The South Carolina Bar results are out and the new Charleston School of Law did not fair so well when compared to the more established USC School of Law. 91 percent of University of South Carolina law grads passed the bar, whereas just 70 percent of Charleston law grads did. That is a pretty wide disparity. The Charleston School of Law's reputation is further tarnished by suggestions that the Supreme Court of South Carolina tossed out the Trusts and Estates section of the bar exam to boost the Charleston pass rate. I think this latter assertion is incredible, but whispers abound.
Of course, it is not an easy job to found a new law school and a 70 percent passage rate is substantial. Nonetheless, Charleston will always be compared to USC. While Charleston is a beautiful place to live, its law school's price tag and a bar passage rate 20 points lower than USC's might persuade some perspective law students to look towards the midlands rather than the low country.
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4 comments:
Interesting that the USC pass rate doesn't reflect the general lack of satisfaction its graduates have with the institution, poor alumni giving rate, or why USC continues to drop in the rankings and is now only a 3rd tier law school nationally.
USC is tier 2. It's ranked 91st. 50 schools per tier. And it's done falling. New dean and new building on the way. CSoL has been good for USC. Lit a fire under the administration. As for CSoL, I expect huge things. Right now they have a pretty lackluster student body. But with accreditation and the attraction of Charleston, recruiting is bound to improve. The teachers must be good. Go by CSoL and meet some students before their LSATs go through the roof next year. Getting 70% of those dimwits to pass a bar exam is an extraordinary achievement.
USC's law school mainly suffers from inadequate funding. Many of the factors driving the rankings are fixable with cash: faculty/student ratio, spending per pupil, spending on technology, scholarship money to lure top students, etc. South Carolina does more with less than almost every other law school in the top 100. This is not hyperbole, it is demonstrable and provable.
The state, and the law school alumni get what they pay for. If they don't want to give the law school adequate funding, the school will slip further in the rankings, no question.
Plenty of us "dimwits" got into Carolina and CHOSE Charleston School of Law. Give us a year or two and cool it on the name-calling, Anonymous.
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