Tranferring to HYS Forum

[studylaw7]

I'm going to a T7-14 school in the fall, and I am hoping that I will have the grades to transfer to one of HYS. If I am successful in the transfer, I'm wondering if people at HYS look down on the transfer students. Does anyone have any first hand experience with this? On one hand, these transfer students likely come from a T14 school and dominated in 1L. On the other hand, there is likely something wrong with their background (likely either a low gpa or low lsat score, but probably not both) so they didn't get in the first time around.

please share your viewpoints about this matter even if you are not at HYS and definitely please share if you are a transfer student at any school.

[DoubleChecks]

how would they know? well i guess if law school is like high school, it'd spread through the grape vine that there's a "new kid" in the section during 2L so clearly a transfer! :O?

lol, personally, i wouldnt care at all. im not going to HLS and wondering what GPA/LSAT scores all my peers have and then placing them on my imaginary ladder of respect and prestige.

i like to go in w/ the attitude that there is always something to learn from others, and that surrounding yourself w/ smart/accomplished ppl = win for me

[vanwinkle]

You're worrying about the wrong thing.

Even at T14 it'll still take top 10% or so to transfer up to HYS. Your odds of failure at this point are therefore 90%. Wait to find out whether you're actually going to be in that fortunate 10% that even has the chance, and then worry about how you'll be seen if you do it.

[legends159]

yes you will be made fun of by some. But most people won't care.

[kurama20]

You're worrying about the wrong thing.

Even at T14 it'll still take top 10% or so to transfer up to HYS. Your odds of failure at this point are therefore 90%. Wait to find out whether you're actually going to be in that fortunate 10% that even has the chance, and then worry about how you'll be seen if you do it.

FWIW MarkTwain said that there are people as low as the top 25 percent at a top 14 who transferred into Stanford this year (he transferred from UVA to there, though he was at the tip top of his class). He was saying that it is much much easier to transfer from a top 14 to HYS than it would be from another school (where top 10 percent is mandatory to have a shot).

yes you will be made fun of by some. But most people won't care.

Are you serious? That's just lame. Did you hear anything explaining why SLS took so many transfers this year?

[vanwinkle]

FWIW MarkTwain said that there are people as low as the top 25 percent at a top 14 who transferred into Stanford this year (he transferred from UVA to there, though he was at the tip top of his class). He was saying that it is much much easier to transfer from a top 14 to HYS than it would be from another school (where top 10 percent is mandatory to have a shot).

I volunteer to put this to the test! Now I just require my T14 to give me top-25% grades. I'll call them up tomorrow and see if they can work on that.

(In all seriousness, though, Arrow's guide suggested that Yale only takes folks who make LR at their T14, and below that, only someone who finished ranked 1st or 2nd in their class. Yale's transfer class is crazy small and competitive. H and S on the other hand are probably a little more open...)

[studylaw7]

You're worrying about the wrong thing.

Even at T14 it'll still take top 10% or so to transfer up to HYS. Your odds of failure at this point are therefore 90%. Wait to find out whether you're actually going to be in that fortunate 10% that even has the chance, and then worry about how you'll be seen if you do it.

FWIW MarkTwain said that there are people as low as the top 25 percent at a top 14 who transferred into Stanford this year (he transferred from UVA to there, though he was at the tip top of his class). He was saying that it is much much easier to transfer from a top 14 to HYS than it would be from another school (where top 10 percent is mandatory to have a shot).

yes you will be made fun of by some. But most people won't care.

Are you serious? That's just lame. Did you hear anything explaining why SLS took so many transfers this year?

I think the people who get into HYS as transfers and are only top 25% at their original schools are the URMs. For others it requires at least top 10%. For CCN it probably takes a gpa slightly within top 10% and for all other T14 schools it usually takes top 5%.

I think there's a chance students might look down more on those who transfer from schools outside of the top 14 rather than schools within the top 14. Or maybe it's just any transfer student. I think if I were a HYS student already, I'd be a little scared of the transfer students from T14 schools since they must have done extremely well in 1L to get in and they probably had a high gpa or a high lsat score.

[vanwinkle]

I think if I were a HYS student already, I'd be a little scared of the transfer students from T14 schools since they must have done extremely well in 1L to get in and they probably had a high gpa or a high lsat score.

People tend to resent people who just show up and are instantly more successful than they are. However, if you can't handle this, transferring to HYS is probably a bad idea. With a HYS degree, you're going to keep running into people who treat you this way for the rest of your life.

[studylaw7]

You're worrying about the wrong thing.

Even at T14 it'll still take top 10% or so to transfer up to HYS. Your odds of failure at this point are therefore 90%. Wait to find out whether you're actually going to be in that fortunate 10% that even has the chance, and then worry about how you'll be seen if you do it.

Well, I'm aiming for a 4.0 no matter what (Why aim lower?). The possibility of transfer stems from this goal so my focus is still correct - it's on the 4.0.

[vanwinkle]

Well, I'm aiming for a 4.0 no matter what (Why aim lower?). The possibility of transfer stems from this goal so my focus is still correct - it's on the 4.0.

Aim for a 4.3, then

[PoliticalJunkie]

you may backdoor your way to the holy grails and some will look down on you, but it will pass.

[JazzOne]

Well, I'm aiming for a 4.0 no matter what (Why aim lower?). The possibility of transfer stems from this goal so my focus is still correct - it's on the 4.0.

Aim for a 4.3, then

+1

[studylaw7]

Well, I'm aiming for a 4.0 no matter what (Why aim lower?). The possibility of transfer stems from this goal so my focus is still correct - it's on the 4.0.

Aim for a 4.3, then

+1

My school doesn't offer 4.3, which means if I got a 4.0 I would be well within top 5% at my school. This is all that matters.

