List of Law School GPA Curves - Class Rank and GPA Not Reported

Class Rank and GPA Not Reported

• Columbia Law School — no reported GPA, but 30–33% of class qualifies for a distinction awarded to those with "an academic average significantly better than B+"
• Harvard Law School — The current grading system of dean's scholar, honors, pass, low pass, and fail had at one time a recommended curve of 37% High Pass and, 55% pass, and 8% low pass in classes with over 30 JD and LLM students, but the curve is no longer enforced. Between 1970 and 2008 Harvard established a GPA cut-off required in order to obtain the summa cum laude distinction. During that time, only 6 students achieved the GPA required for the distinction of summa cum laude (32 out of the 38 years, the top student only managed to obtain the magna cum laude distinction, for example, there was a 15 year hiatus until Lisa Ann Grow managed to obtain summa cum laude). Those who have managed to obtain the summa cum laude distinction include Lewis Sargentich('70), Isaac Pachulski('74), Peter Huber('82), Kristen Chiger ('86), Lisa Ann Grow/Sun ('97), Julian Poon ('99). Since 2008, to address the difficulty of obtaining the summa cum laude distinction, in a year where no student manages to meet the GPA cut-off, Harvard will now award summa cum laude to the top student of the year (a rank that did not guarantee summa cum laude in the past).
• New York University School of Law — not reported but appears to be 3.3
• Rutgers School of Law–Camden — class rank was eliminated in 1972; each semester, the law school identifies Dean's Scholars as the top 5% and Dean's List as the next 20%; at graduation, highest honors and high honors are determined by the faculty and honors is given to the top 15%
• Rutgers School of Law–Newark — class rank is not published; however, upon graduation, rank is used to determine graduation honors with top 10% awarded Order of the Coif and cum laude; top 5% awarded magna cum laude; and top 1% awarded summa cum laude.
• University of Michigan Law School — class rank is not established until after graduation
• University of Notre Dame Law School — 1L class mean must be between 3.25 to 3.30. Large upper-level courses for 2L and 3L (>25 students) must have a mean between 3.25 and 3.35 with a mandatory distribution. Small upper-level courses (10 to 24 students) must have a mean between 3.15 and 3.45 with no mandatory distribution. Small courses (9 or fewer students) do not have a required curve.
• University at Buffalo Law School — no curve, but benchmarks for top 5%, 10%, 15%, 20% and 25% for each class are released each June
• University of Pennsylvania Law School — not reported.