Grade Distributions (2020)
Grading Guidelines
These guidelines, adopted in 2008, represent the faculty’s collective judgment that the distribution of grades in any course will be within the limits suggested.
- The guidelines for first-year JD courses are mandatory and binding on faculty members.
- The guidelines with respect to the A+ grade are mandatory in all courses. In all other cases, the guidelines are only advisory.
- With the exception of the A+ rules, the guidelines do not apply at all to seminar courses, defined for this purpose to mean any course in which there are fewer than 28 students.
- In classes in which credit/fail grades are permitted, these percentages should be calculated only using students taking the course for a letter grade. If there are fewer than 28 students taking the course for a letter grade, the guidelines do not apply.
| First-Year JD (Mandatory) |
All other JD and LLM (Non-Mandatory) |
|---|---|
| A+: 0-2% (target = 1%) (see note 1 below) | A+: 0-2% (target = 1%) (see note 1 below) |
| A: 7-13% (target = 10%) | A: 7-13% (target = 10%) |
| A-: 16-24% (target = 20%) Maximum for A tier = 31% |
A-: 16-24% (target = 20%) Maximum for A tier = 31% |
| B+: 22-30% (target = 26%) Maximum grades above B = 57% |
B+: 22-30% (target = 26%) Maximum grades above B = 57% |
| B: Remainder | B: Remainder |
| B-: 4-8% (target = 6%) | B-: 4-11% (target= 7=8%) |
| C/D/F: 0-5% | C/D/F: 0-5% |
Important Notes
- The cap on the A+ grade is mandatory for all courses. However, at least one A+ can be awarded in any course. These rules apply even in courses, such as seminars, where fewer than 28 students are enrolled.
- The percentages above are based on the number of individual grades given–not a raw percentage of the total number of students in the class.
- Normal statistical rounding rules apply for all purposes, so that percentages will be rounded up if they are above .5, and down if they are .5 or below. This means that, for example, in a typical first-year class of 89 students, 2 A+ grades could be awarded.