Top Law Schools

Im sure this has been discussed but why is Berkeley always the odd man out. HYS CCN MVP DNCG...Why no B?

Below CCN and among MVP.

There's a lot of east coast bias on this forum (from the people asking for advice and the people giving it). Also, when talking about people's chances Berkley is kind of a black box of admissions because they are more holistic in their process so it doesn't get mentioned as much.

I feel as if they are very close to CCN. They carry a ton of prestige on the west coast and they still place well on the east coast. They don't place as well as CCN in NYC due to proximity, but they are still up there.

HYS
CCN
MVPB
DNCG

Although ITE their OCI placement has been closer to CG than MVPDN.

whitman wrote:Im sure this has been discussed but why is Berkeley always the odd man out. HYS CCN MVP DNCG...Why no B?

IMO it's as follows:

HYS
CCN
B
MVP
DN
CG

Berkeley is sort of out on it's own. I think everybody recognizes it's a great school, a little bit better than MVP but not quite on the level of CCN.

This is how it seems

West Coast

HYS
CCNB
MVP
DCNG

East Coast

HYS
CCN
MVP
B
DCNG

MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I've heard this also.

This is what matters: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=108528

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I think firms (especially on the East Coast) are nervous that Berkeley lets in people with 163 and below LSAT scores, then proceeds to give 60% of them passing grades in all of their classes.

bdubs wrote:

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I think firms (especially on the East Coast) are nervous that Berkeley lets in people with 163 and below LSAT scores, then proceeds to give 60% of them passing grades in all of their classes.

I really dont think firms care much about LSAT scores and no one really knows the effect of P/F systems. Plus, berkeley has HH/H/P/LP/NC so really not much different than having a regular grading system since no one gets less than a B- anyway. The effect of grading systems is really overstates I think. I have had people argue to me that Yale not having grades hurts them.

Im not a big proponent of distinguishing between schools 7-17 too much.

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I know this is what people are saying, but I'd really like to know the source. We've heard nothing from our CDO-- which I think is par for ITE so no telling either way. Among the people I know well enough to know job status, vast majority have jobs and most in NYC and a quite a few in DC (more than the "DC was a bloodbath" talk would suggest at least). Of the people who went all out at OCI, I know two who struck out. (I've heard of others, but that's prob because they bid SF/SV/LA exclusively.

Bottom line, don't judge OCI results without data (and, no, I'm not claiming my post is data either).

Last year wasn't so great, but this year seems (from my personal vantage point) to be much better.

tkgrrett wrote:

bdubs wrote:

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I think firms (especially on the East Coast) are nervous that Berkeley lets in people with 163 and below LSAT scores, then proceeds to give 60% of them passing grades in all of their classes.

I really dont think firms care much about LSAT scores and no one really knows the effect of P/F systems. Plus, berkeley has HH/H/P/LP/NC so really not much different than having a regular grading system since no one gets less than a B- anyway. The effect of grading systems is really overstates I think. I have had people argue to me that Yale not having grades hurts them.

Im not a big proponent of distinguishing between schools 7-17 too much.

I have heard that some firms ask candidates their test scores in interviews. Not sure if that is confined to a few or not.

Also "There is no required curve for the grades of Pass and below, and faculty members are not required to give any Substandard Pass or No Credit grades." Do you think they give any LP or NC if not required to do so? I would imagine it's pretty hard to earn those grades.

Rotor wrote:

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I know this is what people are saying, but I'd really like to know the source. We've heard nothing from our CDO-- which I think is par for ITE so no telling either way. Among the people I know well enough to know job status, vast majority have jobs and most in NYC and a quite a few in DC (more than the "DC was a bloodbath" talk would suggest at least). Of the people who went all out at OCI, I know two who struck out. (I've heard of others, but that's prob because they bid SF/SV/LA exclusively.

Bottom line, don't judge OCI results without data (and, no, I'm not claiming my post is data either).

Last year wasn't so great, but this year seems (from my personal vantage point) to be much better.

I love Berkeley, but I keep hearing conflicting information about all of this... Whelp, welcome to the internet I guess.

