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Wanted to get thoughts on OCI firms listed on Symplicity that use the GPA Required vs. Preferred tags.

I've preliminarily weeded out anyone that "requires" a higher GPA than I have and have weeded out some of the ones that "prefer" a much higher GPA than I have.

What do you think the acceptable limits of applying to firms that "prefer" a higher GPA is? Within .2? .3? etc.

Both don't necessarily mean what they say. I know of some people who got into firms with gpa's below what was required and those who did not get interviews with gpa's above what was preferred. Every firm treats their gpa guidelines very differently. Firm A could easily have a low gpa cutoff or no gpa cutoff but generally stick to the top 10% while firm B may demand a top 10% gpa but dip to the median from time to time.

Think about it - every school curves differently so GPAs at each school mean different things. Not to mention, even if two curves at two schools are the same, a 3.5 from columbia is certainly a more attractive candidate than a 3.5 from a t3.

A wise and insightful person once wrote:

PSA - when a firm lists its GPA preference and requirements, you should do the following: Ignore them entirely and mother fucking ask career services.

Firms lie through their god damned teeth on those things, and I want to keep harping on it, because it is VERY IMPORTANT TO YOUR CAREER PROSPECTS. The firms are lying or naive or outsourcing their symplicity profiles to India or who knows what, but if you ask a 3 year old with a box of crayons to draw you the cut off for a firm you'll get a better answer than the firm's published cutoff on your OCI software.

Firms aren't consistently high, or consistently low - they're just consistently full of shit. A firm that says "top third required" might hire to median, it might hire from the top 3% without exception, and there's even a remote chance it will hire from the top third. But those pieces of data simply cannot be relied upon at all. Not even in a cursory way. Not for comparison's sake, not when nothing else will do. You need to completely disregard them, and beg/borrow/steal data from career services. Your (and that's the royal 'your' for everyone out their reading in paranoid law student land) career depends on it.

thesealocust wrote:A wise and insightful person once wrote:

PSA - when a firm lists its GPA preference and requirements, you should do the following: Ignore them entirely and mother fucking ask career services.

Firms lie through their god damned teeth on those things, and I want to keep harping on it, because it is VERY IMPORTANT TO YOUR CAREER PROSPECTS. The firms are lying or naive or outsourcing their symplicity profiles to India or who knows what, but if you ask a 3 year old with a box of crayons to draw you the cut off for a firm you'll get a better answer than the firm's published cutoff on your OCI software.

Firms aren't consistently high, or consistently low - they're just consistently full of shit. A firm that says "top third required" might hire to median, it might hire from the top 3% without exception, and there's even a remote chance it will hire from the top third. But those pieces of data simply cannot be relied upon at all. Not even in a cursory way. Not for comparison's sake, not when nothing else will do. You need to completely disregard them, and beg/borrow/steal data from career services. Your (and that's the royal 'your' for everyone out their reading in paranoid law student land) career depends on it.

Thanks - that's actually really helpful.

I've got to set up an appointment with career services anyway and now I'll have some questions for them. And by questions I mean we'll go through my BigLaw short-list (which is actually a rather long list...) one-by-one

Thanks!