Final OCI results: 2011 Version Forum

[Anonymous User]

School: T25
Market(s): NYC and SoCal
Approximate class rank: Top 25%
Law review: Secondary Journal
Work experience: None
IP background: Nope
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): I'm a very good interviewer.
Screening Interviews: 12
Mass mails: About 50
Callbacks received: 7 = 4 OCI and 3 mass mailing
Callbacks accepted: 7
Offers w/vault ranges: 1
Rejections: 4; withdrew from the other 2

[Anonymous User]

School: T2
Market(s): Southeast
Approximate class rank: Top 5%
Law review: None
Work experience: Yes
IP background: Nope
Screening Interviews: 12 (8 NLJ250; 0 V100)
Mass mails: About 75
Callbacks received: 4 all from OCI (3 NLJ250
Callbacks accepted: 4
Rejections: 2

[Anonymous User]

School: CCN
Market(s): NYC, TX
Approximate class rank: right at top 1/4
Law review: No, secondary journal
Work experience: Nope
IP background: Nope
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): None
Screening Interviews: 28
Mass mails: No, 1 resume collect
Callbacks received: 13 (12 OCI, 1 resume collect)
Callbacks accepted: 12 (9 NYC, 3 TX)
Offers w/vault ranges: 3 NYC (V10, V25, V50), 3 TX (all TX-based)
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback?: 2 callbacks

[Anonymous User]

School: T2
Market(s): Philly, NYC, DC
Approximate class rank: Top 25%
Law review: None
Work experience: 2 years Engineering R&D, also working PT during law school (in-house counsel)
IP background: Yes
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): Masters Degree
Screening Interviews: 8
Mass mails: Tons
Callbacks received: 2
Callbacks accepted: 2
Offers w/vault ranges: 1 (Philly)
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback?: None

[Anonymous User]

School: HYS
Market(s): SF, NYC, DC, Boston
Approximate class rank: Top 15%
Law review: No, but secondary journal
Work experience: None
IP background: None
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): Nope.
Screening Interviews: 22
Mass mails: 1
Callbacks received: 14
Callbacks accepted: 10
Offers w/vault ranges: 3 V10, 5 V15
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback?: 1

[Anonymous User]

School: DCNG
Market(s): DC, a little NY, a little TX
Approximate class rank: Top 40%
Law review: Secondary Journal
Work experience: Yes
IP background: No
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): Good interviewer, solid work experience.
Screening Interviews: 27 (including job fairs)
Mass mails: none
Callbacks received: 16 = 9 OCI and 7 job fairs
Callbacks accepted: 10
Offers w/vault ranges: 7 (3 V50, 2 V30, 1 V20, 1 outside)
Rejections: 11 from screeners; 3 from callbacks (V15, V100, V50).

I really wanted the V100 firm, but it didn't work out. However, I'll be splitting between two solid firms, so considering my grades I'm pretty happy.

[Anonymous User]

School: MVPB
Market: NYC
Class Rank: top 20%
Journal: Secondary
Work experience: Nadda
IP Background: No
Mass mail interviews: 4; I also got 3 firms that gave me a callback straight out after I used my network.
Callbacks received: 10
Callbacks accepted: 8
Offers: 1 outside the vault 100
Rejections: 5

A few things I learned:
1) Interviewing skill is fuckin' huge. It's not just about being personable either - I'm a relatively friendly and approachable person. It's really about being able to sell yourself as someone who should be at that firm. I am an awful, awful salesman, and I don't like to talk myself up very much. That...that was bad.
2) If you call a firm that's sitting on your resume and tell them that you're going to be in town and that you'd like to meet with some attorneys from their office, you can often force an interview (in my case, I skipped straight to callbacks a few times like this. I also had good grades from a good school, and looked great on paper).
3) Unless you've got an absurd package, apply to plenty of firms in advance of OCI and make sure your interview skill is up to snuff by doing endless dry runs with career services. If I'd done that I would've saved myself an insane amount of worry and travel. I seriously think I lost a year of my life in the last month.

[Anonymous User]

School: Transferred from TTT to BU/BC
Market: Boston
Class Rank: top 7% at TTT
Journal: None
Work experience: Lots
IP Background: No
Mass mail interviews: 0
Callbacks received: 5
Callbacks accepted: 5
Offers: 0
Rejections: Rejected by everyone

Edited for proper # of callbacks received. Sorry about that.

[JusticeHarlan]

Nothing to see here

[MarkRenton]

Callbacks received: 12
Callbacks accepted: 5

[IAFG]

Guys, come on. I am sure he's beat himself up about it enough already.

[Anonymous User]

Guys, come on. I am sure he's beat himself up about it enough already.

It was a typo. I edited the post. Although receiving 14 CB's and only accepting 5 would have been a pretty sweet move.

