UTexas trying for NY Forum

[granger]

Hi friends. Looking for advice for NY firms. I have a 3.73 at UT and went to LS straight from undergrad. School doesn't release rankings, which I guess is common knowledge. Anyway, any insight/recommendations as to tiers of - or specific - firms I have a shot at/should target would be really appreciated. I probably haven't done enough homework on this stuff so make sure to be nice to me

Edit: took out that awesome joke b/c it made me pretty identifiable.

[Anonymous User]

Hi friends. Looking for advice for NY firms. I have a 3.73 at UT and went to LS straight from undergrad. School doesn't release rankings, which I guess is common knowledge. Anyway, any insight/recommendations as to tiers of - or specific - firms I have a shot at/should target would be really appreciated. I probably haven't done enough homework on this stuff so make sure to be nice to me

Edit: took out that awesome joke b/c it made me pretty identifiable.

Is 3.73 nearly top 10%? Top 10% is 3.76 at graduation according to NALP. I'm not sure if it goes up or down after first year. I am about .05-.06 below the OP at UT. Also interested in this.

[Anonymous User]

Can't comment on specific firms, but do the NY job fair. Top 10% definitely has a solid shot almost anywhere. For firms not at the fair or OCI, mass mail.

[granger]

Thanks. Doing the fair, though I'm under the impression 3.73 is around top 15-18%. Hope I'm wrong!

[Anonymous User]

Thanks. Doing the fair, though I'm under the impression 3.73 is around top 15-18%. Hope I'm wrong!

% of Class Receiving GPA Required # of Students
Order of the Coif: 10% 3.76 44
Summa cum laude:1.0% 4.02 4
Magna cum laude: 4% 3.87 14
Cum laude: 30% 3.58 113
Other:Chancellors 3.91 16

--LinkRemoved--

Does GPA go up or down at the top 10%? I would imagine it might go up after the first-year. Being within "striking range" of order of the coif would (will) cause me to take lots of easy classes and seminars and generally eschew the career-oriented courses and bar courses with tight curves (since nobody seems to care what you took anyway). Maybe that's just me.

[nonprofit-prophet]

I've been told that a 3.8 is top 10% for 1L.

[Perseus_I]

This "no ranking policy" is ridiculous. Trying to make all the spoiled little children feel special, eh? I wish they'd just post class rank under GPA. They wouldn't have to make other people's names public. Just give an exact number. "As of the spring semester, you rank 72/375 students in your class." Then have a CB "rank" for each firm on the OCI website: "Based on last year's data based on 16 students, the median callback for Baker Botts was 79.2/380."

What is so hard about that? This would help many students make informed decisions instead of searching TLS and shooting in the dark.

[Anonymous User]

Thanks. Doing the fair, though I'm under the impression 3.73 is around top 15-18%. Hope I'm wrong!

% of Class Receiving GPA Required # of Students
Order of the Coif: 10% 3.76 44
Summa cum laude:1.0% 4.02 4
Magna cum laude: 4% 3.87 14
Cum laude: 30% 3.58 113
Other:Chancellors 3.91 16

--LinkRemoved--

Does GPA go up or down at the top 10%? I would imagine it might go up after the first-year. Being within "striking range" of order of the coif would (will) cause me to take lots of easy classes and seminars and generally eschew the career-oriented courses and bar courses with tight curves (since nobody seems to care what you took anyway). Maybe that's just me.

I wonder if this is accurate/close for 2012 class - just graduated w/ 3.8 and would love to cop dat coif. Figured it was higher, though.

[de5igual]

Thanks. Doing the fair, though I'm under the impression 3.73 is around top 15-18%. Hope I'm wrong!

% of Class Receiving GPA Required # of Students
Order of the Coif: 10% 3.76 44
Summa cum laude:1.0% 4.02 4
Magna cum laude: 4% 3.87 14
Cum laude: 30% 3.58 113
Other:Chancellors 3.91 16

--LinkRemoved--

Does GPA go up or down at the top 10%? I would imagine it might go up after the first-year. Being within "striking range" of order of the coif would (will) cause me to take lots of easy classes and seminars and generally eschew the career-oriented courses and bar courses with tight curves (since nobody seems to care what you took anyway). Maybe that's just me.

I wonder if this is accurate/close for 2012 class - just graduated w/ 3.8 and would love to cop dat coif. Figured it was higher, though.

side question: when you graduate, do they announce honors/high honors/etc? Or is that something you get after your last semester's grades are in?

[2014utLaw]

.

[Perseus_I]

Career services can be incredibly frustrating. I feel that genuinely 85% of the knowledge I have re: OCI is from TLS. I'm top quarter! I'm supposed to like career services. They have given me no useful numbers for constructing a bid list. Has anybody else had better luck?

OP: NY career fair = your best bet.

+1.

