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Listen chief I'm just saying that its not always crystal clear what to do in situations and there's valid reasons for a lot of things that the TLS community gets all fired up about and posts LOL TITCR FTFY YWVM. I'm anonymous for very obvious reasons and if you think I'm abusing anonymous for revealing particular sensitive facts about a story that happened to me during OCI then look at all the other anonymous "abuse" where people post "flame" anonymously or act all butt hurt anonymously.

Next time I'll partake in the TLS and just say TITCR. Sorry for interrupting your party pal.

Anonymous User wrote:That's the exact thought process that me and the partner joked about and frankly I think it shows a ridiculous level of ignorance and naivety. The idea that simply because so many people are eligible for the organization somehow takes away from its mission and significance. We talked about how the organization isn't to show yourslef how smart you are but its a great source of networking, has strong philanthropic goals, and transcends borders and religions.

Think about all the other "clubs" you could join because you are "eligible" for that many people do put on their resume.
Take all of the "affinity" organizations. Example, Black Students Association - everyone in it puts it on their resume yet 100% of law students are eligible. Does that mean you don't put it on your resume? By your line of logic you would absolutely not put it on your resume.

There might be a lot of misconceptions about about Mensa--that is a completely fair point. But that doesn't change the fact that most people view it as a circle jerk club for people who want to show off how smart they are. It just adds to the humor that the requirements are actually pretty low to join. Other organizations are not typically viewed with any sort of hostility, and that's why they are much safer to put on your resume.

(To add: I don't have a problem with your use of anon--you're using it the right way since you're disclosing personal, identifying facts about yourself. The earlier anon posts in this thread, though, reek of anon abuse.)

I think OP goes to big H.
nowhere is the cum laude cut-off that low/40%. In most places it ranges from top 25% to top third.

Honors does not and should not matter for people with a very established career. It otherwise is one of the indicators of intelligence and/or motivation and/or hardwork.

those who say honors do not matter are invariably either (1) do not have it or (2) want to indicate that they got those honors without being striverish.

I think there is a significant difference between magna or other law school honors (e.g. order of the barrister at NYU for moot court excellence) and MENSA.

If you put mensa on your resume or just tell people that you are a member of MENSA, you are trying to say that you are intelligent. This would come off as douchey.

If you put coif or other honors on your resume or tell your potential employers about them, you're trying to impress them by relatively objective indicators of how capable you are in the law school context, which will hopefully translate into great work ethic, lawyering skills .... However, you won't normally do the same to your friends/acquaintances/stranger.

It is the context.

Last time I heard, 163 qualifies you for MENSA. It is reasonable considering that LSAT takers are generally more intelligent than the whole population.

Magna--and summa, for that matter--along with coif, are completely irrelevant. I mean 100% irrelevant. Post-grad hiring is done based on 1L grades. Clerkships are done based on 1L + 2L grades. Honors/coif aren't done until 3L. The only jobs that could even CONSIDER these things are laterals and alumnus clerkship applications. But alumnus clerkship applications are far more granular than "do you have honors or do you not," and, while lateral 2 or 3 years out might look at your "gauntlet-running," no one else really will. I should have just gotten hammered more during 3L instead of gunning for summa, and I would tell anyone else the same damned thing.

this is not completely true.

not everybody got biglaw. cum laude people at my T25 who missed biglaw all landed something decent.

in addition, I know people who did not get anything via OCI, but who swung magna or even just honors at our T25 when they graduated, finally managed to land great positions after they had graduated: think biglaw and legal counsel at PCCW.

Anonymous User wrote:Listen chief I'm just saying that its not always crystal clear what to do in situations and there's valid reasons for a lot of things that the TLS community gets all fired up about and posts LOL TITCR FTFY YWVM. I'm anonymous for very obvious reasons and if you think I'm abusing anonymous for revealing particular sensitive facts about a story that happened to me during OCI then look at all the other anonymous "abuse" where people post "flame" anonymously or act all butt hurt anonymously.

Next time I'll partake in the TLS and just say TITCR. Sorry for interrupting your party pal.

