BC/BU OCI Forum

[Anonymous User]

I know many K-JDs who got callbacks at Ropes at BC. I know people with no WE who have offers there, and people with finance work who didn't get an offer.

However, on the whole, WE appeared to help, as long as it was some sort of professional WE,

[Anonymous User]

I know many K-JDs who got callbacks at Ropes at BC. I know people with no WE who have offers there, and people with finance work who didn't get an offer.

However, on the whole, WE appeared to help, as long as it was some sort of professional WE,

Hm, definitely not the case at BU. I only know of one K-JD who got a Ropes offer, and a lot of Law Review K-JD's at BU didn't even get screeners with Ropes when they callbacks at places like Choate and Wilmer. I also haven't heard of anyone who got an offer at the Boston office (though of course maybe I just haven't heard of it). The people who got offers seem to be going to non-Boston offices.

[Anonymous User]

I thought my work experience would be valued much more. It seems like work experience (or maybe just my work experience -- 3 years in a sort of related field) helps differentiate between candidates who are top 15-20% and on secondary journals but definitely does not trump LR/top 5-10% of the class. Or maybe my personality just sucks?

[Anonymous User]

I thought my work experience would be valued much more. It seems like work experience (or maybe just my work experience -- 3 years in a sort of related field) helps differentiate between candidates who are top 15-20% and on secondary journals but definitely does not trump LR/top 5-10% of the class. Or maybe my personality just sucks?

In my experience: Personality/Connections to Boston > LR/Grades > Work Experience (once you get a callback). I had on-point work experience and LR/10% grades, but because I'm a bit of an awkward person and completely lack ties to Boston, I didn't get a number of offers. In contrast, I know people with arts degrees and connections to Boston who got offers at top firms.

[Anonymous User]

to those with edwards offers ( not sure if either of the people who seemed to be posting here accepted) but any idea how long their program is? 10 weeks?

[Anonymous User]

Anonymous User wrote:
I thought my work experience would be valued much more. It seems like work experience (or maybe just my work experience -- 3 years in a sort of related field) helps differentiate between candidates who are top 15-20% and on secondary journals but definitely does not trump LR/top 5-10% of the class. Or maybe my personality just sucks?


In my experience: Personality/Connections to Boston > LR/Grades > Work Experience (once you get a callback). I had on-point work experience and LR/10% grades, but because I'm a bit of an awkward person and completely lack ties to Boston, I didn't get a number of offers. In contrast, I know people with arts degrees and connections to Boston who got offers at top firms.

I mostly agree with this, but at least at BC it seemed like very, very few people with connections/great personalities managed to get screeners or offers without having the grades and journal membership firms traditionally look for. Most of the ppl I know of who even got callbacks without journal membership/good grades were people who are diverse in some way (LGBT, minority race, etc).

[Anonymous User]

to those with edwards offers ( not sure if either of the people who seemed to be posting here accepted) but any idea how long their program is? 10 weeks?

I think that it has been 10 weeks in the past.

[Anonymous User]

Is anyone else still either waiting to hear from callbacks or sitting on offers? It seems like everyone has either found something or struck out by now, I feel like I'm the only one still waiting

[Anonymous User]

I'm still waiting for one Boston firm.

[Anonymous User]

I heard Choate is still doing some late callbacks (might have been a yield thing), for what it's worth.

[Anonymous User]

I just got my last ding today actually. Officially struck out.

[Anonymous User]

Anyone know if foley hoag is done recruiting?

[Anonymous User]

I know ppl have accepted offers at Foley. I got a ding letter in the mail last week for my OCI bid back in August, so I have a feeling they are done recruiting or very close to it.

[Anonymous User]

I heard Choate is still doing some late callbacks (might have been a yield thing), for what it's worth.

Too bad I got a rejection letter from them two days after my screener. I would have been happy to work there.

[Anonymous User]

I just got my last ding today actually. Officially struck out.

Sorry to hear. Stats?

[Anonymous User]

Anonymous User wrote:
I thought my work experience would be valued much more. It seems like work experience (or maybe just my work experience -- 3 years in a sort of related field) helps differentiate between candidates who are top 15-20% and on secondary journals but definitely does not trump LR/top 5-10% of the class. Or maybe my personality just sucks?


In my experience: Personality/Connections to Boston > LR/Grades > Work Experience (once you get a callback). I had on-point work experience and LR/10% grades, but because I'm a bit of an awkward person and completely lack ties to Boston, I didn't get a number of offers. In contrast, I know people with arts degrees and connections to Boston who got offers at top firms.

I mostly agree with this, but at least at BC it seemed like very, very few people with connections/great personalities managed to get screeners or offers without having the grades and journal membership firms traditionally look for. Most of the ppl I know of who even got callbacks without journal membership/good grades were people who are diverse in some way (LGBT, minority race, etc).

Always an interesting issue and the final word on the street is really: offers can be pretty random!

I am one of those people who: (1) no ties to Boston (originally DC/NY); (2) not LR/top 5-10% (secondary/top 33%). Something got me through to a great firm and, boy, do I feel lucky.

Good luck to everyone.

[Anonymous User]

.

[Anonymous User]

I heard Choate is still doing some late callbacks (might have been a yield thing), for what it's worth.

Too bad I got a rejection letter from them two days after my screener. I would have been happy to work there.

Shoot them an email anyways, you've got nothing to lose.

[Anonymous User]

Struck out as of yesterday (Top 20%/secondary journal/WE). Super pumped about having student loans that will be about double my salary for the next couple of decades.

[Anonymous User]

What were the impressions of how things went at BC/BU this year?

[Anonymous User]

What were the impressions of how things went at BC/BU this year?

I think the previous posts delve into it. Not sure what else I would say. I'd be more curious if people shared where they ended up to get better impressions of how the market was.

