. Forum

[Cavalier]

There is no point at either school, outside of grading on to law review, that big law becomes a "guarantee." NYU students, at all grade levels, will have a slightly higher chance at getting big law than Michigan students will, but it's not the case that top 60% at NYU is guaranteed big law, vs. top 40% at Michigan.

[reversejinx]

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[DoubleChecks]

i wish our information were at least clear for even 2 years ago. it actually takes a lot of extrapolation and guesswork to get a decent offer rate out of the spreadsheet. but i dont think the highest interpretation broke 80%.

I've been hearing a lot, from HLS students, about how placement hasn't been so hot for the last two years. But, in my opinion, it has more to do with self-selection than HLS's rep. There is a lot more geographic diversity in where students end up working after HLS, compared to CLS and NYU. Since those other markets are much more competitive than NYC, it wouldn't surprise me at all if geographic diversity accounted for the differences in placement. In order to improve, I suppose HLS students have the choice of bidding on more NYC firms or simply riding out the wave and waiting for the economy to improve in those non-NYC markets.

possible, yet at the same time, im skeptical that HLS students have a harder time in general at OCI than NYU students (no offense, esp. with that ranking that say firms prefer HLS the most ). just with 1L summer jobs, i know a ton of people getting paid biglaw jobs or the like (not just in NYC). i also think a lot of HLS students just have high expectations -- they scream doom if things dont go their way right away (or 100% the way they intended it). anecdotal evidence, but almost every 2L and 3L i know that wanted biglaw got biglaw...with the "worst" being someone who got a low 6 figure midlaw job (and even then i dont know how much of that was by choice). im sure there are those at HLS (it's a big school lol) who didnt have things work out for them, but that's true for all law schools (and some HLSers i think jump the gun in crying foul).

[Upton Sinclair]

I have this DVD.

Came here to make a similar joke. Very late to the party. Well done, sir.

[somewhatwayward]

according to last year's stats, 80% of people who did EIP at CLS got offers, and 85% of the class participated in EIP. i wouldn't imagine it to be much different at NYU except that probably less people want biglaw. michigan i'm not sure about.

[Renzo]

Two years ago about 80% of NYU OCI participants got at least one offer. 80% of students are not in the top half of the class, so...

Notice the difference in the highlighted words... And I thought the number was 70% ?

EDIT- just to clarify, I'm not saying that below median students at NYU aren't going to get biglaw, but it's not clear as to how far below median firms dig (but 2 years ago, it clearly was not down to 80% of the total class).

The actual number was in the high 70's % two years ago (I rounded up), and I don't know about last year.

And, yes, I am aware of the difference, but there's no reason to assume that OCI non-particpants are all at the bottom of the curve, particularly when NYU has so many public interest scholarships. The few non-particpants I know don't have bad grades, they just all really want PI, business (not law) or politics.

But, even if you assume that there is perfect correlation, so that the roughly 10% who didn't participate were the 0-10th percentile of the class, and the 20% of participants who got no offers were the 11-28th percentile, that still means that you can be way below median and get a biglaw job.

My anecdotal experience is that if your grades aren't great, there are some firms that will never look at you, period. But below that grade threshold, there is very little correlation between who got offers and who has better grades--it's one of many factors. For example, I know someone who struck out with slightly above median grades, but they are very young (in age and demeanor) with no work (or real life) experience, while I know someone with really bad grades who is worked in the tech sector for a long time, had an interesting IP-related summer job, and is biglaw secure.

[Cavalier]

There is no point at either school, outside of grading on to law review, that big law becomes a "guarantee." NYU students, at all grade levels, will have a slightly higher chance at getting big law than Michigan students will, but it's not the case that top 60% at NYU is guaranteed big law, vs. top 40% at Michigan.

Do you just mean that there are "soft factors" that come into play, like the interview and any past work experience? Are you saying that if I'm at the top quarter of the class, or say my GPA is above a 3.75, that biglaw is not beyond likely from NYU? (I realize that with those numbers biglaw is probably equally likely from Michigan.) And again, guaranteed was probably the wrong word choice. Hoping people don't get hung up on it. The intent was to tease out and then really accentuate any potential differences between the two schools' respective placement results.

Top quarter at either school, by itself, will not make big law "beyond likely." OCI is not like law school admissions, where a certain GPA and LSAT score will get you into certain law schools (barring yield protection). Good law school grades will get your foot in the door at more firms and higher ranked firms, but other factors (most importantly your interviewing ability) will determine whether or not you get an offer. Assuming the NYU name will get your foot in the door at slightly more places than the Michigan name will, at NYU you'll have slightly more chances to turn an interview into an offer regardless of what your grades are. That's all.

