Top Law Schools

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All of these schools are intensely competitive. Assuming you don't come from an elite school background yourself, you will meet people who are willing to work to a degree which you have never encountered before entering law school. All that "collegiality" means is that people aren't "illegitimately" competitive. ie people aren't stabbing each other in the back and ripping out pages from books in the library etc.

if you dont want competition you need a new career path

Blatant Penn trolling.

banjobob wrote:where the "gentleman's B" is the norm for grading

I'm The Gentleman and I approve this attitude.


90% chance I'll see you at Penn next year OP.

penn seems to have the friendliest tls posters

fatduck wrote:penn seems to have the friendliest tls posters

Except for me.

Also, competition at Penn is virtually non-existent, even as great an asshole as I cannot change that fact.

There is some good-natured ribbing however.

Veyron wrote:Except for me.

TIC

Veyron wrote:

fatduck wrote:penn seems to have the friendliest tls posters

Except for me.

Also, competition at Penn is virtually non-existent, even as great an asshole as I cannot change that fact.

There is some good-natured ribbing however.

nah you're pretty tame, by internet standards

I am wondering how UChi students feel about competition. Anyone care to weigh in?

BruceWayne wrote:All of these schools are intensely competitive. Assuming you don't come from an elite school background yourself, you will meet people who are willing to work to a degree which you have never encountered before entering law school. All that "collegiality" means is that people aren't "illegitimately" competitive. ie people aren't stabbing each other in the back and ripping out pages from books in the library etc.

This. You will meet some slackers, but even then, at least during 1L year, the slackers pretty much do all their work. I went to a t-15 undergrad, majored in something legitimate (my major was curved to a B-minus) and found the competition in law school to be relatively much more intense. T-14 law students are, generally speaking, and especially 1Ls, workaholics.

(Some really slack during 2L/3L years -- like never reading for any classes/studying for finals at the very last minute -- but I never worked harder in my entire life than I did during 1L year, and I was probably in the bottom 40% in terms of work ethic.)

The thing that kind of sucks about Penn is that I think Penn has 4 doctrinal courses each semester, instead of just 3, which probably means you're going to be working even harder during 1L year than students at some other T-14s.

BruceWayne wrote:All of these schools are intensely competitive. Assuming you don't come from an elite school background yourself, you will meet people who are willing to work to a degree which you have never encountered before entering law school. All that "collegiality" means is that people aren't "illegitimately" competitive. ie people aren't stabbing each other in the back and ripping out pages from books in the library etc.

I've been assuming this is the typical situation at most schools. (Hopefully no one goes into law school expecting it to be like a montessori kindergarten where we sing songs, eat goldfish crackers and learn at our own special snowflake pace.) But do you (or does anyone else) have any thoughts on how a lack of class ranking might affect competition? Specifically, I'm wondering about Northwestern, where the ranking and OCI policies sound similar to Penn's as described by OP.

NU also does not allow students to list GPA on their resumes for OCI, which I found interesting, and wondered how common that was. Without GPA or ranking, do firms then just hire based on interview, writing samples and extracurriculars?

The "lack of class ranking" doesn't really exist anywhere. Even without an official ranking it is still quite easy to figure out where people fall on a curve, even at schools w/out real grades (YHSB).

rinkrat19 wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:All of these schools are intensely competitive. Assuming you don't come from an elite school background yourself, you will meet people who are willing to work to a degree which you have never encountered before entering law school. All that "collegiality" means is that people aren't "illegitimately" competitive. ie people aren't stabbing each other in the back and ripping out pages from books in the library etc.

I've been assuming this is the typical situation at most schools. (Hopefully no one goes into law school expecting it to be like a montessori kindergarten where we sing songs, eat goldfish crackers and learn at our own special snowflake pace.) But do you (or does anyone else) have any thoughts on how a lack of class ranking might affect competition? Specifically, I'm wondering about Northwestern, where the ranking and OCI policies sound similar to Penn's as described by OP.

NU also does not allow students to list GPA on their resumes for OCI, which I found interesting, and wondered how common that was. Without GPA or ranking, do firms then just hire based on interview, writing samples and extracurriculars?

This is one of the biggest red herrings that these top law schools sell. The only school where there is really no class rank is Yale, and maybe Harvard/Stanford/Boalt. Beyond that all of them release information about the curve. So at UVA they don't release class rank but they do say that a 3.3 is the mean and that 3.48 is top quarter. That's all the employers need to know to do some quick calculations and know where you rank (top 10 percent, middle 1/3, bottom 1/3 etc.) And they certainly do do this. Any school with a traditional GPA system (ie on a 4.0 scale) essentially has a class rank system.

