2L, struck out at OCI - drop out? Forum

[Crowing]

People at UChicago consistently underestimate the difficulty of the Chicago market and overestimate the difficulty of the NY market coming out of that school.

I have no idea what the situation at other schools is like, but I echo my classmates in saying that Cravath and S&C offer down to median here. We're not speculating; so many of us are saying this because we can point to multiple examples of real people in this position in the past two years.

Plenty of people at UChicago strike out, but the most common reason for it is poor bidding/targeting of firms and markets. If you go all in on Chicago or some other difficult market at median or even slightly above, you're in danger of striking out, even at UChicago. I imagine this would be a similar problem at just about any other school.

[Manhattan]

We have many many special snowflakes who refuse to bid NY even if it is career suicide to not. If 80% of our class bid NY like NYU/Columbia the selectivity would be different but when less than half of an already small class even thinks about NY and that half doesn't include most of LR since they are competitive elsewhere, the choice for V10s is median or no one. Fortunately for us they consistently choose median.

You said something along these lines within the past couple of years on TLS, but I didn't realize how true this was until I actually went through OCI. Despite our wacky-ass grading system which sucks when compared to places like HYS+Berkeley, I think UChicago is actually a great choice for someone who wants to end up in New York since so many of the "smart kids" here try to avoid that market.

[2014]

When I'm poasting in choose a law school my argument for UChi is legitimately as good or better for people targeting NY than it is for people targeting Chicago.

[Crowing]

I don't think systematically we would do any better than CLS or NYU in NYC if everybody at our school actually seriously considered the NYC market; in fact I'd wager we'd probably do worse. But from an individual perspective, the bottom line is that a lot of people self-select into UChicago vs. peer schools because of a general aversion to NY and desire to seek other markets (particularly Chicago).

So yeah, I could see it being easier to land a job at an NYC firm out of UChicago vs. out of CLS/NYU. There's no way that would be the case if everybody suddenly started bidding NYC and accepting offers there, but as long as some people continue to avoid NYC like the plague, those who do bid there will benefit.

Though I'm not sure the effect is mirrored--that is, I don't think you're better off going to CLS or NYU to target the Chicago market. The lack of saturation is surely helpful, but I think that is probably outweighed by the fact that the Chicago market is far more tie sensitive. I could be totally wrong about that though; that's just speculation on my part.

[jbagelboy]

I don't think systematically we would do any better than CLS or NYU in NYC if everybody at our school actually seriously considered the NYC market; in fact I'd wager we'd probably do worse. But from an individual perspective, the bottom line is that a lot of people self-select into UChicago vs. peer schools because of a general aversion to NY and desire to seek other markets (particularly Chicago).

So yeah, I could see it being easier to land a job at an NYC firm out of UChicago vs. out of CLS/NYU. There's no way that would be the case if everybody suddenly started bidding NYC and accepting offers there, but as long as some people continue to avoid NYC like the plague, those who do bid there will benefit.

Though I'm not sure the effect is mirrored--that is, I don't think you're better off going to CLS or NYU to target the Chicago market. The lack of saturation is surely helpful, but I think that is probably outweighed by the fact that the Chicago market is far more tie sensitive. I could be totally wrong about that though; that's just speculation on my part.

Anecdotally, I don't know a single person in my year who "targeted" Chicago. So if any "advantage" exists, it's certainly not discernable.

I think we do great in the other major secondary markets, i.e. DC/TX/LA/SF, so it stands to reason Chicago would be available too, although I have no first hand knowledge.

Ultimately any HYSCCN can land you a firm joh in NYC from most places in the class if you play your cards right; the great misfortune is that OP received anomolous advise to play his or hers so wrong.

[Crowing]

I don't think systematically we would do any better than CLS or NYU in NYC if everybody at our school actually seriously considered the NYC market; in fact I'd wager we'd probably do worse. But from an individual perspective, the bottom line is that a lot of people self-select into UChicago vs. peer schools because of a general aversion to NY and desire to seek other markets (particularly Chicago).

So yeah, I could see it being easier to land a job at an NYC firm out of UChicago vs. out of CLS/NYU. There's no way that would be the case if everybody suddenly started bidding NYC and accepting offers there, but as long as some people continue to avoid NYC like the plague, those who do bid there will benefit.

Though I'm not sure the effect is mirrored--that is, I don't think you're better off going to CLS or NYU to target the Chicago market. The lack of saturation is surely helpful, but I think that is probably outweighed by the fact that the Chicago market is far more tie sensitive. I could be totally wrong about that though; that's just speculation on my part.

Anecdotally, I don't know a single person in my year who "targeted" Chicago. So if any "advantage" exists, it's certainly not discernable.

I think we do great in the other major secondary markets, i.e. DC/TX/LA/SF, so it stands to reason Chicago would be available too, although I have no first hand knowledge.

Ultimately any HYSCCN can land you a firm joh in NYC from most places in the class if you play your cards right; the great misfortune is that OP received anomolous advise to play his or hers so wrong.

I'm sure CLS would do fine in Chicago if you like grew up there. But what I mean is for people not from Chicago, if you want to work there, going to CLS is probably not as good as going to UChicago/NU to at least establish that tie.