Dear French students applying to LL.M.s,

Has any of you obtained from his/her university a document showing the average percentages of students obtaining a Mention Bien, Mention AB, Mention Passable? If you do have that kind of information, I would be very grateful if you could disclose it to me, with the name of the university attended. Thanks

they don't give out documents showing such percentages.

Paris II states how many students got a mention "passable", "assez bien", "bien" and "très bien" but no percentages, for DEUG, licence and maîtrise but not for the "troisième cycle".

When I ask my university such documents, they told me it does not exist. I assume the average is:
- passable:60%
- AB: 20/30%
-Bien: 10/15%
-Tres bien: less than 5%

Hi Liz,

If you know the total number of students registered for each year, you have the percentage. Could you share the numbers to us? Thanks

I think we have to take into account studients who fail. I believe the number of failing students is much higher in France than in a lot of other countries. And it is not because the level of French students is lower. It is quite the contrary. I have studied one year in the UK where the failing rate was 2%. In France the failing rate is above 60% for the first year and about 50% for the second year. Having compared the two systems, I would say one really has to not have studied at all to fail in the UK. In France most exams are quite tricky. Even someone who has good knowledge in that subject may very well fail.

yes, I studied in Uk so I agree with you.

I agree with the percentage about failing students.

Do you know if American Universities are aware of this?
When they see a mark of 12 out of 20 points, they can think it is a bad mark considering a B for them is not really a good mark.

I'm not sure American universities are aware of this...

From what I heard, 12 does not correspond to a B, but a C.
10-11 corresponds to a D.
Below 10 is Fail.

Yueping,
I think you could be right - because I heard that those with 12 from the better universities in Paris did not get into the top 5 or 10 law schools but those with higher marks from the more lenient universities managed to get admitted. That shows, isn't it ? This system of putting marks at such a low level (for good students) is indeed working against the students when competing with the rest of the world. Doesn't make any sense to have such low marks, that is to say the good student is still 8 marks far below the maximum, it is not a A definitely.

It appears that in France it is not in the mentalities to say to a very good student your work is very good and that is why I will give you a very good mark to reward for your work (when we know that there is a celebration in american. schools to give you your diploma, we understand that France is far away of this rewarding mentality!)
I guess, the low grading system is a way to drop a lot of sudents due to the fact that there is no entrance exam to start law studies. The pity in this is - you are right - it works against us to compete with the rest of the world. I do not know if many French people apply to LLMs.