BruceWayne wrote:

rinkrat19 wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:All of these schools are intensely competitive. Assuming you don't come from an elite school background yourself, you will meet people who are willing to work to a degree which you have never encountered before entering law school. All that "collegiality" means is that people aren't "illegitimately" competitive. ie people aren't stabbing each other in the back and ripping out pages from books in the library etc.

I've been assuming this is the typical situation at most schools. (Hopefully no one goes into law school expecting it to be like a montessori kindergarten where we sing songs, eat goldfish crackers and learn at our own special snowflake pace.) But do you (or does anyone else) have any thoughts on how a lack of class ranking might affect competition? Specifically, I'm wondering about Northwestern, where the ranking and OCI policies sound similar to Penn's as described by OP.

NU also does not allow students to list GPA on their resumes for OCI, which I found interesting, and wondered how common that was. Without GPA or ranking, do firms then just hire based on interview, writing samples and extracurriculars?

This is one of the biggest red herrings that these top law schools sell. The only school where there is really no class rank is Yale, and maybe Stanford/Boalt. Beyond that all of them release information about the curve. So at UVA they don't release class rank but they do say that a 3.3 is the mean and that 3.48 is top quarter. That's all the employers need to know to do some quick calculations and know where you rank (top 10 percent, middle 1/3, bottom 1/3 etc.) And they certainly do do this.

I get that simple math and knowing the school's quartiles allows anyone to calculate approximate rank if they know your GPA (which they presumably would after graduation, or if you gave them your resume outside of OCI), but what about OCI firms who don't see your GPA because you're not allowed to put it on your resume?

rinkrat19 wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:

rinkrat19 wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:All of these schools are intensely competitive. Assuming you don't come from an elite school background yourself, you will meet people who are willing to work to a degree which you have never encountered before entering law school. All that "collegiality" means is that people aren't "illegitimately" competitive. ie people aren't stabbing each other in the back and ripping out pages from books in the library etc.

I've been assuming this is the typical situation at most schools. (Hopefully no one goes into law school expecting it to be like a montessori kindergarten where we sing songs, eat goldfish crackers and learn at our own special snowflake pace.) But do you (or does anyone else) have any thoughts on how a lack of class ranking might affect competition? Specifically, I'm wondering about Northwestern, where the ranking and OCI policies sound similar to Penn's as described by OP.

NU also does not allow students to list GPA on their resumes for OCI, which I found interesting, and wondered how common that was. Without GPA or ranking, do firms then just hire based on interview, writing samples and extracurriculars?

This is one of the biggest red herrings that these top law schools sell. The only school where there is really no class rank is Yale, and maybe Stanford/Boalt. Beyond that all of them release information about the curve. So at UVA they don't release class rank but they do say that a 3.3 is the mean and that 3.48 is top quarter. That's all the employers need to know to do some quick calculations and know where you rank (top 10 percent, middle 1/3, bottom 1/3 etc.) And they certainly do do this.

I get that simple math and knowing the school's quartiles allows anyone to calculate approximate rank if they know your GPA (which they presumably would after graduation, or if you gave them your resume outside of OCI), but what about OCI firms who don't see your GPA because you're not allowed to put it on your resume?

they can still ask you your grades, and get your transcript, i assume?

fatduck wrote:

rinkrat19 wrote:

BruceWayne wrote:

rinkrat19 wrote:I've been assuming this is the typical situation at most schools. (Hopefully no one goes into law school expecting it to be like a montessori kindergarten where we sing songs, eat goldfish crackers and learn at our own special snowflake pace.) But do you (or does anyone else) have any thoughts on how a lack of class ranking might affect competition? Specifically, I'm wondering about Northwestern, where the ranking and OCI policies sound similar to Penn's as described by OP.

NU also does not allow students to list GPA on their resumes for OCI, which I found interesting, and wondered how common that was. Without GPA or ranking, do firms then just hire based on interview, writing samples and extracurriculars?

This is one of the biggest red herrings that these top law schools sell. The only school where there is really no class rank is Yale, and maybe Stanford/Boalt. Beyond that all of them release information about the curve. So at UVA they don't release class rank but they do say that a 3.3 is the mean and that 3.48 is top quarter. That's all the employers need to know to do some quick calculations and know where you rank (top 10 percent, middle 1/3, bottom 1/3 etc.) And they certainly do do this.

