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PaperclipPerfector  3mo ago (text post)   37110 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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The best old evidence we have is that she passed the bar on the second try, with the ameliorating factor of the California bar being somewhat nastier than the norm. So she’s probably at least as intelligent as Hillary, who also took two attempts (with preparation in a better law school, for whatever that is worth, and not in Cali).

How difficult is the bar, anyhow?

Considering Kamala Harris's genetics (parents both PhDs, father a Jamaican econ professor at Stanford and mother a Tamil biologist at LBNL), the fact that she attended Hastings is surprising, and doesn't really lend itself to "probably at least as intelligent as Hillary", however snobbish that might sound. It's not even like Howard, where you can claim you attended because you were really committed to the cause of HBCUs - Hastings is just a really mediocre school.

How high of LSAT did Hillary need to get into Yale?

My understanding is that Dems and gov officials consider Hillary to be plenty sharp. Kamala not so much.

The 1980s California bar was no joke. And adequately prepared law school graduate should be able to pass it first try, but it was a tough enough test that failing the first try doesn't necessarily say anything more than they didnt take the test prep seriously enough.

Funnily enough, Kamala almost certainly receieved better bar prep at Hastings than Hillary got at Yale. Regional schools like Hastings put A LOT of effort into prepping their students for the bar exam, often requiring every student take classes like Family Law that they'll never use, purely because they show up on the Bar. The Ivies just assume you're smart and/or rich enough to figure out the bar on your own (and the big New York law firms pay for private bar prep courses for their new hires anyway).

The pass rate of Harris's exam was 81 percent.

I wonder in 1989 how many people taking the California bar were not English first speakers.

Probably not very many? Maybe the odd Mexican?

Not hard. I did go to a good law school (not as good as Hilldawg; much much better than Harris). I don’t know any classmate who didn’t pass the bar.

Harris does not have an impressive academic background either—especially baking in affirmative action. Odds are she isn’t stupid (ie below 100 IQ) but probably not that smart (id bet 110 IQ).

As a follow up, looked recently at her law school (ie not LSAT when she went) and mid point for LSAT is 160. That correlates to between 115-20 IQ.

Black students get a pretty big boost to get into a law school (ie typically lower than average). But maybe 1989 scores were different compared to today.

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