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I was wondering if those who transferred during the last cycle who felt that they did much better than TLS groupthink would have suggested might share their stats and stories here. Many law school commentators have stated that this past year should have been the easiest year for 1Ls to switch schools. We talk on TLS all the time about the pressures that law schools face to maintain both a healthy financial surplus and solid LSAT/GPA scores for their incoming students. With schools like UT-Austin cutting class size from 400 to 300 in just a 2 year time-frame, it would stand to reason that law schools would look to take on more transfer students students than ever, as they not only pay full tuition but do not count towards their LSAT/GPA medians. Can we back this up with any first hand accounts? My personal suspicion would be that we cannot-- students who are not at the top of the class usually don't even try to transfer. Perhaps they should.

Please post away.

My understanding from the recruiters who frequent TLS is that they look at your old school for purposes of determining cut-offs, so there's not that big an advantage to transferring, unless you get exposure to firms that don't recruit at your old school. This would typically require a huge jump in rankings (e.g. T3 to T14), which, even if transfer rules are relaxed, is still going to be very competitive.
So while I think the current crop of 1Ls will probably have the easiest transfer experience ever, I still don't see the point

There's a poll that was done somewhat recently and the results were somewhat mixed. Quite a few people did a little better than they were expecting, but many did about the same or worse than they expected. Nothing too crazy, though. There's also probably some self-selection bias with this (TLSers probably put together better transfer apps than a random person).

That said, as you mentioned, there are huge incentives for schools to accept more transfers in the future. However, in theory, a school shouldn't accept far more transfers than it has jobs for. I know Duke has an extremely small transfer class because it seemed committed to making sure that the transfers got jobs through OCI. That said, I'm sure most T1s will just admit tons of people without much regard to that.

Curious to see what happens.

dingbat wrote:My understanding from the recruiters who frequent TLS is that they look at your old school for purposes of determining cut-offs, so there's not that big an advantage to transferring, unless you get exposure to firms that don't recruit at your old school. This would typically require a huge jump in rankings (e.g. T3 to T14), which, even if transfer rules are relaxed, is still going to be very competitive.
So while I think the current crop of 1Ls will probably have the easiest transfer experience ever, I still don't see the point

No 1Ls giving advice in the transfer forum.

We had something like 40 transfers in this year, which is more than usual I think.

Bildungsroman wrote:

dingbat wrote:My understanding from the recruiters who frequent TLS is that they look at your old school for purposes of determining cut-offs, so there's not that big an advantage to transferring, unless you get exposure to firms that don't recruit at your old school. This would typically require a huge jump in rankings (e.g. T3 to T14), which, even if transfer rules are relaxed, is still going to be very competitive.
So while I think the current crop of 1Ls will probably have the easiest transfer experience ever, I still don't see the point

No 1Ls giving advice in the transfer forum.

Thank you for the reminder. It won't happen again

I experienced the opposite. Transfers were way up across the board for T1. It's a by-product of scary job prospects and plenty of people attending T2/T3/T4 institutions.

Yes yes yes, a thousand times yes. I basically won the lottery with my transfer.

breakinghigh wrote:Yes yes yes, a thousand times yes. I basically won the lottery with my transfer.

Thanks for sharing. What was your previous school? Rank?

Did you end up doing well at OCI?

We lost 13 people out of the current 2L class, including 3 to Harvard, a couple others to CCN, and a bunch to MVP level. Seemed easier than my year (I'm a 3L).

i think also understanding the strength of the school and playing that card helps and gives you a great advantage (or so i think). obviously not faking your interest in the particular practice area but showing genuine interest.

Top 20% at a Cali T4 (sub-3.0 undergrad gpa, 164 LSAT) to a low-T1 which recently cut its 1L class size by 1/5. The transfer class at the new school was 30ish instead of low 20's (memory is a little foggy). This leads me to think the most opportune moment to transfer is the summer before the class-size cuts take effect. I'd expect to see more gaming of transfers along these lines as more schools take this step to preserve medians/rankings.

T14 transfer here.

It didn't seem easier to transfer this year. Keep in mind a lot of it is random and certain factors (undergrad alumni status, geographic roots...not just preference) play a big role. If anything, I'd say the qualifications for T2 --> T14 is now closer to top 5% than top 10%. Just my observation though.

And yes, it is usually a great decision to transfer. The people that struck out at OCI often complain but in this economy you'd be foolish to rely on OCI anywhere. You should be mailing, and your T14 school on a resume (in addition to outstanding 1L grades) will help you stand out. PM if you have more specific questions.

aca0260 wrote:T14 transfer here.

