Harvard Student(s) Answering Your Questions Forum

[AllTheLawz]

If I could convince myself that everyone who struck out, did so because they bid horribly, I'd probably send the deposit check in and withdraw from everywhere else.

Not really a question, I know.

Not everyone who struck out did so because they bid horribly.. but almost all people who struck out didn't do so because of grades (I say this as someone with mediocre grades). The people I know who struck out or came close to doing so had extremely PI focused backgrounds, clear personality quirks/bad interviewing abilities, complete lack of work experience, or some combination of these qualities to varying degrees. The people I know who just had iffy grades all did perfectly fine. For most, if you end up striking out at HLS you were probably likely to strike out wherever you went (including Stanford and Yale). There are some on the margins who don't fit this description but I feel comfortable making this statement as a generalization.

[vzapana]

If I could convince myself that everyone who struck out, did so because they bid horribly, I'd probably send the deposit check in and withdraw from everywhere else.

Not really a question, I know.

Not everyone who struck out did so because they bid horribly.. but almost all people who struck out didn't do so because of grades (I say this as someone with mediocre grades). The people I know who struck out or came close to doing so had extremely PI focused backgrounds, clear personality quirks/bad interviewing abilities, complete lack of work experience, or some combination of these qualities to varying degrees. The people I know who just had iffy grades all did perfectly fine. For most, if you end up striking out at HLS you were probably likely to strike out wherever you went (including Stanford and Yale). There are some on the margins who don't fit this description but I feel comfortable making this statement as a generalization.

To what extent does this year's JS1 video-interviewing (which may be removing some applicants with real personality quirks) change the game? Not sure if anyone can really answer this, but I'd love to hear thoughts.

[delusional]

Hi Guys,

Not much of a law-school question, but I would love for people to weigh in. I'm a 0L and looking to buy a new computer. I know Harvard partners with different computer companies to offer discounts. What are those discounts like? Anyone have experience? Thank you!

Don't know details, but when I looked into it, much better deals were available from the internetz. You can get Office 2007 from tech services for free, which took me the better part of 1L to find out.

[delusional]

If I could convince myself that everyone who struck out, did so because they bid horribly, I'd probably send the deposit check in and withdraw from everywhere else.

Not really a question, I know.

I think that the main question that you have to ask yourself is whether you are significantly different than the prototypical HLS student. If you are generally similar but are worried about things like mild acne or poor fashion sense you will be fine as long as you don't have multiple LPs. If you are different in several major ways simultaneously - older (younger), obese, no relevant work experience, foreign citizenship, noticeable social anxiety, then you might have some reason to be more committed to getting good grades.

There are 600 students a class. Lots of them are below median, lots of them are heavy, lots of them are from no-name undergrads, lots of them are minority, but it's only when these things start to pile up and get added to bad grades that you have a meaningful shot at unemployment.

[elorica8]

Hi Guys,

Not much of a law-school question, but I would love for people to weigh in. I'm a 0L and looking to buy a new computer. I know Harvard partners with different computer companies to offer discounts. What are those discounts like? Anyone have experience? Thank you!

Don't know details, but when I looked into it, much better deals were available from the internetz. You can get Office 2007 from tech services for free, which took me the better part of 1L to find out.

That's helpful. Thank you!

[Searchparty]

What are the chances of successfully getting a 1br in Terry Terrace as a 1L, assuming you can live there as a 1L.

[delusional]

If I could convince myself that everyone who struck out, did so because they bid horribly, I'd probably send the deposit check in and withdraw from everywhere else.

Not really a question, I know.

I think that the main question that you have to ask yourself is whether you are significantly different than the prototypical HLS student. If you are generally similar but are worried about things like mild acne or poor fashion sense you will be fine as long as you don't have multiple LPs. If you are different in several major ways simultaneously - older (younger), obese, no relevant work experience, foreign citizenship, noticeable social anxiety, then you might have some reason to be more committed to getting good grades.

There are 600 students a class. Lots of them are below median, lots of them are heavy, lots of them are from no-name undergrads, lots of them are minority, but it's only when these things start to pile up and get added to bad grades that you have a meaningful shot at unemployment.

