Duke Law OCI 2016 (c/o 2018) Forum

[Anonymous User]

Is it acceptable to bid exclusively DC if you have a gpa of around 3.65-3.7? No tech background, or any other real boosts for my application. Some unrelated work experience.

[Anonymous User]

Is it acceptable to bid exclusively DC if you have a gpa of around 3.65-3.7? No tech background, or any other real boosts for my application. Some unrelated work experience.

A year ago at this time I was above 3.7 GPA with DLJ. I had more than 30 screeners at OCI, almost exclusively DC. I ended up with three offers in DC, one of which at a firm that I ended up really disliking and would have been very disappointed to get stuck at.

I know other people, both in my class and older, who put all their chips in the DC basket, struck out, and had to scramble for something else late in the game.

DC is a very tough market as firm class sizes are much smaller than New York. Being under 3.7 doesn't put you in a good enough position to just ride DC out. Pepper in some other backups. I think of bidding straight DC kind of like applying straight Ivy as a high school senior. There's no harm to toss in a "safety school" that's still a very good school (i.e. a New York firm with a much much larger summer class) so you should fill out your bid list with a few of these at the very least.

[Anonymous User]

Is it acceptable to bid exclusively DC if you have a gpa of around 3.65-3.7? No tech background, or any other real boosts for my application. Some unrelated work experience.

A year ago at this time I was above 3.7 GPA with DLJ. I had more than 30 screeners at OCI, almost exclusively DC. I ended up with three offers in DC, one of which at a firm that I ended up really disliking and would have been very disappointed to get stuck at.

I know other people, both in my class and older, who put all their chips in the DC basket, struck out, and had to scramble for something else late in the game.

DC is a very tough market as firm class sizes are much smaller than New York. Being under 3.7 doesn't put you in a good enough position to just ride DC out. Pepper in some other backups. I think of bidding straight DC kind of like applying straight Ivy as a high school senior. There's no harm to toss in a "safety school" that's still a very good school (i.e. a New York firm with a much much larger summer class) so you should fill out your bid list with a few of these at the very least.

Excellent advice. Thanks. I'll be sure to throw in a few safeties. Sorry about the way it worked out for you with your firm.

[Anonymous User]

Is it acceptable to bid exclusively DC if you have a gpa of around 3.65-3.7? No tech background, or any other real boosts for my application. Some unrelated work experience.

A year ago at this time I was above 3.7 GPA with DLJ. I had more than 30 screeners at OCI, almost exclusively DC. I ended up with three offers in DC, one of which at a firm that I ended up really disliking and would have been very disappointed to get stuck at.

I know other people, both in my class and older, who put all their chips in the DC basket, struck out, and had to scramble for something else late in the game.

DC is a very tough market as firm class sizes are much smaller than New York. Being under 3.7 doesn't put you in a good enough position to just ride DC out. Pepper in some other backups. I think of bidding straight DC kind of like applying straight Ivy as a high school senior. There's no harm to toss in a "safety school" that's still a very good school (i.e. a New York firm with a much much larger summer class) so you should fill out your bid list with a few of these at the very least.

Excellent advice. Thanks. I'll be sure to throw in a few safeties. Sorry about the way it worked out for you with your firm.

Everything worked out great and I was fortunate to not only have that one offer I mentioned; side note, I really found that talking to 3Ls who had summered at the firm office I was considering was helpful once I was weighing offers, so to those ITT who end up fortunate enough to be deciding between multiple offers, definitely check the list of Class of 2017 Summer Employers and send emails to us 3Ls to chat sometime. I didn't find a single 3L last year who wasn't willing to help and I imagine pretty much everyone would be the same this year too.

Now back to your regularly scheduled journal release complaints

[Anonymous User]

no email tonight, so no journal tomorrow.... #pitchforksagain

[Anonymous User]

Northwestern Journal decisions are now out as well. THIS IS RIDICULOUS. Honestly this is straight bull. #PITCHFORKS

I mean they gave you a release date range of 15th-20th. I don't know why you're so on edge/upset at this point. By all means - get all worked up about it, but at least wait until the 20th to spam this thread

Yeah but whats the probability that they are gonna come out during the weekend? 0% I imagine. So I assume in that case we will get informed by email that they are coming out on Monday, so they come out on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Upshot why I'm still pissed. We are the 3rd smallest in class size in the t14. Duke is either last or second to last in releasing this information. There is no excuse in how schools triple our size release journal information much earlier.

I don't know what the hold up is, but you should realize that we're all currently working at SAs, going through clerkship apps, doing our normal journal work, AND (the higher ups, I assume) dealing with casenote (we turned in our casenote grades a while ago--I'm assuming you should blame the journals that require extras like personal statements, DLJ is an easy formula). The weekend is practically the only time journal work gets done. Not saying it'll be this weekend, but thought you should know.

In the long run, I promise it wont be a big deal (source: 3Ls have gone through this before, we actually know more about OCI than you do, and we're here to help). If you have the grades and writing skills to get onto DLJ, you have the grades and writing sample to get whatever pre-OCI CBs and offers you'd get with the extra resume line--not that going into OCI with nothing is a death sentence, almost everyone does. And if you don't, well getting on a non-DLJ journal isn't going to really open many doors, so who cares when you find out. So seriously chill. There's so much more stress to come with actual OCI, now is not the time to blow things out of proportion.

ETA: I'm not the other 3L who's graded casenotes in this thread, just FYI.

ETA2: Did you all get some email saying that you'd an email the day before saying "hey, results are coming out tomorrow?" Last year, we got the email saying "expect it around this date" and then we just got the results, no preamble. FWIW.

