I can’t say for other jurisdictions, but the NY State bar Exam (which is considered one of the harder ones), the high fail rate is a bit of a red herring. For example, in 2011, the pass rate for all candidates was 69%. Ulp.
However, once you strip out all the test takers who
have already failed once
don’t speak English as their first language
and
Did not attend an accredited law school
The “real” pass rate for a first time taker who went to an accredited NYS law school is like… 86% and about 1% less for an out of state accredited law school.
Anyways, my law school used a “forced curve” so it was not permitted to assign more than 10% “A” grades. However, I think it is pretty hard to literally fail out. OTOH a pretty good number of people withdraw voluntarily for a variety of reasons including poor performance.
Since this thread got a little bump, I thought I’d update my grad school status.
The bare minimum you can get is a 3.0 gpa (no less than a B in any class.) I currently have 3.75 so I’m holding my own. I am currently in a science-related field (speech pathology) if that makes any difference.
The retention rate is pretty high. About 40 students per year are accepted, the lowest retention rate I’ve seen so far is 95% Everybody works their ass off to stay in though. It’s pure will and self-motivation, no slack or extra help from the teachers by any means.
We have your basic grad classes with papers/reports/presentations/interviews. I’ve taken anatomy classes, multicultural issues (that may affect treatment/testing), research classes, and language acquisition to name a few. Wedged between all the classes we get the occasional “Oh! Rules have changed! You now also need to have taken a bio class/chem class/math class to become certified as well!” As well as 25 observation hours, passing two clinical readiness tests, the PRAXIS exam, and working in the school speech clinic for two semesters and interning for two semesters. After graduating, you enter a fellowship year where you begin at a reduced pay and are supervised by a licensed SLP. If you survive, then congrats! You are finally a speech-language pathologist.
The grad school takes 2.5-3 years to complete if you go full time. I am beginning my clinical work and actually have my first client (ever!) tomorrow!
My bachelor’s and master’s are both in math and my MS was much easier than my BA. Probably because I actually tried in my master’s program whereas my goal in my goal on my bachelor’s was to graduate.
My MA in special ed? 4.0 by simply not being an idiot.