone else, would have expected in January of 1L.

All this to say, you’re not screwed, and with some effort determining where you went wrong and how to avoid it, you can crush the next two years and minimize the impact of a lower 1L average.

Good luck!