How hard is it to maintain a D average in first year law?

[Arithela]

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Relative to other courses

[thegovernator]

well, after studying a few arts subjects, and then doing law. from my experience i've had to work at least twice as hard to get d's. this is a comparison between like intro philosophy, sociology, micro and macro economics, aust politics etc, and legal research, foundations of law, contract law, tort law, and federal constitutional law.

[Marmalade.]

Is anybody willing to say what their own average is?

[Frigid]

fifth year, average mark about 78%. i've had two HDs, in real property 1 and company law (and probably another along the way for this summer), and a splattering of 80s.

[amaccas]

grats. is that just law subjects?

1st year, average of 75.

[Frigid]

Originally Posted by amaccas

grats. is that just law subjects?

1st year, average of 75.

yeah, my commerce marks are shockers.

[Frigid]

Originally Posted by zimmerman8k

Is 78% your average mark. If thats the course average I think I'll just kill myself. Btw do you know what that is? (please say lower than 78)

i'll let the UNSW Dean of Law explain (PDF here):

"On the basis of WAM cut-offs over the last 5 years, to be in the top 10% of the graduating cohort, and therefore be eligible for the award of Honours Class 1, it is estimated that a WAM cutoff somewhere between 77.6% and 79.2% will be required in semester 2, 2007. To be in the next 10% a WAM between 75.5% and 77.5% will be required. Finally, to be in the lowest 10% for Honours a WAM between 73.9% and 75.4% will required.

so basically, top 10% is anything greater than 77-79%, top 20% is anything greater than ~75-77%, top 30% is ~73-75%...

i'm right on the edge.

[amaccas]

i thought it was generally >75 = 1st class honours. at least for UTS anyway.
that's scary the fact that you potentially need >76 or 77 to get 1st class honours. and scary that 10 per cent get into this band :O

I would've thought less get first class honours. maybe like 5 per cent of the year.

[Frigid]

Originally Posted by amaccas

i thought it was generally >75 = 1st class honours. at least for UTS anyway.
that's scary the fact that you potentially need >76 or 77 to get 1st class honours. and scary that 10 per cent get into this band :O

I would've thought less get first class honours. maybe like 5 per cent of the year.

actually, at UTS and USyd, more than 10% of people get First Class Hons. This is because USyd counts only WAM (>75%) and UTS is WAM (>75%) + honours thesis.

arguably, UNSW is the hardest honours to get at present.

[melsc]

I have found it is getting easier to get the higher marks as I get through my degree. My law marks bar one HD in first year were all credits. My arts marks are always higher and much higher this year, I find them less work and much easier. Where my law marks average from Cs-Ds my Arts subjects range from Ds to HDs.
I am hoping to push my law subjects up a bit higher this year.

My law averages are (just by simply averaging marks as our system is a weird GPA system:
First year: 74%
Second year: 74% LAW GPA (Mac system) 3.333 (where F= 1,CP=1, P=2, C=3, D/HD= 4).

[antisheep]

melsc... would you be towards the top of the cohort with those marks? Cos they seem really good to me!

Also mac's system is the american system.. i'm not sure why they chose that system but yeah, that's where it's from.

[melsc]

I'm not sure really. Probably not right near the top with C's (again it depends on how well everyone peforms. At UWS it seemed like high C's/D's were very high as not many seemed to get HDs. The way I see it is people with HD's are at the super duper top, then you have the D's which are pretty high up. High C's are also hard to come by but you have to remember they give a fair few more C's out.
I don't have much of an idea though. i know I just get happy when I see D's and HD's because they dont give many out