Duke Law Class of 2014 Forum

[consume]

Anyone know last year's grade on cutoff for DLJ?

[TheFactor]

Wild speculation, but here goes (this is based on own feelings and what I have heard others posture):

top 10% = a little above a 3.7
top 33% = somewhere between 3.45 and 3.5
top 50% = 3.3

This was about what I was thinking, too, but I have nothing to back that up. Wish they would at least throw us a bone (class median?).

Class median last semester was a hair above 3.3. Past that, I have absolutely no idea.

[lawyerwannabe]

How do you know that?

[TheFactor]

How do you know that?

PMd

[beachbum]

How do you know that?

PMd

also curious, if you wouldn't mind

[QuailMan]

I think the class median should pretty much always be a little bit above 3.3. Here's my reasoning (but as someone who is no master of math, I am happy to hear if I am wrong):

Every 1L class (class=property, torts, crim... not c/o 2014) has a median and a average (no duh right?). The median is 3.3, the average is unknown. A person's gpa is the average of the grades she gets in each class (again, no duh right?) If you could find out the average grade for every 1L class (Like Prof X's torts class was 3.32, Prof Y's civ pro class was 3.29) and line them up from least to greatest, the number in the middle (the median of the averages) would be the class median (with some adjustment for the different sizes of classes).

Ok, so we've got that. Now, thinking about what actually happens in each class. Most professors will admit to at least some tail off in their grading. Essentially, they give fewer of the worst grades. The effect is that the class average would end up above 3.3. My assumption is that even among the profs who do not do this, they dont give more worse grades, basically there are not many profs with a class average grade below 3.3. To review, "lots" of classes have an average just over 3.3 and "a few" have class averages just below 3.3. Therefore, if you lined up all these classes and took the median, it should be a hair over 3.3.

Hopefully that makes sense.....

[beachbum]

So... signed up for the Chicago OTI, and it looks like there's only one firm (Jones Day) attending? Anyone know if this list is final, or if they're gonna add to it? As much as I love Chicago, I'm not sure I can justify traveling there for a shot at only one firm (and one that isn't great for my desired practice area).

[DallasCowboy]

I think the class median should pretty much always be a little bit above 3.3. Here's my reasoning (but as someone who is no master of math, I am happy to hear if I am wrong) . . .

Hopefully that makes sense.....

Yeah it makes perfect sense and is very likely true. Especially when one tier has 3.3 as the top, so prof can put a lot of people at 3.3 in a particular class. Don't be too worried though; I am sure the employers pretty much think of 3.3 as the median and they do not get your ranks.

Good luck to all.

[wiseowl]

Class of 2012's median was reported as 3.3 at OCI; Class of 2013 was closer to 3.2. I don't have anything in writing to confirm that, but they've both been posted on this site many times by many people.

[stewie27]

Curious if anyone knows or has tried this. Does CSO give out more information about OCI/bidding strategy/which firms to target? Will they give you an idea of your class rank or the GPAs of students who got offers at certain firms in the past if you pester them?

[beachbum]

Curious if anyone knows or has tried this. Does CSO give out more information about OCI/bidding strategy/which firms to target? Will they give you an idea of your class rank or the GPAs of students who got offers at certain firms in the past if you pester them?

Also very curious about this. The 3-year offer report on the website isn't very helpful - would be nice to get some more specific/current advice.

[stewie27]

Beachbum, where on the website is that 3 year report? I can't find it. Sorry I fail at the internets sometimes.

[beachbum]

Beachbum, where on the website is that 3 year report? I can't find it. Sorry I fail at the internets sometimes.

In the toolkit, it's the Duke Law Offer Report under Employer Research.

[quakeroats]

Beachbum, where on the website is that 3 year report? I can't find it. Sorry I fail at the internets sometimes.

In the toolkit, it's the Duke Law Offer Report under Employer Research.

The report is basically worthless. You may notice that the median offer is at least 3.5 until you get out of the AmLaw 200. This is true but not really worth much. Take the V20 figure. There are over 300 offers, and the median offer was a 3.6ish. The highest GPA was above a 4.0. How many offers do you suppose that person got overall? Probably somewhere between 15 and 20, and they're likely all counted here. Someone just above median may have gotten into one or two V20 firms, but they likely only got those and little more. If they had more than 5 offers around median they knocked it out of the park.