[studylaw7]

you may backdoor your way to the holy grails and some will look down on you, but it will pass.

why do you think this way?

[rabbit9198]

I'm going to a T7-14 school in the fall, and I am hoping that I will have the grades to transfer to one of HYS. If I am successful in the transfer, I'm wondering if people at HYS look down on the transfer students. Does anyone have any first hand experience with this? On one hand, these transfer students likely come from a T14 school and dominated in 1L. On the other hand, there is likely something wrong with their background (likely either a low gpa or low lsat score, but probably not both) so they didn't get in the first time around.

please share your viewpoints about this matter even if you are not at HYS and definitely please share if you are a transfer student at any school.

You definitely can't "hide" as a transfer at Yale (nor, I assume, at Stanford). This year, there are 12-14 here. I don't think any of us "look down" on them in any way; they clearly worked their butts off at their previous school to be admitted here (and had to have built good faculty relationships to get the all-important-for-transferring LORs). If anything, we admire their work ethic - they're generally the best-prepared for class.

I think if I were a HYS student already, I'd be a little scared of the transfer students from T14 schools since they must have done extremely well in 1L to get in and they probably had a high gpa or a high lsat score.

Maybe if there was a distinction between the types of jobs that transfer and non-transfers got during 2L OCI or clerkship applications, people would be upset. But I don't think any of those distinctions exist, so transfers become relatively well-integrated (though, in this year and last year's transfer group, many people are older/married or otherwise in committed relationships...and so to some extent, their social experience might be different). My totally uneducated guess would be that transfers *might* do a bit better grade-wise in traditional black-letter courses (because they know how to learn that material, whereas we were trained in a habitat completely foreign to traditional briefing/memorizing/etc.)...but those marginal grade differences, if they exist at all (just Hs vs. Ps, anyway), don't cause animosity between the populations.

[legends159]

Did SLS take more this year than normal? I don't know how many they usually take and I don't know who all the transfers are (only know of 3).

If they did take more, maybe it is because they increased the 1L size a bit this year and felt they could take more (and get more $$). It ultimately comes down to getting $$ for the school.

If you had the grades to transfer to HYS then you will get a biglaw job. Maybe not the most prestigious ones but something that pays market and the school wouldn't mind cashing in on you.

[como]

You are honestly already gunning to transfer before even attending? I really hope you're not going to Cornell....

[legends159]

You are honestly already gunning to transfer before even attending? I really hope you're not going to Cornell....

whatever it takes to stay motivated right? LS is an investment not a love affair.

[JazzOne]

You are honestly already gunning to transfer before even attending? I really hope you're not going to Cornell....

whatever it takes to stay motivated right? LS is an investment not a love affair.

+1

[como]

You are honestly already gunning to transfer before even attending? I really hope you're not going to Cornell....

whatever it takes to stay motivated right? LS is an investment not a love affair.

I think that it is a career move, not just an investment. Careers involve REAL connections with actual people. If you treat everything in life as a stepping stone, you miss out big-time.

[kurama20]

Did SLS take more this year than normal? I don't know how many they usually take and I don't know who all the transfers are (only know of 3).

If they did take more, maybe it is because they increased the 1L size a bit this year and felt they could take more (and get more $$). It ultimately comes down to getting $$ for the school.

If you had the grades to transfer to HYS then you will get a biglaw job. Maybe not the most prestigious ones but something that pays market and the school wouldn't mind cashing in on you.

Yeah it's actually on the TLS SLS profile. Apparently you all took a little over 20, usually you only take 10-12. I think the thing about transferring to HYS benefiting you with big law jobs will vary with the type of grades you transferred with. For instance MarkTwain said he did it with top 3 percent from UVA, at that point the transfer isn't going to do anything. He even said that he got the same exact interview invites at SLS as he did at UVA when he transferred. But for the people who transfer up to HYS with say top 25 percent grades (which MT said some people pulled off) it would be worth it BIG TIME.

[los blancos]

I'm actually interested in this because I'd think about giving HYSB a shot if I end up anywhere but Berkeley and I get decent grades.

But how does it impact OCI during 2L? I think that's the most important question.

[kurama20]

I'm actually interested in this because I'd think about giving HYSB a shot if I end up anywhere but Berkeley and I get decent grades.

But how does it impact OCI during 2L? I think that's the most important question.

PM marktwain. The answer to this OCI question is going to be heavily affected by your exact rank at your first top 14 school. Personally I think that for Marktwain it wouldn't have even been worth the transfer had he not been offered so much money at SLS as a transfer (I think that he even said that himself).

[legends159]

You are honestly already gunning to transfer before even attending? I really hope you're not going to Cornell....

whatever it takes to stay motivated right? LS is an investment not a love affair.

I think that it is a career move, not just an investment. Careers involve REAL connections with actual people. If you treat everything in life as a stepping stone, you miss out big-time.

You can make connections with people at whatever school you transfer into as well. The idea that you shouldn't go into LS thinking you're going to transfer makes sense if it means going to a bad school with dreams of transferring. But if you're going to a lower T14 with goals of transferring to HYS, and that's what it takes to stay motivated day in and day out, I don't see what the problem is.

[los blancos]

I'm actually interested in this because I'd think about giving HYSB a shot if I end up anywhere but Berkeley and I get decent grades.

But how does it impact OCI during 2L? I think that's the most important question.

PM marktwain. The answer to this OCI question is going to be heavily affected by your exact rank at your first top 14 school. Personally I think that for Marktwain it wouldn't have even been worth the transfer had he not been offered so much money at SLS as a transfer (I think that he even said that himself).

Hmm I'll definitely keep this info in mind if the time ever comes. For now, I'm just going to be concerned at not getting dinged everywhere I applied because this cycle seems to be murderous thus far.