Michigan 2014 OCI Thread!!!!!!! Forum

[Anonymous User]

I'll join the "totally fucked" club with my 3.25...I'm stressing over which NYC and Boston firms to bid, especially regarding those for which there is no GPA data. Does anyone have a list or something of firms that are less GPA conscious/selective? Mayer is an infamous member of that category, but I wonder about others because the GPA profiles aren't exhaustive.

Was at or slightly below median last year for OCI. Managed to snag big law. Happy to answer Qs. Good luck

Would you care to share your approach to bidding? As well as more details on your OCI results (number of interviews/callbacks/offers, cities targeted, etc.)?

Had pretty much the same GPA as the above poster (~3.25).

Re: unselective firms in NYC - Mayer, SRZ, Stroock, O'Melveny, Nixon Peabody come to mind. There are more.

Approach to bidding should be shameless. Pretend your GPA is even lower than it is. Play it safe, make sure you have as many of the least selective firms on your list as high up as possible. Bidding sucks for us though because everything were looking at is overbid. But I'm just saying I didn't bid on Nixon because I thought I was safely above them and I regret that.

Also I targeted NYC 100% and got 2 callbacks from 23 OCI interviews and 1 from mass mailing. 1 offer.

Good luck.

I'm the anon poster above. Just wanted to add, a good rule of thumb is to treat the 25th percentile on the GPA qualifications as the low. The actual low's are outliers. I remember last year there was a data point for Paul Weiss that had them giving an offer to someone with a 2.96 or something. That dragged down the mean and made it seem like they weren't as selective. That data point is gone now, (so it was 7 years ago), and the low is now almost a 3.4. So yea, don't mess with the "low" numbers.

[Anonymous User]

Just shy of a 4.0. Interested in DC, but no ties there at all. K-JD. I know my grades will help me out, but would bidding a lot on DC be a bad idea? Should NYC be my primary market?

[Anonymous User]

Just shy of a 4.0. Interested in DC, but no ties there at all. K-JD. I know my grades will help me out, but would bidding a lot on DC be a bad idea? Should NYC be my primary market?

get out of here... we only accept normis in this thread













naa congrats... did you book a class?

[Anonymous User]

Just shy of a 4.0. Interested in DC, but no ties there at all. K-JD. I know my grades will help me out, but would bidding a lot on DC be a bad idea? Should NYC be my primary market?

Jesus. You should be very concerned. Most firms don't like hiring people with those sorts of numbers. I recommend sticking to Columbus, Cleveland, Detroit, and Indy. Seriously though, if you can interview reasonably well, you're set. When people say DC is tough, they mean it's tough for most people. It's still the lawyer capital of the world. I don't know what to tell you about the ties. If you are able to tell firms you're exclusively interested in D.C., that's got to count for a bit.

[Anonymous User]

I'll join the "totally fucked" club with my 3.25...I'm stressing over which NYC and Boston firms to bid, especially regarding those for which there is no GPA data. Does anyone have a list or something of firms that are less GPA conscious/selective? Mayer is an infamous member of that category, but I wonder about others because the GPA profiles aren't exhaustive.

Cut Boston firms yesterday.

Even with a decent tie to the city? I would figure that most people would overlook Boston in favor of NYC/DC/Chi (for those not bidding west coast). Boston seems like an afterthought for most people. Yet there's still a decent number of firms - about 10 - coming for OCI. I'm not gonna bid WilmerHale or Bingham or something crazy, but it seems like several might possibly dip down to a 3.3ish.

[Druid]

I'll join the "totally fucked" club with my 3.25...I'm stressing over which NYC and Boston firms to bid, especially regarding those for which there is no GPA data. Does anyone have a list or something of firms that are less GPA conscious/selective? Mayer is an infamous member of that category, but I wonder about others because the GPA profiles aren't exhaustive.

Cut Boston firms yesterday.

Even with a decent tie to the city? I would figure that most people would overlook Boston in favor of NYC/DC/Chi (for those not bidding west coast). Boston seems like an afterthought for most people. Yet there's still a decent number of firms - about 10 - coming for OCI. I'm not gonna bid WilmerHale or Bingham or something crazy, but it seems like several might possibly dip down to a 3.3ish.

Boston is an insanely hard market to get into unless you have a job lined up. Schools above Michigan get there before we do, especially Harvard, but even BC/BU students are going to compete with you because they're right there. I would say go for it if you were above median, but as it stands I'd honestly throw your eggs in the NYC basket.

And what's your tie?

[Anonymous User]

Looking at the NALP Directory (specifically for DC) it appears that almost every firm is cutting its class size, and a lot significantly.


Can anyone comment as to whether this is typical and firms are just being conservative, or is it real cause for concern?

