Concord University/Baby Bar Results

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by traderneil, Dec 12, 2003.

Loading...
  1. traderneil

    traderneil New Member

    I would just like to add to the great converstion re Concord University. If I were to invest the time required for the JD I would want to both teach and practice law. Therefore it is important to me to know that in the California D/L course you have to take what is referred to as The Baby Bar Exam which I believe is administered at the end of your first year of Law School. I think this exam will determine if you will continue on with the schools law program or not.

    Now John has posted the results of the June and October 2000 test results. The combined first timers 2000 test results as follows:
    Abe Lincoln 12/63=19.0%
    British American 7/34=20.6%
    Concord UNIV 16/68=23.5%
    Northwestern Cal 9/27=33.3%
    Oakbrook 31/44=70.4%
    SARATOGA 1/11=9.0%
    Taft 17/37=45.9%

    Concord has only a 23.5% pass while Oakbrook has a 70% pass.
    Oakbrook continues to shine and Taft offers a LLM/and JD program
     
  2. oxpecker

    oxpecker New Member

    I hadn't realized that Taft students were doing so well.

    As has been pointed out here before, we need to be cautious about using these data to compare the schools. Taft does no filtering up front, whereas Oak Brook's requirement of a particular religious orientation and an initial residency may result in a particularly committed group of students proceeding to the exam. Similarly, Concord has an entrance test that may serve to filter out students with poor prospects.

    Perhaps Mr. Boyd will comment.
     
  3. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    And Concord is so darned EXPENSIVE. NWCal runs something like two kilobucks a year compared with Concord at, what $6,000? $7,000? As far as the CA state Bar examiners are concerned, the degrees are exactly equal.
     
  4. Randy Miller

    Randy Miller New Member

    Any news about Concord's General Bar Exam results for July? There website had made a big deal out of their pass rate in February but this has been taken down.
     
  5. tcnixon

    tcnixon Active Member


    I wonder whether it would be possible to teach law graduating from one of those schools. Perhaps at one of those schoolsl, but quite unlikely at any place with ABA accreditation. With Concord it's too soon to tell.



    Tom Nixon
     
  6. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Being admitted to practice in any state Bar would help the aspiring law teacher. I know law teachers, at least adjuncts, with non ABA degrees but who are admitted to practice.
     
  7. itshark

    itshark New Member

    I think it is important to remember that as a correspondence school gets bigger, its scores will go down accordingly by nature....so when considering whether or not to attend Concord, you should take into consideration that it is now the second largest law school. Smaller colleges like Taft, etc. have a graduating class of one or two students every year, so I would hope that there would be such a high bar pass rate....what is more relevant to compare is the number of student that the college has in comparison to the pass rate. If the school is doing at or above the pass rate of most colleges of their same size, then they are doing well....I asked this same question of William Weston at Concord about six months ago, and this seems to be a reasonable response to me. Concord's pass rate is very high considering their throughput of students.
     
  8. Randy Miller

    Randy Miller New Member

    It the opposite should be true. As a school’s enrollment rises, total tuition revenues should rise accordingly. This means the school has greater resources for course development and student performance should actually rise. (All other factors such as the quality of students remaining equal.)

    Concord claims most of their students have graduate degrees and 25% (1 of 4) is the best they can do on the July bar?

    How could the number of Concord people taking the exam for the first time fall 60% since February (10 in February, 4 in July)? Based on their claimed enrollment of over 1500 the attrition rate must be over 99%.

    The whole concept of correspondence law study is damaging to the legal profession.
     
  9. nosborne48

    nosborne48 Well-Known Member

    Randy Miller: The whole concept of correspondence law study is damaging to the legal profession.

    Nosborne48: In the context of American legal education, I admit that I have my doubts about correspondence study because the American J.D., unlike the UK LL.B., is itself the complete preparation for practice.

    It makes much more sense to me to allow a student to acquire the academic prep by D/L if there is also a non D/L vocational prep requirement as there is in the UK and Canada.

    However, I know of no study corrolating the level of lawyers' incompetence or unethical behavior with the source of their JD degrees. Interesting doctoral research project!
     
  10. marty

    marty New Member

    I took the figures for the California Bar exam results for the past seven years from the Calbar webite.

    1) 83,209 tests have been taken, with 40,751 actually passing. This figure includes repeaters.

    2) Of those qualifying by correspondence, 1154 tests have been taken, with 240 actually passing the exam. Again, this figure includes repeaters.

    3) Only 49% of all takers have passed the exam, and only 21% of correspondence students have passed the exam.

    4) Out of 40,751 people who have qualified for the bar, only 240 have been from correspondence shools. This comprises less than 1% of the qualifiers. In actuality, it is about .6%.

    5) According to the Calbar website, there are about 194,000 members. Assuming that the same percentage holds true, that would mean that there would be about 1,150 memebers of the Calbar that qualified by the correspondence route. Since California is the only state that allows this route, we could assume that nationwide, the figure is not much more.

    6) Of the estimated one million lawyers nationwide, we could probably assume that a significant number of them, much greater than 1,000, are incompetent.

    7) Therefore, I would assert that statistically, correspondence students have a very insignificant impact on the profession.
     

Share This Page