First, they raised the bar. Now, they’re passing it.
Students at the CUNY School of Law posted the program’s highest-ever first-try pass rate on the state bar exam this year – with nearly 83 percent of its graduates making the grade, university officials said yesterday.
Officials credited the Flushing school’s dramatic turnaround from 2002 – when an embarrassingly low 50 percent managed to pass the exam – in part to stronger admissions and retention standards implemented by Chancellor Matthew Goldstein the following year.
CUNY Law Dean Michelle Anderson also attributed the gains to program improvements and new financial support for graduates that allows them to study for the exam without having to work full time.
“We are thrilled to be moving in the right direction, and we hope to strengthen the positive trend,” she said.
With 72 of 87 CUNY law graduates passing the July exam, the school bested the state’s overall first-time passing rate of 79.1 percent, which includes out-of-state and foreign candidates. CUNY’s pass rate in 2006 was 77 percent.
This year’s results still left the school short of the average first-time pass rate among the state’s 15 law schools, which posted a high of 88.2 percent.
A record 10,907 candidates took the July exam, according to the state Board of Law Examiners.
After the school’s pass rate on the bar exam dropped from 74 percent in 2000 to 50 percent two years later, Goldstein moved to tighten standards with a number of initiatives.
These included admitting 6 percent, rather than 25 percent, of applicants who scored below the entrance-exam cutoff score, and raising the minimum grade-point-average requirement for freshmen from 1.5 – the equivalent of a D-plus – to 2.0, or a C average.
All students must also maintain a 2.3 GPA to avoid being placed on probation – higher than the 2.0 GPA required at most law schools.