Oh, boy – the results are in and they are not what most had hoped for.

Up until now, all students of law have been told, ad nauseum, that the evaluation system in place is wildly cruel, and that we could expect to be utterly horrified at our midterm results. The general saying is, “those who have been loud and cocky all semester will become very quiet and focused come January.” Well, the quiet has yet to arrive. Instead, there is a low hum of shock-induced whispering, usually followed by a wry smile of defeat. The general expectation has been that the distribution of grades would inspire competition and fracture between the students; instead, it seems to have brought us all together.

One of the biggest debates I’ve had with myself to date has been whether or not to share grades with others. All of the pre-law literature discourages this; the mantra seems to be, “It’s nobody’s business but yours.” Once I completed exams, I was certain that I would follow the advice of the experienced authors and keep mum about my marks. Unfortunately, I have been unable to honour this. First, I have two study pals that I spend all of my time outside of classes with. We toiled together for three weeks straight, studying and discussing rules of law and how to apply them. It would be unseemly not to share grades with my besties, particularly when they offered theirs so willingly to me. So, I instantly broke the pact I had with myself upon seeing them. And it didn’t feel bad at all. In fact, we celebrated that our marks were all within half a point or so of one another’s.

Second, an astonishing amount of other classmates are blabbing their marks all over the place, and not only the individuals that received good marks. Nobody seems particularly self-conscious about it. Instead, sharing one’s grades is helping to bring people together; basically, it’s the exact opposite of what I had expected to happen.

Third, our midterm grades are considered “fail safe.” In other words, they don’t really count unless one completely bombs the final exam. If that happens, the midterm grade could offer a 20% bump to a nasty test result. Still, because so many of us did quite poorly, all of us seem to consider these marks as moot – if one has to appeal to a C grade to boost one’s final exam, well, maybe law school isn’t the right place to be.

The biggest challenge I found with sharing marks was that I was glad to share my “intellectually adequate” results, but I had one stellar grade that I only shared with my besties. For me, the similarity between law school and high school is the simple fact that I want to fit in a be liked by my peers. I believe that revealing a high mark to a group of people that did poorly is a terrible strategy for being accepted; thus, I quietly intimated that I did well. Fortunately, nobody seemed bothered by that admission. That said, my personal exercise has been to respond positively to anyone that reveals they received an A or B as a result in a class. My knee-jerk thought is always, “Waaaahhhhhhh, that’s so unfair! I know I studied harder than you did because you are always on Facebook in class and how could you have possibly done better than me?” In the seconds it takes to suppress that thought from becoming an actual statement, I regroup and then say, “Congratulations! I am so happy for you. You should be really proud.” Strangely, after I say that, I actually sorta feel it.

The halfway mark of the first year offers some good lessons. The most important is that we are all on our own pathways here, and keeping that at the forefront of one’s perspective offers the opportunity to surrender the competitive impulses and instead focus on collaborative ones. I have learned a tremendous amount from my section mates, and I am grateful to them for that. Heck, based on the test results, I am likely to be working for most of them one day!

Success can not be defined by a letter grade. I find that as I tallied the overall adventure of the first semester of law, I discovered that I am rich with experience and knowledge that can’t simply be reduced to an A or, in my case, a couple of C pluses. My mediocre test results don’t define me, and frankly, I also believe that they don’t define my future, either. Instead, I focus on one of my favourite quotes by George Sheehan:

Success means having the courage, the determination, and the will to become the person you believe you were meant to be

Isn’t that enough?