[Anonymous User]

What were the impressions of how things went at BC/BU this year?

It's tough to say in part because people generally don't talk about it.

But first off, Ropes cut it's class size by about 20-30 people. This alone takes out about 10-15% of the total summer associate positions available in Boston. Ropes has historically been the only firm with class sizes that were rivaling NY sizes, so this was a pretty big hit to the market. At least at BC, I know Ropes extended offers to about 17 BC kids last year. This year I think it was closer to 5. Goodwin I think kept a pretty consistent class size, and rumors are Wilmer got smaller (though I seem to know a ton of people going there). None of the other top tier firms (Choate, foley hoag, Bingham, Skadden) seemed to increase class sizes much, so Boston was probably a fairly tough market this year.

In NY, the only people I know who got offers there were kids with pretty good ties to NY (as much as this board says NY ties don't matter much). This may just because a lot of the BC/BU kids have pretty Boston-heavy resumes, which probably scares off a lot of employers when combined with going to law school there. I didn't interview in NY, but I know someone who did, and he mentioned that he was getting the treatment on "Why NY?" Keep in mind, he was born and raised in Boston and loves the city, so employers must have picked up on it.

I don't know a single person with a DC offer, though not people interviewed there.

To give you an idea of how OCI goes, kids in the top 10% and LR get about 25 OCI interviews. Those same people can easily pick up another 10 in the NYC off campus program, and maybe a few more in DC (not really sure on DC). So you can easily get about 25-40 screeners at the top of the class. As you go down the class rank, those numbers go down. Anecdotally, I know one person top 35% who basically got no OCI interviews (though he was K-JD with no Boston ties) and another person at median (with some WE and Boston ties) and he got like 3-4 interviews, though only one was biglaw, and the others were more midlaw. Also know other person at below median with good WE who picked up 2 offers and got like 10 interviews.

Grades will get you screeners no doubt. If you have top of the class grades, your on campus process will be busy. As far as converting those to callbacks and offers, you just have to nail interviews. Good WE definitely helps a lot in being able to sell yourself in interviews, so I think that's why a lot of people have better results with WE. But many K-JDs got offers by being very personable and conversational/likeable and being able to sell themselves in other ways.

Overall, I'd guess somewhere from a quarter to a third converted offers from OCI.

[Anonymous User]

What were the impressions of how things went at BC/BU this year?

It's tough to say in part because people generally don't talk about it.

But first off, Ropes cut it's class size by about 20-30 people. This alone takes out about 10-15% of the total summer associate positions available in Boston. Ropes has historically been the only firm with class sizes that were rivaling NY sizes, so this was a pretty big hit to the market. At least at BC, I know Ropes extended offers to about 17 BC kids last year. This year I think it was closer to 5. Goodwin I think kept a pretty consistent class size, and rumors are Wilmer got smaller (though I seem to know a ton of people going there). None of the other top tier firms (Choate, Foley Hoag, Bingham, Skadden) seemed to increase class sizes much, so Boston was probably a fairly tough market this year.

In NY, the only people I know who got offers there were kids with pretty good ties to NY (as much as this board says NY ties don't matter much). This may just because a lot of the BC/BU kids have pretty Boston-heavy resumes, which probably scares off a lot of employers when combined with going to law school there. I didn't interview in NY, but I know someone who did, and he mentioned that he was getting the treatment on "Why NY?" Keep in mind, he was born and raised in Boston and loves the city, so employers must have picked up on it.

I don't know a single person with a DC offer, though not people interviewed there.

To give you an idea of how OCI goes, kids in the top 10% and LR get about 25 OCI interviews. Those same people can easily pick up another 10 in the NYC off campus program, and maybe a few more in DC (not really sure on DC). So you can easily get about 25-40 screeners at the top of the class. As you go down the class rank, those numbers go down. Anecdotally, I know one person top 35% who basically got no OCI interviews (though he was K-JD with no Boston ties) and another person at median (with some WE and Boston ties) and he got like 3-4 interviews, though only one was biglaw, and the others were more midlaw. Also know other person at below median with good WE who picked up 2 offers and got like 10 interviews.

Grades will get you screeners no doubt. If you have top of the class grades, your on campus process will be busy. As far as converting those to callbacks and offers, you just have to nail interviews. Good WE definitely helps a lot in being able to sell yourself in interviews, so I think that's why a lot of people have better results with WE. But many K-JDs got offers by being very personable and conversational/likeable and being able to sell themselves in other ways.

Overall, I'd guess somewhere from a quarter to a third converted offers from OCI.

I would say this is pretty accurate. More than anything, I think %s are hard to tell since, at least from my experience and that of the poster above, people generally aren't talking about it.

[Anonymous User]

I would say this is pretty accurate. More than anything, I think %s are hard to tell since, at least from my experience and that of the poster above, people generally aren't talking about it.

I'll agree with this-- It's hard to get a feel. I don't know of anyone that wasn't IP, URM, or top 33% (or some combination thereof) or so that got an offer.

[Anonymous User]

My impression is that OCI was worse than last year.

As a previous poster said, the huge Ropes cut made a big impact. Most of the firms where I did callbacks have small class sizes to begin with but said they were taking even fewer people than last year. 2 fewer positions per firm might not seem like a lot, but when you multiply that out over 10 or 12 firms of a similar size it certainly adds up. I think BU and BC have placed about 25% of grads in NLJ 250 firms in the last few years. I expect to see those numbers drop a few percentage points for the classes of 2014, unless we get really lucky and have a strong 3L OCI next year.

Bottom line: I feel like I would have been better off financially working as a paralegal than going to law school. My starting salary probably won't be much higher at whatever job I manage to land and the amount of debt I will have when I graduate gives me trouble sleeping at night.