[IAFG]

Ah okay.

[Anonymous User]

School*: GULC
Market(s): NYC
Approximate class rank: Top 40ish
Law review: Secondary
Work experience: 3-5 years, non legal
IP background: no
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): LGBT, good interviewer
Screening Interviews: 13 (at OCI)
Mass mails: 2
Callbacks received: 6
Callbacks accepted: 6
Offers w/vault ranges:1 V5, 1V10, 2V50 (withdrew from one pre-callback and one after callback upon getting v5 offer)
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback? only one mass mailer
Thank-you notes sent: to recruiters.

[Anonymous User]

School*: GULC
Market(s): NYC
Approximate class rank: Top 40ish
Law review: Secondary
Work experience: 3-5 years, non legal
IP background: no
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): LGBT, good interviewer
Screening Interviews: 13 (at OCI)
Mass mails: 2
Callbacks received: 6
Callbacks accepted: 6
Offers w/vault ranges:1 V5, 1V10, 2V50 (withdrew from one pre-callback and one after callback upon getting v5 offer)
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback? only one mass mailer
Thank-you notes sent: to recruiters.

Wow, top 40%, and you still got a V5 offer? Thats really darn impressive. You must be a solid interviewer with good WE.

[Anonymous User]

School*: GULC
Market(s): NYC
Approximate class rank: Top 40ish
Law review: Secondary
Work experience: 3-5 years, non legal
IP background: no
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): LGBT, good interviewer
Screening Interviews: 13 (at OCI)
Mass mails: 2
Callbacks received: 6
Callbacks accepted: 6
Offers w/vault ranges:1 V5, 1V10, 2V50 (withdrew from one pre-callback and one after callback upon getting v5 offer)
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback? only one mass mailer
Thank-you notes sent: to recruiters.

Wow, top 40%, and you still got a V5 offer? Thats really darn impressive. You must be a solid interviewer with good WE.

I am, but I also consider myself very lucky - I had a very substantive legal job 1L summer, the company I used to work for is well liked by big firms, the practice area I am interested in is predominantly in NYC and I grew up there. Confluence of factors, I'm extremely happy and grateful.

[Anonymous User]

School*: GULC
Market(s): NYC
Approximate class rank: Top 40ish
Law review: Secondary
Work experience: 3-5 years, non legal
IP background: no
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): LGBT, good interviewer
Screening Interviews: 13 (at OCI)
Mass mails: 2
Callbacks received: 6
Callbacks accepted: 6
Offers w/vault ranges:1 V5, 1V10, 2V50 (withdrew from one pre-callback and one after callback upon getting v5 offer)
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback? only one mass mailer
Thank-you notes sent: to recruiters.

Wow, top 40%, and you still got a V5 offer? Thats really darn impressive. You must be a solid interviewer with good WE.

I am, but I also consider myself very lucky - I had a very substantive legal job 1L summer, the company I used to work for is well liked by big firms, the practice area I am interested in is predominantly in NYC and I grew up there. Confluence of factors, I'm extremely happy and grateful.

Yeah, I know a couple people at CCN who are around median (maybe even a little below?) and got offers at SullCrom + Cravath based on the right type of pre-law-school experience. People underestimate how much that stuff matters when deciding whether or not to go to law school.

[Anonymous User]

School*: GULC
Market(s): NYC
Approximate class rank: Top 40ish
Law review: Secondary
Work experience: 3-5 years, non legal
IP background: no
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): LGBT, good interviewer
Screening Interviews: 13 (at OCI)
Mass mails: 2
Callbacks received: 6
Callbacks accepted: 6
Offers w/vault ranges:1 V5, 1V10, 2V50 (withdrew from one pre-callback and one after callback upon getting v5 offer)
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback? only one mass mailer
Thank-you notes sent: to recruiters.

Wow, top 40%, and you still got a V5 offer? Thats really darn impressive. You must be a solid interviewer with good WE.

I am, but I also consider myself very lucky - I had a very substantive legal job 1L summer, the company I used to work for is well liked by big firms, the practice area I am interested in is predominantly in NYC and I grew up there. Confluence of factors, I'm extremely happy and grateful.

Yeah, I know a couple people at CCN who are around median (maybe even a little below?) and got offers at SullCrom + Cravath based on the right type of pre-law-school experience. People underestimate how much that stuff matters when deciding whether or not to go to law school.

Yeah the WE stuff is definitely credited. I didn't really have much, and I was shut out of the elite tier of firms. People I know with lower grades than me got offers from those elite firms solely by virtue of their work experience, and the maturity/responsibility that goes along with it.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah the WE stuff is definitely credited. I didn't really have much, and I was shut out of the elite tier of firms. People I know with lower grades than me got offers from those elite firms solely by virtue of their work experience, and the maturity/responsibility that goes along with it.

