T4 to T40 Transfer Taking Questions Forum

[joban224]

Transferred from a T4 that just got fully accredited this past year to a regional T40. Probably could have gone even higher but wanted to be within this particular region. Happy to answer any questions about the process; etc.

[lawschoolgrapedme]

what is a T40...never heard of it before

/

why would you transfer to a non-accredited school? Did you leave Cooley or something?

[mighttransfer]

what is a T40...never heard of it before

/

why would you transfer to a non-accredited school? Did you leave Cooley or something?

Do you know how to read? He transferred FROM a TTTT that just got accredited to a T1.

[joban224]

Excuse me for excessive abbreviation...T40 means Top 40. So thank you, mighttransfer.

[Tanicius]

what is a T40...never heard of it before

/

why would you transfer to a non-accredited school? Did you leave Cooley or something?

This... I... wow.

[saintsfan200]

Can you compare you job situation now vs old school?

Were you on a full scholarship at your old school?

[CanadianWolf]

In your first TLS post you wrote that you were accepted to two Top 100 law schools as a transfer in addition to one Top 40. Are you willing to name the law schools ? Also interested in which law schools your classmates were accepted to as transfers (since you noted that in your original post). Many readers might benefit from this information. Thanks !

[joban224]

Can you compare you job situation now vs old school?

Were you on a full scholarship at your old school?

Currently no offers after 15 screeners during OCI and 2 callbacks but still waiting to hear about a couple fed gov't spots. However, I had connections to a couple of the firms i interviewed with and found out that at least 2 of those firms didn't call me back solely because they were skeptical of my first school. In fact, my interviewer for a fed. gov't agency sent me a personal email saying he pushed to call me back but the hiring committee shot down my old school. So basically i've just gotta kick ass again to show I can do well at a reputable school, which sucks, but i'm an overachiever anyway, so it's fine. I'm probably going to clerk first, so i'm not extremely worried. Already close to sealing a spot on moot court.

My old school was a complete joke in terms of employment. They had 1 employer for OCI this year and it was the local Legal Aid. Enough said.

I was not on full-ride at my first school; actually, I got no money from them at all as a 1L. Of course, they pretty much offered me a full-ride to stay after they found out I had been applying to transfer. But, it wasn't worth it. . Plus, i get in-state tuition at my current school, so it was overall a good move.

[joban224]

In your first TLS post you wrote that you were accepted to two Top 100 law schools as a transfer in addition to one Top 40. Are you willing to name the law schools ? Also interested in which law schools your classmates were accepted to as transfers (since you noted that in your original post). Many readers might benefit from this information. Thanks !

Sure. My two other schools were Villanova and Catholic. My classmates (that I actually know of) were collectively accepted to Villanova, Rutgers(both), Depaul, South Carolina, Wake, Chicago-Kent, Loyola (Chicago), and Seton Hall. It was a good cycle for transfers.

[Farrbc6]

hey joban..... i think you and I are/were in surprisingly similar situations; from the information you provided, I've concluded that I am currently at the T4 you transferred from.

I have a full scholarship to go to this particular t4, but, like you, I've realized it's a joke. What was your rank at the t4? I'm thinking about transferring to Villanova, is Top 10 necessary from this T4 to transfer to Villanova?

[AlexanderSupertramp]

What do you write about in your personal statement?

I don't want to appear to be trashing my school. I really like my school (besides the harsh curve)but now that I am getting divorced and will graduate as a single parent of three kids I need to go somewhere with more national prestige. I'm at a school that is well-respected in the region where I want to practice, I just don't know if I can afford to stay here.

[lawschoolgrapedme]

What do you write about in your personal statement?

I don't want to appear to be trashing my school. I really like my school (besides the harsh curve)but now that I am getting divorced and will graduate as a single parent of three kids I need to go somewhere with more national prestige. I'm at a school that is well-respected in the region where I want to practice, I just don't know if I can afford to stay here.

awesome name - i love that movie.

Don't focus on the school you are coming from. Rather, write why you want to come to their school. I'll PM you an idea

[joban224]

hey joban..... i think you and I are/were in surprisingly similar situations; from the information you provided, I've concluded that I am currently at the T4 you transferred from.

