T14 for West Coast (LA) Forum

[Space_Cowboy]

Look at the firm links I provided you. Like he said anyone who has coif is top 10 percent at UVA. NYU, Chicago, and CLS are even easier to tell because they have cum, magna, and summa type honors (Harlan, and James Kent for CLS. Honors and high honors etc. for Chicago). What you will see is that many of the CLS NYU and Chicago grads at the top DC firms have say James Kent and magna cum on their bios ie the equivalent of coif at UVA (at least for the magna and up). What you will also see is that just as there are UVA grad with no coif or raven society or law review who have been hired there are NYU grads with not even cum laude being hired. In other words their stats/grades are comparable. If you want to check out the grade comparisons even further Chicago and the rest of the schools actually break down the overall requirement for the various honors on their websites.

Don't let JUSVA fool you--- that shit isn't rocket science, it is actually pretty easy to figure out a student's overall academic qualifiers in the sense that you can know that they didn't graduate with "top" grades (ie top 10 percent or something). You can't figure that shit out to the decimal (which is what I guess JSUVA want) but you can definitely figure out a basic idea of where they stand. By the way the firms are even better at this, don't think they fall for that no grades garbage that schools are trying.

I did look at the links. Truth be told, I prefer seeing this information as data, as opposed to opening individual bios to get a sense (easy to be deceived).

Given that all three schools rate at a 4.6 on USNWR's lawyer/judges score, I'd imagine the difference in grade cutoffs isn't sizeable.

[RVP11]

The word "whether" allows for both the positive and the negative. See this sentence: "Outside of whether they were top ~10%, you won't be able to know anything about someone's class rank."

All you need to know is that if they don't have coif then they were not in the top 10 percent. That's definitely enough to determine that the stats are comparable when you have the same kind of designator at say NYU, which has magna cum laude and means the same thing. In other words if you see an NYU grad and a UVA grad at a firm and they are magna for the NYU grad and coif for the UVA one, that means they have comparable grades. Honestly the only schools where the basic academic stats are as hard to figure out as you are trying to make them out to be are Yale, Stanford, and Boalt. It's actually really easy to figure it out for Chicago, CLS, and NYU.

IDK enough about CCN - I've never cyberstalked their attorneys via firm bios.

What I do know is that you won't be able to know anything about a UVA grad's rank outside of whether they are top 10%. That throws a pretty large wrench in any attempt by you to prove anything about the school's DC placement.

[kurama20]

The word "whether" allows for both the positive and the negative. See this sentence: "Outside of whether they were top ~10%, you won't be able to know anything about someone's class rank."

All you need to know is that if they don't have coif then they were not in the top 10 percent. That's definitely enough to determine that the stats are comparable when you have the same kind of designator at say NYU, which has magna cum laude and means the same thing. In other words if you see an NYU grad and a UVA grad at a firm and they are magna for the NYU grad and coif for the UVA one, that means they have comparable grades.

And how did anything I wrote imply that I didn't grasp that point?

You are making mutually exclusive claims. If you agree with that point, then it's rather obvious that you can compare coif at UVA to say magna cum laude at NYU--as they mean the exact same thing. Not having magna at NYU means that that grad definitely is not in the top 10 percent, just like not being coif at UVA means you are not in the top 10 percent there.

Look at the firm links I provided you. Like he said anyone who has coif is top 10 percent at UVA. NYU, Chicago, and CLS are even easier to tell because they have cum, magna, and summa type honors (Harlan, and James Kent for CLS. Honors and high honors etc. for Chicago). What you will see is that many of the CLS NYU and Chicago grads at the top DC firms have say James Kent and magna cum on their bios ie the equivalent of coif at UVA (at least for the magna and up). What you will also see is that just as there are UVA grad with no coif or raven society or law review who have been hired there are NYU grads with not even cum laude being hired. In other words their stats/grades are comparable. If you want to check out the grade comparisons even further Chicago and the rest of the schools actually break down the overall requirement for the various honors on their websites.

