Spoke with CSOs at two different T14 (one at a T6) Forum

[dingbat]

A few on here have posted that they nearly struck out. What does nearly mean?

If you have a job, you didn't strike out.

I think posts like that speak to false expectations. It's actually my impression that these days getting multiple job offers isn't super-common even out of a top USNWR ranked law school.

I would encourage everyone who scored a job to be more positive about their success.

[Anonymous User]

A t6 top 20% almost striking out is a really bad sign. That it was in the cards for him/her to strike out makes it seem likely that others in his/her situation did strike out.

[IAFG]

A t6 top 20% almost striking out is a really bad sign. That it was in the cards for him/her to strike out makes it seem likely that others in his/her situation did strike out.

Again, it depends what "almost struck out" means. Having only a couple offers with good grades from a top school isn't brand new to this cycle.

And your next assumption is unfounded.

[dingbat]

Almost only counts in horseshoes and hand-grenades.

Almost striking out still gives a notch in the Win column

[manofjustice]

A few on here have posted that they nearly struck out. What does nearly mean?

If you have a job, you didn't strike out.

I think posts like that speak to false expectations. It's actually my impression that these days getting multiple job offers isn't super-common even out of a top USNWR ranked law school.

I would encourage everyone who scored a job to be more positive about their success.

Ha. That's good.

[Anonymous User]

I'm an MVP student. I had 5 offers with median grades, 3 in NYC and 2 secondary. Non-URM and no WE. I know one of the NYC firms (one I didn't accept) has had an acceptance rate twice their average this year though.

Of my friends with average or a little below grades (maybe 3.2-3.3) all have jobs (although I know a couple only had 1 offer and were freaking out for a while.) I know 3 people personally who struck out-- all have pretty bad grades and at least 2 would strike me as being terrible interviewers as well. Seems like anyone who "took it easy" (relatively) last year as I know these three did is getting screwed right now. Everyone with 3.3+ here seems to be fine. IMO, a T6 top 20% striking out is on that particular student rather than a general trend.

Median grades at T14s seem doable but I will say the results that I know of as far as number of offers have varied greatly.

I also looked at the NALP prospective summer class guide several weeks ago and it's mad depressing. All prospective 2013 classes were either the same size or smaller than 2012 classes, and the trend up to this point had been increases since 2009 SA classes. Check it out if you want - it's enlightening.

**Edit in first paragraph

[LawIdiot86]

This year seems to have accelerated the trend of flight to perceived quality with decreased hiring outside the T14, even in the usual 10%-15% range. Also, it seems that many of the people who struck out or almost struck out in the T14 were focusing on non-NYC markets. For those who were T14, struck out and were focused on NYC (or another plausible market pair, like UChi & Chi or Berk & CA), is there something on your resume or interview that particularly hurt you? Were you expressing interest in narrower practice areas (L&E, Media, Trade) or were you missing some key thing firms might care about such as journal, 1L summer in a legal job, or 2L courses that actually apply to bigfirms (like, is your schedule all human rights policy courses and communist economic thought as opposed to corporations and a litigation clinic)?

[rayiner]

A t6 top 20% almost striking out is a really bad sign. That it was in the cards for him/her to strike out makes it seem likely that others in his/her situation did strike out.

T6 top 20% almost striking out targeting secondary markets is not necessarily a bad sign. People who bid primarily on secondary markets at OCI are taking that risk.

[Anonymous User]

Median or slightly below at MVP. K-JD. Non-URM. Offers in NY, DC and home market. I know many others in same shape. Just keep plugging. Fit must have weighted heavier than grades. A few of the firms I spoke with said hiring was up. The ones that offered said they limited the class because they did not want to no offer next year.

[IAFG]

Fit must have weighted heavier than grades.

NO THAT IS NOT WHAT YOUR SHITTY ANECDOTES MEAN

OMG can we make a basic stats class mandatory 1L curriculum please

[Anonymous User]

Fit must have weighted heavier than grades.

NO THAT IS NOT WHAT YOUR SHITTY ANECDOTES MEAN

OMG can we make a basic stats class mandatory 1L curriculum please

Huh? Why the anger?

[Anonymous User]

This year seems to have accelerated the trend of flight to perceived quality with decreased hiring outside the T14, even in the usual 10%-15% range. Also, it seems that many of the people who struck out or almost struck out in the T14 were focusing on non-NYC markets. For those who were T14, struck out and were focused on NYC (or another plausible market pair, like UChi & Chi or Berk & CA), is there something on your resume or interview that particularly hurt you? Were you expressing interest in narrower practice areas (L&E, Media, Trade) or were you missing some key thing firms might care about such as journal, 1L summer in a legal job, or 2L courses that actually apply to bigfirms (like, is your schedule all human rights policy courses and communist economic thought as opposed to corporations and a litigation clinic)?

