Do Grades Matter During Callbacks?

[Anonymous User]

Just about top 1/3 at Fordham... had 6 callbacks, 3 dings so far. Still waiting to hear back from 3 firms. Hopefully I'll get some good news, but assuming no...

My impression is that I interview extremely well, which is why I had so many callbacks relative to my class rank/school. But am I fooling myself? Am I interviewing poorly, hence no offers yet? Or are my grades preventing me from clinching an offer, even with all my callbacks?

[lawgrl21]

op- pm me

[Anonymous User]

Anecdotal, but I had very similar experiences to you. I got CBs from some firms that were outside of my GPA range, yet none of those turned into offers (0/2). For the firms within my GPA range, I had a 100% callback to offer ratio (7/7). There was nothing distinguishable about the interviews themselves: I said the exact same things in each interview (like literally exact same stories, anecdotes, etc).

So in my experience, I think it did still matter.

[anon168]

Just about top 1/3 at Fordham... had 6 callbacks, 3 dings so far. Still waiting to hear back from 3 firms. Hopefully I'll get some good news, but assuming no...

My impression is that I interview extremely well, which is why I had so many callbacks relative to my class rank/school. But am I fooling myself? Am I interviewing poorly, hence no offers yet? Or are my grades preventing me from clinching an offer, even with all my callbacks?

Grades get you the CB. Your personality (or lack thereof) determines whether you get an offer.

[BruceWayne]

LOL do grades matter during callbacks? Grades matter after your summer associate program is over and up until you get a full time offer of employment.

[Anonymous User]

my anecdotal experience was that they still matter

[Anonymous User]

grades still matter. attorneys that are interviewing you are still looking at your resume/transcript and comparing that (even if its subconsciously) to the others that they see...

[Anonymous User]

LOL do grades matter during callbacks? Grades matter after your summer associate program is over and up until you get a full time offer of employment.

OP here. Obviously they still MATTER for all sorts of reasons, but my basic question is, am I inadvertently doing something wrong in interviews or am I safe to assume that the real issue (as I suspect) is grades... I have a stellar resume and really good people skills, and I'd say that in 6/6 callbacks, my interviews went VERY well.

[thesealocust]

they almost certainly matter less but they will still be relevant.

A committee will evaluate candidates. Just like TLS, some people on that committee are going to be grade obsessed, some pedigree obsessed, some indifferent and annoyed they're on the committee at all, some who think evaluation reports should trump everything, etc. For each candidate it's a black box, but a firm definitely isn't going to bring somebody in for an expensive and time consuming callback if they don't have a real shot at the job.

All else being equal, people with higher grades probably have better luck converting callbacks into offers, if only because somebody with high grades for the position their applying to probably won't need as hard of a sell to get past people on the hiring committee. If your grades aren't up to the firm's targets, then they might be giving your application as a whole more scrutiny.

It's all magic and sorcery and totally unknowable as an applicant. It's a horrible process that never pretends to be fair, and sometimes you just get unlucky. It's important to reflect on your choices and performance but don't go crazy trying to find causality in an extremely chaotic process.

[Anonymous User]

they almost certainly matter less but they will still be relevant.

A committee will evaluate candidates. Just like TLS, some people on that committee are going to be grade obsessed, some pedigree obsessed, some indifferent and annoyed they're on the committee at all, some who think evaluation reports should trump everything, etc. For each candidate it's a black box, but a firm definitely isn't going to bring somebody in for an expensive and time consuming callback if they don't have a real shot at the job.

All else being equal, people with higher grades probably have better luck converting callbacks into offers, if only because somebody with high grades for the position their applying to probably won't need as hard of a sell to get past people on the hiring committee. If your grades aren't up to the firm's targets, then they might be giving your application as a whole more scrutiny.

It's all magic and sorcery and totally unknowable as an applicant. It's a horrible process that never pretends to be fair, and sometimes you just get unlucky. It's important to reflect on your choices and performance but don't go crazy trying to find causality in an extremely chaotic process.

OP here. This is a very insightful answer. At the end of the day my suspicion, though, is that after from which school you're coming from, grades/class rank still matter MORE than how well you hit it off with your interviewers, even during a callback. My interviews simply went way too swimmingly for this not to be true.

