I think you are misunderstanding what I'm saying. I'm not saying transfer students don't do well at the new school's OCI, nor am I saying that they don't do better than many of the students at the new school (ie the bottom half). I'm contending that, ceteris paribus, transfer students are viewed in light of their standing at their previous school. I disagree with your claim that their old school's 1L GPA is viewed as a 1L GPA from their new school.
Transferring increases a student's exposure to more firms, and guarantees more interviews through the lottery system or similar OCI mechanisms, so it certainly increases the student's employment prospects. And, likely, a top 3% transfer from Emory to Penn is going to do better than the bottom third of the regular Penn students at OCI. But that student would have likely done better than that group of Penn students even had they not transferred. And it would be absurd to argue that this top 3% Emory transfer is going to be viewed on par with a top 3% regular Penn student. It's even more ridiculous to argue that a top 3% Hofstra student would be seen on the same level as a top 3% Penn student, etc.
But let's look at what you've said.
How do transfers fare at OCI?
So far, the answer seems to be unanimously that transfers do well at OCI. Most transfers do just as well if not better. However, if you had a borderline GPA (like top 15%-20% at a T2 or top 10% at a T4) and you transferred, then you might have slightly worse luck.
I don't disagree with this. If you are top 3% from a T1, of course you are going to do "just as well if not better" than half (below median) students at the t14. You would have similarly outperformed many them if you had never transferred in the first place. And now, with the increased exposure of a T14 OCI, you are going to do eve better.
How do transfers fare at OCI?
So far, the answer seems to be unanimously that transfers do well at OCI. Most transfers do just as well if not better. However, if you had a borderline GPA (like top 15%-20% at a T2 or top 10% at a T4) and you transferred, then you might have slightly worse luck.
This reinforces my point. It says that if you had a borderline GPA from a T2 or T4, you might have slightly worse luck. So clearly the school from which one transferred
does matter and
does factor into a transfer's performance at the new school's OCI.
As to the 2010 transfer OCI Results, those should be taken with a grain of salt because there is always a substantial self-reporting bias in threads about jobs. People are far more likely to report that they've done well than that they have done badly. But really, the anecdotal evidence from that thread greatly hurts your claim--those are people in the top 1-5% of their original schools performing like median or slightly below median students at their new schools. A significant number of them even struck out completely--a horrifying prospect for someone who gives up a substantial scholarship to graduate unemployed and indebted from a T10. This thread hardly supports your calim of having one's "GPA from their original school treated like it is a GPA from their new school." It does just the opposite.
Concerning the T4 to V20 example, there are always outliers. It's like the straight-P students at Boalt who gets a V10 job... it happens, but that shouldn't be the expectation of every straight-P student.
For a rule of thumb, treat yourself as an above median student at your new school, but not top 10% or LR.
Not sure how you could get 'they treat you as if you're from your old school' out of that.
What? The original quote supports what I'm saying. We're talking about a top of class transfer who is being treated like an "above median student" at their new school. In fact, this directly contradicts your claim that you are treated as though your 1L GPA came from the school to which you transferred. If that were true, this transfer should not be treated as "above median" at OCI, but as top of the class. The quote suggests that this isn't what happens.
The quote about Michigan transfers outperforming Michigan students, again, makes sense because we're talking about the top couple of students from a T1 (generally, with some T1+s thrown in) competing against the entire range of students from the T14, including the bottom of the class. Of course they are likely to do better than those bottom (half, even) students, and thus "do better than the regular students." I'm not disputing that.
Finally, you didn't respond to the quote from the V15 recruiter, which I think is perhaps most dispositive--since (s)he's actually a recruiter and said exactly what I have. You also didn't respond to the thread where a GULC transfer spoke with their CSO about transfer prospects at OCI--spoiler: their CSO certainly didn't say their 1L GPA would be treated as though it were a 1L GPA from GULC. And why would it?
But I don't want to argue for argument's sake. People just need to have rational expectations, especially if they are doubling their debt load. Transferring is, of course, a good idea for many transfers (ie T4s who would otherwise not even get their foot in the door at asingle BigLaw firm), but the benefit has some diminishing returns where the student comes from a decent law school on scholarship, and is fooled into giving up that scholarship believing their #1 ranking at Washington will be considered the same as a #1 standing at Columbia if they transfer.