It didn't seem easier to transfer this year. Keep in mind a lot of it is random and certain factors (undergrad alumni status, geographic roots...not just preference) play a big role. If anything, I'd say the qualifications for T2 --> T14 is now closer to top 5% than top 10%. Just my observation though.

And yes, it is usually a great decision to transfer. The people that struck out at OCI often complain but in this economy you'd be foolish to rely on OCI anywhere. You should be mailing, and your T14 school on a resume (in addition to outstanding 1L grades) will help you stand out. PM if you have more specific questions.

undergrad alumni status?

TheRedMamba wrote:

aca0260 wrote:T14 transfer here.

It didn't seem easier to transfer this year. Keep in mind a lot of it is random and certain factors (undergrad alumni status, geographic roots...not just preference) play a big role. If anything, I'd say the qualifications for T2 --> T14 is now closer to top 5% than top 10%. Just my observation though.

And yes, it is usually a great decision to transfer. The people that struck out at OCI often complain but in this economy you'd be foolish to rely on OCI anywhere. You should be mailing, and your T14 school on a resume (in addition to outstanding 1L grades) will help you stand out. PM if you have more specific questions.

undergrad alumni status?

If you are an undergrad alumnus it will give you a boost for transferring.

Lord Randolph McDuff wrote:

breakinghigh wrote:Yes yes yes, a thousand times yes. I basically won the lottery with my transfer.

Thanks for sharing. What was your previous school? Rank?

Did you end up doing well at OCI?

T20 --> T6. I won't give out my rank, but will say I was a borderline candidate. But it wasn't the only school I got accepted to... tailored essays help.

From an objective standpoint, I did poorly at OCI when you factor in how many screeners ended up being converted into offers -- even with my IP background. But I did get some offers, one of which was exactly what I wanted. So from a subjective standpoint, I did well.

breakinghigh wrote: From an objective standpoint, I did poorly at OCI when you factor in how many screeners ended up being converted into offers

I hear this a lot from transfers. I think they have unrealistic expectations of a lottery system after coming up in a preselect system.

IAFG wrote:

breakinghigh wrote: From an objective standpoint, I did poorly at OCI when you factor in how many screeners ended up being converted into offers

I hear this a lot from transfers. I think they have unrealistic expectations of a lottery system after coming up in a preselect system.

I wish this were the case, but I did a lot of research for my bidding. I had a lot of callbacks. It's actually my callback --> offer rate that is horrendous. I think it all went downhill when I started asking interviewers what the hours/schedule were during callbacks, or maybe they just didn't like my reasons for transferring that I gave.

breakinghigh wrote:

IAFG wrote:

breakinghigh wrote: From an objective standpoint, I did poorly at OCI when you factor in how many screeners ended up being converted into offers

I hear this a lot from transfers. I think they have unrealistic expectations of a lottery system after coming up in a preselect system.

I wish this were the case, but I did a lot of research for my bidding. I had a lot of callbacks. It's actually my callback --> offer rate that is horrendous. I think it all went downhill when I started asking interviewers what the hours/schedule were during callbacks, or maybe they just didn't like my reasons for transferring that I gave.

Do you have any offers yet?

tim.janitor wrote:

breakinghigh wrote:

IAFG wrote:

breakinghigh wrote: From an objective standpoint, I did poorly at OCI when you factor in how many screeners ended up being converted into offers

I hear this a lot from transfers. I think they have unrealistic expectations of a lottery system after coming up in a preselect system.

I wish this were the case, but I did a lot of research for my bidding. I had a lot of callbacks. It's actually my callback --> offer rate that is horrendous. I think it all went downhill when I started asking interviewers what the hours/schedule were during callbacks, or maybe they just didn't like my reasons for transferring that I gave.

Do you have any offers yet?

Yes. I don't want to make it sound like I'm ungrateful, because I am truly happy with what I ended up with. Was just answering an earlier question in the thread. I truly believe that I won the lottery to get into the school, which supports the idea that this cycle was easier. But the legal hiring environment seems pretty harsh.

I will say the transfer PROCESS was one of the most difficult 5 weeks periods of my entire life (i.e., moving across country literally within a 2 week window of being accepted). It was a logistical nightmare.

There are lots of obstacles that I encountered that I hadn't previously been expecting. The usual suspects are, of course, transfer orientation, OCI, housing (the worst). But also, you have to take into account things like tracking down your vaccination records, adjusting to a new system of picking classes (especially if your new school has a crazy, arbitrary bidding system), knowing literally nobody. My new law school is allegedly very transfer-friendly, but even still, I had a tremendously difficult time adjusting simply because there was no information funneling down to me. A big problem was simply not knowing what questions to ask.

With all of that said, however, I think I made the right choice--though I may have fared better than some transfers (I don't know for sure, and I know many did just as well or better than I did).