I have a full scholarship to go to this particular t4, but, like you, I've realized it's a joke. What was your rank at the t4? I'm thinking about transferring to Villanova, is Top 10 necessary from this T4 to transfer to Villanova?

I was in between the top 10 and 15. But, as evidenced by my classmates who transferred to T2 schools (including Nova), top 20 was fine for them. So shoot for top 15-20 and you should be fine.

[joban224]

What do you write about in your personal statement?

I don't want to appear to be trashing my school. I really like my school (besides the harsh curve)but now that I am getting divorced and will graduate as a single parent of three kids I need to go somewhere with more national prestige. I'm at a school that is well-respected in the region where I want to practice, I just don't know if I can afford to stay here.

awesome name - i love that movie.

Don't focus on the school you are coming from. Rather, write why you want to come to their school. I'll PM you an idea

I would echo this. However, my caveat would be that Honesty is the Best Policy. Schools are actually quite receptive to special circumstances so, though not in too much detail, explain why you need to transfer, but obviously don't mention more prestige. This makes you look shallow. Of course, this is all assuming that you've done well at your current school, which is the predicate to any transfer.

[Rammstein]

I transferred from a TTT to a T-20. PM me if you have any specific questions about transferring.

[traehekat]

Procrastinating a bit, so I'll chime in as well. I transferred from T30 to T14.

Kudos to joban for starting what could be a pretty useful thread for transfer students in the future.

Can you compare you job situation now vs old school?

Were you on a full scholarship at your old school?

Generally speaking my new school places about 30% more students in NLJ250 firms, and it also places many more students in a major market I wanted to work in. Personally I have no idea how it would have turned out had I stayed. I would not have had as many screeners with firms I was interested in, I can tell you that for sure. The difference in the sheer number of firms between my old school and new one was pretty astounding, as well. Still, I know plenty of students at my old school who have ended up with great gigs at firms in a number of different markets, including the market I targeted.

I guess in my experience I can say that you may have more opportunities for initial screeners and interviews after transferring, but your grades are still from your old school and I don't think it really matters to most employers that all of a sudden you are now at a T14 and now they should treat you different than if you hadn't transferred. Transferring may have more of an upside for people who interview very well and/or have relevant work experience, though.

I had a large scholarship at my old school. This was one of (if not THE) biggest hurdles to transferring, for obvious reasons. Had I been paying sticker and couldn't renegotiate for a scholarship then the decision would have been quite a bit easier. Came down to really wanting to be in a major market and my old school just isn't placing a lot of students there right now, unfortunately.

What do you write about in your personal statement?

I don't want to appear to be trashing my school. I really like my school (besides the harsh curve)but now that I am getting divorced and will graduate as a single parent of three kids I need to go somewhere with more national prestige. I'm at a school that is well-respected in the region where I want to practice, I just don't know if I can afford to stay here.

As others have said, focus on the new school not the old one. I wrote a pretty bland, standard PS about my career goals and how they would be furthered by transferring to the new school (my understanding is that they don't matter much, almost everyone transfers for the same reasons). No need to trash your old school, no need to even mention it really.

[quiver]

Procrastinating a bit, so I'll chime in as well. I transferred from T30 to T14.

Kudos to joban for starting what could be a pretty useful thread for transfer students in the future.

Can you compare you job situation now vs old school?

Were you on a full scholarship at your old school?

Generally speaking my new school places about 30% more students in NLJ250 firms, and it also places many more students in a major market I wanted to work in. Personally I have no idea how it would have turned out had I stayed. I would not have had as many screeners with firms I was interested in, I can tell you that for sure. The difference in the sheer number of firms between my old school and new one was pretty astounding, as well. Still, I know plenty of students at my old school who have ended up with great gigs at firms in a number of different markets, including the market I targeted.

I guess in my experience I can say that you may have more opportunities for initial screeners and interviews after transferring, but your grades are still from your old school and I don't think it really matters to most employers that all of a sudden you are now at a T14 and now they should treat you different than if you hadn't transferred. Transferring may have more of an upside for people who interview very well and/or have relevant work experience, though.

I had a large scholarship at my old school. This was one of (if not THE) biggest hurdles to transferring, for obvious reasons. Had I been paying sticker and couldn't renegotiate for a scholarship then the decision would have been quite a bit easier. Came down to really wanting to be in a major market and my old school just isn't placing a lot of students there right now, unfortunately.