Don't let JUSVA fool you--- that shit isn't rocket science, it is actually pretty easy to figure out a student's overall academic qualifiers in the sense that you can know that they didn't graduate with "top" grades (ie top 10 percent or something). You can't figure that shit out to the decimal (which is what I guess JSUVA want) but you can definitely figure out a basic idea of where they stand. By the way the firms are even better at this, don't think they fall for that no grades garbage that schools are trying.

I did look at the links. Truth be told, I prefer seeing this information as data, as opposed to opening individual bios to get a sense (easy to be deceived).

Given that all three schools rate at a 4.6 on USNWR's lawyer/judges score, I'd imagine the difference in grade cutoffs isn't sizeable.

Dude don't let JSUVA fool you--- the bolded has been my point the entire time! Especially the part about the grade cutoffs not being significant. He's been purposely trying to misconstrue what I've been saying.

[kurama20]

The word "whether" allows for both the positive and the negative. See this sentence: "Outside of whether they were top ~10%, you won't be able to know anything about someone's class rank."

All you need to know is that if they don't have coif then they were not in the top 10 percent. That's definitely enough to determine that the stats are comparable when you have the same kind of designator at say NYU, which has magna cum laude and means the same thing. In other words if you see an NYU grad and a UVA grad at a firm and they are magna for the NYU grad and coif for the UVA one, that means they have comparable grades. Honestly the only schools where the basic academic stats are as hard to figure out as you are trying to make them out to be are Yale, Stanford, and Boalt. It's actually really easy to figure it out for Chicago, CLS, and NYU.

IDK enough about CCN - I've never cyberstalked their attorneys via firm bios.

What I do know is that you won't be able to know anything about a UVA grad's rank outside of whether they are top 10%. That throws a pretty large wrench in any attempt by you to prove anything about the school's DC placement.

So let me get this straight.

1. You basically decided UVA"s placement stats based on it's US News rank and not anything else (even though this fluctuates almost yearly), based on the bolded.
2. You don't "cyberstalk" grads of the law school you attend before you enrolled to see if they are getting jobs where you want to work, but you do "cyberstalk" on TLS by asking for the names of private individuals at your school so that you can know who I am and who I talk to? Is that about right?

[RVP11]

I don't know if know what "mutually exclusive" means, given the way you're using it. And I'm not really making any claims. (Unless "you're an idiot" counts.)

If the only data point is whether or not the grad is top 10%, you're going to have a helluva time proving anything about how deep a firm is hiring at a certain school. That's my point.

And your point "the entire time" has been that firms equate these schools because of USNWR's 4.6 rating for each? Just a second ago you were accusing ME of following the USNWR rankings too closely.

[RVP11]

1. You basically decided UVA"s placement stats based on it's US News rank and not anything else (even though this fluctuates almost yearly), based on the bolded.

2. You don't "cyberstalk" grads of the law school you attend before you enrolled to see if they are getting jobs where you want to work, but you do "cyberstalk" on TLS by asking for the names of private individuals at your school so that you can know who I am and who I talk to? Is that about right?

1. Sure didn't. I don't believe I've made any appeal to USNWR this entire thread. You have, though.

2. I just don't believe you've ever spoken to a real, live 2L at UVA. And I'm not the only one who's skeptical.

[Space_Cowboy]

Dude don't let JSUVA fool you--- the bolded has been my point the entire time! Especially the part about the grade cutoffs not being significant. He's been purposely trying to misconstrue what I've been saying.

Well, the reason I'm interested in this whole dustup is that I don't know how good that gut sense is (all 3 school with 4.6s, so viewed similarly). While the difference in grade cutoff might not be huge, it could be a significant difference - top 40% vs. top 70%. The trouble with OoC-type honors is that it doesn't give you any information beyond whether someone was in the top 10% or not, which isn't terribly helpful when the cutoffs are well below on the 10% mark for both schools.

[RVP11]

Dude don't let JSUVA fool you--- the bolded has been my point the entire time! Especially the part about the grade cutoffs not being significant. He's been purposely trying to misconstrue what I've been saying.