[Anonymous User]

3.40 looking exclusively at NYC (w/ ties)
- Nontraditional (older w/ experiences but nothing fancy that would help me land an offer)
- Mediocre interviewer at best
- 99.9% sure I'm transactional

I have a few questions about massmailing. Any thoughts?
a) What should I put in the subject line in order to avoid (if at all possible) being discarded immediately? Is something like "rising 2L at Michigan Law interested in YourFirmName" destined to the trash bin?

b) Massmailing to Chi & Texas: I know that my best bet is NY given my median-ish number, but would it be a complete waste of time mass mailing to firms in Chicago (have a relative there) and Austin/Houston (went to a local school for a semester a while ago)? Would my connections to these places count as "ties"?

c) Mayer Brown NY: it seems that the NY Office of Mayer Brown accepts only a couple SA's (compared to the Chicago office). Should I still bid for the NY office? Mayer Brown Chicago is above my number but hires quite a number (or so it seems).



Thanks in advance,

[Druid]

3.40 looking exclusively at NYC (w/ ties)
- Nontraditional (older w/ experiences but nothing fancy that would help me land an offer)
- Mediocre interviewer at best
- 99.9% sure I'm transactional

I have a few questions about massmailing. Any thoughts?
a) What should I put in the subject line in order to avoid (if at all possible) being discarded immediately? Is something like "rising 2L at Michigan Law interested in YourFirmName" destined to the trash bin?

b) Massmailing to Chi & Texas: I know that my best bet is NY given my median-ish number, but would it be a complete waste of time mass mailing to firms in Chicago (have a relative there) and Austin/Houston (went to a local school for a semester a while ago)? Would my connections to these places count as "ties"?

c) Mayer Brown NY: it seems that the NY Office of Mayer Brown accepts only a couple SA's (compared to the Chicago office). Should I still bid for the NY office? Mayer Brown Chicago is above my number but hires quite a number (or so it seems).



Thanks in advance,

a) "2L Summer Associate Position at FirmName" worked for people I know. Not a big deal.

b) It probably won't do anything, but what else are you gonna do? Have to try.

c) Conservatively, NYC. Especially because you're not a stellar interviewer.

But your W/E is going to help you. Do your due diligence and you got this. Make sure you bid on plenty of firms that you think are beneath you.

[Anonymous User]

I'll join the "totally fucked" club with my 3.25...I'm stressing over which NYC and Boston firms to bid, especially regarding those for which there is no GPA data. Does anyone have a list or something of firms that are less GPA conscious/selective? Mayer is an infamous member of that category, but I wonder about others because the GPA profiles aren't exhaustive.

Cut Boston firms yesterday.

Even with a decent tie to the city? I would figure that most people would overlook Boston in favor of NYC/DC/Chi (for those not bidding west coast). Boston seems like an afterthought for most people. Yet there's still a decent number of firms - about 10 - coming for OCI. I'm not gonna bid WilmerHale or Bingham or something crazy, but it seems like several might possibly dip down to a 3.3ish.

Boston is an insanely hard market to get into unless you have a job lined up. Schools above Michigan get there before we do, especially Harvard, but even BC/BU students are going to compete with you because they're right there. I would say go for it if you were above median, but as it stands I'd honestly throw your eggs in the NYC basket.

And what's your tie?

I was at median a few years ago, targeted Boston at OCI (and did the Boston Lawyers' Group job fair), had decent New England ties. 6 callbacks, 0 offers. Luckily I also did a couple of NY screeners, so I did get a job (2 screeners, 1 cb, 1 offer).

Except for the really top Boston firms, which want really top grades, most of the offices in Boston take like 4-5 summers, and given the number of schools in the area (law schools and UG), a lot of people are competing for those spots. It's not impossible, I certainly know people my year who got jobs there, but it isn't easy and probably not something you should count on.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone started using the Resume Collect thing? Sounds like a great idea, but am wondering whether it would be a good use of our time. Anyone have some insight?

[jrthor10]

Has anyone started using the Resume Collect thing? Sounds like a great idea, but am wondering whether it would be a good use of our time. Anyone have some insight?

By "thing" do you mean have people started submitting resumes to firms posted on simplicity for resume collects? If that's the question, I am sure the answer is yes, although I am still working on my cover letters and such.

[Anonymous User]

Has anyone started using the Resume Collect thing? Sounds like a great idea, but am wondering whether it would be a good use of our time. Anyone have some insight?

I didn't have any success with the resume collect last year, but you should use it anyway. Anything you can do to get your resume out there is worth your time. And if I remember correctly, the resume collect takes very little time.

[Anonymous User]

[quote="Anonymous User"]Rising 2L here! Let's do this.

On a related note, does anyone know what honors GPA bump is for law review?

[quote]

Does anyone know about this?

