Rankings
Rankings are run on all 2L and 3L students who took classes that enabled them to make progress towards their degrees in the previous semester. 听鈥淢aking progress鈥� encompasses students taking courses at Colorado Law and dual degree candidates taking courses in another department as well as students in exchange programs on a visiting basis. Students who are on a leave of absence are not included in term ranking. Non-exchange study abroad programs require students to go on a leave of absence while away from Colorado Law.
Rankings are run after each Fall and Spring semester regardless of whether students have any outstanding incomplete courses. 听However, grades for any such incompletes will not factor into ranking.听
Please also bear in mind the following:
- First-year students do not receive rankings (either individual or percentage) after their first semester of study; they will be ranked only after their second semester grades are final.
- Students are not eligible for ranking until they have completed at least 12 graded LAWS credits at Colorado Law. 听Thus, transfer students will not be ranked until they complete at least that many credits.听
- Only students whose GPA places them in the top third of their class, ordered by cumulative GPA in LAWS classes, will receive a rank.
- A rank, if applicable, will be posted in the top left corner of students'听transcripts.These can be accessed via Buff Portal. Students should request either an official or unofficial law transcript. Note that when selecting an unofficial transcript, a "law transcript" must be selected, otherwise rank will not be visible.
- The GPA percentile cut-offs for the top 1/3 are publicly available. 听No other rank/grade relationship (e.g., 50th percentile) is available publicly.
- Colorado Law does not bestow latin honors (e.g. magna cum laude, summa cum laude, etc). The law school also does not recognize a valedictorian.
- Though class ranking can be useful as a rough gauge of academic performance for employers, Colorado Law has had many incredibly successful alumni who were not ranked. 听In other words, always bear in mind that your grades are a very limited measure of your professional promise and talent.听
- GPAS are not rounded up or down.
Access Your Grades
Grades are posted to Buff Portal as soon as they become available. 听Determining the grades and median for each class is a time-consuming process for both the professors and the registrar's office, so we appreciate your patience.
Grading Median
Please recall that the law school rules provide that in all graded courses here at the law school, the median grade for JD candidates shall be a B+. There is no mandatory median in pass-graded courses, and there is no mandatory median for non-JD students. Many classes here include both JD students and students enrolled in other degree programs (for example, our MSL or LLM degree programs or other graduate degree programs on campus); in those classes, the final grades assigned to JD students must comply with the B+ median, and grades assigned to students enrolled in other degree programs would not affect the median calculation.听
The mandatory B+ median means that for a class with an odd number of students, the middle grade in the class must be a B+. 听For a class with an even number of students, the mean of the middle two grades must be B+. 听To illustrate, in a class of 21, the median requires that the 11th grade in rank order be a B+.听 In a class of 22, the median requires that the mean of the 11th and 12th grades must be a B+. 听Please refer to 搂 3-3-4 and Miscellaneous Rule 26b of the听rules听for details.