What do you write about in your personal statement?

I don't want to appear to be trashing my school. I really like my school (besides the harsh curve)but now that I am getting divorced and will graduate as a single parent of three kids I need to go somewhere with more national prestige. I'm at a school that is well-respected in the region where I want to practice, I just don't know if I can afford to stay here.

As others have said, focus on the new school not the old one. I wrote a pretty bland, standard PS about my career goals and how they would be furthered by transferring to the new school (my understanding is that they don't matter much, almost everyone transfers for the same reasons). No need to trash your old school, no need to even mention it really.

Agree with all of this. I never even mentioned my 1L school in my personal statement. I'll emphasize this part especially because it has been very true in my experience:

Transferring may have more of an upside for people who interview very well and/or have relevant work experience, though.

[whuts4lunch]

"Transferring may have more of an upside for people who interview very well and/or have relevant work experience, though."

How much more of an upside do you figure?

[quiver]

"Transferring may have more of an upside for people who interview very well and/or have relevant work experience, though."

How much more of an upside do you figure?

It varies. The problem with evaluating transfer OCI results is that there are so many factors: interviewing ability, 1L school, transfer school, age, type of work experience, length of work experience, prestigious or non-prestigious undergrad, URM, which markets are bid on, etc. The interviewing and WE bump may be related to each other as well. For example, someone with WE probably has more experience interviewing. Another thing is that the WE bump may depend on how the interviewee spins that experience as relevant to the job. There are just too many factors to know how much upside any particular factor has on the transfer job hunt but, as a general rule, WE and interviewing ability give a transfer more upside than if they do not have those characteristics (as with non-transfers).

[koalatriste]

"Transferring may have more of an upside for people who interview very well and/or have relevant work experience, though."

How much more of an upside do you figure?

It varies. The problem with evaluating transfer OCI results is that there are so many factors: interviewing ability, 1L school, transfer school, age, type of work experience, length of work experience, prestigious or non-prestigious undergrad, URM, which markets are bid on, etc. The interviewing and WE bump may be related to each other as well. For example, someone with WE probably has more experience interviewing. Another thing is that the WE bump may depend on how the interviewee spins that experience as relevant to the job. There are just too many factors to know how much upside any particular factor has on the transfer job hunt but, as a general rule, WE and interviewing ability give a transfer more upside than if they do not have those characteristics (as with non-transfers).

+1

Remember that your OCI interviewer is likely not going to be familiar with the grade cutoffs from your old school (though they will obviously check those before doing CBs) - so you are really given a blank slate and have a tremendous opportunity to make a positive impression.

Specifically, for non-transfers, it's likely that the interviewer is going to make a CB decision based on the grades that they see at the top of the non-transfer's resume and the first 5 or so minutes of the interview; as a transfer, however, you have the FULL 20 minutes to work for that CB. This is because the interviewer does not really know how to judge your grades and thus cannot really judge you "off the bat." Hence, you are playing with neither a leg up nor a leg down in the screener - it's tabula rasa and you can either run with it (using spin on the above factors) or you can completely drop the ball. Transfers at my CCN seem to all be similarly qualified, so this "blank slate" theory of interviewing should help explain the varied results (everyone has something lined-up, but there is such a spread of selectivity of firms amongst our transfer class).

[mrloblaw]

.

[traehekat]

"Transferring may have more of an upside for people who interview very well and/or have relevant work experience, though."

How much more of an upside do you figure?

Well, I guess that will depend on exactly how well you interview and how relevant your work experience is!

The idea is really just that you are going to get more screeners, and thus more opportunities to convince people to hire you. The better you are at interviewing, the more of an upside you will receive. Transfers are so unique and you never know how a firm is going to evaluate your grades. I think however the vast majority of firms will not automatically disqualify you from consideration just because of your transfer status like they might do with students whose grade came from the school they are interviewing with, i.e., they may only consider students above median, top third, etc. Most firms probably say, "Okay, we weren't going to recruit from your school, but you obviously did well and you are probably pretty bright, so since you are sitting here in front of me right now let's hear what you have to say."

