Top Law Schools

I think the present system is fine.

I know this will sound bad, but something really annoys me about the possibility of people with 2.9s eating up 15 useless lottery interviews each. A 0% chance repeated 15 times over is still a 0% chance. There might be someone with a 3.2-3.3 who needs just one extra interview to get themselves a firm job, and the preselect system helps with that.

RVP11 wrote:I think the present system is fine.

I know this will sound bad, but something really annoys me about the possibility of people with 2.9s eating up 15 useless lottery interviews each. A 0% chance repeated 15 times over is still a 0% chance. There might be someone with a 3.2-3.3 who needs just one extra interview to get themselves a firm job, and the preselect system helps with that.

See my previous post. That's why the school takes the preselect route. They rather subsidize the lower end of the class in an effort to land the higher end as many website worthy jobs as possible.

I've heard UVa is starting to set a GPA floor of 3.0...thoughts? True/False?

RVP11 wrote:I think the present system is fine.

I know this will sound bad, but something really annoys me about the possibility of people with 2.9s eating up 15 useless lottery interviews each. A 0% chance repeated 15 times over is still a 0% chance. There might be someone with a 3.2-3.3 who needs just one extra interview to get themselves a firm job, and the preselect system helps with that.

I don't really disagree, but it is a detriment to lower GPA students even if they wouldn't have wound up with a job through OGI. From my own personal experience, the experience I gained going through a bunch of 0% interviews were pretty instrumental in later helping me land a job from a 5% interview. I'm aware that "interview practice" is not the purpose of OGI so I think UVA's set up makes sense, but I would consider that to be somewhat of a negative consequence.

RVP11 wrote:

paulinaporizkova wrote:so ~9 interviews at UVa versus how many at the average t14 with a lottery system? comparable or less?

I'm fairly sure 9 was the average number of PRESELECT interviews received. Consider that only 60% of interviews were preselect, and it's fair to guess that ~15 was the average number of OGI interviews.

Everyone I know in the middle of the class who bid intelligently had over 15 interviews. Most people in the top third had 20+, and it seemed like most LR grade-on people hit the max of 30.

Averages are probably deceiving here since a lottery school with an average of 9 interviews probably has way less of a skew than a preselect school with an average of 9 interviews.

BruceWayne wrote:

RVP11 wrote:I think the present system is fine.

I know this will sound bad, but something really annoys me about the possibility of people with 2.9s eating up 15 useless lottery interviews each. A 0% chance repeated 15 times over is still a 0% chance. There might be someone with a 3.2-3.3 who needs just one extra interview to get themselves a firm job, and the preselect system helps with that.

See my previous post. That's why the school takes the preselect route. They rather subsidize the lower end of the class in an effort to land the higher end as many website worthy jobs as possible.

You mean they have the lower end subsidize the higher end? I agree, which goes to our culture of visible success, which goes to people acting out so that the reality of failure at a top school enters the discourse.

Kohinoor wrote:You mean they have the lower end subsidize the higher end? I agree, which goes to our culture of visible success, which goes to people acting out so that the reality of failure at a top school enters the discourse.

Yeah that's exactly what I meant. If my posts don't make sense forgive me; I haven't been getting much sleep lately.

crumpetsandtea wrote:I've heard UVa is starting to set a GPA floor of 3.0...thoughts? True/False?

"

LOL. Very false; if that were the case they'd have to start setting a GPA "ceiling" of a 4.0. I think people need to really sit back and think about what a forced curve means. That means that for every person grading onto law review, for example, you have a person with the polar opposite GPA--bottom 5 percent or whatever it is. We are graded on a FORCED CURVE. It is a zero sum game. If you do well then someone else has to do equally poorly. Think of it like a race; not traditional academic grading.

BruceWayne wrote:

Kohinoor wrote:You mean they have the lower end subsidize the higher end? I agree, which goes to our culture of visible success, which goes to people acting out so that the reality of failure at a top school enters the discourse.

Yeah that's exactly what I meant. If my posts don't make sense forgive me; I haven't been getting much sleep lately.

crumpetsandtea wrote:I've heard UVa is starting to set a GPA floor of 3.0...thoughts? True/False?

"

LOL. Very false; if that were the case they'd have to start setting a GPA "ceiling" of a 4.0. I think people need to really sit back and think about what a forced curve means. That means that for every person grading onto law review, for example, you have a person with the polar opposite GPA--bottom 5 percent or whatever it is. We are graded on a FORCED CURVE. It is a zero sum game. If you do well then someone else has to do equally poorly. Think of it like a race; not traditional academic grading.

He probably means for admissions in which case the answer is no but effectively something close to yes.

Kohinoor wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:

crumpetsandtea wrote:I've heard UVa is starting to set a GPA floor of 3.0...thoughts? True/False?