This problem raises the GPA average in every category. Do not read the data as suggesting that if you have less than a 3.5 or so, you're unlikely to land anything in the V20. It simply doesn't say that. Unfortunately, what it does say just doesn't mean that much.

[beachbum]

From UVA (peer school w/ 3.3 median):

Someone asked about 1L GPA cutoffs and then edited, but here they are:

Generally, at the end of 1L:

3.75 = top 5%
3.65 = top 10%
3.48 = top 25%
3.42 = top 33%
3.3ish = median
3.18 = bottom 33%
3.11 = bottom 25%
2.95 = bottom 10%

[DallasCowboy]

yes. i recommend calling BE for the actual stats. not AD. G is good too.

[quakeroats]

yes. i recommend calling BE for the actual stats. not AD. G is good too.

Agreed. I wouldn't go to you know who for much of anything.

[beachbum]

So I emailed Career Services, but they apparently take forever to answer emails, so maybe ya'll can help me out:

What's the best way to upload a transcript onto Symplicity? I tried uploading the official .pdf (received from the registrar), but the file size is too big. Is there a good way to upload an "unofficial transcript" without it looking shitty? Should I just copy my grades into a Word document?

[consume]

So I emailed Career Services, but they apparently take forever to answer emails, so maybe ya'll can help me out:

What's the best way to upload a transcript onto Symplicity? I tried uploading the official .pdf (received from the registrar), but the file size is too big. Is there a good way to upload an "unofficial transcript" without it looking shitty? Should I just copy my grades into a Word document?

I just typed grades into a Word doc and saved as .pdf. There's an official format for the unofficial transcript in the career manual appendix.

[beachbum]

So I emailed Career Services, but they apparently take forever to answer emails, so maybe ya'll can help me out:

What's the best way to upload a transcript onto Symplicity? I tried uploading the official .pdf (received from the registrar), but the file size is too big. Is there a good way to upload an "unofficial transcript" without it looking shitty? Should I just copy my grades into a Word document?

I just typed grades into a Word doc and saved as .pdf. There's an official format for the unofficial transcript in the career manual appendix.

Totally missed that. Thanks a lot.

[wiseowl]

I took a screenshot of ACES back in the day and saved it as a PDF.

I think you could also take a screenshot of the unofficial and then crop out the extra white space (there is a ton) in Paint or open it in Acrobat and reduce the file size.

[WearyCartographer]

So how many OCI interviews do people generally get from the lottery system? I keep freaking out that its more likely than not that I won't get anything I rank outside of my top 5.

[DallasCowboy]

So how many OCI interviews do people generally get from the lottery system? I keep freaking out that its more likely than not that I won't get anything I rank outside of my top 5.

I got 23 or 24. I think everyone got at least 15

[dabbadon8]

From UVA (peer school w/ 3.3 median):

Someone asked about 1L GPA cutoffs and then edited, but here they are:

Generally, at the end of 1L:

3.75 = top 5%
3.65 = top 10%
3.48 = top 25%
3.42 = top 33%
3.3ish = median
3.18 = bottom 33%
3.11 = bottom 25%
2.95 = bottom 10%

Latham =has a 3.45 cut off for hiring at duke. At UVA the cut off is 3.38. I don't think they hire deeper into either class (just a guess) so that makes me think our grade distributions might not necessarily be comparable. Thoughts?

[lawyerwannabe]

From UVA (peer school w/ 3.3 median):

Someone asked about 1L GPA cutoffs and then edited, but here they are:

Generally, at the end of 1L:

3.75 = top 5%
3.65 = top 10%
3.48 = top 25%
3.42 = top 33%
3.3ish = median
3.18 = bottom 33%
3.11 = bottom 25%
2.95 = bottom 10%

Latham =has a 3.45 cut off for hiring at duke. At UVA the cut off is 3.38. I don't think they hire deeper into either class (just a guess) so that makes me think our grade distributions might not necessarily be comparable. Thoughts?

They are comparable but our cutoffs are definitely a little bit higher because our mean per class is probably between 3.3 and 3.4 where UVA has a strict grading mean of 3.3. However, I wouldn't necessarily say that a 3.38 at UVA = a 3.45 at Duke simply because of one firm's alleged cut-offs though.

3.75 at Duke is probably closer to top 10% and top third is probably 3.45 - 3.48ish (<--- based on our grade distribution, statistics, and anecdotal evidence).