i am a 1L at nyu and just got first semester grades back, an A- and two Bs, which gives me a 3.25 and puts me (i believe) right around or a hair below the median. is this really bad for early interview week in the fall? note, i am not particularly angry about my grades, but i would like to know if i'm going to have a very hard time with OCI and, if so, what i should be doing other than attempting to get better grades the second time around. any advice from nyu 2Ls/3Ls?

anyone know about this???

Take a deep breath. Calm down. You are fine. First of all, that's only half your grades. Second of all, that puts you barely below median. You may not be going to a V10 if you get the same grades second semester, but if you want biglaw in NYC, you will likely be fine if you can conduct yourself ok in an interview.

Everything about the OP post is a surprise. Grades back already?? An even bigger surprise is that two B’s and an A- (3.2) would be good for median. I hope it is true, because if my second set of exam scores are like the first, I would be a rock star!

Edit: I re-read and saw the ref to grades was first semester, not the grades to our latest exams.

wait for fall grades, send OCI your bid list, and bid on secondary markets where you have ties, not just NYC (but def. bid NYC). Forget DC, SF, and Chicago; probably forget LA too. Look into Westchester, Long Island, NJ, and smaller NYC firms.

what about a 3.15? is that where it gets really risky? should i be worried yet?

The lower you go down the list the harder it gets to say. I know people with very low grades (think smattering of B-s) who still came out of OCI with biglaw. It will require smart bidding and decent interview skills, and extra effort in the wake of OCI to get biglaw as you dip below bottom 20%, but it can and has been done. Worrying does nothing, do well on your Spring exams, and your grades will be your grades. You'll have plenty of time to start worrying this summer, but recent results suggest you'll have to try pretty hard to come away with nothing if you're not really bottom of the barrel.

~

Of course you should be worried. Honestly, if you aren't grading on to LR (that's the top 3 people in each section), you should be a little worried. It's healthy. But take a deep breath, realize there is absolutely nothing you can do to fix it at this point, and try to bid realistically. That means secondary markets, mid-sized firms, etc. Maybe apply to be a research assistant for the fall so you'll have something else to put on your resume. Do the writing competition (secondary journals are meh as credentials but you need all the help you can get) and really nail interviews.

People get biglaw offers with a 3.15, or even lower. But people also struck out with higher. Nothing you can do now but try your best and hope--except maybe prepare to really sell yourself as public interest next Feb.

Bottom of the barrel I mean bottom 5-10%, and even that is a rough guess. There is a tool somewhere on this site (I'll edit with the location) that lets you calculate your estimated percentage rank given gpa and class size and median point.


Of course you should be worried. Honestly, if you aren't grading on to LR (that's the top 3 people in each section), you should be a little worried. It's healthy. But take a deep breath, realize there is absolutely nothing you can do to fix it at this point, and try to bid realistically. That means secondary markets, mid-sized firms, etc. Maybe apply to be a research assistant for the fall so you'll have something else to put on your resume. Do the writing competition (secondary journals are meh as credentials but you need all the help you can get) and really nail interviews.

People get biglaw offers with a 3.15, or even lower. But people also struck out with higher. Nothing you can do now but try your best and hope--except maybe prepare to really sell yourself as public interest next Feb.




I really disagree with the dismal tone in this and it sounds like advice from someone who is not actually a 2L or 3L at NYU. You should be basing your concerns off of your goals. If your goal is just some form of NYC biglaw, you do not need to be worried if you are not grading on to law review. You can talk to OCS or you can just look at the stats, they are heavily in your favor. Does this mean you shouldnt be prepping to interview and refining your resume? Of course not. But are you in any significant danger of missing out? The data simply doesnt support that idea.

The idea of secondary journals being "meh" as credentials for Biglaw interviews signals to me that this person is either trolling or has no real idea of what the process is like. Get on a journal, it will be a de facto requirement for many many firms. Law review is about 10% of the class total, yet about 85+% do journals, and there's a reason for that.

You're misinterpreting. I'm not saying that someone who is on Annual Survey and has a 3.4 is never getting an NYC biglaw job; just that, in this economy, everyone should be a little worried. Don't you know some of the people at NYU who were supposed to be at Dewey? Don't you know at least one person who struck out at EIW and you have no idea why? I think everyone does. There is a danger of someone with a 3.15 of striking out, a very real danger. But it's not a certainty by any means. That's why, regardless of GPA, people need to be realistic with EIW bidding and do the best they can do nail interviews.

And let's be honest--secondary journals are fine (I was EIC of one) but there is no "wow" factor. It's just another tiny thing that goes into hiring considerations.

i heard that for the most part everyone gets at least something, though it's no where near the number/prestige of what you would have gotten with similar numbers in the past...except for the top of the class.

3.15 should be ok as long as you interview decently and don't make any glaring mistakes during eiw/bid properly

ITT alarmist discourse. Study very hard while you still can, though some of us are at the mercy of seemingly arbitrary grades. Go to your practice interviews. Research your firms. Be smart and enthusiastic. If you have any kind of WE edge, "brand" yourself and work as hard as you can to differentiate yourself. Don't overbid. Last year lots of median/ below median people from NYU got biglaw with grades like that.

