Drop in grades and the summer associate? Forum

[Anonymous User]

I think most firms actually do ask for 2L grades, but most don't care unless it's a steep drop. One outlier is GDC.

so GDC has a hard cutoff below which they don't hire anyone?

[Anonymous User]

I think most firms actually do ask for 2L grades, but most don't care unless it's a steep drop. One outlier is GDC.

so GDC has a hard cutoff below which they don't hire anyone?

I'm saying they will no offer people with less than steep drops in their GPA.

[Anonymous User]

I think most firms actually do ask for 2L grades, but most don't care unless it's a steep drop. One outlier is GDC.

so GDC has a hard cutoff below which they don't hire anyone?

I'm saying they will no offer people with less than steep drops in their GPA.

I take it you know someone who summered at GDC who had this happen to them? Was this during ITE?

[Anonymous User]

this thread is terrifying. i thought we didn't have to care about grades anymore after 1L. *sigh* let the gunning continue i guess. thanks ITE.

[RVP11]

this thread is terrifying. i thought we didn't have to care about grades anymore after 1L. *sigh* let the gunning continue i guess. thanks ITE.

I don't think it's a problem with ITE. Seemingly the only firms who no-offered the class of 2011 were firms who were no-offering pre-ITE, too.

[Anonymous User]

Start worrying at the .06-.1x mark.

It seems like there is some conflicting information. I'm a rising 3L SA and experienced a drop in grades from 3.47 to 3.40 since I got the SA offer last fall. One of the big problems that I'm sure a lot of people are worried about is that sometimes, GPAs in this range fall within the fat part of the class curve. For example, my .07 drop might mean that I went from just outside top quarter to something close to top 45% or median.

Is this something someone should be more worried about?

[Anonymous User]

Start worrying at the .06-.1x mark.

It seems like there is some conflicting information. I'm a rising 3L SA and experienced a drop in grades from 3.47 to 3.40 since I got the SA offer last fall. One of the big problems that I'm sure a lot of people are worried about is that sometimes, GPAs in this range fall within the fat part of the class curve. For example, my .07 drop might mean that I went from just outside top quarter to something close to top 45% or median.

Is this something someone should be more worried about?

And here I thought Kohinoor was being sarcastic.

Hopefully you're right. I sort of just wanted to verify.

[thesealocust]

Just throwing this out there: Does anybody actually KNOW that GDC no offers summers for grades drops, or is it just something everyone heard on TLS and repeats when these threads come up?

To everyone else: Even more than "work product" I think your summer offer is going to be a product of just fitting in at the firm. Nobody gives a shit about your grades objectively, during recruiting it was just a rough proxy for a combination of intelligence, work ethic, and pain tolerance. Once you've actually worked for the summer, they're going to make sure you aren't a raging social reject who they accidentally offered in the fall, and they're going to make sure you're not actually planning on being a bartender after LS but figured a summer associate salary would be a nice thing to pick up along the way.

Seriously, every single no offer I have heard of was a result of (1) economic Armageddon (not grades), (2) massive breaches in decorum (like hitting on a partner's wife) (not grades), or (3) not giving a shit all summer because the SA didn't actually have any intention of returning to the firm.

Think about it mathematically: Nationwide offer rates usually hover at or over 90%, and for the biggest firms (i.e. for most summer associates) it's often more like 95, 98, 100%. Pro tip: Roughly 50% of 1Ls see their grades drop as 2Ls. Some of them will basically be flat, but easily 20-30% of the 2L class are going to see their grades drop by a noticeable amount. Even worse, summer associates tend to have stronger than median grades as an average, and because of reversion to the mean it's actually probably even more likely that a summer associate class will have people whose grades will fall.

You can thus look at it statistically and realize that SUBSTANTIALLY more summer associates get offers than there are summer associates who maintain their GPA after 1L year. On top of that, we know that many of the people who were ACTUALLY no offered after the summer had it happen for a reason which had nothing to do with grades.

Law school scared the shit out of everyone as a 1L, especially 'ITE.' You shouldn't relax at your job because you want to learn a lot and impress people, but people should sseerrrriiiooouussslllyyy chill about grades.

[Minor edit: I guess at other schools the curve sometimes rises after 1L year, but even so, the bulk of the point stands (albeit with less explicit math support)]

[Kohinoor]

Start worrying at the .06-.1x mark.

It seems like there is some conflicting information. I'm a rising 3L SA and experienced a drop in grades from 3.47 to 3.40 since I got the SA offer last fall. One of the big problems that I'm sure a lot of people are worried about is that sometimes, GPAs in this range fall within the fat part of the class curve. For example, my .07 drop might mean that I went from just outside top quarter to something close to top 45% or median.

Is this something someone should be more worried about?

And here I thought Kohinoor was being sarcastic.

Less sarcasm, more random numbers. Firms will absolutely no offer a .04 drop but a .07 drop goes to a committee for consideration and a .12 drop has the summer brought before a tribunal to plead his case by a preponderance of the evidence. The enduring lesson here is that we know essentially nothing about this process.

[Anonymous User]

In August, I will find out one way or another whether GDC no offers based on grades. So far, people seem to like me and my work, but my grades went from top 20% to top 40%. I hope to God that the GDC grade obsession is a fabrication of the Internet, but if it's not, I'll let you all know!