Top Law Schools

I just found out I got all B+ at a lower T14, gaze into your crystal ball and tell me my OCI chances.

Anonymous User wrote:I just found out I got all B+ at a lower T14, gaze into your crystal ball and tell me my OCI chances.

Is that median? Median at lower T14 is rough ITE, isn't it? I though only top 1/3 at Michigan got biglaw last year?

OP here,

B+ is median

2Ls here at Duke seem to think that median gives you a decent shot. Take that for what it's worth.

It's way, way too early to tell at this point. If you meet with your professors to go over your exams and bust your butt next semester, you could raise your average and be in a very decent position for OCI. Are you a good interviewer? Do you have work experience? All of those things matter and can make a B+ student a reasonable OCI candidate. A few of my T14 classmates got jobs from OCI with 3.3 averages.

Does your school release OCI data? You can look at the historical GPA ranges for certain firms and gauge your chances that way.

B+ is your median? Wow.

Anonymous User wrote:B+ is your median? Wow.

This.

Fellow Cornellian? I'm in a similar position. B+ average with one B and one A-. Sigh. Could have been worse, but not exactly thrilled either.

Reposted non-anonymously below.

I'd be optimistic. If you received B+s, realize that it's probably your floor and that by slightly tweaking your methods, you can get an A-/A/A+. Straight B+s means different things from different schools. From CCN, a 3.3 is really enough to have a good to decent shot at all but a handful of firms. From MV, you'll get something. I don't know enough about the curves at PDN. If the 3.3 is at GC, though, I'd really work to get that GPA up to at least a 3.5.

Edit: It's really dumb to talk about GPA this way. Let me put it this way, if you're at MVPDN, I think top third is good enough to secure something. If at BGC, really try to get that class rank higher. I think median will have a tough shot anywhere but HYS, and it might be slightly easier for median at CCN to secure something.

OP here,

Yea, I'm at Cornell. I definitely plan on meeting with the professors and try to figure out what went wrong. Yea, it definitely could have been worse, the grades were a slight disappointment but probably a bigger relief.

I'm confused. Why/how in the hell did you expect people to chance you if you for OCI if you have only half of your 1L grades?

patrickd139 wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:B+ is your median? Wow.

This.

Pretty standard at a bunch of schools. Columbia, for example.

I think median at Columbia and NYU is still ok. I think you need to be under the median to be in real trouble at least at those schools.

Lower down is a rather different story. Why don't you try talking to some current 2Ls?

Median at Cornell is just brutal, though. I've seen some firm-grade averages from there, pre-ITE, and they weren't encouraging. Try to get that GPA to a 3.5.

^ This. I don't know how many grades you all get (I'll assume 3), but one semester of grades does not provide you with enough information to gauge OCI (unless you're failing). You could rock the spring and be in the Top 10, if not higher (my buddy had B+s for the first semester, rocked the second, and broke into the Top 5).

Seriously, stop thinking about OCI and get yourself a summer job for this year first.

bk187 wrote:I'm confused. Why/how in the hell did you expect people to chance you if you for OCI if you have only half of your 1L grades?

Bc they probably won't change much second semester.

let/them/eat/cake wrote:

bk187 wrote:I'm confused. Why/how in the hell did you expect people to chance you if you for OCI if you have only half of your 1L grades?

Bc they probably won't change much second semester.

This is also wrong.

A&O wrote:

let/them/eat/cake wrote:

bk187 wrote:I'm confused. Why/how in the hell did you expect people to chance you if you for OCI if you have only half of your 1L grades?

Bc they probably won't change much second semester.

This is also wrong.

Um, without knowing what the OP did this past semester vis-a-vis study habits/methods, how could you say that? Knowing nothing in that regard, it is definitely more likely than not that (even if just barely) that OP's grades will remain pretty similar.