Well, the reason I'm interested in this whole dustup is that I don't know how good that gut sense is (all 3 school with 4.6s, so viewed similarly). While the difference in grade cutoff might not be huge, it could be a significant difference - top 40% vs. top 70%. The trouble with OoC-type honors is that it doesn't give you any information beyond whether someone was in the top 10% or not, which isn't terribly helpful when the cutoffs are well below on the 10% mark for both schools.

Bingo.

[kurama20]

I don't know if know what "mutually exclusive" means, given the way you're using it. And I'm not really making any claims. (Unless "you're an idiot" counts.)

If the only data point is whether or not the grad is top 10%, you're going to have a helluva time proving anything about how deep a firm is hiring at a certain school. That's my point.

And your point "the entire time" has been that firms equate these schools because of USNWR's 4.6 rating for each? Just a second ago you were accusing ME of following the USNWR rankings too closely.

I'm going to stop explaining this to you because it is obviously either all going over your head, or more than likely you prefer to be indignant about being wrong and just like to show out. With that being the case, I would be careful about throwing around a term like idiot (if you even know what the definition of that term is).

My point was that the schools you mentioned are all comparable for hiring in DC. Firms are going to decide between grads of these schools (NYU, Chicago, CLS) based on grades. They hire grads from all of these schools with comparable grades. What's interesting is that I have all but proven this point. While you have just continued the TLS tradition of talking big in an attempt to look intelligent, and really haven't proved anything beyond the fact that you don't know what you are talking about.

[Space_Cowboy]

I don't know if know what "mutually exclusive" means, given the way you're using it. And I'm not really making any claims. (Unless "you're an idiot" counts.)

If the only data point is whether or not the grad is top 10%, you're going to have a helluva time proving anything about how deep a firm is hiring at a certain school. That's my point.

And your point "the entire time" has been that firms equate these schools because of USNWR's 4.6 rating for each? Just a second ago you were accusing ME of following the USNWR rankings too closely.

I'm going to stop explaining this to you because it is obviously either all going over your head, or more than likely you prefer to be indignant about being wrong and just like to show out. With that being the case, I would be careful about throwing around a term like idiot (if you even know what the definition of that term is).

My point was that the schools you mentioned are all comparable for hiring in DC. Firms are going to decide between grads of these schools (NYU, Chicago, CLS) based on grades. They hire grads from all of these schools with comparable grades. What's interesting is that I have all but proven this point. While you have just continued the TLS tradition of talking big in an attempt to look intelligent, and really haven't proved anything beyond the fact that you don't know what you are talking about.

I don't know that this is obvious. Maybe I'm missing something. So all those firms have top 10% candidates for all three schools. But how low in the respective classes were all the non-honors people from each school? As I said, I don't know that the difference is huge, but I think there's a chance there might be - 40% vs. 70%, for example.

[RVP11]

My point was that the schools you mentioned are all comparable for hiring in DC. Firms are going to decide between grads of these schools (NYU, Chicago, CLS) based on grades.

I'd rather be at Columbia or Chicago (rather than UVA) if I were trying to get DC. And I'm not the only one. I can't statistically prove anything, and neither can you. But I've seen what the cutoffs were like for UVA 2Ls six months ago. And I can tell you I'd rather be at Columbia or Chicago if DC was my goal. You don't even want to know how hard it was to get a DC pre-select interview for people here - you'd be a lot better off at a school where a higher % of your fellow students are gunning for other markets.

What's interesting is that I have all but proven this point.

No neutral observer would say you have proven anything, and I think you know that.

[kurama20]

Dude don't let JSUVA fool you--- the bolded has been my point the entire time! Especially the part about the grade cutoffs not being significant. He's been purposely trying to misconstrue what I've been saying.

Well, the reason I'm interested in this whole dustup is that I don't know how good that gut sense is (all 3 school with 4.6s, so viewed similarly). While the difference in grade cutoff might not be huge, it could be a significant difference - top 40% vs. top 70%. The trouble with OoC-type honors is that it doesn't give you any information beyond whether someone was in the top 10% or not, which isn't terribly helpful when the cutoffs are well below on the 10% mark for both schools.

