Post OCI Blues / OCI strike out thread / Safe place Forum

[Anonymous User]

ITT we commiserate about our OCI results but continue to hustle till all hope is truly lost.

[Hutz_and_Goodman]

The application process is extremely early. Keep your hopes up. A lot of hiring is based on who people want to work with, so keep positive.

[Anonymous User]

a hair below 3.7 at lower t14, bid only large nyc class sizes, not a single CB. i'm really aspie though and have a significant resume gap, so there is that. have been massmailing a lot but no bites. will follow up with massmails in a week or so.

[sublime]

..

[dixiecupdrinking]

a hair below 3.7 at lower t14, bid only large nyc class sizes, not a single CB. i'm really aspie though and have a significant resume gap, so there is that. have been massmailing a lot but no bites. will follow up with massmails in a week or so.

Are you seriously late enough in the process for this to be meaningful? Maybe I'm just out of touch, but it's the first week of August... Could it possibly have been more than like 12 hours since your last screener?

[dixiecupdrinking]

I guess to reframe my comments in a more helpful manner:

When I went through OCI, I looked at shit on this forum neurotically and worried I was not doing as well as I should based on people coming on here and anonymously bragging about their callbacks that they seemed to get within minutes of their screeners. I ended up with plenty of callbacks and several great offers. It just took.... I don't know, 48 hours for people to get back to me.

Point being don't despair unreasonably, stay positive as others have said, probably do go ahead and mass mail just to be safe, but take everything on this obnoxious brag board with a giant grain of salt.

[Anonymous User]

a hair below 3.7 at lower t14, bid only large nyc class sizes, not a single CB. i'm really aspie though and have a significant resume gap, so there is that. have been massmailing a lot but no bites. will follow up with massmails in a week or so.

Are you seriously late enough in the process for this to be meaningful? Maybe I'm just out of touch, but it's the first week of August... Could it possibly have been more than like 12 hours since your last screener?

i'm at one of the schools where OCI is essentially over already. for almost all the firms i bid, people have gotten CBs. i agree about TLS exacerbating neuroses but in this case i think it's warranted, especially because nyc turnaround time is almost always extremely fast.

[jphiggo]

a hair below 3.7 at lower t14, bid only large nyc class sizes, not a single CB. i'm really aspie though and have a significant resume gap, so there is that. have been massmailing a lot but no bites. will follow up with massmails in a week or so.

Are you seriously late enough in the process for this to be meaningful? Maybe I'm just out of touch, but it's the first week of August... Could it possibly have been more than like 12 hours since your last screener?

i'm at one of the schools where OCI is essentially over already. for almost all the firms i bid, people have gotten CBs. i agree about TLS exacerbating neuroses but in this case i think it's warranted, especially because nyc turnaround time is almost always extremely fast.

Unless you've received dings, you're still very much in the game. Keep up the mass mailing.

[Anonymous User]

a hair below 3.7 at lower t14, bid only large nyc class sizes, not a single CB. i'm really aspie though and have a significant resume gap, so there is that. have been massmailing a lot but no bites. will follow up with massmails in a week or so.

Are you seriously late enough in the process for this to be meaningful? Maybe I'm just out of touch, but it's the first week of August... Could it possibly have been more than like 12 hours since your last screener?

i'm at one of the schools where OCI is essentially over already. for almost all the firms i bid, people have gotten CBs. i agree about TLS exacerbating neuroses but in this case i think it's warranted, especially because nyc turnaround time is almost always extremely fast.

OP here. Yeah there's some firms that already sent out CBs and rejections. My schools OCI started and ended this week to.

[N.P.H.]

It may be because I've had a few, but I really take issue with the suicide watch part of the title.

If not serious, fuck you suicide isn't a joke.

If serious, there's SO MUCH more to life than this bullshit. Striking out isn't the end of your legal career, much less your life. Hang in there. You'll gain a lot of perspective once law school is over.

[Anonymous User]

It may be because I've had a few, but I really take issue with the suicide watch part of the title.

If not serious, fuck you suicide isn't a joke.

If serious, there's SO MUCH more to life than this bullshit. Striking out isn't the end of your legal career, much less your life. Hang in there. You'll gain a lot of perspective once law school is over.