The very sensitive fact that you're a douche who puts MENSA on your resume? I don't think that's what the anonymous function is for

Anonymous User wrote:this is not completely true.

not everybody got biglaw. cum laude people at my T25 who missed biglaw all landed something decent.

in addition, I know people who did not get anything via OCI, but who swung magna or even just honors at our T25 when they graduated, finally managed to land great positions after they had graduated: think biglaw and legal counsel at PCCW.

Honors are infinitely more important at a T25 than they are at a T14.

Anonymous User wrote:That's the exact thought process that me and the partner joked about and frankly I think it shows a ridiculous level of ignorance and naivety. The idea that simply because so many people are eligible for the organization somehow takes away from its mission and significance. We talked about how the organization isn't to show yourslef how smart you are but its a great source of networking, has strong philanthropic goals, and transcends borders and religions.

Think about all the other "clubs" you could join because you are "eligible" for that many people do put on their resume.
Take all of the "affinity" organizations. Example, Black Students Association - everyone in it puts it on their resume yet 100% of law students are eligible. Does that mean you don't put it on your resume? By your line of logic you would absolutely not put it on your resume.

The difference there is its a way to signal to employers that you are "diverse" without having to say, "I'm black" or "I'm gay" or whatever. It's not always immediately apparent based on a resume. Being in Mensa does not give you a hiring bump, especially when you are at a school where more than 75% of the class would qualify. Being "diverse" does.

I'm with Rayiner on this one: magna/summa and coif are like LR in that they go on your resume and are signifiers to employers/clients. Might not seem to matter if you have a Big Law offer after your 2L summer, but say you want to lateral in 3-5 years or you're moving to a different state and looking at new firms: those are things that make you stand out (in a good way.)

Just my 2 cents.

irie wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Big deal if you want to go into academia -- but this only applies if you are at a top 6 school. (And Yale and Stanford don't award magna, and Chicago doesn't call it that, so this really only applies if you go to Harvard or Columbia or NYU.

Columbia doesn't have magna/coif, they have Kent (3.8+) and Stone (3.41+), kinda sucks since you could potentially be in the top 5% of your class and still miss out on Kent.

Which, by the way, is completely ridiculous. I disagree that you can be top 5% and not be kent at least one year, but no one knows what Kent and Stone are anyway. Because we don't have normal honors designations, even if you have the grades for "magna," your resume can't signal that as easily. CLS's honors system really makes no sense (SLS and YLS can get away with it because they are so small, and even SLS has coif), and hurts students in my opinion.

Anonymous User wrote:

irie wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Big deal if you want to go into academia -- but this only applies if you are at a top 6 school. (And Yale and Stanford don't award magna, and Chicago doesn't call it that, so this really only applies if you go to Harvard or Columbia or NYU.

Columbia doesn't have magna/coif, they have Kent (3.8+) and Stone (3.41+), kinda sucks since you could potentially be in the top 5% of your class and still miss out on Kent.

Which, by the way, is completely ridiculous. I disagree that you can be top 5% and not be kent at least one year, but no one knows what Kent and Stone are anyway. Because we don't have normal honors designations, even if you have the grades for "magna," your resume can't signal that as easily. CLS's honors system really makes no sense (SLS and YLS can get away with it because they are so small, and even SLS has coif), and hurts students in my opinion.

Except can't you be a Kent/Stone scholar after only 1L? It probably helps a lot more than magna/coif or whatever...

but say you want to lateral in 3-5 years or you're moving to a different state and looking at new firms: those are things that make you stand out (in a good way.)

They won't. At that point, the name of your firm and your actual experience (if you're a transactional lawyer, your deal sheet; if you're a litigator, the cases you've worked on) will be far more determinative. For the record, I know plenty of people who would not have had chance at my firm as a 2L make it as a lateral. I know plenty of similar stories for other laterals into the V5/V10.

It's an open question whether they're still worse off in terms of being on partner-track than a home-grown associate, but that's too speculative to be determinative.

I think the point is that you'll never know whether those who make the decisions care about honors. thus, if you indeed have a choice, you should try to keep up your GPA. (keeping your GPA is not the same as being gunnerish - if you are in the honors range, you probably won't have to gun for it...)