And your'e right. But the thing is that gaps as large as the bolded are so big that you can get a good estimate (especially since CCN are so exact with their honor cutoffs). For example it's pretty safe to say that at Williams and Connolly most people are going to need top 10 percent from all of the aforementioned schools (while if you check out their Harvard bios apparently this isn't as big of a deal for them to have that level of grading).

[RVP11]

Dude don't let JSUVA fool you--- the bolded has been my point the entire time! Especially the part about the grade cutoffs not being significant. He's been purposely trying to misconstrue what I've been saying.

Well, the reason I'm interested in this whole dustup is that I don't know how good that gut sense is (all 3 school with 4.6s, so viewed similarly). While the difference in grade cutoff might not be huge, it could be a significant difference - top 40% vs. top 70%. The trouble with OoC-type honors is that it doesn't give you any information beyond whether someone was in the top 10% or not, which isn't terribly helpful when the cutoffs are well below on the 10% mark for both schools.

And your'e right. But the thing is that gaps as large as the bolded are so big that you can get a good estimate (especially since CCN are so exact with their honor cutoffs). For example it's pretty safe to say that at Williams and Connolly most people are going to need top 10 percent from all of the aforementioned schools (while if you check out their Harvard bios apparently this isn't as big of a deal for them to have that level of grading).

Again, I don't know how honors work for CCN, but you won't be able to tell anything about each UVA grad's rank other than whether they were in the top 10% or not. That makes it tough.

[kurama20]

My point was that the schools you mentioned are all comparable for hiring in DC. Firms are going to decide between grads of these schools (NYU, Chicago, CLS) based on grades.

I'd rather be at Columbia or Chicago (rather than UVA) if I were trying to get DC. And I'm not the only one. I can't statistically prove anything, and neither can you. But I've seen what the cutoffs were like for UVA 2Ls six months ago. And I can tell you I'd rather be at Columbia or Chicago if DC was my goal.

What's interesting is that I have all but proven this point.

No neutral observer would say you have proven anything, and I think you know that.

Do you not understand why the first part of the bolded and the last part of the bolded cause this whole comment not to make any sense? Either you can statistically prove something and that shows why you rather be at CLS or Chicago, or you can't statistically prove anything and have no idea whether or not being at those schools would put you in a better position for a job in DC (unless you are saying this because you rather work somewhere other than DC, or just like living in NYC or Chicago better than Charlottesville, or just like having a higher US News rank school on your resume).

[Space_Cowboy]

Dude don't let JSUVA fool you--- the bolded has been my point the entire time! Especially the part about the grade cutoffs not being significant. He's been purposely trying to misconstrue what I've been saying.

Well, the reason I'm interested in this whole dustup is that I don't know how good that gut sense is (all 3 school with 4.6s, so viewed similarly). While the difference in grade cutoff might not be huge, it could be a significant difference - top 40% vs. top 70%. The trouble with OoC-type honors is that it doesn't give you any information beyond whether someone was in the top 10% or not, which isn't terribly helpful when the cutoffs are well below on the 10% mark for both schools.

And your'e right. But the thing is that gaps as large as the bolded are so big that you can get a good estimate (especially since CCN are so exact with their honor cutoffs). For example it's pretty safe to say that at Williams and Connolly most people are going to need top 10 percent from all of the aforementioned schools (while if you check out their Harvard bios apparently this isn't as big of a deal for them to have that level of grading).

Again, I don't know how honors work for CCN, but you won't be able to tell anything about each UVA grad's rank other than whether they were in the top 10% or not. That makes it tough.

Yeah, this is kind of the problem I'm seeing. However, I now have a good way to compare CCN with other T14s with multi-layer honors cutoffs

[RVP11]

Wait, I need statistical proof for why I'd rather be doing one thing vs. the other? Come now. You have to be joking. There's no statistical proof for a ton of things in life, and people can still make rational decisions, backed up by (at the very least) anecdotal evidence and personal experience.

[kurama20]

Wait, I need statistical proof for why I'd rather be doing one thing vs. the other? Come now. You have to be joking. There's no statistical proof for a ton of things in life, and people can still make rational decisions, backed up by (at the very least) anecdotal evidence and personal experience.

