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Not really. Overall there are only so many interview slots for one person - people tend to get 12-14 off their bidlist no matter the bidlist size (you then hustle on your own to get additional - most people seem to end up with 15-21).

Preselects go first - so a preselect from your number 50 slot will beat out your number one lottery slot that doesn't give a preselect. If you get 12-14 preselects (unlikely) then you are pretty much guaranteed not to get anything from the lottery.

Basically it complicates things for the old tactic of filling in the bottom of your list with 'whatever' firms that you don't really want.

Capitol_Idea wrote:Not really. Overall there are only so many interview slots for one person - people tend to get 12-14 off their bidlist no matter the bidlist size (you then hustle on your own to get additional - most people seem to end up with 15-21).

Preselects go first - so a preselect from your number 50 slot will beat out your number one lottery slot that doesn't give a preselect. If you get 12-14 preselects (unlikely) then you are pretty much guaranteed not to get anything from the lottery.

Basically it complicates things for the old tactic of filling in the bottom of your list with 'whatever' firms that you don't really want.

My understanding (from my not so useless ocs advisor, who told me to limit myself to 30 bids) was that pre-selects by lower ranked firms ran up the risk of getting all your interview spots filled by firms you didn't like. Not necessarily that you wouldn't get any interviews after your 14 Pre-selects, just only 4 (since you only have 18 interviews possible).
Basically standard lottery usually gets you 12 choices in your 0-20 bid range, but preselect would get you 10-15 choices in your 30-50 range and only 5 in your 0-20 range.

Anyway thanks a ton for all the help Capitol_Idea.

-Stinky

Capitol_Idea wrote:Not really. Overall there are only so many interview slots for one person - people tend to get 12-14 off their bidlist no matter the bidlist size (you then hustle on your own to get additional - most people seem to end up with 15-21).

Preselects go first - so a preselect from your number 50 slot will beat out your number one lottery slot that doesn't give a preselect. If you get 12-14 preselects (unlikely) then you are pretty much guaranteed not to get anything from the lottery.

Basically it complicates things for the old tactic of filling in the bottom of your list with 'whatever' firms that you don't really want.

This is the part that confuses me. I always assumed that the fact that most people get 10-15 interviews (at least, in the absence of pre-selects) was because on the whole, students' first 15 choices blanketed all firms pretty effectively, so chances are that a bunch of other people had put your 20th ranked firm higher, which is why you didn't get it. If that was the case, then getting preselected from a bunch of firms ranked 15-30 shouldn't affect your chances of getting the lottery from 1-15 at all, and a person could have get more than 14 total interviews (before hustle, fill-ins, etc...) . Unless when you say that everyone gets 12-14 interviews, you mean that OCS is forcibly distributing the interviews/altering the lottery to make that happen, as opposed to my assumption that it was just a product of lottery forces.

I guess it's irrelevant because structuring your bids in a way that you only got preselected from firms you ranked lowly is an awful idea, but I'm still unclear on why the system you described would play out that way.

EDIT: I'm reading Stinky's comment to suggest that OCS is actually enforcing a limit on the number of total interviews a student can get, even though a pure lottery system after pre-selects wouldn't do that. So maybe that's where I went wrong?

I don't think OCS forcibly messes with lottery slots (wouldn't surprise me but there's no evidence), but even with random lottery the more slots that are taken by preselects, the fewer slots available through lottery. Doesn't mess with lottery ordering more than that.

Stinky got it right. Even if you still have the lottery working through your top 10, if you only have realistically 5 slots open, then you can only max out at 5 of those top 10 through lottery.

Don't do exactly what I did by any means, but I only had 21 firms on my bidlist. Got 11, and they included my top 8 (got all top 10 with follow up emails to the firms I didn't nab). With the exception of 2 shoot-for-the-moon dream firms, I had a great experience and outcome for all my top picks save one. The broader point is that savvy bidlist cultivation to maximize quality, not just quantity, of screeners can make a positive difference. I ended up with more callbacks than some who had 20 interview or more.

There are a ton of moving parts given the limited number of interview slots, the need to arrange slots temporally, the shifting demand for each firm, and the inherent randomness of the lottery system. So all of this is prone to some wild swings in actual individual outcomes.

So what are the types of firms we can sign up for during the sign up period? I assume IP, smaller markets, anything else?

The handbook says they drop you from the interview if you select an IP only spot without hard sciences background.

Updated Bidlist, if anyone has any critiques I would really appreciate it and would be super helpful because I am still unsure if I have these in a good order

Just outside top 15%. Hoping to do transactional work.

Simpson & Thatcher (NY)
Latham and Watkins (NY)
Kirkland & Ellis (NY)
Wilmerhale (NY)
Jones Day (NY)
Sidley Austin (NY)
Ropes & Gray (NY)
Fried Frank (NY)
Skadden (NY)
Weil Gotshal & Manges (NY)
O’Melveny (NY)
Paul Weiss (NY)
Milbank Tweed (NY)
Hogan Lovells (NY)
K&L Gates (NY)
Paul Hastings (NY)
White and Case (NY)
Morgan Lewis Botkius (NY)
Foley & Lardner (NY)
Cahill Gordon (NY)
Reed Smith (NY)
Goodwin Procter (NY)
Willikie Farr & Gallagher (NY)
Dechert (NY)
Cooley (NY)
Alston & Bird (NY)
Shearman & Sterling (NY)
Cadwalder Wickersham & Taft (NY)
Akin Gump (NY)
Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe (NY)
Schulte Roth & Zabel (NY)
Shepard Mullin Richter & Hampton (NY)
Baker Hosteler (NY)
Stroock (NY)
McDermott Will & Emery (NY)
Allen & Overy (NY)
Holland & Knight (NY)
Kaye Scholer (NY)
Clifford Chance (NY)
Pillsbury (NY)
Linklaters (NY)
Freshfields (NY)
Kramer Levin (NY)
Chadbourne & Park (NY)
Pryor Cashman (NY)
Curtiss Mallet-Prevost (NY)
Brown Rudnick (NY)
Gibson Dunn (NY)
Davis Polk (NY)
Debevoise & Plimpton (NY)

- JC


**Why would you put Debevoise and Davis Polk last if you want NYC corporate work?

Capitol_Idea wrote:There are a ton of moving parts given the limited number of interview slots, the need to arrange slots temporally, the shifting demand for each firm, and the inherent randomness of the lottery system. So all of this is prone to some wild swings in actual individual outcomes.

