2012 NU OCI Forum

[Anonymous User]

Please excuse this question which likely has no answer but . . .

Does anybody have any data on the % of CB's that turn into offers?

Just having the usual law student nerotic anxiety fit right now.

I think a good rule of thumb is that firms, on average, intend to give offers to 30-50% of people who come in, but it depends on the firm. Many NYC firms give offers to most of the people they call back, while Chicago firms that hire just a few SA's may give offers to much less than half.

Ultimately though, it depends on your interviewing and a bit on luck. I went 4 of 7 on my callbacks. If you don't have callbacks to burn, you need to execute each one perfectly. Out of the three I didn't get: I said something a little sexist in one, I was half an hour late to another, and for the last one I drank too much coffee before and had to run out of an interview to pee. This is stupid advice, but don't leave things to chance on your callbacks. Arrive early for your flight (and don't book the last flight of the day). Make sure you know where your hotel is. It'll probably be within walking distance of the firm, so figure out how to get to the firm. Eat bland food the night before. Get up early the morning of and have a small breakfast. Don't load up on free hotel breakfast sausages. If you must have coffee, pee before you leave the hotel and before you check-in at the firm. Watch your fucking mouth from the second you enter the firm's building. Have idle chit-chat (weather, local news, etc) handy for the awkward moments after an interview is over and you're walking with the attorney to the next interview. And of course, prep, prep, prep.

[Anonymous User]

any one hear from Cadwalader?

[Anonymous User]

I know someone with a Cadwalader DC CB.

[Anonymous User]

I know someone with a Cadwalader DC CB.

Thanks. anyone hear from Cadwalader NY?

[Anonymous User]

Latham DC snail mail ding. 0-3 in DC currently. Expecting to go 0-6. Wish my CSO had explained upfront how hard the market was to crack and I woud've loaded up with 6 more Chicago interviews.

[lawskyandhutch]

Here is some info about the % of callbacks that turn into offers: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=163536
Caveat: It's mostly/all about Columbia, so take it with a grain of salt.
The number 50% comes up a lot in that thread, so maybe that's a good estimate for a firm if you have nothing else to go on. Also, I heard someone say that several years ago (I guess when the economy was good) something like half of NU callbacks turned into offers.

[IAFG]

Latham DC snail mail ding. 0-3 in DC currently. Expecting to go 0-6. Wish my CSO had explained upfront how hard the market was to crack and I woud've loaded up with 6 more Chicago interviews.

Well you should have known DC is very hard, but you can comfort yourself with the knowledge that you probably weren't going to get 6 more Chi interviews through bidding.

[rayiner]

Latham DC snail mail ding. 0-3 in DC currently. Expecting to go 0-6. Wish my CSO had explained upfront how hard the market was to crack and I woud've loaded up with 6 more Chicago interviews.

Start mass-mailing NYC and Chicago yesterday.

What did the CSO say? They're a bit too much "follow your bliss!" for my taste. DC is a killing field and nobody without a 3.9+ should think about going all-in on DC without backup markets.

[09042014]

Latham DC snail mail ding. 0-3 in DC currently. Expecting to go 0-6. Wish my CSO had explained upfront how hard the market was to crack and I woud've loaded up with 6 more Chicago interviews.

Start mass-mailing NYC and Chicago yesterday.

What did the CSO say? They're a bit too much "follow your bliss!" for my taste. DC is a killing field and nobody without a 3.9+ should think about going all-in on DC without backup markets.

You can't tell your students to all bid easy markets because nobody would get interviews. Or the easy market may be hard that year, like what happened to Michigan in 2009.

[Anonymous User]

September OCI. How does that work? What kind of employers come to that? It is a feeding frenzy for all the losers (like me possibly) who don't get an offer from the August OCI?

[Anonymous User]

September OCI. How does that work? What kind of employers come to that?

CSO has said very few at all show up.

[Anonymous User]

September OCI. How does that work? What kind of employers come to that?

CSO has said very few at all show up.

I do think it's interesting that there's been no mention of it from CSO...so I wouldn't count on much. To quote bjs elswere: mail all the firms!

[Anonymous User]

Latham DC snail mail ding. 0-3 in DC currently. Expecting to go 0-6. Wish my CSO had explained upfront how hard the market was to crack and I woud've loaded up with 6 more Chicago interviews.