What the hell are you talking about? At this point you are making no sense. Your whole point was that you rather be at CLS or Chicago than UVA because it's easier to get a DC job from those two schools according to you. That's what supposedly you knew that I didn't.

[RVP11]

Based on what I have learned about UVA's OGI difficulties with DC firms, I'd rather be coming from Columbia or Chicago if I were shooting for DC BigLaw. I don't see what about that is hard to follow.

[kurama20]

Based on what I have learned about UVA's OGI difficulties with DC firms, I'd rather be coming from Columbia or Chicago if I were shooting for DC BigLaw. I don't see what about that is hard to follow.

According to you yourself you haven't, and supposedly can't, learn shit about the difficulties of getting a job from any of these schools since you don't have firm charts.

[TheWire]

Honestly, at this point is it worth even arguing about? The point is go to one of the above mentioned schools and be in the top ten percent. Then this whole conversation would be moot. We're suppose to be talking about the west coast market anyways...

[You Gotta Have Faith]

I don't know how G-town, Cornell and UVA ever ended up sooo high on any of these lists for the West Coast. Don't get me wrong, they are all great schools, and probably worthy of being on the T-14 list (well, at least UVA) for the West Coast. But come on... for the West Coast. Not all that many UVA, G-town, or Cornell peeps end up over there. Not all that many at all, especially relative to USC and UCLA.

That isn't to say that they couldn't be on the West Coast. But most of them don't choose to go that far out. UVA and G-town are East Coast specialists.

[los blancos]

That isn't to say that they couldn't be on the West Coast. But most of them don't choose to go that far out. UVA and G-town are East Coast specialists.

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't the point of these threads to argue hypothetically which schools would give you the best shot at CA/West Coast assuming you wanted it?

[You Gotta Have Faith]

That isn't to say that they couldn't be on the West Coast. But most of them don't choose to go that far out. UVA and G-town are East Coast specialists.

Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't the point of these threads to argue hypothetically which schools would give you the best shot at CA/West Coast assuming you wanted it?

That is a fair point, hence my saying that they could place out there. However, schools can only spread themselves to so many regions and still have a strong presence in all of them. And UVA/G-town/Cornell just don't have a strong presence on the West Coast. There are far more USC/UCLA hiring partners, especially in LA (which is what the original subject was about). I genuinely don't think those three schools do any better in LA than USC/UCLA.

Although I'd be likely to pick one of the three schools over UCLA/USC, probably not the case if I knew I wanted LA. There has been commentary that people at said schools with CA connections would have an even easier time placing... perhaps this could be true, but I'm not factoring that in. The typical G-town/UVA/Cornell student does not have strong CA connections. So for the average person who wants to end up in LA, USC/UCLA will have a much more prevalent network. And if you really do have CA connections strong enough to get you a job, I think this is a moot point. In such a case, go to a competitive school that makes you happy.

I'm very open to an alternative view on this. This is just what I've heard and it is my understanding of the LA market. Of course UVA/G-town/Cornell are all good schools and probably have a bigger national reach... but this is about LA in particular.

[Danteshek]

UCLA/USC
Loyola/Southwestern/Pepperdine
Lonely souls

[jimmyd11011]

Boalt outplacing Chicago? I'd say no. I don't think there's going to be a discernible difference between Penn, NYU, Michigan, UVA, Duke, and Northwestern, either.

I know so. You're heavily underestimating home town advantage. Boalt runs Cali after HYS (it's basically tied with Columbia out there). You can really see Boalt's Cali strength with the very selective lit boutiques in Cali (Irell, Keker, Munger)Chicago is barely behind them though. It's sort of akin to how Columbia and Chicago really don't do much better than UVA in DC. Part of the reason Boalt can pull the "no grade" system even though they aren't HYS is because of how they are viewed in the Cali market. From what I've seen/heard from people, Cali firms don't even see Boalt as being that far below Stanford.

A lawyer in Los Angeles actually told me this...and that he personally sees Berkeley>Stanford.