Grading and Class Rank Policies
A note to employers from the Office of Career Services regarding transcripts, grades and class ranks.
Transcripts from William & Mary Law School will report student grade point averages to the nearest hundredth. For class rank purposes, however, official GPAs are rounded to the nearest tenth. For example, GPAs falling between 3.05 and 3.14 are all rounded to 3.1. It is therefore important for employers to use official Law School GPAs rounded to the nearest tenth, not the GPA carried to hundredths on transcripts, when evaluating grades.
Students are ranked initially at the conclusion of one full year of legal study. Thereafter, they are ranked only at the conclusion of the fall and spring terms (i.e., no re-ranking will occur following a summer term).
William & Mary does not have pre-determined GPA cutoffs that correspond to specific ranks. Ranks vary by semester and by 2L and 3L class, depending on the distribution of grades within the curve established by the Law School. Students holding a GPA of 3.6 or higher will be given a numerical rank. All ranks of 3.5 and lower will be a percentage. The majority of the class will receive a percentage rather than individual class rank. In either case, it is conceivable that multiple students will share the same rank. Students with a numerical rank who share the same rank with other students are notified that they share this rank.
More information is available at: