Kaplan Bar Review offers full-service bar prep courses to help law school graduates pass the bar exam. A substantial portion of the bar exam involves writing essay answers based on hypothetical legal scenarios. Kaplan devotes significant resources to helping students improve their essay writing skills through practice, feedback, and grading.
Kaplan’s essay grading approach aims to replicate the actual grading process students will face from their state bar examiners. All essay answers submitted by Kaplan students for review are graded by licensed attorneys with experience grading bar exams. Graders specialize in different legal subject areas like Constitutional Law, Torts, and Contracts to ensure any given essay is reviewed by someone knowledgeable in that particular topic.
When grading essays, Kaplan uses a detailed rubric to evaluate answers across multiple dimensions and provide targeted feedback. Areas assessed include identifying relevant legal issues, discussing applicable legal rules and principles, applying those rules to the relevant facts, and effectively organizing the response. Graders can award up to 6 points for each issue/rule identification and up to 6 points for each analysis/application. Answers must be comprehensive yet concise to score higher.
Initial essay assignments focus on developing basic skills in identifying issues, explaining rules, and applying a rule-based analysis. Early feedback highlights areas for improvement to guide further studying. Later essays incorporate additional complexity like addressing counterarguments. Graders scale expectations based on where students fall in their overall bar prep progression. The goal is pushing growth, not penalizing for incomplete knowledge early on.
In addition to assigning a raw quantitative score on a scale from 0 to 18 points, graders also provide detailed narrative comments identifying strengths and weaknesses. These qualitative critiques zero in on things like missed issues, weak analysis of given issues, conclusory statements without support, disorganization, and other problems. Positive feedback acknowledges well-handled discussions.
Kaplan’s customizable online grading portal allows students to access their marked essays with rubric scores and feedback comments at any time. Students can compare multiple attempts at the same question to measure progress. The integrated video and document library also lets students easily access supplemental learning materials tailored to weaknesses highlighted in critiques.
All essays and feedback are kept anonymous to minimize possible implicit bias. Essays are referred to only by assigned student numbers, not names or other potentially identifying details. This helps ensure grading focuses solely on the legal analysis rather than other attributes. Periodic score verification further protects fairness and consistency.
Kaplan’s extensive essay grading operation is a major investment that differentiates their bar review course. The goal is to simulate the actual bar exam experience as closely as possible and give students multiple graded practice opportunities with targeted feedback. This approach aims to transform students into progressively stronger legal analysts fully prepared for essay questions on the bar exam.
Kaplan Bar Review spends significant resources on essay grading performed by experienced attorney-graders following a standardized scoring rubric. The process provides students repetitive practice, quantitative scores, and qualitative commentary to comprehensively assess writing strengths and weaknesses at different points throughout preparation. Transparent online access then supports further self-study based on those critiques. This essay feedback loop lies at the core of Kaplan’s methodology for developing and proving essay writing proficiency.