Harvard Law School EIP 2010 Callback Thread Forum

[Anonymous User]

SLS here--too early to say re: OCI. My sense is that there are very few people with no CBs, but also that most people don't have as many as they would like at this point. Our OCI is ~2.5 weeks (two weeks done), so the process is a bit different here, and a ton of firms still haven't gotten into the callback action yet.

[Anonymous User]

Any idea if A&P callbacks have already happened?

[Anonymous User]

Snail mail dings at Shearman & Sterling and Paul Weiss. Strange. Had decent interviews and definitely sufficient grades.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone hear from Shearman NY or Baker & McKenzie NY?

Letter dings from Paul Weiss and Willkie today.

[Anonymous User]

All DINGS; All NYC; All via snail mail

Stroock, Paul Hastings, Paul Weiss, Shearman

Got the Proskauer ding e-mail earlier today

Need a drink.....

[Anonymous User]

Is it safe to say that most of these "waitlists" are wishful thinking?

[Anonymous User]

Any idea if A&P callbacks have already happened?

Friend got one a couple days ago.

[Anonymous User]

Before this process began I estimated that the avg number of callbacks/offers for most of the class was 3 CB's and 1 Offer, judging from the responses in this thread, and my own experience...I was right....

[Anonymous User]

Is it safe to say that most of these "waitlists" are wishful thinking?

I'd like to know the same thing.

[Anonymous User]

Arnold and Porter DC ding. By email.

Also snail mail Covington and Vinson Elkins.

[Anonymous User]

Something that confuses me is just how random my CBs vs. dings are. I interviewed at many DC firms, and my 2 CBs (with I guess one or two firms still outstanding) are from O'Melveny and Crowell. Personally, I feel like that's totally random. O'Melveny is way, way better than quite a few of my rejections. Random.

[Anonymous User]

Snail mail ding for Irell.

[Anonymous User]

I interview well (went to public schools my whole life, so I can have a conversation with people).

Heh. I went to public schools my whole life and am the most awkward person you've ever met.

Darn. Theory shot

Haha I also feel like most of the suave, always upbeat people I know went to prep school their whole lives. I feel like most HLS people who went to public school would have worse social skills as a result of being picked on and socially isolated there.

Someone should do a study on this...

[Anonymous User]

I have the unique pleasure of being dinged by Jones Day...twice. I must have really screwed up that interview. (I only interviewed for the DC office)

[Anonymous User]

Let me take advantage of this forum to indicate that I am pretty frustrated and pissed off at the HLS administration right now. I have been generally impressed by the students at HLS; most are genuinely good, intelligent, and interesting people. The administration of the school, however, seems to do everything it can to combat this goodness, and to foster an overriding nastiness at the school. The smallest thing here inevitably becomes a huge administrative nightmare, and the administration's response to virtually any request, no matter how reasonable and no matter how reasonably made, is immediately to revert to viciously blaming the student. The administration here quite simply does not have our own best interests at stake.

There are numerous indications of why this is so. First, the whole grades fiasco, which pretty conclusively indicates HLS's failure to spend even a tiny amount of time thinking through the consequences of its actions. The school instituted a mandatory system of LPs for a period, even though there are numerous obvious reasons why this was a bad idea: 1) The system is obviously copied from Yale, and everyone (employers, judges, fellowship programs) will treat it identically to Yale's, even though at Yale, from what I've heard, an LP demands an awe-inspiring level of badness. 2) The pedagogical justification for the system--encouraging people to take academic risks by enrolling in courses in areas with which they are not comfortable--is utterly destroyed if each course presents the risk of a serious black-eye on the transcript. 3) Some professors would simply refuse to give out the LPs, while others would not, leading to unfairness when students from various sections are compared with one another.

The school also does not seem to have reflected on how deeply dysfunctional it looks when it appears to change its grading system every two months. These changes also seem to be made in an utterly unreflective and opaque process, that does not take into account any student feedback, even though students are directly affected by this and would seem to have valuable insight on how such changes affect them.

There are also dozens of other, minor irritations that HLS ought to be able to resolve: the fact that we have like six different IDs to access various webpages, and there is no apparent logic to when one should use one ID rather than another; the fact that the school inexplicably does not have a course registration site that can deal with the student body, so that registering for classes inevitably involves waiting in an hour-long online "queue"; the fact that there is no real meaningful "shopping" period; the unreachability of much of the advising staff; and many others.

