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A bit confused here.

School is 100% preselect, but we have to bid/rank the firms. What strategy would you recommend, if any, for ranking?

Hard to know without any more information. Your system might have some quirks that inform certain firms (top 5/10) that they were ranked above a certain level. In that case, there would be some more strategy.

In a pure 100% preselect system, the rank does not matter at all. There is no strategy (to ranking). Just think of the bid numbers as useful to help you keep track of how many firms on which you have bid.

i'm thinking the bid/rank is just a quirk of symplicity. in some of the off-campus job fairs that are 100% preselect, they also ask you to rank firms, but the ranking has no bearing on the outcome.

Thanks for the replies.

I'm fairly certain that employers do not see any of the rankings. However, if people "drop out" of interviews (assuming this occurs when people at the top of the class can't attend all interviews they are preselected for), the ranking system comes into play. The firms still list on our OCI page their preferred class rank (top 10%, top 1/4, etc.). Just unsure whether I should be using any strategy when ranking these.

Can you bid on all the firms, or are you limited?

^You can bid on all.

are you at GW?

I'm so confused about this preselect ...so it's basically like mass mailing all confined to DC and hope they pick you for even a screening interview.

What's so confusing about pre-select? Sounds like instead of random lottery interviews, firms are going to weed us out before we even get a chance to show our faces lol

well the first question was about symplicity...i know gw is preselect but it's showing the bids in a weird way when you apply

but yeah....i hate my life with preselect ...my below median, wrote 35 targeted cover letters, won't get to see a firm life

anonymcoffee wrote:are you at GW?

I'm so confused about this preselect ...so it's basically like mass mailing all confined to DC and hope they pick you for even a screening interview.

It is like direct mailing them, except that it's far more probable that someone will actually read your materials.

the one good thing about preselect is that once you get the interview, you'll be able to walk into it with a little more confidence since they offered it to you despite your grades.

i prefer the 70/30 hybrid so that in case preselect shuts you out, you at least get a few to at least practice with

LS18 wrote:^You can bid on all.

Strategy doesn't matter that much. Try to predict what firms will be popular and put them higher. The ones that won't be, put them lower. But it doesn't matter that much, since everyone will bid on every firm. 100% preselect + everyone can bid on every firm sucks.

f0bolous wrote: i prefer the 70/30 hybrid so that in case preselect shuts you out, you at least get a few to at least practice with

Yeah we have a 50/50. I think it's a pretty good system. Then again, I haven't gotten my results back yet.

I wish ours wasn't all lotto.

ndirish2010 wrote:I wish ours wasn't all lotto.

You wish yours WEREN'T all lotto. The subjunctive people, for fuck's sake. Know it; love it; use it.

Fucking amateurs.

Up-ing this one last time before I submit the bids. Thanks.

We have all preselect too, but firms have indicated a date when they'll be on campus. I mention this because we also have firms that are only interested in "Resume Collection." So I think preselect might be a little better than blindly mass-mailing because at least these firms are intending to interview people on campus, right?

FWIW, the OCS here confirms that the actual bid numbers on Symplicity are meaningless because of the preselect system.