Rotor wrote:

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I know this is what people are saying, but I'd really like to know the source. We've heard nothing from our CDO-- which I think is par for ITE so no telling either way. Among the people I know well enough to know job status, vast majority have jobs and most in NYC and a quite a few in DC (more than the "DC was a bloodbath" talk would suggest at least). Of the people who went all out at OCI, I know two who struck out. (I've heard of others, but that's prob because they bid SF/SV/LA exclusively.

Bottom line, don't judge OCI results without data (and, no, I'm not claiming my post is data either).

Last year wasn't so great, but this year seems (from my personal vantage point) to be much better.

"If you went to the OCIP meetings/presentations, career services said that 30% of 1Ls got a job at OCIP last year. They said to expect about 40-45% of the class getting a job at OCIP this year. In other words, it is not looking good for someone with mostly Ps, since you are probably in the bottom 1/3 of your class."

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=121418
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 8&start=27

im_blue wrote:

Rotor wrote:

jcunni5 wrote:MVP B

B is placing worse ITE than MVP at least that's what people have been saying due to CA's horrible economy and their Pass/Fail grading system which they are not prestigious enough to be using

I know this is what people are saying, but I'd really like to know the source. We've heard nothing from our CDO-- which I think is par for ITE so no telling either way. Among the people I know well enough to know job status, vast majority have jobs and most in NYC and a quite a few in DC (more than the "DC was a bloodbath" talk would suggest at least). Of the people who went all out at OCI, I know two who struck out. (I've heard of others, but that's prob because they bid SF/SV/LA exclusively.

Bottom line, don't judge OCI results without data (and, no, I'm not claiming my post is data either).

Last year wasn't so great, but this year seems (from my personal vantage point) to be much better.

"If you went to the OCIP meetings/presentations, career services said that 30% of 1Ls got a job at OCIP last year. They said to expect about 40-45% of the class getting a job at OCIP this year. In other words, it is not looking good for someone with mostly Ps, since you are probably in the bottom 1/3 of your class."

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 3&t=121418
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 8&start=27

Thanks, blue. Definitely have a lot to think about.

mrmangs wrote:I love Berkeley, but I keep hearing conflicting information about all of this... Whelp, welcome to the internet I guess.

There's a bunch of people who go to Berkeley on here who borderline lie about how good they are. There are also east coast trolls (MVP?) who bash them for no reason.

My two cents is that they're a solid cog in MVPB; they seem to underperform MVP a little bit in terms of hiring, but they have a ton of public service and Cali-only students, and their prestige holds up well in the peer surveys, so that balances out for me.

I dunno, I drank some sort of weird Berkeley kool-aid apparently and now it just sounds like a great place to go to school. Why does it matter exactly if it's CCN B MVP or CCN MVP B or CCN MBVP or whatever?

Edit: for what it's worth, it's tied for 7th with Penn in the USNWR rankings.

ahduth wrote:I dunno, I drank some sort of weird Berkeley kool-aid apparently and now it just sounds like a great place to go to school. Why does it matter exactly if it's CCN B MVP or CCN MVP B or CCN MBVP or whatever?

Edit: for what it's worth, it's tied for 7th with Penn in the USNWR rankings.

Yes, because USNews rankings correspond directly with biglaw placement.

The reason why Berkeley has worse biglaw placement ITE than MVP is because it gets much fewer East Coast firms at OCI and probably partly because of its grading system. (And don't respond with but you can "mass mail" biglaw firms. Unless you are IP or have top 10% grades or have some weird military background (like Marines or whatever), chances are you won't even get a screening interview.)

YS - H - CCN- MVPDN-BC- Tex Van Gtown

Y H S CC BN MVP DNC GtownVandyTex

So where is Berkeley in terms of pure IP?

Boalt is putting significantly less people in big firms than schools it's supposed to be better than like NU and Duke. 30%? LOL Northwestern beat that by 20%, I'm sure Duke, Virginia and Michigan did too. Penn probably more than that.

It's a Georgetown peer school ITE.

Joga Bonito wrote:Y H S CC BN MVP DNC GtownVandyTex

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