Well, black and in my early thirties, small liberal arts UG to boot. Also, not obese but definitely not "athletic".

I'll go read up on LIPP some more.

I don't think "not athletic" is enough, or small liberal arts undergrad. I'm talking noticeable stuff, like University of Phoenix or working for three years at McDonalds between college and LS. And keep in mind that being Black at H can be a significant advantage in the employment process. A few Black people in my section had 1L SAs before fall grades came out and most of them just skipped EIP.

I don't think that people generally present an accurate enough picture of how small the number of people is who put in a good faith effort at school, are genuinely interested in Big Law, and who strike out. I know people who did well and people who did poorly and I don't know anyone in my section who doesn't have a SA lined up except for one person who came to EIP after being all in PI the whole 1L (and explaining that he didn't want to foreclose any options). The only graduate I know without a legal job (although I only met her after her year did EIP, so it's possible I have the cause and effect backwards) was completely uninterested in getting a legal job. I don't need to shill for Harvard, but I think that you'd have to have a lot more negative factors to be concerned about unemployment.

[Hnin26]

Thanks for the comments, guys.
HLS is well....HLS, only the brightest and the best get in. But can't blame a kid for trying though, right?

[Hnin26]

Hi

Int'l applicant from Myanmar/Burma. Is there a way for me to get in touch with someone specific in Admissions?
I've tried looking everywhere for e-mails of people from Admissions and I couldn't find them anywhere. Maybe it's kept confidential so that they don't get bombarded with queries....
But HLS is my absolute No. 1 choice and I'd love to get a chance to talk to someone there to show my very strong interest.
Any directions? I've tried e-mailing the general Admissions address.

Advice is much appreciated!

e-mailing them will be seen as pestering. what you should focus on is increasing your lsat. given your gpa, it's extremely below the lsat floor.

Yeah, this. Being rejected at NYU does bode well for your chances at HLS.

Yeah, thanks for the comments guys.

[KaNa1986]

There are 600 students a class. Lots of them are below median, lots of them are heavy, lots of them are from no-name undergrads, lots of them are minority, but it's only when these things start to pile up and get added to bad grades that you have a meaningful shot at unemployment.

Don't be racist. Being a minority is a plus when it comes to getting a job.

According to HLS, the positive traits are:
Diversity
Geographic ties to the area
Relevant work experience
Advanced degrees
Strength of your undergraduate institution and relevant course of study (e.g. economics, finance, hard sciences)
Strength of your interviewing skills
Language abilities

If you have a mix of the above and median grades, you are even in the running for V5's.

[delusional]

There are 600 students a class. Lots of them are below median, lots of them are heavy, lots of them are from no-name undergrads, lots of them are minority, but it's only when these things start to pile up and get added to bad grades that you have a meaningful shot at unemployment.

Don't be racist. Being a minority is a plus when it comes to getting a job.

According to HLS, the positive traits are:
Diversity
Geographic ties to the area
Relevant work experience
Advanced degrees
Strength of your undergraduate institution and relevant course of study (e.g. economics, finance, hard sciences)
Strength of your interviewing skills
Language abilities

If you have a mix of the above and median grades, you are even in the running for V5's.

I don't know how that's racist, but it could have been worded better. First of all, diversity works only as firms want it to, and not across the board. From what I've observed, getting a 1L firm job is infinitely easier but the effect on EIP is not as great. Second, not all minorities are equal and someone who is a less recognized minority can easily be at a disadvantage. Also, I meant to address the issue of the applicant's anxiety about striking out more than the empirical likelihood of getting a job, i.e. if it is something that he/she feels might be a disadvantage, then he/she should concentrate on maintaining not-rock-bottom grades. And I specifically mentioned that in fact black students seemed to have an advantage.

[AllTheLawz]

If I could convince myself that everyone who struck out, did so because they bid horribly, I'd probably send the deposit check in and withdraw from everywhere else.

Not really a question, I know.

Not everyone who struck out did so because they bid horribly.. but almost all people who struck out didn't do so because of grades (I say this as someone with mediocre grades). The people I know who struck out or came close to doing so had extremely PI focused backgrounds, clear personality quirks/bad interviewing abilities, complete lack of work experience, or some combination of these qualities to varying degrees. The people I know who just had iffy grades all did perfectly fine. For most, if you end up striking out at HLS you were probably likely to strike out wherever you went (including Stanford and Yale). There are some on the margins who don't fit this description but I feel comfortable making this statement as a generalization.