I'd be optimistic. If you received B+s, realize that it's probably your floor

not saying OP can't be optimistic, but it's just as likely it's a ceiling. esp since it is more often the case that people work their asses of first semester of LS (as opposed to slacking and leaving room for improvement). i know i know working hard =/= working smart, but you get my point.

how could you say that? Knowing nothing in that regard, it is definitely more likely than not that (even if just barely) that OP's grades will remain pretty similar.

I don't really believe this.

i know i know working hard =/= working smart, but you get my point.

...and this is exactly what I'm going to focus on. If OP just learns how to work more efficiently, he'll be fine. A B+ signals that he has the basics down, and just needs to work on refining his method. This won't result in straight As, necessarily, but even if it means he gets a B+,B+,A or whatever next semester, it'll still be a success.

Voyager wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:I just found out I got all B+ at a lower T14, gaze into your crystal ball and tell me my OCI chances.

Is that median? Median at lower T14 is rough ITE, isn't it? I though only top 1/3 at Michigan got biglaw last year?

33% of people getting BigLaw (if that's what you're assuming) =/= only top 1/3 getting BigLaw. If only it were that simple.

Also, the difficult thing about OP's grades is that it's difficult to figure out what to do. You're better off getting A, A-, B, B- or something similar in fall so that at least you know which approaches to replicate in spring.

A&O wrote:

how could you say that? Knowing nothing in that regard, it is definitely more likely than not that (even if just barely) that OP's grades will remain pretty similar.

I don't really believe this.

i know i know working hard =/= working smart, but you get my point.

...and this is exactly what I'm going to focus on. If OP just learns how to work more efficiently, he'll be fine. A B+ signals that he has the basics down, and just needs to work on refining his method. This won't result in straight As, necessarily, but even if it means he gets a B+,B+,A or whatever next semester, it'll still be a success.

i'm not going to get into a pissing contest with you, but knowing what we know, this curved grading business is a zero-sum game and recognizing that there is already a large percentage of the class that has figured out how to work more efficiently than the OP* and that there will be some regression to the mean moving forward, i think it's fair to say it's more likely than not that OP's grades do no change drastically.

but i'm not really into changing people's beliefs and hope springs eternal.

*i know there is not a 1:1 correlation between grades and how efficiently someone worked, but all the complicating factors (natural ability, luck, arbitrary grading by certain professors) are going to be the same moving forward.

already a large percentage of the class that has figured out how to work more efficiently than the OP* an

I don't really know about that. In my experience, most who performed poorly continued performing poorly. Those who did decently upped their game, and generally did better. I'm not trying to change your beliefs here. But I don't think your statement is as axiomatic as you think it is.

A&O wrote:I don't really know about that. In my experience, most who performed poorly continued performing poorly. Those who did decently upped their game, and generally did better.

You realize, in a zero sum system, this doesn't make sense?

A&O wrote:

already a large percentage of the class that has figured out how to work more efficiently than the OP* an

I don't really know about that. In my experience, most who performed poorly continued performing poorly. Those who did decently upped their game, and generally did better. I'm not trying to change your beliefs here. But I don't think your statement is as axiomatic as you think it is.

+1 to the post above. but in any case, we are talking past one another. i'm talking about likelihoods based on basic (and i think fair) assumptions and statistics. you're talking about individual potentialities and things anecdotal. OP, swing, of course, for the fences, but don't despair regardless--if you toe the line, and end up at or even slightly above median, you aren't 'out of the running'. as someone mentioned, 40% of the class getting biglaw =/= top 40% of the class get biglaw. interviewing skills, character and personality DO matter. best of luck.

bk187 wrote:

A&O wrote:I don't really know about that. In my experience, most who performed poorly continued performing poorly. Those who did decently upped their game, and generally did better.

You realize, in a zero sum system, this doesn't make sense?

Yeah, someone else has to lose out. I get it. But I also know a substantial sum who had excellent grades who got decent-to-poor grades. Consistently good performance in law school is a hard thing.