"

LOL. Very false; if that were the case they'd have to start setting a GPA "ceiling" of a 4.0. I think people need to really sit back and think about what a forced curve means. That means that for every person grading onto law review, for example, you have a person with the polar opposite GPA--bottom 5 percent or whatever it is. We are graded on a FORCED CURVE. It is a zero sum game. If you do well then someone else has to do equally poorly. Think of it like a race; not traditional academic grading.

He probably means for admissions in which case the answer is no but effectively something close to yes.

Kohinoor is correct, I was talking about admissions. Not sure if I get your answer though...you mean technically no but in practice yes?

Stringer Bell wrote:

RVP11 wrote:I think the present system is fine.

I know this will sound bad, but something really annoys me about the possibility of people with 2.9s eating up 15 useless lottery interviews each. A 0% chance repeated 15 times over is still a 0% chance. There might be someone with a 3.2-3.3 who needs just one extra interview to get themselves a firm job, and the preselect system helps with that.

I don't really disagree, but it is a detriment to lower GPA students even if they wouldn't have wound up with a job through OGI. From my own personal experience, the experience I gained going through a bunch of 0% interviews were pretty instrumental in later helping me land a job from a 5% interview. I'm aware that "interview practice" is not the purpose of OGI so I think UVA's set up makes sense, but I would consider that to be somewhat of a negative consequence.

But, it doesn't help anyone. Employers, who pay for each interview room + the cost of their associates, partners, and recruiters involved in recruiting, don't like to have an interview schedule full of people who, regardless of how much they like, they won't be able to give a callback to. OGI is about matching up the right candidates with the right firms - this is how you maximize employment for everyone.

The preselect system works the other way as well - firms know what their target candidates look like. In other words, a firm won't waste all their preselects on top 5% students who are just bidding on them as 'safeties' when they know that their average in coming associate is from median.

And, a lot of people do not have realistic expectations of where they place in the firm spectrum. A pure lottery system can result in unqualified candidates filling the majority of the interview slots for certain firms (i.e., SullCrom is known for having a fairly hard grade limit and it would do everyone a disservice if a pure lottery system was used that didn't match their interview slots with realistic candidates).

BruceWayne wrote:

Kohinoor wrote:You mean they have the lower end subsidize the higher end? I agree, which goes to our culture of visible success, which goes to people acting out so that the reality of failure at a top school enters the discourse.

Yeah that's exactly what I meant. If my posts don't make sense forgive me; I haven't been getting much sleep lately.

crumpetsandtea wrote:I've heard UVa is starting to set a GPA floor of 3.0...thoughts? True/False?

"

LOL. Very false; if that were the case they'd have to start setting a GPA "ceiling" of a 4.0. I think people need to really sit back and think about what a forced curve means. That means that for every person grading onto law review, for example, you have a person with the polar opposite GPA--bottom 5 percent or whatever it is. We are graded on a FORCED CURVE. It is a zero sum game. If you do well then someone else has to do equally poorly. Think of it like a race; not traditional academic grading.

This isn't quite correct. I think your general idea is correct - as in, for the top 5%, you have a bottom 5%. However, UVA does not have a forced curve so much as a forced median. Its quite likely that we probably have a long right tail and a very abbreviated left tail. There's likely far more bunching around the median on the left side of the curve than on the right side.

vamedic03 wrote: But, it doesn't help anyone.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but I think you missed my point. Getting interview experience is beneficial. I realize that's not the point of OGI, but it is an ancillary benefit of it. People that strike out can become better at interviewing each time they go through one. I don't know how that's even debatable unless you want to say that getting rejected personally by more firms can lead to a lower level of self esteem than getting rejected by a fewer number.

Stringer Bell wrote:

vamedic03 wrote: But, it doesn't help anyone.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but I think you missed my point. Getting interview experience is beneficial. I realize that's not the point of OGI, but it is an ancillary benefit of it. People that strike out can become better at interviewing each time they go through one. I don't know how that's even debatable unless you want to say that getting rejected personally by more firms can lead to a lower level of self esteem than getting rejected by a fewer number.

Sure, interviewing experience is beneficial. But, as you acknowledge, that's not the point of OGI. The sole purpose of OGI, and the reason that both the school and the firms spend a rather large sum of money on it, is for firms to hire students.

Mock interviews are the time for people to gain experience interviewing. There's no cost associated there; whereas with an actual interview, someone's 'practice' interview is costing someone else the opportunity to interview with that firm.

It's also worth mentioning that if someone is not a realistic candidate, it's unlikely that the firm interviewer is going to necessarily treat it like a real interview - i.e., if the interviewer knows that no matter what happens, his firm won't give a candidate a callback, then there are strong incentives for the interviewer to just spend the time chatting rather than interviewing.

My basic point is this - in an ideal world, OGI would result in everyone getting a job. But, in a realistic world, the school should do everything they can to maximize employment resulting from OGI. If using preselects, and top 5 selects, results in more students getting jobs, then its the right thing to do.

Stringer Bell wrote:

vamedic03 wrote: But, it doesn't help anyone.