[reversejinx]

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[Kohinoor]

There is no point at either school, outside of grading on to law review, that big law becomes a "guarantee." NYU students, at all grade levels, will have a slightly higher chance at getting big law than Michigan students will, but it's not the case that top 60% at NYU is guaranteed big law, vs. top 40% at Michigan.

Do you just mean that there are "soft factors" that come into play, like the interview and any past work experience? Are you saying that if I'm at the top quarter of the class, or say my GPA is above a 3.75, that biglaw is not beyond likely from NYU? (I realize that with those numbers biglaw is probably equally likely from Michigan.) And again, guaranteed was probably the wrong word choice. Hoping people don't get hung up on it. The intent was to tease out and then really accentuate any potential differences between the two schools' respective placement results.

Top quarter at either school, by itself, will not make big law "beyond likely." OCI is not like law school admissions, where a certain GPA and LSAT score will get you into certain law schools (barring yield protection). Good law school grades will get your foot in the door at more firms and higher ranked firms, but other factors (most importantly your interviewing ability) will determine whether or not you get an offer. Assuming the NYU name will get your foot in the door at slightly more places than the Michigan name will, at NYU you'll have slightly more chances to turn an interview into an offer regardless of what your grades are. That's all.

Is this actually true? I've spoken with attorneys that have gone to OCI as representatives, and they gave me the impression that the interview did not matter nearly as much as your grades/rank/law review.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

Nah, I'm good.

[Stanford4Me]

Is this actually true? I've spoken with attorneys that have gone to OCI as representatives, and they gave me the impression that the interview did not matter nearly as much as your grades/rank/law review.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

Interview matters a lot. Plenty of students who had the grades/resume have not received offers because they were awkward or gave horrible interviews. Plenty more students who didn't have the grades/resume have received offers because they dominated their interviews. I think this book should be required reading for all law students. I'm amazed at how many students don't know the importance or the basics of interviews.

[Stanislaw Carter]

Grades matter a lot with certain firms, still. But the interview will break you even at those places, if you're bad.

[Cavalier]

There is no point at either school, outside of grading on to law review, that big law becomes a "guarantee." NYU students, at all grade levels, will have a slightly higher chance at getting big law than Michigan students will, but it's not the case that top 60% at NYU is guaranteed big law, vs. top 40% at Michigan.

Do you just mean that there are "soft factors" that come into play, like the interview and any past work experience? Are you saying that if I'm at the top quarter of the class, or say my GPA is above a 3.75, that biglaw is not beyond likely from NYU? (I realize that with those numbers biglaw is probably equally likely from Michigan.) And again, guaranteed was probably the wrong word choice. Hoping people don't get hung up on it. The intent was to tease out and then really accentuate any potential differences between the two schools' respective placement results.

Top quarter at either school, by itself, will not make big law "beyond likely." OCI is not like law school admissions, where a certain GPA and LSAT score will get you into certain law schools (barring yield protection). Good law school grades will get your foot in the door at more firms and higher ranked firms, but other factors (most importantly your interviewing ability) will determine whether or not you get an offer. Assuming the NYU name will get your foot in the door at slightly more places than the Michigan name will, at NYU you'll have slightly more chances to turn an interview into an offer regardless of what your grades are. That's all.

Is this actually true? I've spoken with attorneys that have gone to OCI as representatives, and they gave me the impression that the interview did not matter nearly as much as your grades/rank/law review.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

I don't qualify as "anyone else" but I'll weigh in anyway. It's certainly true that grades alone can sometimes carry you to the callback stage, but it depends entirely on the firm. And there are a handful of firms that give offers to a very high percentage of those they callback. That said, I think anyone at a T10 school (besides YHS) will tell you that they know many people in the top quarter who struck out, and many people below median who got an offer. Interviewing ability, the market(s) you target, and bidding strategy are very important; there's also a lot of randomness in the process.

All I'm really trying to say is, you shouldn't come in with the attitude "I've gotta be in the nth percentile in my class and then I'm set, otherwise I'm screwed." Rather, you should come in with the attitude "I'm going to try to get the best grades I can, but regardless of what happens, OCI needs to be taken extremely seriously."

[spondee]

Is this actually true? I've spoken with attorneys that have gone to OCI as representatives, and they gave me the impression that the interview did not matter nearly as much as your grades/rank/law review.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

Grades/rank/law review probably do matter the most. But there are more students above each firms' cutoffs than there are spots so having good numbers isn't enough.

If you have a 3.75 at NYU, though, you're pretty much safe. As long as you're passable in an interview and not doing anything crazy, you'll get callbacks and offers. I'd assume the same is true at Mich.

[Anonymous User]

I go to NYU and wouldn't go so far as to say that "plenty" of people with good grades didn't get offers. I know of only 1 person with good grades who struck out, and I'm pretty well acquainted with the 2L class. I know plenty of others who struck out, but the common thread is poor grades.