David Montoya is pretty good, though. Most of the rest of the staff is dedicated to PI and government-- as are the rest of the law school's resources--which is surprising considering that our name is not "Yale" and less than 10% of our graduating class goes into PI/Government, and if you're one of the few truly brilliant UT students who actually gets PI (rather than one of the 1L slackers who says that's what they want "because only A+ students can get Big Law"), you're probably smart enough to figure everything out on you own without help from CSO.

[Anonymous User]

I'm also doing the NY job fair. I have a 3.84, which I'm hoping is in the top 10% but whatever...there's really not much purpose in speculating.

As far as bidding strategy, I'm gonna use all the NY job fair bids possible. I'm also going to bid on some of the NY firms at our OCI who are not doing the NY job fair (simpson thatcher, etc). Other than that, I guess mass mail?

I have no ties to NYC but really want to be there. Hoping this works out for us!

[Cade McNown]

--LinkRemoved--
I think y'all got it backwards re: class rank & grades. Grades go up as the semesters pass, b/c only 2Ls and 3Ls are eligible for seminars, which often (always?) aren't on the curve. So since top 10% is ~3.76 @ graduation, it should be slightly lower after 1L, maybe 3.73ish.

For UT interested in NY, I would reiterate: NY Job Fair.

[crit_racer]

--LinkRemoved--
I think y'all got it backwards re: class rank & grades. Grades go up as the semesters pass, b/c only 2Ls and 3Ls are eligible for seminars, which often (always?) aren't on the curve. So since top 10% is ~3.76 @ graduation, it should be slightly lower after 1L, maybe 3.73ish.

For UT interested in NY, I would reiterate: NY Job Fair.

It just seems odd that 3.63 would be top 25%% and 3.73 would be top 10%. I know literally nothing about stats, though, so correct me if I'm wrong.

But yeah, NY job fair is TCR. Keep in mind that there are some NY firms at our regular OCI who are not doing the job fair, though. Is anyone planning on mass mailing? Seems like a lot of the big firms are already doing our job fairs...woudl it be worth it to mass mail others? I feel like the ones not coming probably have small class sizes and/or just aren't interested in UT people...

[nonprofit-prophet]

--LinkRemoved--
I think y'all got it backwards re: class rank & grades. Grades go up as the semesters pass, b/c only 2Ls and 3Ls are eligible for seminars, which often (always?) aren't on the curve. So since top 10% is ~3.76 @ graduation, it should be slightly lower after 1L, maybe 3.73ish.

For UT interested in NY, I would reiterate: NY Job Fair.

UT really needs to give out more info. My friends on law review claim 3.8 is top 10% for 1L. But I don't think they know for sure.

[Cade McNown]

It just seems odd that 3.63 would be top 25%% and 3.73 would be top 10%. I know literally nothing about stats, though, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Not too surprising. UT has a high median, but hands out few grades at the extremes--only 5% A+s per class & only ~10% C+s or worse. The distribution is really clumped in the middle, and of course grades are not random--the best students consistently grab up the As & A+s, and the worst students get the Cs. This wouldn't be such a problem if UT curved to a B because the curve wouldn't be so steep on the A side. I agree that UT could be much more transparent, but I think the no-rank policy is beneficial for median students b/c it gives them the opportunity to deemphasize grades and focus attention on their personal skills.

OP, I would also reiterate that you should call CSO (specifically, David Montoya, b/c he is the large firm specialist).

[Anonymous User]

It definitely is not as low as 3.73. I know of many people with 3.7-3.8 who did not make law review while I know of only 1 or 2 with higher than a 3.8 who didn't. While they say there is no grading onto law review, you have to go out of your way in writing a shitty essay not to make it on if you are in the top 10%.

[nonprofit-prophet]

It definitely is not as low as 3.73. I know of many people with 3.7-3.8 who did not make law review while I know of only 1 or 2 with higher than a 3.8 who didn't. While they say there is no grading onto law review, you have to go out of your way in writing a shitty essay not to make it on if you are in the top 10%.

Does anyone know how they weigh the write-on and your GPA? The recent grads I know said they were unsure, but that they knew one or two super high GPAs that didn't make it. A partner that graduated 10+ years ago told me that it's 10-90, but it might be different today.

[Perseus_I]

--LinkRemoved--
I think y'all got it backwards re: class rank & grades. Grades go up as the semesters pass, b/c only 2Ls and 3Ls are eligible for seminars, which often (always?) aren't on the curve. So since top 10% is ~3.76 @ graduation, it should be slightly lower after 1L, maybe 3.73ish.

For UT interested in NY, I would reiterate: NY Job Fair.

It may be more complicated than this. The median GPA surely goes up. However, the top 25% barely seems to budge. What happens at the top 10% is anyone's guess. Some 2L classes, in fact, have lower curves than 1L classes (like Immigration with Churgin). No idea why people sign up for those classes. I sure won't.