This is just such an insane process.

BmoreOrLess wrote:The handbook says they drop you from the interview if you select an IP only spot without hard sciences background.

Right, so for those who don't have that, I'm wondering if there is anything worthwhile picking up at sign ups.

scottidsntknow wrote:

Capitol_Idea wrote:There are a ton of moving parts given the limited number of interview slots, the need to arrange slots temporally, the shifting demand for each firm, and the inherent randomness of the lottery system. So all of this is prone to some wild swings in actual individual outcomes.

This is just such an insane process.

Pretty much. I was telling my friend who's getting close to being a partner at a consulting firm the OCI process, and she was basically like "WTF??? We'd never let a school tell us who we have to interview."

Capitol_Idea wrote:There are a ton of moving parts given the limited number of interview slots, the need to arrange slots temporally, the shifting demand for each firm, and the inherent randomness of the lottery system. So all of this is prone to some wild swings in actual individual outcomes.

OTOH though, wouldn't firms not want to waste preselect slots on people who are way above their median GPAs? If their median is ~3.4, I'd think their target preselects would be in the 3.5x range rather than the top 5% people who bid them as "filler".

registering wrote:

Capitol_Idea wrote:There are a ton of moving parts given the limited number of interview slots, the need to arrange slots temporally, the shifting demand for each firm, and the inherent randomness of the lottery system. So all of this is prone to some wild swings in actual individual outcomes.

OTOH though, wouldn't firms not want to waste preselect slots on people who are way above their median GPAs? If their median is ~3.4, I'd think their target preselects would be in the 3.5x range rather than the top 5% people who bid them as "filler".

On the third and glowing hand that cannot be ignored, however, that assumes that people rank their bids more in accordance with what they're likely to get offers from at a target grade level. Rather, the lottery favors different metrics: what you are more or less likely to get for an interview.

Also, grades really only matter as a threshold cutoff: a 3.5 who interviews well will beat a 3.7 who doesn't for most firms. When I had a bad interview, my 5% didn't help with shit compared to the top 10 or 15'er who clicked with the guy. Some firms like Crowell won't go after a top 5% person with a preselect. Others? They'll probably go for the very top if their range or higher because firms always want better candidates.

I asked OCS how the preselects played out last year and was told it was quite a bit different than they expected. They expected--as I expected, and probably most of us would--that firms would skim for the best GPA's they think they can get and hold onto. Apparently that wasn't how it played out. My counselor said firms in general dipped far lower than expected (all the way down to a hair below median), and mostly in response to interesting resumes. No one can say exactly why this is, but I'm guessing most every firm gets a pile of candidates that meet their general parameters, but it seems that they'd rather have control over potentially interesting outliers. So, if this true: interesting weirdos, rejoice! Boring, resume-less geniuses: better luck at round two, where you'll probably crush the rest of us anyway.

That is what I got from OCS as well. I'm .01 below top 1/3 with a Finance background, and they told me to expect a fair number of preselects. I basically bid Firms I really wanted high, followed by anything not very over-subscribed. Anything very over-subscribed that I'm above their median (e.g., Akin Gump) I dumped at the bottom figuring I have a better shot at a preselect rather than bidding them in the 6-15 range.

Hi!

Does anyone have any insight into how EIW went for transfer students?

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Hi!

Does anyone have any insight into how EIW went for transfer students?

Any insight is greatly appreciated.

Bid results won't be in for at least a few weeks, so we probably won't truly know for a bit. Supposedly transfers who were admitted after the bid deadline are SOL, so there's that.

Checking in. Median grades but a pretty interesting resume which hopefully will help. I don't really want BigLaw, but also not brave enough to skip EIW.

Does anyone know if top 5% notifications have gone out yet?

Anonymous User wrote:Does anyone know if top 5% notifications have gone out yet?

I'm well within top 5% and haven't received anything yet by email. I'm not in DC for the summer so I can't speak to regular mail. Hopefully they'll come out soon.

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Does anyone know if top 5% notifications have gone out yet?

I'm well within top 5% and haven't received anything yet by email. I'm not in DC for the summer so I can't speak to regular mail. Hopefully they'll come out soon.

I think last year it was at the very end of July.

Capitol_Idea wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:Does anyone know if top 5% notifications have gone out yet?

I'm well within top 5% and haven't received anything yet by email. I'm not in DC for the summer so I can't speak to regular mail. Hopefully they'll come out soon.

I think last year it was at the very end of July.

Spoke to an advisor who confirms this will likely be the same this year.

Follow up with the registrars office if you don't get it before July and think you might be in the range. They didn't sent my notification to me until October last year. I was pretty pissed.

Anonymous User wrote:Follow up with the registrars office if you don't get it before July and think you might be in the range. They didn't sent my notification to me until October last year. I was pretty pissed.

Good to know, thanks!

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