Saturday, September 8, 2012

The Bar Exam Results for July 2012: Should You Appeal Your Bar Exam Score if You Failed the July 2012 Bar Exam?

We know how disappointed you are when you look up your name or number on the state’s bar exam results page and find that you did not succeed on the July 2012 bar exam. Then, you must wait until you receive the fail letter detailing your bar exam scores. While you wait for the letter, look up your state’s procedure for review or appeal. For example, in North Carolina, the state bar examiners make you wait for approximately a month before you are allowed to review your essays.

Once you receive your fail letter, look at the details of your bar exam score. What do they say and what do they mean? You can find your scores, the average scores, and how close you were to passing. Look at each essay score. What was your score for each essay and what was the mean score? Which subjects did you do well on and which essays did you do well on? Is there a pattern? Did you do well on others and not so well on the rest or was the overall pattern one of poor scores. Move over to the MPT , if your jurisdictions has one or two. What were those scores like? Can you discern a pattern in your essays and MPT? Did you write well or poorly?

Finally, go over to the MBE score, where the score is broken out by subjects. Again, you need to examine each score and note your strongest subjects and your weak sections.
You need to know the mean score of all sections.. The scores are also adjusted upwards and downwards depending on how hard the essays/the MBE were. This is where you can see whether you have the probability of success on appeal. Are you close enough to maybe squeeze out a point or two?

Even if you don’t appeal the score or there are no means to appeal in your state, if you can review your essays, do so. It’s a humbling procedure, but you can see where you may have gone wrong, where you could have done better or to see how the examiners in your state grade the essays. You may have thought you put the entire rule down, but when you review your essays, you may see that you didn’t complete the rule, or write a complete conclusion, or see some other place where you missed valuable points.

This self reflection will enable you to think about your mistakes and correct them for the February 2013 bar exam.

The fail letter will tell the student how to review your scores or make an appeal.
The appeals process normally is not successful, but if you are close, it is worth a try to see if you can get a point or two more to be successful.

Bar Professors provide private bar exam tutors for students who have difficulty with the MBE, Florida, California and New York. You can find us at http://barprofessors.com, like us on facebook at BarProfessors, follow us on twitter @BarProfessors or mail us at pass@barprofessors.com.

Bar Professors can help you succeed.

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