I've got a buddy at V who scored STB NYC w/o WE, and if I had to guess as to his grades I'd say ~top 20%. He was really involved with stuff on campus though, and he was one of the people who managed to score a 1L firm gig. I'm fairly confident that if I'd been involved in all the extracurrics he was involved in, my grades would've dropped like .1 just from the time commitment.

[Anonymous User]

Yeah, I know a couple people at CCN who are around median (maybe even a little below?) and got offers at SullCrom + Cravath based on the right type of pre-law-school experience. People underestimate how much that stuff matters when deciding whether or not to go to law school.

[/quote]

The bolded is very credited. No matter how much I tried to spin my prior WE, most of my interviewers didn't seem to like it all that much, and it was very un-prestigious (the company and type work we did were honestly pretty TTT for the industry, even though I really liked the place). Among the people I know, I saw zero difference in the results of those who had WE and those who did not.

[Anonymous User]

The bolded is very credited. No matter how much I tried to spin my prior WE, most of my interviewers didn't seem to like it all that much, and it was very un-prestigious (the company and type work we did were honestly pretty TTT for the industry, even though I really liked the place). Among the people I know, I saw zero difference in the results of those who had WE and those who did not.

Yeah, the people I know at CCN who reached well beyond their numbers worked at companies like JPM, GS, etc. There were also some people I know who didn't work at one of the bulge-bracket banks, but still did things like higher-tier consulting work in NYC, helping to ensure SOX compliance, etc. and they ended up doing pretty well too, considering their GPA. I didn't necessarily see work experience by itself helping out a ton.

[Anonymous User]

School*: Brooklyn/Cardozo
Market(s): NYC
Approximate class rank: top 10%
Law review: Yes
Work experience: none
IP background: no
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): no
Screening Interviews:~25
Callbacks received:8, 1 from mass mail
Callbacks accepted:8
Offers w/vault ranges: 1 V30, 1 V40, waived 2 firms when i accepted
Thank-you notes sent: yes

[Anonymous User]

The bolded is very credited. No matter how much I tried to spin my prior WE, most of my interviewers didn't seem to like it all that much, and it was very un-prestigious (the company and type work we did were honestly pretty TTT for the industry, even though I really liked the place). Among the people I know, I saw zero difference in the results of those who had WE and those who did not.

Yeah, the people I know at CCN who reached well beyond their numbers worked at companies like JPM, GS, etc. There were also some people I know who didn't work at one of the bulge-bracket banks, but still did things like higher-tier consulting work in NYC, helping to ensure SOX compliance, etc. and they ended up doing pretty well too, considering their GPA. I didn't necessarily see work experience by itself helping out a ton.

I'm the OP, and I know that WE at places like that counts for a lot, but mine wasn't like that at all. The same type of job at a different company would probably have gotten me dinged. If I say what my job was, I'll out myself, but it was in the IT field and not in anything financial/consulting/etc related. It didn't even require a bachelor's degree.

[Anonymous User]

The bolded is very credited. No matter how much I tried to spin my prior WE, most of my interviewers didn't seem to like it all that much, and it was very un-prestigious (the company and type work we did were honestly pretty TTT for the industry, even though I really liked the place). Among the people I know, I saw zero difference in the results of those who had WE and those who did not.

Yeah, the people I know at CCN who reached well beyond their numbers worked at companies like JPM, GS, etc. There were also some people I know who didn't work at one of the bulge-bracket banks, but still did things like higher-tier consulting work in NYC, helping to ensure SOX compliance, etc. and they ended up doing pretty well too, considering their GPA. I didn't necessarily see work experience by itself helping out a ton.

I'm the OP, and I know that WE at places like that counts for a lot, but mine wasn't like that at all. The same type of job at a different company would probably have gotten me dinged. If I say what my job was, I'll out myself, but it was in the IT field and not in anything financial/consulting/etc related. It didn't even require a bachelor's degree.

Yeah, it can be so variable. I ran my own business for a year, and some recruiters saw a lot of initiative and entrepreneurial spirit in my experience, while others saw it as nothing special or important, and glossed right over it. So the same work experience might really speak to one employer, but not get through to another.

[Anonymous User]

School: T14
Market(s): both coasts
Approximate class rank: just above median
Law review: no
Work experience: 1 year
IP background: no
Anything else that might have an impact? (diversity, etc. or whatever, really): no
Screening Interviews: 32
Mass mails: 40+
Callbacks received: 21
Callbacks accepted: 10
Offers w/vault ranges: 1 v5, 3 v10, 2 v20, 1 v50
How many firms just didn't get back with you with a rejection/callback?: almost all of the mass mails
Thank-you notes sent: to my first callback (got offer), then stopped because it was too laborious. i think it makes zero difference