To what extent does this year's JS1 video-interviewing (which may be removing some applicants with real personality quirks) change the game? Not sure if anyone can really answer this, but I'd love to hear thoughts.

Not really sure since my class obviously didn't do them but I doubt the type of "quirks" that would put you at a disadvantage for EIP are the same as those that would get you dinged for admission.

[aboutmydaylight]

There are 600 students a class. Lots of them are below median, lots of them are heavy, lots of them are from no-name undergrads, lots of them are minority, but it's only when these things start to pile up and get added to bad grades that you have a meaningful shot at unemployment.

Don't be racist. Being a minority is a plus when it comes to getting a job.

According to HLS, the positive traits are:
Diversity
Geographic ties to the area
Relevant work experience
Advanced degrees
Strength of your undergraduate institution and relevant course of study (e.g. economics, finance, hard sciences)
Strength of your interviewing skills
Language abilities

If you have a mix of the above and median grades, you are even in the running for V5's.

What exactly is it about 'ties to the area' that make you more qualified in the firm's eyes anyway? Is it because you're less likely to leave? More likely to be productive in an area you're familiar with? It can't just be a benevolent act of kindness so that you're closer to your friends/family, can it?

[Spritzpiggy]

There are 600 students a class. Lots of them are below median, lots of them are heavy, lots of them are from no-name undergrads, lots of them are minority, but it's only when these things start to pile up and get added to bad grades that you have a meaningful shot at unemployment.

Don't be racist. Being a minority is a plus when it comes to getting a job.

According to HLS, the positive traits are:
Diversity
Geographic ties to the area
Relevant work experience
Advanced degrees
Strength of your undergraduate institution and relevant course of study (e.g. economics, finance, hard sciences)
Strength of your interviewing skills
Language abilities

If you have a mix of the above and median grades, you are even in the running for V5's.

What exactly is it about 'ties to the area' that make you more qualified in the firm's eyes anyway? Is it because you're less likely to leave? More likely to be productive in an area you're familiar with? It can't just be a benevolent act of kindness so that you're closer to your friends/family, can it?

Also, if you don't have ties to a location what is sufficient for establishing them? Would a 1L PI stint in the region as well as SO be enough? I seriously have no intentions of returning to where I am from, and also am not interested in NYC - so the obvious choices are also the least ideal. Any better ways to establish ties?

[englawyer]

There are 600 students a class. Lots of them are below median, lots of them are heavy, lots of them are from no-name undergrads, lots of them are minority, but it's only when these things start to pile up and get added to bad grades that you have a meaningful shot at unemployment.

Don't be racist. Being a minority is a plus when it comes to getting a job.

According to HLS, the positive traits are:
Diversity
Geographic ties to the area
Relevant work experience
Advanced degrees
Strength of your undergraduate institution and relevant course of study (e.g. economics, finance, hard sciences)
Strength of your interviewing skills
Language abilities

If you have a mix of the above and median grades, you are even in the running for V5's.

What exactly is it about 'ties to the area' that make you more qualified in the firm's eyes anyway? Is it because you're less likely to leave? More likely to be productive in an area you're familiar with? It can't just be a benevolent act of kindness so that you're closer to your friends/family, can it?

less likely to leave is a big part of it. if you aren't familiar with an area, you might hate it over the summer and try to transfer at 3L OCI. Or if you have extended family etc in a given city, you may want to go back for the social network. basically the worst case outcome for the firm is someone that is using the 2L SA position as a vacation in another city before they transfer back to their home turf after graduation.

[DoubleChecks]

If I could convince myself that everyone who struck out, did so because they bid horribly, I'd probably send the deposit check in and withdraw from everywhere else.

Not really a question, I know.

