I received my scores today: 125 raw
MBE, 143 scaled; 60 on each PT; 70 on the Torts essay and 55's on the other five essays. Thus, the computer crashing incident that I have been freaking out about for the last four months had nothing to do with my failure. I can not believe I did so badly on the essays. I feel scared and angry right now. Angry with Bar
Bri because I never
received anything less than a 60 on any graded material when I obviously don't know how to write an essay. I'm also angry at myself for going to school out of state; I think I may have seriously disadvantaged myself by not taking any courses on CA law. But more than anger I feel fear. What if I can't do this? What if I fail again?
This was supposed to be the best year of my life. I was graduating and getting married; the future seemed so bright. Now, my parents are going to have to help me make my loan payments and my fiance is totally supporting me otherwise. I am so grateful for all the help but I also feel so ashamed to need it. I wish that I had never gone to law school. This was without question the biggest mistake of my life.
Sorry for the doom and gloom of this post but these are dark days. Practically, how do I improve my essays? I assume just more essay practice. I am going to work out a study schedule tomorrow. God - how I dread doing this again.
Hey,
ReplyDeleteI found your blog from GP's. Just wanted to say good luck with your decision to re-take. I've supported several friends through the CalBar retake process, and I've taken the CalBar myself, so I know how stressful it is. I wanted to say that everything you wrote in this blog entry is completely normal. My friends in this position went through every last bit of what you describe. Also, just to take on a few things that you mentioned...
- Don't worry about being from out-of-state. Plenty of us are. If you messed up on any CA specific essays like community property, then be sure to devote some extra attention to them - maybe spend some more time on the Conviser outline making sure you are comfortable with the black-letter law. But it shouldn't matter that you're from out of state, and I don't think you should psych yourself out worrying about that.
- Similarly, don't get hung up on where you went to school or where you were ranked in your class. As I'm sure you know, Supreme Court litigators like Kathleen Sullivan have failed the CalBar, where they didn't have enough time to study or used the wrong approach in their preparation. If you look at the stats by school, every year a few from top 5 law schools fail - some more than once. And plenty from schools ranked towards the bottom pass. The fact that you went to a top 25 school and didn't pass ... don't let that get to you. Many, many people who went to great schools and did well need to give this thing a second try. (One of my friends who had to retake once was not only a top-10 law school graduate, but had been on law review and received top honors.)
- As for the support you're receiving, it's awesome. I know it sucks to need it, but let yourself feel good that you're surrounded by people who love you and don't think the least bit less of you for your needing a second shot at the bar. You're lucky - there are many retakers who don't have loving significant others or parents around (in fact, every year there are some retakers who have to retake *because* they were distracted the first time due to an awful breakup.)
Every single retaker (and actually, first-time taker) worries about the things you're describing - what if I don't make it this time; what if I fail (again). But retakers who are as close as you are, who really hone in on their weak spots and fix them, almost invariably pass the second time. You're pretty close - your MBE needs to be a bit higher ideally, and your essays apart from torts need to be somewhat stronger. You're doing pretty well on PTs. You just need to polish what you were doing in the first place, make sure there are no gaps in your black-letter knowledge, and work primarily on essay outlining and structure while taking some time to drill MBEs.
As awful as things seem right now, you really just have six more months before you put all of this beyond you for good. As you already know, the bar exam is AWFUL - it takes years for the angst and anxiety of it to fade (I took the July 2006 CalBar, and every year when waiting for friends' results to come out, I still remember the awful anxiety of that year, and the six months of my life that were largely subsumed to bar exam stress.) My friends who repeated the exam tell me that the sting of the first attempt + the anxiety of having to do it again does take even longer to fade - but fade it does in time, into a bad memory. You can do this, really you can. I'm rooting for you.