OP here. Suicide is no joke, but I've been on TLS long enough to know that some ppl do feel that way after striking out at OCI. This is a safe place where they can post those feelings and as a community we can help them get through this dark period in their lives.

[rpupkin]

It may be because I've had a few, but I really take issue with the suicide watch part of the title.

If not serious, fuck you suicide isn't a joke.

If serious, there's SO MUCH more to life than this bullshit. Striking out isn't the end of your legal career, much less your life. Hang in there. You'll gain a lot of perspective once law school is over.

OP here. Suicide is no joke, but I've been on TLS long enough to know that some ppl do feel that way after striking out at OCI. This is a safe place where they can post those feelings and as a community we can help them get through this dark period in their lives.

N.P.H. is right and you're wrong. Change the thread title.

[justkeepswimming794]

It may be because I've had a few, but I really take issue with the suicide watch part of the title.

If not serious, fuck you suicide isn't a joke.

If serious, there's SO MUCH more to life than this bullshit. Striking out isn't the end of your legal career, much less your life. Hang in there. You'll gain a lot of perspective once law school is over.

OP here. Suicide is no joke, but I've been on TLS long enough to know that some ppl do feel that way after striking out at OCI. This is a safe place where they can post those feelings and as a community we can help them get through this dark period in their lives.

N.P.H. is right and you're wrong. Change the thread title.

I agree. Just unnecessary. Mods...?

[sublime]

..

[Anonymous User]

would like some advice. i dropped off my materials at a hospitality suite earlier this week. i thought i connected well with the recruiter and attorneys staffing the suite, but they couldn't squeeze me in for a screener and haven't gotten back to me yet. has anyone ever heard back from a resume drop at a hospitality suite, and when is the usual turn-around time? at what point should i follow up with recruiters/attorneys?

[Anonymous User]

What's a generally safe number of call backs to hit in order to not strike out?

[wwwcol]

What's a generally safe number of call backs to hit in order to not strike out?

It depends. CB to offer ratios vary by firm and office; if you have a couple CBs with big NYC firms, then that will probably be fine. In any case, the best strategy is don't stop hustling until you have an offer and don't turn down any CBS until you have an offer you like.

[buddhabelly]

.

[Anonymous User]

Honestly I've never felt as much of a failure as law school makes me feel. I work really really hard and do crap at school, I do everything they tell me to do and I still do crap at school. But they tell me, hey, you've got a great personality and you'll shine at OCI. 3/5th through OCI and I have no callbacks. No returns from mass mails. Nothing. I spontaneously break out in tears several times a day when I realize how fucking badly I'm failing at this. I've never felt so depressed. My friends who were in the same boat 24 hours ago are now starting to hear, they've all gotten atleast one callback. And I smile like I'm happy for them and I am happy for them but everytime they tell me about their callback it's like a kick in the gut. I feel so alone and unlikable and stupid. I fucking hate everything about this.

[N.P.H.]

Honestly I've never felt as much of a failure as law school makes me feel. I work really really hard and do crap at school, I do everything they tell me to do and I still do crap at school. But they tell me, hey, you've got a great personality and you'll shine at OCI. 3/5th through OCI and I have no callbacks. No returns from mass mails. Nothing. I spontaneously break out in tears several times a day when I realize how fucking badly I'm failing at this. I've never felt so depressed. My friends who were in the same boat 24 hours ago are now starting to hear, they've all gotten atleast one callback. And I smile like I'm happy for them and I am happy for them but everytime they tell me about their callback it's like a kick in the gut. I feel so alone and unlikable and stupid. I fucking hate everything about this.

Do you have more interviews to go? If so, feel free to PM me and we can talk about interview strategy. Don't take any of this as a shot at your personal worth, this is all a game that favors those who know how to play. Exams are very similar.

Striking out isn't the kiss of death it's touted to be. The friends I know that struck out ended up with good jobs and are happy. You're only missing biglaw. And if this forum has told you anything, it's that biglaw isn't the fairytaleland that 0Ls\1Ls think it is.