[keg411]

Honestly, I disagree about the "interview well and have relevant work experience" portion. In fact, I think you should transfer if you're in the opposite situation. I'm a horrible interviewer and I think there is a 50% chance I would have gotten completely shut out at OCI if I had stayed, whereas I got a V100 job that never would have considered me if I hadn't transferred. Just by virtue of transferring I got a lot more interviews and CB's (especially through mass mailings) -- both of which I desperately needed to convert an offer.

I did not find that my old school made any difference with me or most of my peers, and in fact, getting too caught up in the "firms will hate me because I'm a transfer" was extremely detrimental and stupid.

[mrloblaw]

Honestly, I disagree about the "interview well and have relevant work experience" portion. In fact, I think you should transfer if you're in the opposite situation. I'm a horrible interviewer and I think there is a 50% chance I would have gotten completely shut out at OCI if I had stayed, whereas I got a V100 job that never would have considered me if I hadn't transferred. Just by virtue of transferring I got a lot more interviews and CB's (especially through mass mailings) -- both of which I desperately needed to convert an offer.

I did not find that my old school made any difference with me or most of my peers, and in fact, getting too caught up in the "firms will hate me because I'm a transfer" was extremely detrimental and stupid.

I strongly disagree. As a poor interviewer and a transfer from a completely different geographic region, it's simply been impossible to convince local firms to hire me. While I received a huge number of screening interviews through OCI, I'd estimate that a quarter to a third of the firms I interviewed with (based on things the interviewer said) were not interested in transfers from my school or people without stronger ties to the region, no matter what I may have said to them. I received OCI callbacks only from firms that strongly recruited from my old school to begin with, while I completely cleaned up on getting callbacks through mass mailing. I find it hard to imagine that I only received the mass mailing callbacks because of the transfer, and not because I was already a top ranked student at a T1 school.

Being a transfer gives you screeners at OCI that you would not have received, but if you are a strong enough candidate to transfer to a T6 school, I rather imagine that you can pick up as many callbacks as you desire through mailing anyway. Further, if your interviewing skills are below average, there's no reason to believe that the 20+ extra screeners you pick up will do any good anyway.

My experience as a transfer has convinced me that firms are intelligent enough to realize that a student ranked x at school y is no better or worse a candidate depending on whether he transferred.

Granted, because this thread is specifically about T4 to T40 transfers, the dynamic may be considerably different from what I experienced.

[quiver]

Honestly, I disagree about the "interview well and have relevant work experience" portion. In fact, I think you should transfer if you're in the opposite situation. I'm a horrible interviewer and I think there is a 50% chance I would have gotten completely shut out at OCI if I had stayed, whereas I got a V100 job that never would have considered me if I hadn't transferred. Just by virtue of transferring I got a lot more interviews and CB's (especially through mass mailings) -- both of which I desperately needed to convert an offer.

I did not find that my old school made any difference with me or most of my peers, and in fact, getting too caught up in the "firms will hate me because I'm a transfer" was extremely detrimental and stupid.

I strongly disagree. As a poor interviewer and a transfer from a completely different geographic region, it's simply been impossible to convince local firms to hire me. While I received a huge number of screening interviews through OCI, I'd estimate that a quarter to a third of the firms I interviewed with (based on things the interviewer said) were not interested in transfers from my school or people without stronger ties to the region, no matter what I may have said to them. I received OCI callbacks only from firms that strongly recruited from my old school to begin with, while I completely cleaned up on getting callbacks through mass mailing. I find it hard to imagine that I only received the mass mailing callbacks because of the transfer, and not because I was already a top ranked student at a T1 school.

Being a transfer gives you screeners at OCI that you would not have received, but if you are a strong enough candidate to transfer to a T6 school, I rather imagine that you can pick up as many callbacks as you desire through mailing anyway. Further, if your interviewing skills are below average, there's no reason to believe that the 20+ extra screeners you pick up will do any good anyway.

My experience as a transfer has convinced me that firms are intelligent enough to realize that a student ranked x at school y is no better or worse a candidate depending on whether he transferred.

Granted, because this thread is specifically about T4 to T40 transfers, the dynamic may be considerably different from what I experienced.

I agree with mrloblaw. Vigorously in fact because I did transfer in the opposite situation and things did not fair so well.