I get that simple math and knowing the school's quartiles allows anyone to calculate approximate rank if they know your GPA (which they presumably would after graduation, or if you gave them your resume outside of OCI), but what about OCI firms who don't see your GPA because you're not allowed to put it on your resume?

they can still ask you your grades, and get your transcript, i assume?

I assume they can ask you your GPA, unless the school has "forbidden" that as well. (Of course, how would that be enforced?)
Logic would seem to dictate that if the school bans GPAs on OCI resumes, they also wouldn't release any paperwork with GPA to OCI firms.

But what do I know? The whole OCI process is still very foggy to me. I am mostly just curious. Other factors besides class ranking and OCI policies have sold me on NU.

i mean, it's quite possible that they don't see your grades/transcripts/anything during the bidding process. that's not that much different from schools that have blind bidding. i can't imagine they can't ask for your transcripts before callbacks, but maybe someone who goes to NU can clarify.

Most T-14s discourage/forbid you from putting your GPA on your resume during OCI. They don't want firms to have an opinion about you before your initial interview. However, firms DO still get your transcript at the initial interview, and they filter through applications before callbacks by looking at your GPA.

Also, it's really easy to figure out your percentile at most T-14 schools, including Boalt (where 2-3 Hs first year is considered median). I think most T-14s don't rank, unless you need it for clerkships, but that doesn't mean anything, because it's incredibly easy to figure out your general rank. Not to mention most, if not all, T-14s bestow honors, high honors, and top 10% honors (later converted into order of the coif).

fatduck wrote:i mean, it's quite possible that they don't see your grades/transcripts/anything during the bidding process. that's not that much different from schools that have blind bidding. i can't imagine they can't ask for your transcripts before callbacks, but maybe someone who goes to NU can clarify.

From what I've been told they ask at your interview and they all request transcripts.

The reason you don't put it on your resume is because they get the resume before they see you. The school doesn't want the GPA to be the first impression.

The "lack of class ranking" doesn't really exist anywhere. Even without an official ranking it is still quite easy to figure out where people fall on a curve, even at schools w/out real grades (YHSB).

Quite easy? It took me a weeks of probing to figure out where the hell (aprox.) I was on the curve.

Veyron wrote:

The "lack of class ranking" doesn't really exist anywhere. Even without an official ranking it is still quite easy to figure out where people fall on a curve, even at schools w/out real grades (YHSB).

Quite easy? It took me a weeks of probing to figure out where the hell (aprox.) I was on the curve.

Was the TLS search function broken? I can't speak for other schools besides mine but it took me about 15 minutes of TLSing to get an idea for where I was. I am also just referencing figuring out which 1/4 of the class your in.

Lawl Shcool wrote:

Veyron wrote:

The "lack of class ranking" doesn't really exist anywhere. Even without an official ranking it is still quite easy to figure out where people fall on a curve, even at schools w/out real grades (YHSB).

Quite easy? It took me a weeks of probing to figure out where the hell (aprox.) I was on the curve.

Was the TLS search function broken? I can't speak for other schools besides mine but it took me about 15 minutes of TLSing to get an idea for where I was. I am also just referencing figuring out which 1/4 of the class your in.

Reference the thread title dooder, I go to Penn, a school that doesn't provide medians, a gpa, means, modes, or cutoffs for any percentile. In the days after my grades were released, various people made estimates of my class rank 30% points apart.

Veyron wrote:

Lawl Shcool wrote:

Veyron wrote:

The "lack of class ranking" doesn't really exist anywhere. Even without an official ranking it is still quite easy to figure out where people fall on a curve, even at schools w/out real grades (YHSB).

Quite easy? It took me a weeks of probing to figure out where the hell (aprox.) I was on the curve.

Was the TLS search function broken? I can't speak for other schools besides mine but it took me about 15 minutes of TLSing to get an idea for where I was. I am also just referencing figuring out which 1/4 of the class your in.

Reference the thread title dooder, I go to Penn, a school that doesn't provide medians, a gpa, means, modes, or cutoffs for any percentile. In the days after my grades were released, various people made estimates of my class rank 30% points apart.

Where did you end up.

On the curve that is.

[/quote]

Was the TLS search function broken? I can't speak for other schools besides mine but it took me about 15 minutes of TLSing to get an idea for where I was. I am also just referencing figuring out which 1/4 of the class your in.[/quote]

Reference the thread title dooder, I go to Penn, a school that doesn't provide medians, a gpa, means, modes, or cutoffs for any percentile. In the days after my grades were released, various people made estimates of my class rank 30% points apart.[/quote]

Where did you end up.

On the curve that is.[/quote]

Where everyone else ended up.