Not everyone who struck out did so because they bid horribly.. but almost all people who struck out didn't do so because of grades (I say this as someone with mediocre grades). The people I know who struck out or came close to doing so had extremely PI focused backgrounds, clear personality quirks/bad interviewing abilities, complete lack of work experience, or some combination of these qualities to varying degrees. The people I know who just had iffy grades all did perfectly fine. For most, if you end up striking out at HLS you were probably likely to strike out wherever you went (including Stanford and Yale). There are some on the margins who don't fit this description but I feel comfortable making this statement as a generalization.

Agreed. I hear this all the time, saw it a lot myself as well. Generally it was almost never grades (extremes excepted) and almost always interviewing/personality quirks/extreme focus on a niche. I think good work experience helps, but a complete lack will not shut you out of biglaw. Plenty of my friends are K-JD (myself included) w/ mediocre grades who got a lot of biglaw SA offers. Obviously, having great work experience is a huge plus, but I am a bit skeptical about how detrimental it may be to lack WE. If you come across as professional and diligent and hard working, you're prob good to go on that front. btw, I can't stress how important professionalism is. I feel that that may be one of the single most important traits interviewers look for -- in my opinion.

[094320]

..

[Yukos]

I'm more pessimistic re: the job search than what has been portrayed over the last few pages of the thread, but it's neither here nor there.

It is both here and there. Can you elaborate?

[094320]

..

[Person1111]

Yep, professionalism, personality quirks, and bad interviewing skills tend to be a much bigger issue than grades in determining employment outcomes. I had good grades (more H's than P's my 1L year) and very strong ties to the markets I interviewed in (LA/SF), and ended up with 3 offers in one market and completely struck out of another. I did this largely because I was virtually K-JD (I actually was probably worse than K-JD because I just bummed around for a while between college and law school without working full time), expressed a 100% lit preference ("Would you consider doing corporate for part of the summer?" "No."), would randomly just say totally inappropriate or tactless things in interviews, had extremely expressive facial reactions, etc. To be fair, I was extremely happy with the firm I ultimately chose, but definitely had fewer options than I was expecting to have and fewer options than a lot of my classmates with much worse grades had.

[read2465]

.

[Yukos]

Thanks for your insights guys. It's both terrifying (because HYS doesn't look like any kind of guarantee and OCI will probably still be stressful) and reassuring (since it seems like it's mostly in our control, even with mediocre grades).

[DoubleChecks]

I'm more pessimistic re: the job search than what has been portrayed over the last few pages of the thread, but it's neither here nor there.

It is both here and there. Can you elaborate?

People who do don't do well tend to be really quiet about it. I know people in my section who struck out, but I'm not sure the rest of the people in my section are aware they did so. And this doesn't count the people I know who got very few offers (and sometimes only a single offer) from firms they didn't like. While it is certainly something to be grateful for in this economy, I don't think their results should be putting anybody at ease. The latter group is even more quieter than the former--I only know with those individuals because they were close enough to me to tell me. They put on a happy face around everyone else (as they should, in consideration for those who got nothing). For the class of 2012, ~70% got a job through EIP. For the class of 2013, this climbed to 85-90%. I don't know what the figure was for our year (class of 2014), but my general impression is that it probably held steady and was comparable to the class of 2014. Maybe they're painting the same picture when they attribute that 10ish% to the factors they list.

That sounds about right. I think in talking about EIP job prospects, it was just whether the person struck out or not, not whether they got a job they wanted. That is, I suppose, an important distinction. I can't speak to how many only got one offer or two to places they were not that excited about...I'm sure that happens. But 85-90% of those who participated in EIP getting a job through EIP sounds about right. The remaining 10-15% are due to the factors that have been listed. Also keep in mind that there are people who strike out at EIP that end up getting a job through other means (mass mailing, etc.) later on. I know some people who were in that situation. Ideal? No. Stressful? Certainly. But at least they are employed, and they were in the 10-15% lol. YLS and SLS though should have even better %'s, primarily due to their class sizes.

[2012applicant2013]

Two-part housing question:

1. What's the best way to find off-campus housing?

2. What's the best way to connect with fellow 1Ls in search of roommates?

[ph14]

Two-part housing question:

1. What's the best way to find off-campus housing?

2. What's the best way to connect with fellow 1Ls in search of roommates?

1. Craigslist probably?
2. Class of 2016 FB group