[Anonymous User]

Rising 2L here! Let's do this.

On a related note, does anyone know what honors GPA bump is for law review?

Does anyone know about this?

Couldn't find it in the application packet, wouldn't worry about it though...

[Anonymous User]

Rising 2L here! Let's do this.

On a related note, does anyone know what honors GPA bump is for law review?

Does anyone know about this?

Couldn't find it in the application packet, wouldn't worry about it though...

Honors GPA bump? Um, what?

[Anonymous User]

Couldn't find it in the application packet, wouldn't worry about it though...

I'm sure the number wasn't in the packet, but it definitely said there was a bump for it. I'm guessing 0.1. I would think to straight grade on you would need to be over a 4.0. It's ~12 people, and I would image 3 percent of the class is there with a slight adjustment worked in.

[Anonymous User]

On a related note, does anyone know what honors GPA bump is for law review?

Does anyone know about this?

[/quote][/quote]

Couldn't find it in the application packet, wouldn't worry about it though...[/quote]

Honors GPA bump? Um, what?[/quote]


Yeah, in the law review packet it said that ppl with an H in LP would get a "slight" GPA bump for the law review competition. What several people are trying to find out, it seems, is exactly how much that "slight bump" is.

[Anonymous User]

Couldn't find it in the application packet, wouldn't worry about it though...

I'm sure the number wasn't in the packet, but it definitely said there was a bump for it. I'm guessing 0.1. I would think to straight grade on you would need to be over a 4.0. It's ~12 people, and I would image 3 percent of the class is there with a slight adjustment worked in.

I know for a fact that there are not 12 people over a 4.0. .1 seems big... Boosting someone from 3.3 to 3.4 seems pretty significant... I would guess closer to .05, but again a total guess.

** unless you mean that there are 12 ppl there with a .1 adjustment... Maybe***

[Anonymous User]

I agree that .1 seems big, and I was thinking more like .05, but it does seem like LP should play into it. It is a writing thing after all. 0.1 would be equivalent to 1/3 of a letter for a class in each semester. If I were running the system, I would think that was fair.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

I also just wanted to chime in and say I seriously doubt there are 12 people with over a 4.0 GPA. Where did you get that number? I've heard that normally there are less than 5 people with GPAs above a 4.0, but there have been aberrations from that number in recent years.

[Elston Gunn]

Looking at the NALP Directory (specifically for DC) it appears that almost every firm is cutting its class size, and a lot significantly.


Can anyone comment as to whether this is typical and firms are just being conservative, or is it real cause for concern?

Sorry to butt into the Mich thread, but those "expected" numbers are for this year's summer class, aren't they? I don't think they have next year's expectations up yet.

It is true though that D.C. classes seemed to contract a lot this year. Covington and W&C, which were already 2 of the 4 biggest classes in town, grew significantly, actually, and almost everyone else shrank. Hogan and Wilmer, in particular, which were the other two giant classes, shrunk the most IIRC. I'm not sure what it means.

[Anonymous User]

I was on MLR. My year, over heated debate, MLR decided it would not disclose how much H's influence GPA calculation (and forbade board members from disclosing). Every board can change this policy (on 2/3 vote) if it wants to. But I am guessing this board has kept the same non-disclosure policy. You can ask the board if it'll consider disclosing but I would not count on it.

In any case, I would not worry about it. Your grades are already set. And grades form only one factor in whether you get onto law review (and of course the H will only be one component).

In terms of OCI, my general sense is that firms do not explicitly factor in Hs (unlike MLR, none recalculate your gpa). Depending on the firm, it might be a very weak tiebreaker or it might have no discernible effect. So I would not rely on your H to justify bidding higher firms. Conversely, if you don't have an H, don't feel the need to bid lower.

[Anonymous User]

I also just wanted to chime in and say I seriously doubt there are 12 people with over a 4.0 GPA. Where did you get that number? I've heard that normally there are less than 5 people with GPAs above a 4.0, but there have been aberrations from that number in recent years.

Couldn't find it in the application packet, wouldn't worry about it though...

I'm sure the number wasn't in the packet, but it definitely said there was a bump for it. I'm guessing 0.1. I would think to straight grade on you would need to be over a 4.0. It's ~12 people, and I would image 3 percent of the class is there with a slight adjustment worked in.

I know for a fact that there are not 12 people over a 4.0. .1 seems big... Boosting someone from 3.3 to 3.4 seems pretty significant... I would guess closer to .05, but again a total guess.

** unless you mean that there are 12 ppl there with a .1 adjustment... Maybe***

How do you know this "for a fact"? doesn't like 12% of the class get As or A+s in each class? I know that doesn't translate to 12% having a 4.0+, but in a class of over 300, it doesn't seem too unlikely to have 12 or more people with only As or A+s...