I'm not trying to be a dick, but I think you missed my point. Getting interview experience is beneficial. I realize that's not the point of OGI, but it is an ancillary benefit of it. People that strike out can become better at interviewing each time they go through one. I don't know how that's even debatable unless you want to say that getting rejected personally by more firms can lead to a lower level of self esteem than getting rejected by a fewer number.

Schools shouldn't deny people interviews for positions they have a chance at just to give unqualified people "interview experience." That's not the point of OGI. With the mock OGIs for 1Ls and the mock interviews that career services will do, the interview process for 1L jobs, and the opportunities for interviews during the summer before OGI (by mailing firms), students already have plenty of opportunities to gain experience. Furthermore, this isn't undergrad; most people here have interviewed for jobs before. That's not to say 2L OGIs don't help people become stronger interviewers -- it took me several before I got the hang of it -- but they are better used for helping students land summer associate positions than helping students become better interviewers.

vamedic03 wrote:In other words, a firm won't waste all their preselects on top 5% students who are just bidding on them as 'safeties' when they know that their average in coming associate is from median.

This is something that gets lost in the discussion. Firms aren't just preselecting the top 12 GPAs they see to fill each interview room.

Also, very few people end up taking their maximum 30 interviews, so the disparity in number of interviews from top of the class to middle/bottom isn't quite as vast as some might think.

BruceWayne wrote:That means that for every person grading onto law review, for example, you have a person with the polar opposite GPA--bottom 5 percent or whatever it is. We are graded on a FORCED CURVE.

It's not a forced curve. There's just a rule that the average in any class has to be 3.30 +/- .05. A professor could give no grade lower than B if he wanted to. He could give zero As if he wanted to.

Thus, just because the top of the class is 3.9x doesn't necessarily mean the bottom of the class is 2.7x. For all we know, there could be no one with below a 3.0. I'd bet it's not a perfect bell curve at all.

BruceWayne wrote:The school uses OGI to maximize the chances of the high performers getting the big time jobs that they can advertise in viewbooks etc.

This is an odd notion. I've never heard anyone insinuate that Career Services is doing anything but trying to get a satisfying job for as many people as possible.

I think we're just arguing semantics. I agree that the way UVA conducts their OCI is better than the way a school like Michigan conducts it.

Can anyone share any info about what there is for significant others to do in charlottesville? Is it difficult to get a job in the area? Is it just retail/restaurants? I am tentative to ask my SO to move to UVa if she is just goin to be bored and miserable.

Anyone get $$ as a ED applicant? UVA is by far my first choice, but I'm not sure I want to ED with probable money on the table at Duke, Mich, Penn, ect.

TemporarySaint wrote:Anyone get $$ as a ED applicant? UVA is by far my first choice, but I'm not sure I want to ED with probable money on the table at Duke, Mich, Penn, ect.

ED people are occasionally given scholarships, but it's not common. If you have "probable money" at those schools, your odds of getting a scholarship at UVA shouldn't be any worse, and you should certainly get in barring yield protection. I'd advise applying regular decision and make sure your application shows an interest in UVA.

OrdinarilySkilled wrote:Can anyone share any info about what there is for significant others to do in charlottesville? Is it difficult to get a job in the area? Is it just retail/restaurants? I am tentative to ask my SO to move to UVa if she is just goin to be bored and miserable.

This depends 100% on whether UVa, the biggest employer in the area, has lifted its hiring freeze.

crumpetsandtea wrote:

Kohinoor wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:

crumpetsandtea wrote:I've heard UVa is starting to set a GPA floor of 3.0...thoughts? True/False?

"

LOL. Very false; if that were the case they'd have to start setting a GPA "ceiling" of a 4.0. I think people need to really sit back and think about what a forced curve means. That means that for every person grading onto law review, for example, you have a person with the polar opposite GPA--bottom 5 percent or whatever it is. We are graded on a FORCED CURVE. It is a zero sum game. If you do well then someone else has to do equally poorly. Think of it like a race; not traditional academic grading.

He probably means for admissions in which case the answer is no but effectively something close to yes.

Kohinoor is correct, I was talking about admissions. Not sure if I get your answer though...you mean technically no but in practice yes?

Yes. Even though taking a 2.1/180 splitter is no different from a 3.1/180 splitter in re 25th/median/75th numbers, Alex Johnson pointed out quite eloquently that adcomms are bad at math and are reluctant to admit people below a certain wall.

OrdinarilySkilled wrote:Can anyone share any info about what there is for significant others to do in charlottesville? Is it difficult to get a job in the area? Is it just retail/restaurants? I am tentative to ask my SO to move to UVa if she is just goin to be bored and miserable.

I pm'ed you

Stringer Bell wrote:I think we're just arguing semantics. I agree that the way UVA conducts their OCI is better than the way a school like Michigan conducts it.

How is Michigan's OCI different? Just a lottery?