[Anonymous User]

I guess to reframe my comments in a more helpful manner:

When I went through OCI, I looked at shit on this forum neurotically and worried I was not doing as well as I should based on people coming on here and anonymously bragging about their callbacks that they seemed to get within minutes of their screeners. I ended up with plenty of callbacks and several great offers. It just took.... I don't know, 48 hours for people to get back to me.

Point being don't despair unreasonably, stay positive as others have said, probably do go ahead and mass mail just to be safe, but take everything on this obnoxious brag board with a giant grain of salt.

Yeah but do people actually get callbacks a couple days after other people have gotten then from the same interviewer?

Yes. I got a CB from the firm I summered at almost 2 weeks after they had already CB other students. Offer 2 days later when students who did CBs earlier had still not heard back.

[Anonymous User]

Striking out isn't the kiss of death it's touted to be. The friends I know that struck out ended up with good jobs and are happy. You're only missing biglaw. And if this forum has told you anything, it's that biglaw isn't the fairytaleland that 0Ls\1Ls think it is.

3L here who struck out last year. What are these good jobs? I am trying for entry-level in-house and government jobs, but I have no public service history and interviews are a struggle; it's painfully obvious I've been on the firm train and was just refused entry at biglaw station and am desperately trying to get off every stop afterwards.

[Anonymous User]

This might be a good place to ask this, and I apologize in advance if it offends anyone.

Do all offers after CBs go out at the same time? For example if you have a CB Monday, and on Wednesday someone said they got an offer from that firm and had their CB on Tuesday, does that mean the Monday CB is a ding? Or in the case of group CBs, if there is a report of an offer from that group, does it mean everyone else in the group is out of luck?

[Anonymous User]

would like some advice. i dropped off my materials at a hospitality suite earlier this week. i thought i connected well with the recruiter and attorneys staffing the suite, but they couldn't squeeze me in for a screener and haven't gotten back to me yet. has anyone ever heard back from a resume drop at a hospitality suite, and when is the usual turn-around time? at what point should i follow up with recruiters/attorneys?

Also interested if anyone has any info on this

[Anonymous User]

Providing some unrequested perspective.

I may be a little different than most of you because I didn't go to law school to pursue BigLaw. However, once OCI fever came around, I caught it and I caught it good. The reasoning was simple, if as a lawyer I could potentially make 160k/year and I didn't make the effort to do that, then I was failing. Also, my family is super poor and they would have loved the help.

I went through OCI and got 2 CBs. Somehow, I messed those up. Either I didn't seem too BigLaw hungry like everyone else or maybe I wasn't as likeable as I thought I could be.

Enter the post-OCI depression. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME? I was qualified, not socially awkward, could talk about sports for years, then what was it?

This actually hurt me. I paused the job search for a minute because it was the last thing I wanted to think about and I needed to stay afloat in school. I missed crucial deadlines for 2L government hiring AND post-grad clerkships. When I woke up from it all, I ended up with an unpaid internship for 2L summer.

I regrouped. Got my grades even higher and began the awful trip to networking expert (never actually made it, by the way). I met people and some doors opened up. My third year, I had to make a decision--would I try for 3LOCILOL? Would I find work through connections? Would I go the government route? Honestly, I didn't know. But this time, I applied to all of the government honors attorney positions still open (once again, I missed a few), several clerkships, and any small- and medium-sized firm opening I could find. This was a stressful year, specially as most of my friends had long secured post-graduate offers to their BigLaw jobs.

Although I felt it was out of pure luck, I ended up with an honors attorney position (very late in the Spring). The position pays well, helps me with my loans, and it's essentially an 8-5 deal. It deals with areas of the law I took no classes in! (but somehow I convinced them I was interested in--and for the record, I was/am). Also, this position has great exit opportunities as I could easily score a BigLaw position down the road if I wanted it and the market cooperated. Although to be honest, the BigLaw grind really isn't for me and I'm fully aware of it now.

Long story short, striking out of OCI doesn't necessarily mean your life is over. Law school and the legal profession feels a lot like a Russian roulette, you just need one damn lucky shot. You need someone to open the door. So until that happens, you have to keep knocking and knocking hard. DO NOT spend time feeling sorry for yourself. I did that and missed MANY opportunities as a result.

Cry it out today if you need to. Drink a bottle (careful there though). But then make a new plan of attack.

Good luck!