On nearly every issue, the school's implicit (and often explicit) message to its students is: Screw you; we have a famous, prestigious name, and you should be happy to go here, regardless of how we treat you. Interestingly, in several of my courses this fall, professors have made remarks indicating that the majority of the class probably dislikes the law, and seriously questions their decision to go to law school. I really think HLS should think seriously about why it might be that so many people, who were deeply intellectually engaged throughout college, end up feeling so alienated from their experience at HLS.

[Anonymous User]

Let me take advantage of this forum to indicate that I am pretty frustrated and pissed off at the HLS administration right now. I have been generally impressed by the students at HLS; most are genuinely good, intelligent, and interesting people. The administration of the school, however, seems to do everything it can to combat this goodness, and to foster an overriding nastiness at the school. The smallest thing here inevitably becomes a huge administrative nightmare, and the administration's response to virtually any request, no matter how reasonable and no matter how reasonably made, is immediately to revert to viciously blaming the student. The administration here quite simply does not have our own best interests at stake.

There are numerous indications of why this is so. First, the whole grades fiasco, which pretty conclusively indicates HLS's failure to spend even a tiny amount of time thinking through the consequences of its actions. The school instituted a mandatory system of LPs for a period, even though there are numerous obvious reasons why this was a bad idea: 1) The system is obviously copied from Yale, and everyone (employers, judges, fellowship programs) will treat it identically to Yale's, even though at Yale, from what I've heard, an LP demands an awe-inspiring level of badness. 2) The pedagogical justification for the system--encouraging people to take academic risks by enrolling in courses in areas with which they are not comfortable--is utterly destroyed if each course presents the risk of a serious black-eye on the transcript. 3) Some professors would simply refuse to give out the LPs, while others would not, leading to unfairness when students from various sections are compared with one another.

The school also does not seem to have reflected on how deeply dysfunctional it looks when it appears to change its grading system every two months. These changes also seem to be made in an utterly unreflective and opaque process, that does not take into account any student feedback, even though students are directly affected by this and would seem to have valuable insight on how such changes affect them.

There are also dozens of other, minor irritations that HLS ought to be able to resolve: the fact that we have like six different IDs to access various webpages, and there is no apparent logic to when one should use one ID rather than another; the fact that the school inexplicably does not have a course registration site that can deal with the student body, so that registering for classes inevitably involves waiting in an hour-long online "queue"; the fact that there is no real meaningful "shopping" period; the unreachability of much of the advising staff; and many others.

On nearly every issue, the school's implicit (and often explicit) message to its students is: Screw you; we have a famous, prestigious name, and you should be happy to go here, regardless of how we treat you. Interestingly, in several of my courses this fall, professors have made remarks indicating that the majority of the class probably dislikes the law, and seriously questions their decision to go to law school. I really think HLS should think seriously about why it might be that so many people, who were deeply intellectually engaged throughout college, end up feeling so alienated from their experience at HLS.

Interviewer initials?

[Anonymous User]

Let me take advantage of this forum to indicate that I am pretty frustrated and pissed off at the HLS administration right now. I have been generally impressed by the students at HLS; most are genuinely good, intelligent, and interesting people. The administration of the school, however, seems to do everything it can to combat this goodness, and to foster an overriding nastiness at the school. The smallest thing here inevitably becomes a huge administrative nightmare, and the administration's response to virtually any request, no matter how reasonable and no matter how reasonably made, is immediately to revert to viciously blaming the student. The administration here quite simply does not have our own best interests at stake.

There are numerous indications of why this is so. First, the whole grades fiasco, which pretty conclusively indicates HLS's failure to spend even a tiny amount of time thinking through the consequences of its actions. The school instituted a mandatory system of LPs for a period, even though there are numerous obvious reasons why this was a bad idea: 1) The system is obviously copied from Yale, and everyone (employers, judges, fellowship programs) will treat it identically to Yale's, even though at Yale, from what I've heard, an LP demands an awe-inspiring level of badness. 2) The pedagogical justification for the system--encouraging people to take academic risks by enrolling in courses in areas with which they are not comfortable--is utterly destroyed if each course presents the risk of a serious black-eye on the transcript. 3) Some professors would simply refuse to give out the LPs, while others would not, leading to unfairness when students from various sections are compared with one another.

The school also does not seem to have reflected on how deeply dysfunctional it looks when it appears to change its grading system every two months. These changes also seem to be made in an utterly unreflective and opaque process, that does not take into account any student feedback, even though students are directly affected by this and would seem to have valuable insight on how such changes affect them.