So suggesting that the interviews carry the day is a little misleading. If you have good grades, just being a standard interviewer should get you across the line. If you have OK to bad grades, you should hope on being a good interviewer.

Note that even though I said that good grades will generally lead to an offer, that doesn't mean it's necessarily at the most prestigious firms. One trend I've noticed is that people with grades but lackluster/terrible personalities tended to bat lower than they otherwise should have. They still ended up with offers, but not at the usual suspects where NYU 2Ls with top grades go (S&C, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, Debevoise, Paul Weiss).

[Renzo]

I go to NYU and wouldn't go so far as to say that "plenty" of people with good grades didn't get offers. I know of only 1 person with good grades who struck out, and I'm pretty well acquainted with the 2L class. I know plenty of others who struck out, but the common thread is poor grades.

So suggesting that the interviews carry the day is a little misleading. If you have good grades, just being a standard interviewer should get you across the line. If you have OK to bad grades, you should hope on being a good interviewer.

Note that even though I said that good grades will generally lead to an offer, that doesn't mean it's necessarily at the most prestigious firms. One trend I've noticed is that people with grades but lackluster/terrible personalities tended to bat lower than they otherwise should have. They still ended up with offers, but not at the usual suspects where NYU 2Ls with top grades go (S&C, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, Debevoise, Paul Weiss).

Right. Grades are necessary, but not sufficient, for some firms. So if you interview badly you may not get an offer, even if your grades are good. But, if your grades don't meet a firms cutoff, you are never, never, never going to dominate an interview so much you that you get the nod regardless.

[Stanford4Me]

I go to NYU and wouldn't go so far as to say that "plenty" of people with good grades didn't get offers. I know of only 1 person with good grades who struck out, and I'm pretty well acquainted with the 2L class. I know plenty of others who struck out, but the common thread is poor grades.

So suggesting that the interviews carry the day is a little misleading. If you have good grades, just being a standard interviewer should get you across the line. If you have OK to bad grades, you should hope on being a good interviewer.

Note that even though I said that good grades will generally lead to an offer, that doesn't mean it's necessarily at the most prestigious firms. One trend I've noticed is that people with grades but lackluster/terrible personalities tended to bat lower than they otherwise should have. They still ended up with offers, but not at the usual suspects where NYU 2Ls with top grades go (S&C, Davis Polk, Cravath, Cleary, Simpson, Debevoise, Paul Weiss).

Right. Grades are necessary, but not sufficient, for some firms. So if you interview badly you may not get an offer, even if your grades are good. But, if your grades don't meet a firms cutoff, you are never, never, never going to dominate an interview so much you that you get the nod regardless.

+1

I'll also clarify my earlier post. I didn't mean to imply (as I never explicitly stated) that students with good grades completely struck out. Rather, students with good grades were no-offered at a firm they thought they were sure to receive an offer from. I'm also not talking only about NYU, so when I say "plenty" I'm speaking in a more general sense.

I also don't think anyone ever said, or suggested, that interviews carry the day. We're only emphasizing that they're more important than one might originally think.

[Anonymous User]

Just wanted to confirm that NYU's EIW placement this past fall was a shade under 80%, for those who participated. Anecdotally, there seems to be little reason to assume the people opting out of EIW are the ones with the worst grades. There really isn't a feeling at NYU that firm jobs are reserved for the high achievers, and lots of smart people are shooting for high-profile PI work. So it seems a conservative estimate that in recent years, say, two-thirds to 70 percent of the class can get something out of EIW if they want it.

[Anonymous User]

Just to put some actual grades to this debate...you can get all Bs (or almost all Bs) at NYU and get a biglaw job. Saw it happen a bunch of times.

[09042014]

I'm a 0L, and my info comes from a NYU alum who called me to sell me on the school, so take with a grain of salt. He said that all levels of NYU grads, top, medium and bottom, can get market ($160,000) jobs. Don't know if that necessarily implies BigLaw or not, but thought it could help.

Back in 2007. Not anymore. It's more like 75% can get them now. But that's not just the top 75%. Someone bottom ten might get something and someone only just below median might not get anything.

[Anonymous User]

There is no point at either school, outside of grading on to law review, that big law becomes a "guarantee." NYU students, at all grade levels, will have a slightly higher chance at getting big law than Michigan students will, but it's not the case that top 60% at NYU is guaranteed big law, vs. top 40% at Michigan.

Do you just mean that there are "soft factors" that come into play, like the interview and any past work experience? Are you saying that if I'm at the top quarter of the class, or say my GPA is above a 3.75, that biglaw is not beyond likely from NYU? (I realize that with those numbers biglaw is probably equally likely from Michigan.) And again, guaranteed was probably the wrong word choice. Hoping people don't get hung up on it. The intent was to tease out and then really accentuate any potential differences between the two schools' respective placement results.