Start mass-mailing NYC and Chicago yesterday.

What did the CSO say? They're a bit too much "follow your bliss!" for my taste. DC is a killing field and nobody without a 3.9+ should think about going all-in on DC without backup markets.

Different anon. Maybe it's just my bad luck but I think even with grades like that DC has been brutal to crack.

[Anonymous User]

Latham DC snail mail ding. 0-3 in DC currently. Expecting to go 0-6. Wish my CSO had explained upfront how hard the market was to crack and I woud've loaded up with 6 more Chicago interviews.

Start mass-mailing NYC and Chicago yesterday.

What did the CSO say? They're a bit too much "follow your bliss!" for my taste. DC is a killing field and nobody without a 3.9+ should think about going all-in on DC without backup markets.

Different anon. Maybe it's just my bad luck but I think even with grades like that DC has been brutal to crack.

To be fair I don't know if there is an "easy" market. A know some 3.6+ kids who are probably decent interviewers and are sitting on 0-2 CBs by going all-in on Chicago.

[Anonymous User]

I cannot help but feel that this year has been tougher. Did not bid DC or Chicago, yet I have an abysmal amount of CBs. Know other people in similar position, all with pretty decent GPAs.

PS: I think that career services rather than providing GPA medians of CBs from previous year, should organize it in a different manner. Create a chart by range of GPA: 3.9-4.0, 3.8-3.9, 3.7-3.8, 3.6-3.7 etc. Then, for each range provide how many callbacks a particular firm provided. Example: 5 people applied to X firm with 3.5-3.6 and 3 received callbacks.

The current system might be deceptive. If you have a 3.55, you have a better chance at a firm with a maximum of 4.0 and a minimum of 3.5 if they have provided CBs to basically anybody in that range, than you have at a firm with a 3.55 median that provided 3 callbacks, one at someone with 3.6, the other at 3.55 and the third at 3.5, and basically dinged all the other interviewers.

[09042014]

I cannot help but feel that this year has been tougher. Did not bid DC or Chicago, yet I have an abysmal amount of CBs. Know other people in similar position, all with pretty decent GPAs.

Most people get a couple CB's and an offer or two.

[IAFG]

I cannot help but feel that this year has been tougher. Did not bid DC or Chicago, yet I have an abysmal amount of CBs. Know other people in similar position, all with pretty decent GPAs.

Most people get a couple CB's and an offer or two.

I dunno, maybe it's our fault. Maybe we didn't prepare them well. I feel like a lot of the 2Ls think they aren't doing well, or that the market is "brutal" because they only have a couple of CBs.

Guys, TONS of people last year only had one offer. Including above-median people. A good outcome is getting a job. Having multiple offers to choose from, or more than a small number of CBs, is a rare privilege.

[Anonymous User]

I cannot help but feel that this year has been tougher. Did not bid DC or Chicago, yet I have an abysmal amount of CBs. Know other people in similar position, all with pretty decent GPAs.

Most people get a couple CB's and an offer or two.

I dunno, maybe it's our fault. Maybe we didn't prepare them well. I feel like a lot of the 2Ls think they aren't doing well, or that the market is "brutal" because they only have a couple of CBs.

Guys, TONS of people last year only had one offer. Including above-median people. A good outcome is getting a job. Having multiple offers to choose from, or more than a small number of CBs, is a rare privilege.

Thanks for this perspective. I think my experience is just tainted by the couple friends I have who are crushing OCI and have like 8 callbacks.

[IAFG]

Thanks for this perspective. I think my experience is just tainted by the couple friends I have who are crushing OCI and have like 8 callbacks.

It happens. And then sometimes a guy's only offer is Sullivan & Cromwell. I've said it before, but I think the LS admission process makes people think that being at or above median for a certain firm means they've got an excellent shot at a CB at that firm. Not so.

[Anonymous User]

Fair enough. Perhaps, as said above, the problem is going into OCI thinking firms are going to trip over themselves hiring us because we're above median at a T-14.

3Ls - appreciate the much-needed perspective.

[Anonymous User]

I cannot help but feel that this year has been tougher. Did not bid DC or Chicago, yet I have an abysmal amount of CBs. Know other people in similar position, all with pretty decent GPAs.

Most people get a couple CB's and an offer or two.