[somewhatwayward]

+1 on how you feel about CBs is not particularly relevant....this mainly applies especially when you think that your CB went well...the point is that most people think their CBs went well, and frankly having a conversation about yourself for 20-30 minutes a couple times in a row is not a high standard or something that people are generally going to struggle with that much; since everyone does not get an offer, that means there are a portion of kids who think their CBs went well but still did not get an offer

My interviews simply went way too swimmingly for this not to be true.

the thing is all the interviews are relative; yours might have been great, but do you have any idea of how they compared to everyone else? that is the important thing

[Anonymous User]

OP, you might think they went well but what exactly went well about them?

You're not going to have a solid interview unless you connect with the people you're interviewing with, that's a distinction that needs to be made within the overall confines of "people skills." You could be talking about stuff and think you're hitting it off but in the end the connection is only on the surface. As people mentioned, how others interview is also a huge factor. You don't know how they interviewed and who your competition was.

With that said, it is quite clear that grades still matter, but they do not matter in the way they do at the screening stage. At the callback stage, if you get one the offer is yours to lose. Does that mean someone with a lower GPA rank needs to do EVEN BETTER than someone at a higher rank? That's undoubtedly the case, the question is therefore whether your interviews went extremely well or whether they simply went well. The lower the rank, the more you have to show at your callback to bypass the kids who have a slightly easier time because they are in the comfort zone rank wise.

Think of the two factors as inversely proportional:

1) Class rank
2) Interview quality

The lower the rank, the better your interview must go. But within a larger context, getting the callback means they place the ball in your court.

[Anonymous User]

Top 1/3 at Fordham with 6 cb's is pretty awesome congrats. It seems like Fordham people have to wait longer for offers. Its not over yet.

[Anonymous User]

Top 1/3 at Fordham with 6 cb's is pretty awesome congrats. It seems like Fordham people have to wait longer for offers. Its not over yet.

It's definitely very well done, don't know anybody at those stats with anything close.

With that said, seems like this year the real screening happens at the CB stage so CBs don't mean as much.

[Anonymous User]

At the callback stage, if you get one the offer is yours to lose.

Depending on the firm and how their hiring process works, this isn't an across-the-board rule.

[Anonymous User]

Top 1/3 at Fordham with 6 cb's is pretty awesome congrats. It seems like Fordham people have to wait longer for offers. Its not over yet.

It's definitely very well done, don't know anybody at those stats with anything close.

With that said, seems like this year the real screening happens at the CB stage so CBs don't mean as much.

Definitely agree with this last statement. I thought I was set with my number of callbacks but had to wait until one of the very last ones to get an offer.

[Anonymous User]

they definitely seem to matter still during the callback phase.

[Anonymous User]

Agreed, I think they do. Remember that you are still competing with many people (firms callback more people than they can make offers to typically) and when you're up for evaluation, they'll look at everything about you.

[Anonymous User]

They definitely matter, albeit less than during the screener phase. That said, you can definitely overcome them.

[desertlaw]

sliding scale test. /thread

[r6_philly]

They matter at least in a competitive/relative sense. Your grades are good enough to get you the offer. But if there are 4 candidates for 1 offer, the person with the best grades still has an extra advantage.

[Anonymous User]

.
It's all magic and sorcery and totally unknowable

This. Coming from a guy who is bottom 20% (T20-30 range) and got 2 market-paying offers

[de5igual]

They matter at least in a competitive/relative sense. Your grades are good enough to get you the offer. But if there are 4 candidates for 1 offer, the person with the best grades still has an extra advantage.

+1

just because you've met the threshold, doesn't mean everyone's on an even playing field at the callback stage. i'd imagine most of the comments and evaluations would be pretty similar after each callback interview. few people stand out in a bad way or good way, so when the committee decides, a lot of weight is going to be put back on the original, more "objective" criteria (e.g., grades, school, work experience). if a firm has a high callback to offer ratio, then this isn't that big a deal. if there are 13 callbacks for one position, then the guy/girl that barely made the cutoff will have one huge uphill battle.

[Anonymous User]

Absolutely 100% still matter.

[androstan]

.
It's all magic and sorcery and totally unknowable

This. Coming from a guy who is bottom 20% (T20-30 range) and got 2 market-paying offers

TLSheadasplode