Jesus H. Christ. Mensa is not an accomplishment. It's an organization that is only open to people who have what is supposedly an innate quality. That's distasteful, IMO, and also absurd given that like 95% of the T14 student body could be in it, but that's beside the point; more importantly, it's by definition an organization for people who are something, not people who have done something. Coif means you actually did something. It's one of the few things that would go on your law firm bio for years and years, and that's gotta be worth something, just like the school you went to is worth something, law review is worth something, etc. None of them guarantees you're going to do a good job on some client's case, but they do at least suggest that you're smart and have worked to accomplish something.

not just T19.

If the LSAT means anything, most students at a school like BU have an LSAT score that is 164 or above.

Anonymous User wrote:That's the exact thought process that me and the partner joked about and frankly I think it shows a ridiculous level of ignorance and naivety. The idea that simply because so many people are eligible for the organization somehow takes away from its mission and significance. We talked about how the organization isn't to show yourslef how smart you are but its a great source of networking, has strong philanthropic goals, and transcends borders and religions.

Think about all the other "clubs" you could join because you are "eligible" for that many people do put on their resume.
Take all of the "affinity" organizations. Example, Black Students Association - everyone in it puts it on their resume yet 100% of law students are eligible. Does that mean you don't put it on your resume? By your line of logic you would absolutely not put it on your resume.

Jesus fuck. Let's talk for a moment about "ridiculous level of ignorance and naivety." What the fuck good is being a Mensa member if this is all the logic your pea-brain can come up with? You really don't see a difference between being a member of an otherwise-inclusive student group for historically underrepresented and disenfranchised students, and a club that excludes people it deems not smart enough?

Putting Mensa on your resume is more like putting your country club membership on your resume: it tells the reader that you are privileged by birth and that you really only like to fraternize with the similarly privileged (notwithstanding the smug congratulations of your interviewer/fellow member). There are plenty of networking, philanthropic organizations that don't define their organization on the basis of who they exclude. Join the Rotary club, for christ's sake.

What makes Mensa funny is that it's a group of people who think they're smart but aren't really that smart. It's like a group of typical law students or otherwise insufferable human beings.

I emailed MENSA to ask what the qualifying LSAT score was. This was the response I got:

"Scores from the LSAT are acceptable for admission into Mensa with the following criteria:

For LSAT exams taken prior to 1982: a score of 662 or above is required

For LSAT exams taken from 1982 - present: total percentile rank must be at 95% or above."

oh, they have raised their standard.
now, depending on the score I may or may not make it.
I wish they would cut me some slack.... I am ESL after all - though I would never join Mensa, my self-esteem certainly depends on my eligibility to be a member

Anonymous User wrote:I emailed MENSA to ask what the qualifying LSAT score was. This was the response I got:

"Scores from the LSAT are acceptable for admission into Mensa with the following criteria:

For LSAT exams taken prior to 1982: a score of 662 or above is required

For LSAT exams taken from 1982 - present: total percentile rank must be at 95% or above."

So roughly 168+. LOL at Mensa. Give me a break.

I do not think that the standard is low, given that the more intelligent portions of the population take LSAT (well, generally). It's more to do with the douchiness.

Plus, I know a guy whose LSAT barely hit 168 but he graduated magna from Michigan and was on Law Review .
I can't say he's not bright or less bright than the 170+'s

I think it's well known that LSAT and law school performance is a poor indicator of intelligence or your general ability to succeed as a lawyer, at least at the upper echelons. I know too many brilliant litigators and transactional lawyers who did not go to T14s or who had no particularly distinctive honors at their law schools, such that I'm convinced that other factors come into play, though general intelligence is still a key component.


When you start working, you meet people. And generally on your first impression you will have a pretty good sense of the direction of their careers.

lsat is a pretty good measure of raw intelligence - or at least a certain aspect of intelligence. I believe there is a good -if not very strong- correlation.

(no self-serving bias here.... I struggled but failed to get a 170)

I'm more amused by the fact that their own arbitrary cutoff on an arbitrary measure of intelligence is one that 75+% of my classmates could hit. 75+% of them are not geniuses. So yeah I guess I mean it's a pretty silly thing to be proud of.