There are also dozens of other, minor irritations that HLS ought to be able to resolve: the fact that we have like six different IDs to access various webpages, and there is no apparent logic to when one should use one ID rather than another; the fact that the school inexplicably does not have a course registration site that can deal with the student body, so that registering for classes inevitably involves waiting in an hour-long online "queue"; the fact that there is no real meaningful "shopping" period; the unreachability of much of the advising staff; and many others.

On nearly every issue, the school's implicit (and often explicit) message to its students is: Screw you; we have a famous, prestigious name, and you should be happy to go here, regardless of how we treat you. Interestingly, in several of my courses this fall, professors have made remarks indicating that the majority of the class probably dislikes the law, and seriously questions their decision to go to law school. I really think HLS should think seriously about why it might be that so many people, who were deeply intellectually engaged throughout college, end up feeling so alienated from their experience at HLS.

Interviewer initials?

H.L.S. It was a totally crumby interview. The interviewer spent the entire time going on about how prestigious his firm was, and how prestigious he was for working there.

[Anonymous User]

Do any firms call back on the weekend?

[Anonymous User]

There are numerous indications of why this is so. First, the whole grades fiasco, which pretty conclusively indicates HLS's failure to spend even a tiny amount of time thinking through the consequences of its actions. The school instituted a mandatory system of LPs for a period, even though there are numerous obvious reasons why this was a bad idea: 1) The system is obviously copied from Yale, and everyone (employers, judges, fellowship programs) will treat it identically to Yale's, even though at Yale, from what I've heard, an LP demands an awe-inspiring level of badness. 2) The pedagogical justification for the system--encouraging people to take academic risks by enrolling in courses in areas with which they are not comfortable--is utterly destroyed if each course presents the risk of a serious black-eye on the transcript. 3) Some professors would simply refuse to give out the LPs, while others would not, leading to unfairness when students from various sections are compared with one another.

I may as well take the opportunity to ask--I've seen figures saying 30-40% of a typical class receives H's, 0.4% LPs and the rest P's. Anything to that?

[Anonymous User]

There are numerous indications of why this is so. First, the whole grades fiasco, which pretty conclusively indicates HLS's failure to spend even a tiny amount of time thinking through the consequences of its actions. The school instituted a mandatory system of LPs for a period, even though there are numerous obvious reasons why this was a bad idea: 1) The system is obviously copied from Yale, and everyone (employers, judges, fellowship programs) will treat it identically to Yale's, even though at Yale, from what I've heard, an LP demands an awe-inspiring level of badness. 2) The pedagogical justification for the system--encouraging people to take academic risks by enrolling in courses in areas with which they are not comfortable--is utterly destroyed if each course presents the risk of a serious black-eye on the transcript. 3) Some professors would simply refuse to give out the LPs, while others would not, leading to unfairness when students from various sections are compared with one another.

I may as well take the opportunity to ask--I've seen figures saying 30-40% of a typical class receives H's, 0.4% LPs and the rest P's. Anything to that?

In Section 5, there were at least 7 LPs given out in Civil Procedure, Legislation and Regulation, and in Legal Writing there were at least 4 for section A. So way more than .4%

[Anonymous User]

I think one thing people need to realize is that a lot of people are struggling with regards to getting callbacks, just remember:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ito5ELbyyxs

[Anonymous User]

Even if HLS gives considerably fewer LPs now, the point still stands: For a period of time, HLS had a policy under which a non-negligible percentage of each class had to receive a serious black mark on their transcripts. Even if HLS has effectively abandoned this policy (which may or may not be true), the fact that it had it for a period of time, and seemingly failed to grasp the obvious consequences of the policy, shows its dysfunction and its failure to work for the best interests of its students. I was not at HLS when the LP rule was in place, but I think the fact that it had this policy is representative of serious flaws in the administration.

[Anonymous User]

I have good grades and it hasn't helped me get any callbacks.

[Anonymous User]

Another student with great grades who isn't getting much love here.

Just got a Covington DC ding letter asking me to interview again next year because I'm "so highly qualified." I didn't know that there were multiple categories of dings.

[Anonymous User]

Another student with great grades who isn't getting much love here.

Just got a Covington DC ding letter asking me to interview again next year because I'm "so highly qualified." I didn't know that there were multiple categories of dings.

There aren't. That's Covington's form letter. Everyone I know who got dinged got it, at H or otherwise.