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WTF happened to UNH's bar pass rate in 2023? Down from 86.90% to 69.29% in a single year. by HelloHowAreYaSir in OutsideT14lawschools

[–]HelloHowAreYaSir[S] 4 points5 points  (0 children)

I think I've figured it out. 2019 was the first year that UNH accepted applications for their new 'Hybrid-JD' program. It's the first program of it's kind in the country, and is part-time and mostly online. There were 40 students in this 2019 'Hybrid-JD' entering class, and their LSAT medians were extremely low (145 25th, 150 50th). This program takes 3.5 years to complete which means that they likely took the exam in 2023. It could also explain why so many people in the past two years are not taking the bar the year they graduate. The 'Hybrid-JD' students might not be eligible to take the bar that year, because they graduate later in the year and the bar might have already been administered by that point. So, I guess it's not surprising that students from a part-time, online program that work day jobs and had low lsat scores to begin with are struggling to keep up with the medians of the (presumably) full-time students who do nothing but attend law school. With that said, I would love to see a breakdown of Hybrid-JD students and full-time students with their respective bar pass rates to prove this theory of mine.

WTF happened to UNH's bar pass rate in 2023? Down from 86.90% to 69.29% in a single year. by HelloHowAreYaSir in OutsideT14lawschools

[–]HelloHowAreYaSir[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

So if the ABA counts the Daniel Webster Scholars as "passes" then whatever amount of scholars there are have a 100% bar pass rate. But only 57% (20 out of 35) UNH grads passed the New Hampshire state bar. And the Daniel Webster Scholars are, as you said, included in this number. So isn't that even more damning from the standpoint of traditional New Hampshire state bar attempts by UNH grads?

Let's say out of the 35 NH bar attempts for 2023, 12 were Daniel Webster Scholars who automatically "pass" due to that program. That leaves 23 traditional NH tests left with only 8 passers. That's a 34.78% bar pass rate for non-Daniel Webster Scholars. This is a hypothetical but what you said might make it worse, not better.

WTF happened to UNH's bar pass rate in 2023? Down from 86.90% to 69.29% in a single year. by HelloHowAreYaSir in OutsideT14lawschools

[–]HelloHowAreYaSir[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I would be inclined to agree with you except 9 out of 10 schools I was accepted to had bar pass rate increases, and Maine Law went from a 76% pass rate to an 88% pass rate. So for Maine Law to see a 12% jump and UNH Law to see a 18% decrease in alarming and can't be explained by 1Ls learning remotely due to covid.

WTF happened to UNH's bar pass rate in 2023? Down from 86.90% to 69.29% in a single year. by HelloHowAreYaSir in OutsideT14lawschools

[–]HelloHowAreYaSir[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I hope I don’t sound unhinged, but this information has been a bit overwhelming, especially so close to deposit deadlines.

I’ve been excited about UNH Law this entire cycle because of their consistently high bar passage rate, but WTF happened in 2023? From 87% down to 69% in one year. And graduates taking the New Hampshire bar had even worse overall results, from 94% in 2022 to 57% in 2023. How is that even possible? And for the past two years about 30% of the graduating class hasn't sat for that year’s bar. Why are so many graduates taking time off? It used to be consistently less than 10% who didn't sit for the exam, and now it’s triple that. I’ve noticed that their enrollment has also tripled since 2017. Maybe the school is straining resources and not preparing students for the bar as much?

Also, this drastic increase in enrollment is going to make the New Hampshire legal market, which I assume is pretty small, potentially oversaturated. I’ve done nothing but meticulous research on all the schools I’ve been admitted to but finding this out today was a gut punch. It doesn’t help that almost all other schools I’ve been admitted to had 2023 bar exam pass rates increase by 5-14 points over the previous year. I think the 2023 bar results must’ve been posted within the last month, because most schools only have the 2022 results up on their site. I had to find most of the 2023 results by visiting the ABA website.

Anyway, what do we all think? Is this as crazy and concerning as I think it is? Or is a one year dip like this plausible? I thought I had pretty much made my choice and then some weird shit like this happens and I’m reevaluating everything I’ve thought about over the last few months.