Yep, agree with the bolded and I think this is not new this year but has been the case ever since big law hiring started to retract (although the not taking, say, top 10% Fordham is new this year if true). At my summer firm, V50 NYC headquarters, hiring only from the T14, really the T10, has been the new normal ITE. Our summer class of around 40 had one Brooklyn, two Fordham, one Georgetown, and a couple NW. Everyone else was T10. The junior associate classes had similar makeups. Senior associates commented on how different it was from when the firm regularly had associates from all the NYC area schools (Fordham, Cardozo, Brooklyn, St John's, Hofstra, Rutgers) in addition to the usual suspects of the T14.

Not all firms behaved the way my summer firm did, but on the whole it seems like big law hiring at non-T14s has generally taken a bigger hit ITE relatively than big law hiring within the T14 - eg, down 40% at Fordham versus down 20% at CLS. Awhile ago someone posted an article from the NLJ about whether obsession with prestige was "choking the ties" of the legal profession, and in the comments one person on a big law hiring committee said they liked to go with T14 because it is safer. If an HLS alum associate flames out, no one blames the recruiters or the hiring committee. This is not a good justification or one I would support, but I guess it gives some insight into what the hiring committee may be thinking.

[dingbat]

Fit must have weighted heavier than grades.

NO THAT IS NOT WHAT YOUR SHITTY ANECDOTES MEAN

OMG can we make a basic stats class mandatory 1L curriculum please

Huh? Why the anger?

because there are a lot of idiots who just don't get it
(which is pretty surprising considering the schools many of them attend)

[Anonymous User]

A few on here have posted that they nearly struck out. What does nearly mean?

If you have a job, you didn't strike out.

I think posts like that speak to false expectations. It's actually my impression that these days getting multiple job offers isn't super-common even out of a top USNWR ranked law school.

I would encourage everyone who scored a job to be more positive about their success.

OP from post #2 (T6 student, came scary close to striking out). I had 35 screeners, 11 callbacks, 1 offer. Cycle isn't 100% over, but still. It just scares me because I keep thinking about how easily I could have bid on another firm besides the one I eventually got an offer from and I might have struck out. My grades are below median, but not terrible, I have very good interviewing skills, and I have w/e prior to law school. Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic to have anything ITE, but I would consider 1 offer to be nearly striking out. I would have been a lot more nervous going into OCI if I had realized beforehand just how tough it was going to be.

[IAFG]

because there are a lot of idiots who just don't get it
(which is pretty surprising considering the schools many of them attend)

This is really what irritates me so much about it. Shelve your selection bias, for chrissake. Any T14's CB data (if it's well done by the CSO) is going to show you that grades are more important than fit on the aggregate. Combine that with a wider range of schools, and the patterns are even clearer. If you don't understand how statistics work, don't try to draw conclusions.

[84651846190]

Summary for those who don't want to read this entire thread: hiring might be better or worse than last year.

[somewhatwayward]

A few on here have posted that they nearly struck out. What does nearly mean?

If you have a job, you didn't strike out.

I think posts like that speak to false expectations. It's actually my impression that these days getting multiple job offers isn't super-common even out of a top USNWR ranked law school.

I would encourage everyone who scored a job to be more positive about their success.

OP from post #2 (T6 student, came scary close to striking out). I had 35 screeners, 11 callbacks, 1 offer. Cycle isn't 100% over, but still. It just scares me because I keep thinking about how easily I could have bid on another firm besides the one I eventually got an offer from and I might have struck out. My grades are below median, but not terrible, I have very good interviewing skills, and I have w/e prior to law school. Don't get me wrong, I'm ecstatic to have anything ITE, but I would consider 1 offer to be nearly striking out. I would have been a lot more nervous going into OCI if I had realized beforehand just how tough it was going to be.

T6 below median with 11 CBs and one offer is not a good example of how things are worse this year although the good interviewing skills and WE do mitigate the grades. T6 below median ITE has always had a decent chance of striking out; it is hard to estimate but I would say maybe a 30-40% chance of striking out? The perplexing thing to me is the 11 CBs but only one offer thing. My guess is that you are not the first choice for a lot of places bc of your grades but that they like you personally (good interviewer) so they are keeping you around to see who else accepts.

[sunynp]

I'll disagree that below median at a T6 always had a chance of striking out. People very lowin their class got big law pre crash.

What should below median students at Columbia do? Drop out?
This is crazy because even in 2011 only 20% of the class was underemployed or unemployed according to Rayiners chart.

There is this crazy kind of split developing here. There are strong arguments that T6 is worth sticker. But then when employment anecdotes are posted, some people ( usually those higher in the class who credit their grades to their hard work and intelligence, completely discounting the curve) start to argue that T6 employment is shaky and people should have known that going in.


I don't understand why there is strong advocating for T6(not to mention T14) at sticker. But then when people don't get jobs they get hit with "you should have known better."

My personal feeling is that there just aren't enough jobs. The problem is the ratio of the number of highly qualified grads to the limited number of jobs. People should focus on the difficulty of the market and not try to find the individual failings of people who struck out. The job market is a huge systemic failure clogged by too many qualified grads. The market is the problemnot whether someone didn't get a job because they were K-JD (or whatever reason)

[somewhatwayward]

^
I said there has always been a decent chance in this economy that a below median T6 student would strike out. If 80-90% of the students who do EIP at CLS get an offer, 10-20% don't, and you have to assume that the likelihood that a below median student does not get an offer is greater than 10-20%....hence "decent chance"

[Anonymous User]

Data point: last year, 20% of EIW participants did not receive at least one offer through EIW at NYU, and basically all EIW interviewers are biglaw firms. Even in 2009, only 30% of EIW participants did not receive an EIW offer. Compare that to boom years (2008) when only 7% of participants did not receive at least one offer.

