Thanks for your thoughts. I basically agree with you on both points, and addressed them more explicitly in an earlier draft. 1000 word limit and all that. I also felt completely the same way about the LSAT.

I definitely think grades can be a guide regarding interest areas and skills. Of course, they're also an extremely hazy guide and should be taken with about a dozen grains of salt. The broader problem, I think, is the number of students who don't pragmatically account for grades as you seem to, but treat them as a moral barometer for their entire life.

Also agree with the subjectivity of "good" vis a vis career choices. I've always thought it's silly to have some epic motivating narrative to your career path at age 23. So when I say "great," I guess I mean "rooted in an actual vision of where law school will take me." I think, like you, that mastery of a given subject area might be a perfectly great reason (like you finding a sort of vocation, and having a family, are fairly big priorities for me; bigger than saving whales or whatever). What I see too much of is folks chasing the next success (grades-->best journal possible---> best clerkship possible--->best firm job [or most prestigious PI position. I don't think the goodie types are immune to this sort of thinking] possible. Chasing success and nothing else without ever pausing to consider what success means, or whether success, institutionally defined, is what we really want.

--JDD