Will Law School Accommodations Hurt or Improve your Grades?

 

 

Some students enjoy the myth that having extra time on a law school exam will automatically increase their chances of earning strong grades in law school. The truth is that it’s not that simple.

 

Having extra time on a law school exam only gets you so far. You have to have a strategy for what you will do with the extra time. What I always ask my clients to remember is their competition. Your peers sitting for the exam are sharp and like you they have a lot riding on performing at the top of their law school class. Because there are so few top grades available the competition is just to intense to believe that extra time alone is going to make all the difference.

 

Most often students with extra time on the exam use the time to do things on an exam that will not be awarded points. The reason for this is related to their diagnosis. When you have a diagnosis related to executive functioning or anxiety it often leads to legal writing that is not pointed, clear and concise. As a product of their diagnosis these students have difficulties organizing their ideas and because of anxiety can become overwhelmed and either shut down or begin to write content that isn’t as concise as professors’ expect of top performers.

 

Thus, so much of my work with clients is developing a writing pattern and formula keyed to their specific professor’s course and exam expectation. This way their anxiety does not get in the way of their performance.

 

In my experience the key is exam practice and exam review. Students with accommodations who do not take practice exams prior to the actual exam are not materially advantage by the extra time. In fact depending on the level of anxiety experience on exam day the extra time could do more harm by creating a false expectation of success.

 

The sum of the matter is that extra exam time is only a component of increasing your probability of earning top law school grades. However, without strategies that address the root of your diagnosis - such as organization, efficiency and structure – the extra time will not result in better exam performance.

 

For more tools to help with navigating law school with a learning disability such as anxiety, dyslexia or AHDH click here.