But consider that not all of that 20% who struck out are below median (the truly terrible interviewers and those whose hearts weren't in biglaw or only bid on the 3-4 government employers who come to EIW). I'd say the vast majority of median or just-slightly-below-median students land an offer if they bid appropriately, but those in the bottom third of the class probably stand a fairly significant risk of not receiving an offer.

[sunynp]

Data point: last year, 20% of EIW participants did not receive at least one offer through EIW at NYU, and basically all EIW interviewers are biglaw firms. Even in 2009, only 30% of EIW participants did not receive an EIW offer. Compare that to boom years (2008) when only 7% of participants did not receive at least one offer.

But consider that not all of that 20% who struck out are below median (the truly terrible interviewers and those whose hearts weren't in biglaw or only bid on the 3-4 government employers who come to EIW). I'd say the vast majority of median or just-slightly-below-median students land an offer if they bid appropriately, but those in the bottom third of the class probably stand a fairly significant risk of not receiving an offer.

So,what do you think? Should the bottom third drop out? Is NYU still worth sticker? At what point of underemployment for the class significant enough for people to say NYU is not worth sticker?

[hume85]

Fit must have weighted heavier than grades.

NO THAT IS NOT WHAT YOUR SHITTY ANECDOTES MEAN

OMG can we make a basic stats class mandatory 1L curriculum please

LOL, I have noticed a trend over a great number of posts, and that is that IAFG really doesn't like when people use anecdotes to make generalizations. But I can't blame her.

[somewhatwayward]

Data point: last year, 20% of EIW participants did not receive at least one offer through EIW at NYU, and basically all EIW interviewers are biglaw firms. Even in 2009, only 30% of EIW participants did not receive an EIW offer. Compare that to boom years (2008) when only 7% of participants did not receive at least one offer.

But consider that not all of that 20% who struck out are below median (the truly terrible interviewers and those whose hearts weren't in biglaw or only bid on the 3-4 government employers who come to EIW). I'd say the vast majority of median or just-slightly-below-median students land an offer if they bid appropriately, but those in the bottom third of the class probably stand a fairly significant risk of not receiving an offer.

It is funny I am the poster going to bat for this position because I am usually the one arguing with BruceWayne about his Eeyore opinions that there is no difference between CCN and the rest of the T-14, but it is absolutely not true that the "vast majority" of median or slightly below median students get an offer. Let's use your statistic that 20% of people receive no offer and assume that the grade distribution of the people doing EIW mirrors the class. Even if the 20% who don't get offers were perfectly spread throughout the grade distribution, that would only be 80% of medianish kids getting offers, which is a questionable "vast majority" in my book. But of course a disproportionate number of the kids who land offers have high grades. Sure, sometimes a top third kid who is a terrible interviewer strikes out. But top 5% kids, even with terrible personalities, usually get at least S&C (LOL) or something. Thus, the offer rate for above median, especially way above median, is going to be 90%+, thereby dropping the offer rate for the medianish kids. You are right to some extent that this decrease is offset by the fact that a disproportionate number of kids who get no offers are in the bottom third.

But it is not a perfect cutoff line where the top 80% participating are the kids with offers while the bottom 20% participating walk away with nothing. A couple factors make it so some bottom of the class kids land offers and some medianish kids don't. The first one is dumb luck, which plays a bigger role than we realize. The second is the impact of WE, URM, interviewing ability, bidding, markets targeted, etc. The last is that firms do not draw as fine distinctions between a 3.28, a 3.17, and a 3.06 as law students think. The other factors start to play a bigger role. A kid without top grades is effectively shut out of many firms whether he has a 3.28 or a 2.9. The 3.28, the 3.17, the 3.06, and the 2.9 all go on to fight over the same type of unselective firms who may have a very forgiving cut off (maybe the 2.9 gets thrown out), but for the others, all the other factors come into play. At the end of the day, 3.06 and 3.17 may get offers while 3.28 does not.

I've been going on way too long about this, but I stick with my original estimate that if 80-90% get offers, a medianish kid has maybe a 30% chance of striking out, and that has been true throughout the bad economy. Thus, I don't think a T6 below median striking out means that this year is worse than last, especially since it is all anecdotal as IAFG has been pointing out over and over again.

[Anonymous User]

Well this thread is oddly comforting (for a top quarter MVP student who struck out).

[Anonymous User]

MVP, bottom third. I ended up with 3 SA offers during the 2011 OCI season (for 2012 summer). I think this is true:

The first one is dumb luck, which plays a bigger role than we realize. The second is the impact of WE, URM, interviewing ability, bidding, markets targeted, etc.

and this:

The last is that firms do not draw as fine distinctions between a 3.28, a 3.17, and a 3.06 as law students think.