Pretty sure recent employment stats show 70% (probably a little higher) getting biglaw from NYU. So I wouldn't want to be far below median - and of course, that's not all good biglaw. Lower on the totem pole may be more volatile, likely to defer, no-hire, etc.

when people say don't overbid, does that just mean in terms of vault ranking or something? wouldn't big class sizes make it easier? i feel like it's tough to bid extremely low with such a small summer class and having a low gpa

What I (1L) learned this year is that the advantage of having CCN or PBV on your resume has its limits ITE. The 2-3Ls I know facing challenges are all in the lower median range. More than ever those in the top 15% of Tier 1 schools are stepping up. Nevertheless, BL is often attainable at lower median. But I wouldn’t put down a deposit for Trump Towers just yet.

top 15% outside of t-14 are doing better than ccn's below median??

The 70% number has to be balance with the fact that only around 80% of people at NYU participated at EIW in the first place. The heavy preferance for PI has led many people to not even participate at EIW/OCI or accept firm offers. Not saying biglaw is guarenteed but that stat is very misleading.

i thought it was only ~80% of those who participate in eiw/oci from nyu get an offer...the 70% includes those that self-select out...otherwise it's about 80%?

Top of T1 always did better than below median T14. It's just that below top 15% at a T1 and you are pretty sunk.

Firms at OCI very roughly have two cut offs. One where almost everyone above it gets a callback. And one where almost nobody gets a callback below it. That first cut off is pretty damn high even for shitty firms. Many firms don't even have one (even many shitty firms aren't going to give a 4.0 a callback if they suck at life in general). But there are many firms who are looking for the top 15-20% and give them all call backs.

So once you get above that limit, you start getting a shit ton of callbacks.

But there really aren't many firms who give everyone above median a callback. So OCI gets risky outside the top 20% at a school like northwestern, so I'd imagine ~30-35% at a place like NYU. You are in a spot where you can get a ton of jobs, but you can also fuck up. You are better off aiming for firms that take a lot of people even if they a little selective, than just focusing on small less selective firms.

But once you start getting near the absolute bottom you are falling below a lot of firms second cut offs. Here you gotta aim at firms that aren't selective and that might be a good fit for you.

I do not have hard data as such, just personal tales of two 2Ls that applied for juicy BL SA positions. In both cases they were concerned about their grades, neither were accepted. I know one lost out to Penn and W&L. The other one said she believed someone from Boston U got the available spot. The good news, both now have good contacts at major firms, perhaps that will pay off someday.

Yes, this is true. My roommate was just outside top third at a t14, but a bit quirky, and had no callbacks out of 16 interviews at massive DC/NY firms from OCI. I was somewhere around bottom 40% and got 4/30 callbacks from OCI with different bid strategy. At least one of the 26 called me to say they personally wanted to call me back, but that their firm had a hard cutoff of median and their managing partner wouldn't give them a waiver for me.

DF's comment and the above seem to underestimate the extreme amount of discretion given to interviewers in terms of callbacks as based on your performance in interviews. I know people who were top 5% who failed to get callbacks from a significant number of firms where people top 25% were getting called back to. Recruiters I have talked to say that there are generally cut off limits that a GPA needs to be over for a callback, but the mere fact that your GPA is over that limit will not get you the callback. Obviously resume factors like work experience, diversity etc. can all shift this as well, but if there is one thing I learned from EIW it's that interview performance would have a significant impact on your future set of choices. Kind of a rough deal seeing as how when you're doing 20+ interviews over just a few days you can be burnt out in an interview at a firm that would have been a lock for you (or super prepared/functional for a firm interview that you will eventually realize you had no real interest in).

TL;DR: Grades matter, but it varies how much; and they only matter to a point, after which interview skills are key.

Like said many firms have no cut off where everyone gets one, but plenty do. If you are top 10% you are getting a Paul Weiss callback even if you shit yourself in the interview.

I'm not overestimating the importance of grades. They do only matter to a point, but at some firms, great grades is all you need. But once you are out of that range, they become less important.

I am a 3L at NYU. Going into EIW in 2010, I had what I thought were median grades (but from the posts on here, I now think it might be below median. What is median at NYU, anyway? If 1/3 get 3.66 or above, and like 40-45% get 3 I figured it was a little below a 3.3 but I guess not?)

Anyhow, I had around 10 CBs (got offers at all of them). Highest Vault rank was around V15-V20. The grades OCI gives you are seriously misleading. OCI says the firm I went to has GPA req of 3.33 BUT I DID NOT HAVE THAT AFTER 1L.

Anyhow, I have pretty good WE and good interview skills, yes. But seriously - bid somewhat conservatively (put lots and lots of V20s and V30s - really all of them - and go down from there) and even if you have ONLY Bs and B+s you will still likely get something. Those were my grades and I settled on a nice firm in the V20s that I am happy with!