Top quarter at either school, by itself, will not make big law "beyond likely." OCI is not like law school admissions, where a certain GPA and LSAT score will get you into certain law schools (barring yield protection). Good law school grades will get your foot in the door at more firms and higher ranked firms, but other factors (most importantly your interviewing ability) will determine whether or not you get an offer. Assuming the NYU name will get your foot in the door at slightly more places than the Michigan name will, at NYU you'll have slightly more chances to turn an interview into an offer regardless of what your grades are. That's all.

Is this actually true? I've spoken with attorneys that have gone to OCI as representatives, and they gave me the impression that the interview did not matter nearly as much as your grades/rank/law review.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

Skadden was the one firmed that I interviewed where the interviewer openly stated that the only real factor he cared about was grades. The interviewer from Latham stated it was a “number’s game.” But those were just the screening interviews as well, so I guess perhaps it was just a numbers game, or about grades, for the screening interview, but not at the callback stage. Overall, I highly doubt you are going to get an offer anywhere with decent grades (such as top 25%), but terrible interviewing skills, lack of personality fit at the firm, etc. Maybe if you are in the top 1% or something like that, grades may carry 98% of the heavy lifting in terms of getting an offer somewhere (because firms are going to really want someone with those kinds of grades at a school like NYU), but even then I don’t think you’ll get an offer if you are just an absolutely terrible interviewer. The idea of being able to deduce getting an offer at a large firm to pure numbers is a nice one (e.g. telling yourself that if you are in the top X%, you will get an offer), but there is a good degree of uncertainty when it comes to whether you are going to get an offer (i.e. you just may not be a “fit” at any law firms that you interview with, and there’s really no way you can know that right now going into law school. You just have to recognize there’s that risk there when entering law school, and that you can’t do anything about it).

[Anonymous User]

Skadden was the one firmed that I interviewed where the interviewer openly stated that the only real factor he cared about was grades. The interviewer from Latham stated it was a “number’s game.” But those were just the screening interviews as well, so I guess perhaps it was just a numbers game, or about grades, for the screening interview, but not at the callback stage. Overall, I highly doubt you are going to get an offer anywhere with decent grades (such as top 25%), but terrible interviewing skills, lack of personality fit at the firm, etc. Maybe if you are in the top 1% or something like that, grades may carry 98% of the heavy lifting in terms of getting an offer somewhere (because firms are going to really want someone with those kinds of grades at a school like NYU), but even then I don’t think you’ll get an offer if you are just an absolutely terrible interviewer. The idea of being able to deduce getting an offer at a large firm to pure numbers is a nice one (e.g. telling yourself that if you are in the top X%, you will get an offer), but there is a good degree of uncertainty when it comes to whether you are going to get an offer (i.e. you just may not be a “fit” at any law firms that you interview with, and there’s really no way you can know that right now going into law school. You just have to recognize there’s that risk there when entering law school, and that you can’t do anything about it).

It goes both ways too. I got offers I should never have gotten with my grades.

[2LLLL]

Your grades and journal status can get you to the callback stage alone- after all the interviewer who comes to the school for OCI is meeting with 10-20 people in a day for 20-30 minutes each, so interviewing ability isn't as important in that I'm pretty sure that screening interviewers pre-select some candidates and recommend them unless the candidate really blows it.

At the callback stage, everyone has the grades so interviewing ability becomes much more important...

[timbs4339]

It's important to make the distinction between a "good" interview, a "pass" interview, and a "bad" interview. If you have the grades, you really only need to pass the interview- show good non-verbal communication, answer the questions about your resume, have a few well-thought out (but nothing the interviewer won't see again) questions about the firm, and be able to make chit chat. In my experience 95% of students at top law schools are able to do this. You don't have to be the life of the party, someone who is naturally very social, etc.

A good interview, one that will get you a callback below the grade cutoff, is really something that either happens when you hit it off really well with an interviewer, or if you have the kind of natural charisma that makes people immediately like you. Good looks, height, other intangibles play a large part.

And grades do weigh heavily at the callback stage. It's important that people like you, but at the end of the day a callback is usually 3-4 20 minute screening interviews strung together. You would be required to know more about the firm to "pass" this interview, but there are certain firms that give offers either on the spot at the callback or shortly (2/3 days) afterwards. For them to do this, there can't really be more of a discussion about individual candidates then "seems like a cool person, I wouldn't have any problem working with her."

[Anonymous User]

Is this actually true? I've spoken with attorneys that have gone to OCI as representatives, and they gave me the impression that the interview did not matter nearly as much as your grades/rank/law review.

Anyone else care to weigh in?

The general rule of my EIP experience was no callbacks at targets and reaches but some success at ultra-reaches. Neither rhyme nor reason if I tried to correlate it to grades.

[reversejinx]

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