How to Use Game Theory to Improve Your Law School Grades
From The Distillery:
Law school is a competitive place: our grades are essentially rankings; 15% of the class gets A’s, 60% gets B’s, 20% gets C’s, and the last 5% get D’s.
This is not just ‘how it is’; classes do not invariably possess such a distribution of student-talent, rather these grade distributions are imposed by a ranking system which essentially DICTATES that this must be our grade distribution.
So, since these grades are essentially rankings, if you have the misfortune of being in a particularly smart class of people, you, unfortunately, cannot all do well. Rather, the grade distribution will be the same, and some people who might be A and B students in another class will get C’s in this class of particularly adept students.
It doesn’t take a game theorist to figure out that at law school, willingness helping other people and sharing notes causes an awkward and uneasy predicament. After all, why help others if it to your detriment?
On account of this, people are understandably reluctant to share their notes, often concocting implausible stories for not wanting to do so “Oh my dog ate my notes from that classâ€; “Oh, I don’t have my notes from that class in this big document that says ‘composite notes from every class’â€. Yeah; whatever…
Well, let’s ignore for a second the moral obligation which would suggest that you should share notes, and let’s think about the mathematics. Mathematically speaking, when is it OK to share your notes, and when is it to your detriment?
For the purposes of this exercise, let’s assume that people are inherently inclined to comply with a request to share notes or offer help, unless it is to their detriment.
I’m going to start with my conclusion and work from there: You should offer to help anyone who you know (or are reasonably certain) will do better than you, and anyone who you know (or are reasonably certain) will do worse than you.
OK, so why?
Lets say you are at the bottom of the class; you always get D’s. If someone who would otherwise get a C asks you for help, and on account of this help, they manage to get a B (or even an A), how has this hurt you? It hasn’t. It has influenced the grade distribution, but in a range that it is not applicable to you. It doesn’t matter if that person is ranked one above you, or if they are number one in the entire class. It makes no difference to you so long as they will be above you either way. Above is above, below is below.
Similarly, if you are a top student; you always get A+’s, you should help anyone who asks. Whether your help brings a D student to a C, a C student to a B, or even a B student to an A, you are at the top of the class, and the grade distribution below you is irrelevant to you.
So, now, morals aside, when should you REFUSE to help someone? You should only refuse to help someone who you feel has a reasonable chance of doing WORSE than you in the absence of your help, but may do BETTER than you on WITH your help. It is these people you have to watch out for, because they are the ones who you can actually help to your own detriment; these are the people who, by helping, can lower your ranked mark from a B to a C; from a C to a D.
Of course, in the real world, you can never be entirely certain how well you will do, or how well others will do in your class, so the ‘safest bet’ is not to help anyone, but if you KNOW of a large grade discrepancy between you and someone asking for your help, you can pretty safely help them and know that it will not be to your detriment.
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I totally agree. BUT take into consideration that when giving “help” with someone whose grades are much higher or lower than yours, then he will be in a position where he can “safely” give you notes to any one since it’s not gonna affect his ranking.
So the safest choice to do is “never help anyone”. What do you think?