Grade Distributions

The Registrar's Office posts distributions as quickly as possible. The grades of all students in the class are included in the grade distributions. In the absence of a link below, there is currently no information available online at this time. For those years not available online, contact Colleen Erker at erker@wustl.edu / 314.935.6466.

Explanation of Grade Distribution and J.D. Percentile Ranking Systems  

As a service to our students we provide grade distributions for each course. The grading scale at WUSL is 70 to 100, with 74 being the minimum passing grade for all students (except those in the professional LL.M. programs - in Taxation - who must earn at least a 79 to pass). [Ending with the J.D. Class of 2003, the scale was 65 to 100, with 70 being the minimum passing grade.] A cumulative and yearly average of 79 (75, ending with the J.D. Class of 2003) is necessary to remain in good standing. Beginning with the J.D. Class of 2004, faculty must abide by the mandatory mean restrictions for J.D. students' grades - for first year courses, the mean of the JD grades must be in the range of 86.5 - 87.5. For upper-level courses the mean of the JD grades must be the same as the mean of the GPA's of the JDs in the particular course. Effective with the 2007-2008 school year, the grades for J.D. students in Seminars will be required to meet a mandatory median instead of a mean - that is based on the mean of the GPAs of the J.D. students in the class. [Ending with the Class of 2003, the median (middle) grade for first-year courses, was required to be an 83. The median grade for upper-level courses was required to be 82 - 84 in most cases; however, that range could be extended (either down or up) if the median GPA of the students in a particular course was lower or higher than the 82 to 84 range. For example: If the median GPA of the students in a particular course was 85.40, then the professor could use 82, 83, 84 or 85 as his/her median score when grading.]

Students in the LLM in Taxation program must receive a minimum grade of 79 (75 prior to 2001-2002) to pass a course and LLM Tax courses are not restricted by a mean or median grading requirement. Students in the LL.M. in U.S. Law program are graded HighPass/Pass/NoCredit.

Students in the non-J.D. programs are not ranked and no percentile cut-offs are reported for these degree programs.

Grade distributions are available for the course names that are hyperlinked. If the course name is not hyperlinked it means that all of the grades for that course have not been turned in (or are still in the process of being posted to the web.)

Also posted to the web each semester - when ALL the grades for each class have been reported - are the percentile cutoffs for each J.D. class. Only J.D. students in the top 5% are informed of their exact individual ranks. [view]