[Anonymous User]

no email tonight, so no journal tomorrow.... #pitchforksagain

So they always send an email out before the day of the release?

[Anonymous User]

no email tonight, so no journal tomorrow.... #pitchforksagain

So they always send an email out before the day of the release?

This is the email quoted from the case note people last week:

"Dear Casenote Competition Participants

This brief message is to let you know that we are on track to release the results of the Casenote Competition on schedule . If all goes according to plan, we expect that you will receive notification between July 15-20.

We will release the results as soon as possible, keeping in mind the schedules for Fall Course Registration and On-Campus Interview bidding and your interest in planning around these events. The day before results are released, participants will receive an email with more specific information and timing of exclusive journal results and non-exclusive journal invitations. We appreciate your patience, and hope that you continue to enjoy your summer.

The Casenote Competition Team"

So I don't know if they email every year before hand, but their email says thats the way they are doing it this year. So with no email yesterday, no journal stuff today. Bidding starts tomorrow.... this is really getting f%&^ed up

[Anonymous User]

Journal email!!

[Anonymous User]

ETA2: Did you all get some email saying that you'd an email the day before saying "hey, results are coming out tomorrow?" Last year, we got the email saying "expect it around this date" and then we just got the results, no preamble. FWIW.

This is wrong; last year we did get an email saying "Journals will come out at 10:00am tomorrow" and then they did come out the next morning.

If Duke skipped the one-day warning this year, it's probably because they know they're late in the game and they definitely want journals to be out before OCI bidding opens tomorrow.

[Anonymous User]

Are all exclusive / non exclusive journals out?

[Anonymous User]

^^^ I'm only aware of exclusive being out.

[Anonymous User]

Only exclusive it seems. Bummed I didn't get DLJ but got on the International law one. At least its something and now I can finish my resume.

[Anonymous User]

Only exclusive it seems. Bummed I didn't get DLJ but got on the International law one. At least its something and now I can finish my resume.

got 3 non exclusive ones so I'm assuming both exclusive/non are probably all out

[Anonymous User]

Only exclusive it seems. Bummed I didn't get DLJ but got on the International law one. At least its something and now I can finish my resume.

got 3 non exclusive ones so I'm assuming both exclusive/non are probably all out

Anyone else get non-exclusive yet? The email said it might take a while, but I don't know how true that might be. Were the non-exclusive phone calls or emails?

[okay718]

Only exclusive it seems. Bummed I didn't get DLJ but got on the International law one. At least its something and now I can finish my resume.

got 3 non exclusive ones so I'm assuming both exclusive/non are probably all out

Anyone else get non-exclusive yet? The email said it might take a while, but I don't know how true that might be. Were the non-exclusive phone calls or emails?

Also got a non exclusive via email

[Anonymous User]

Only exclusive it seems. Bummed I didn't get DLJ but got on the International law one. At least its something and now I can finish my resume.

got 3 non exclusive ones so I'm assuming both exclusive/non are probably all out

Anyone else get non-exclusive yet? The email said it might take a while, but I don't know how true that might be. Were the non-exclusive phone calls or emails?

My non exclusive emails came all within 2 minutes of another at around 6:59ish.

[Anonymous User]

Only exclusive it seems. Bummed I didn't get DLJ but got on the International law one. At least its something and now I can finish my resume.

got 3 non exclusive ones so I'm assuming both exclusive/non are probably all out

Anyone else get non-exclusive yet? The email said it might take a while, but I don't know how true that might be. Were the non-exclusive phone calls or emails?

My non exclusive emails came all within 2 minutes of another at around 6:59ish.

Cool so I imagine non-exclusive's are done as well.

[Anonymous User]

So if you got an email for an exclusive journal, do you have to email them back you accept or what is the procedure?

[Anonymous User]

So if you got an email for an exclusive journal, do you have to email them back you accept or what is the procedure?

I assume the journal EIC will email/call and let you know. DLJ sent an email half an hour ago saying email to accept.

[Anonymous User]

ETA2: Did you all get some email saying that you'd an email the day before saying "hey, results are coming out tomorrow?" Last year, we got the email saying "expect it around this date" and then we just got the results, no preamble. FWIW.

This is wrong; last year we did get an email saying "Journals will come out at 10:00am tomorrow" and then they did come out the next morning.

If Duke skipped the one-day warning this year, it's probably because they know they're late in the game and they definitely want journals to be out before OCI bidding opens tomorrow.

My bad. I had terrible access to internet when results came out last year so probably didn't really see the day before email. Sorry!

[Anonymous User]

so if we didn't get an email are we totally screwed?

[Anonymous User]

so if we didn't get an email are we totally screwed?

Not necessarily. Non-exclusive journals are still making offers. This was in the offer email:

"Initial invitations to join non-exclusive membership journals will be extended beginning today and will continue over the course of the next two weeks. We will notify students when all of the non-exclusive journal invitations have been extended, and the competition is closed."

[Anonymous User]

For the journals on our resumes- what is the proper title? I remember previously that we can put staff editor of X. Is that for every journal or?

[Anonymous User]

so if we didn't get an email are we totally screwed?

Not necessarily. Non-exclusive journals are still making offers. This was in the offer email:

"Initial invitations to join non-exclusive membership journals will be extended beginning today and will continue over the course of the next two weeks. We will notify students when all of the non-exclusive journal invitations have been extended, and the competition is closed."

If people turn down invitations to exclusive journals - do they also extend more offers, or is it pretty much done at this point?