I dunno, maybe it's our fault. Maybe we didn't prepare them well. I feel like a lot of the 2Ls think they aren't doing well, or that the market is "brutal" because they only have a couple of CBs.

Guys, TONS of people last year only had one offer. Including above-median people. A good outcome is getting a job. Having multiple offers to choose from, or more than a small number of CBs, is a rare privilege.

I appreciate this perspective. It's just pretty scary being "Chicago or bust" with only 1 cb in chicago.

Is the general sense that smaller midwest markets (Milwaukee, Columbus, Indy) genuinely do take longer (as opposed to Chicago where they say that, but things seem to be happening fast this year)?

last thing: CSO speculated to me that maybe more people who wanted Chicago took the bidding advice this year. I know I bid conservatively, but ended up getting more of the more competitive firms at 12, 13 etc. I missed on a lot of my target firms in my top-10, which I think is also factoring into things.

[rayiner]

At OCI there are 2 kinds of people: those that get 7+ callbacks, and those that get 0-3. Once you're inside the grades range of K&E, Weil, etc, you're going to get tons of callbacks. Not so much because firms are falling over themselves to get top 1/4, but because firms who only take top 1/4 have so many SA slots they need to give out a ton of callbacks to fill them all. If you're good enough to get a Weil callback, you'll likely get K&E and Skadden and Paul Weiss and DPW, etc, etc.

Once you're outside that range of firms, it becomes much more about luck. Reed Smith doesn't need to give out 100+ callbacks to fill it's 5 person summer class. At the same time, the folks at Reed Smith don't usually care all that much about 3.5 versus 3.3. It becomes about how you connect with any given interviewer, and that's a matter of chance to a great degree.

[Anonymous User]

At OCI there are 2 kinds of people: those that get 7+ callbacks, and those that get 0-3. Once you're inside the grades range of K&E, Weil, etc, you're going to get tons of callbacks. Not so much because firms are falling over themselves to get top 1/4, but because firms who only take top 1/4 have so many SA slots they need to give out a ton of callbacks to fill them all. If you're good enough to get a Weil callback, you'll likely get K&E and Skadden and Paul Weiss and DPW, etc, etc.

Once you're outside that range of firms, it becomes much more about luck. Reed Smith doesn't need to give out 100+ callbacks to fill it's 5 person summer class. At the same time, the folks at Reed Smith don't usually care all that much about 3.5 versus 3.3. It becomes about how you connect with any given interviewer, and that's a matter of chance to a great degree.

Different anony poster here. First, this isn't an argument against your point, per-say, just an observation.

I know 4 people with 3.65-3.85 GPAs. In the middle, one of the people has 5 call backs on about 10 chicago interviews (plus a few others in other markets). At the top is a person who is socially great, super prepared for the interview process, and has an impressive resume (not me I swear). That person has 1 call back on like 10 chicago interviews. The other two people have 2 and 3 chicago callbacks, respectively, and maybe only 1 of those is at a firm with a normal GPA median in the 3.7-8 range.

I also know a couple people with 3.4-3.5 GPAs, have met with the same firms, and just have more callbacks. AND if you go back through this thread, there are a TON of non IP 3.2-3.5 GPA people with excellent callbacks at places like Latham, Sidley, etc. In fact, it seems like there are more top-firm call-backs on those lower GPAs.

Maybe its dumb luck. Maybe it's my particular sample group + TLS people. Or maybe it is that certain firms aren't calling back high-GPA people in the first phase of call backs and are choosing to vet-out those people who are on their fence before they accept offers elsewhere (not that this strategy makes sense). The point is, there are always horror stories about good folks with 3.65+ GPAs who just have bad luck at OCI. The fact that, so far, I know 2-3 of those people out of my maybe 6 person close friend circle is amazing and, frankly, worrisome.

Seriously, if people are willing, can you identify anon your GPA if you are in that 3.3-3.9 GPA range, tell your GPA, and what your large and mid CB to interview ratio is in chicago? I bet it would be surprising so far.

Yield protection? Distrust of post van-zandt NULaw? I mean, its all useless guess work and fear-making without the data.

[Anonymous User]

3.6-3.7 GPA.

9 chicago large interviews, 2 callbacks.

[Flips88]

How/why do you know so many of your friends' GPAs?