[Perseus_I]

It definitely is not as low as 3.73. I know of many people with 3.7-3.8 who did not make law review while I know of only 1 or 2 with higher than a 3.8 who didn't. While they say there is no grading onto law review, you have to go out of your way in writing a shitty essay not to make it on if you are in the top 10%.

Does anyone know how they weigh the write-on and your GPA? The recent grads I know said they were unsure, but that they knew one or two super high GPAs that didn't make it. A partner that graduated 10+ years ago told me that it's 10-90, but it might be different today.

One of the editors suggested that they only consider people above a certain cutoff. For example, maybe 3.7 or above is "in the running" and from there it just comes down to essays?

If it is a formula, I could see myself barely missing both the write-on and the grade-on. Wish I'd gone to Penn.

[Anonymous User]

It definitely is not as low as 3.73. I know of many people with 3.7-3.8 who did not make law review while I know of only 1 or 2 with higher than a 3.8 who didn't. While they say there is no grading onto law review, you have to go out of your way in writing a shitty essay not to make it on if you are in the top 10%.

Does anyone know how they weigh the write-on and your GPA? The recent grads I know said they were unsure, but that they knew one or two super high GPAs that didn't make it. A partner that graduated 10+ years ago told me that it's 10-90, but it might be different today.

10% is reserved for strictly write-on. The other 90% they say is a mix of write-on and grades, but as was said, you reallllllly have to screw up the write-on to get dinged if you are in the top 10%.

[Cade McNown]

It definitely is not as low as 3.73. I know of many people with 3.7-3.8 who did not make law review while I know of only 1 or 2 with higher than a 3.8 who didn't. While they say there is no grading onto law review, you have to go out of your way in writing a shitty essay not to make it on if you are in the top 10%.

QFLogic. You may be right though.

[Perseus_I]

It definitely is not as low as 3.73. I know of many people with 3.7-3.8 who did not make law review while I know of only 1 or 2 with higher than a 3.8 who didn't. While they say there is no grading onto law review, you have to go out of your way in writing a shitty essay not to make it on if you are in the top 10%.

Does anyone know how they weigh the write-on and your GPA? The recent grads I know said they were unsure, but that they knew one or two super high GPAs that didn't make it. A partner that graduated 10+ years ago told me that it's 10-90, but it might be different today.

10% is reserved for strictly write-on. The other 90% they say is a mix of write-on and grades, but as was said, you reallllllly have to screw up the write-on to get dinged if you are in the top 10%.

No, 10/50, or 20% is reserved for write-on. So are people who have an excellent writing sample, maybe #11 ranked, but are just outside the top 10% (3.6-3.75 basically screwed?

[Richie Tenenbaum]

--LinkRemoved--
I think y'all got it backwards re: class rank & grades. Grades go up as the semesters pass, b/c only 2Ls and 3Ls are eligible for seminars, which often (always?) aren't on the curve. So since top 10% is ~3.76 @ graduation, it should be slightly lower after 1L, maybe 3.73ish.

For UT interested in NY, I would reiterate: NY Job Fair.

UT really needs to give out more info. My friends on law review claim 3.8 is top 10% for 1L. But I don't think they know for sure.

I'm under the impression that it's around 3.8, with a better chance that it's a little lower than a 3.8 than higher (so maybe something like 3.78/3.79). It's pretty difficult to say for certain since there really is no way of knowing for each individual class since there will be some variation year to year. I can say that I know some people who were in the mid to high 3.7s after 1L who missed on law review, though I don't know if it was b/c they didn't have a strong write-in. Most of the people I know on TLR have a 3.8+, but it's not really something everyone talks about.

[Perseus_I]

--LinkRemoved--
I think y'all got it backwards re: class rank & grades. Grades go up as the semesters pass, b/c only 2Ls and 3Ls are eligible for seminars, which often (always?) aren't on the curve. So since top 10% is ~3.76 @ graduation, it should be slightly lower after 1L, maybe 3.73ish.

For UT interested in NY, I would reiterate: NY Job Fair.

UT really needs to give out more info. My friends on law review claim 3.8 is top 10% for 1L. But I don't think they know for sure.

I'm under the impression that it's around 3.8, with a better chance that it's a little lower than a 3.8 than higher (so maybe something like 3.78/3.79). It's pretty difficult to say for certain since there really is no way of knowing for each individual class since there will be some variation year to year. I can say that I know some people who were in the mid to high 3.7s after 1L who missed on law review, though I don't know if it was b/c they didn't have a strong write-in. Most of the people I know on TLR have a 3.8+, but it's not really something everyone talks about.

Is Law Review really necessary to get a Big Law job at UT though? It seems like every OCI firm asks for it or says it's "preferred." Also, it seems that just about every large firm I've looked at with UT alums claims they were on Law Review. Scary.