I don't know why Bilbo's hating on Mod 6. We are super tight in general, but everyone participates as much or as little as they care to. And it's not like we don't do stuff with other mods: a dozen or so of the mod joined a group of ~50 that took a 24-hrs in Vegas trip immediately after finals. I'm personally excited to be working with 4 others from my supermod this summer. Overall message: don't worry too much about it. Nearly everyone here is tolerable, most are enjoyable and there are enough folks here you'll find good people to hang with. Some will become good friends, others will merely be colleagues-- really impressive colleagues.

Like the others above, I only have anecdotal info, but the one 3L I know semi-well got a clerkship in a federal appeals court on the east coast (as specific as I want to get since it's not my info to pass out).

Edit: bolded bit added to give a better sense of what I was trying to say.

The next time mods 1-6 plan a trip to Vegas, mods 7-9 would like to know . Thx.

Sorry WT. When even the old, married guy hears about it, I woulda thought all the mods had known.

Mod 9 was in on it, too. Also - I was joking. (But the shirts are dorky).

I hear you bilbo, but is QOL the only reason these friends of yours chose Boalt over SLS? I don't really care about Harvard — I think I'd pick Boalt over Harvard too — but I'm interested in the Boalt vs. SLS debate. It's one I've been giving a lot of thought the past few days. Care to PM me these people's contact info or something? I'd like to actually talk to someone who made this decision.

I'd summarize Boalt v. SLS like this: I never got into Stanford but never got rejected, they still hadn't even given me any notification by May 1st, I withdrew and didn't care. Stanford is an awesome place to live if you have like a spouse or especially if you have children, Palo Alto is in one of the most desirable suburbs in the United States. If I was older and settled down, that certainly would have changed my decision.

That said, for someone like me straight out of U/G, the prospect of spending my early 20s in a suburb, after spending my entire childhood in a suburb, was not gonna happen. Palo Alto is super boring, and pretty far away from SF, Berk has plenty of things to do and is close to SF. IMO, Boalt is better than Stanford if you wanna stay in Cali, Stanford has less grads and places more people out of state, so I doubt they get as many Cali firms, though i could be wrong.

Overall, young and single = Boalt, Older and more settled down = Stanford.

Last, I'd like to echo what the above poster said, Boalt is truly a special place. I can't explain it to you, you are just going to have to visit. But here's an objective measure: regardless of if you are the richest man alive, Boalt will pay for your plane ticket to come see the school during ASW, did any other T10 unilaterally offer this without any financial aid check? NO. When, I was done with ASW I was fully committed and honestly could not have cared less about other choices. The people here are really tight, tho we did all kind of bury ourselves in our own caves after Halloween . I think our school has like one of the lower GPA/LSAT matrixes of the T14, but these students are the kind of ppl that can consistently out-interview our peer institutions. End Rant.

Thank you for the post. I went to Stanford UG, so I know full well what Palo Alto is like.

And SLS also pays full airfare for admits regardless of financial situation. Just saying.

I will say, the appeal of Berkeley is something that draws me to the school. I love Berkeley. It is definitely more fun than Palo Alto. But I don't want BigLaw, so the number of California firms at OCI doesn't really affect me. What I'm interested in is clerkship/academia potential as well as environmental law opportunities. What say you about Boalt v. SLS in these areas?

I mean our LRAP is certainly the gold standard for law schools if you don't wanna do biglaw. As far as academia, not sure at all, usually you do something else first which establishes your credibility for academia, so I'm not sure it really relates to where you chose.

Our clerkship placement got raped because of how Boalt ranks students (it is too complicated and I don't know enough to go into detail), but there are proposals to fix it. Pretty safe to say STanford is better in this area.

Environmental law is our second biggest strength next to IP, and it certainly has tons of classes. I don't think Stanford has this same environmental stress.

While you guys are asking a lot of great questions about job placement, I really don't think its our expertise. If you know any lawyers via family friend or something, and want to know about placement or career prospects, give them a call and I'm sure they will be glad to discuss it, they can have some really great insight, I would even consider cold calling some attorney if thats not an option.

I can't argue against your parenthetical there...

For academia, we have a mentorship program in which faculty members work with you to train you for academia. You go to faculty job talks and really get to now professors. They also have a kind of "boot camp" for grads seeking academic positions and help you with application and interviews, etc.

Cool. Thanks, guys, for the help.

You guys were talking earlier about "mods." I tried looking on the school's website, but I couldn't really find anything out about them. About how many students are in each mod/supermod? What exactly do they do together? It mainly just classes together or do they also have social events? Sorry if these are stupid questions

Definitely not a stupid question. Mods are Berkeley's sections. The class of ~270 people is broken up into 9 mods of ~30 people. First semester, you have one class with just your mod, and two classes with your supermod (a grouping of three mods.) 1-2-3, 4-5-6, 7-8-9. 1L second semester, you have two supermod classes and one elective.

You will probably grow pretty close to those in your mod especially, but also your supermod, just by virtue of time spent together and common interests (studying, class prep, etc.) That's not to say that you're at all cut off from the other mods, though ... though the majority of people I know well are in my mod/supermod, I know a bunch of people in the other supermods too, and we all hang out at bar review, post-finals drinking, extracurriculars, journal work, etc. Our class as a whole does a fair amount of stuff together. It all depends. I think some of the mods are more tight-knit and social than others, but I think that's probably attributable to someone in those mods who's taken the role of social organizer. My mod has done some cool stuff together, though we're also pretty lazy and not as active as some of the others.

I think it's a good system. You can't help but get to know some people really well, but you're definitely not excluded from meeting and socializing with everyone.

In addition to what Emilybeth said, the mod is also the group that meets with your ASP tutor: a 3L who did well in your mod subject (HH/H). ASP is optional, but I found it helpful for general studying (and sanity) advice-- much moreso than the contracts tutoring we got.

And BTW, your mod prof gets a small stipend to subsidize a mod party.

One of the best perspectives I have read so far on the Berkeley fee hikes. Every day I get more and more excited about the possibility of attending.