Tuesday, November 20, 2018
Page 1
40.9 Percent of Those Taking July Bar Exam Pass
By a MetNews Staff Writer
Only 40.7 percent of those taking the July 2018 State Bar exam passed it, it was announced.
Results, released late Friday, showed that 3,284 of the 8,071 applicants were successful—an 8.3 percent decreaase from the rate of those passing the July 2017 exam. The success rate this year for those who had not previously flunked the exam was 55 percent; last year, it was 63.2 percent.
The mean scaled score on the Multistate Bar Examination in California was 1404, contrasted with the national average of 1395, but 8.9 percent lower than one year ago. The National Conference of Bar Examiners said that scores, nationally, fell to a 34-year low.
Leah T. Wilson, executive director of the State Bar, commented:
“We’re…troubled by a low pass rate, and are working to better understand the reasons behind this national trend. Over the last 18 months we have conducted four distinct studies on the California Bar Exam designed to determine if the passing score is appropriate and the content valid.
“While these studies did not suggest that changes to either should be made at this time, the State Bar takes seriously its commitment to ensuring integrity and fairness in the admissions process. We have just launched a California Attorney Job Analysis Study to collect information about the knowledge and skills that entry level attorneys need. This job analysis will form the basis of a new review of the exam itself to ensure that the Bar Exam is relevant and actually testing what’s needed.”
The first meeting of the working group for the Job Analysis Study will be held Dec. 10, at the State Bar’s office in San Francisco, with the goal of publishing the study in December 2019.
These statistics were released:
|
School Type |
First-Timers |
Repeaters |
|
California ABA |
64% |
22% |
|||
|
Out-of-State ABA |
58% |
12% |
|||
|
California Accredited (but not ABA) |
16% |
9% |
|||
|
Unaccredited: Fixed-Facility |
12% |
6% |
|||
|
Unaccredited: Correspondence |
11% |
8% |
|||
|
Unaccredited Distance Learning |
23% |
10% |
|||
|
All Others |
31% |
16%
|
|||
|
All Applicants |
55% |
16% |
|
||
Copyright 2018, Metropolitan News Company