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I'm planning on bidding three markets at OCI: SF, Chi, and NY. I'm from California, have a lot of family in Chicago and have spent time there, and my father is from NY (and it seems they don't care about ties). My strongest ties are CA and IL, but those markets aren't as strong as NY so I want to bid there as a safety (not that there is such a thing ITE).

Is this reasonable or a sure-fire way to end up making lattes next summer?

This interests me as well, but my three markets are LA and two secondary markets. I have very strong ties to all three.

I had callbacks in 7 markets, it's about how you sell it. (weak ties in 3, and no in 2)

Anonymous User wrote:I had callbacks in 7 markets, it's about how you sell it. (weak ties in 3, and no in 2)

Is it common to be asked about where else you're interviewing? If so, how do/did you answer that?

If you have top grades, you can go after 10 markets. People at my school (T30) who are the top few people were all flying between NYC, Chicago, LA, SF, Boston, etc.

It's a bad idea when you have limited bids. Because bidding on one market reduces the numbers you can bid on the other. At a T14, you'd likely only be getting 5ish interviews in NYC, SF, and Chi. That's not enough to get a good spread on any of the three cities.

If you can do via methods that don't cost you OCI bids: like maybe you have a preselect OCI, off campus career fairs, mass mailing, etc. etc. Then it's fine.

But "having family" and "having spent some time" in Chicago aren't very good chicago ties, unless family is your wife or MAYBE your parents, or spent some time means you lived there.

Anonymous User wrote:I'm planning on bidding three markets at OCI: SF, Chi, and NY. I'm from California, have a lot of family in Chicago and have spent time there, and my father is from NY (and it seems they don't care about ties). My strongest ties are CA and IL, but those markets aren't as strong as NY so I want to bid there as a safety (not that there is such a thing ITE).

Is this reasonable or a sure-fire way to end up making lattes next summer?

Where do you want to live and practice? Focus there. And also bid New York.

Anonymous User wrote:If you have top grades, you can go after 10 markets. People at my school (T30) who are the top few people were all flying between NYC, Chicago, LA, SF, Boston, etc.

Is this really true at all?

I have top 10% grades at MVP, and can't get 1 mass mail interview in a market I have lose ties in but can to the home market.

Either way, OP just don't do all reach firms in 3 markets. I think the smart play would be top spend 1/2 your bids on the market you have the biggest ties too, and 25% in each other one. At MVP, even NY only has about 25 firms with 25+ classes, and below that seems low odds. How high are your grades? I would think the bigger the SA class, the less luck is going to be involved so I would go for those.

OP here. I was top 2% at a T-50 and transferred to MVPB. I was panning on using my top 15 bids for CA, the next 10 or so for NY and Chi, and the rest CA.

I was really only planning to bid 3 main Chicago firms with big classes: Sidley, Jenner, and Mayer. I lived in Illinois for a little while.

As for NY, I was going to bid the firms with the largest class sizes and leave out Cravath, Wachtell, and S&C since I probably have no shot.

Anonymous User wrote:OP here. I was top 2% at a T-50 and transferred to MVPB. I was panning on using my top 15 bids for CA, the next 10 or so for NY and Chi, and the rest CA.

I was really only planning to bid 3 main Chicago firms with big classes: Sidley, Jenner, and Mayer. I lived in Illinois for a little while.

As for NY, I was going to bid the firms with the largest class sizes and leave out Cravath, Wachtell, and S&C since I probably have no shot.

Talk to someone at your new school about bidding.

If you bid that way at some schools, you'd get up with 15 California interviews, and maybe 2-5 NYC/Chicago firms.

Unless you are at UVA, bid order matters a lot because you only get your low bids.

Desert Fox wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:OP here. I was top 2% at a T-50 and transferred to MVPB. I was panning on using my top 15 bids for CA, the next 10 or so for NY and Chi, and the rest CA.

I was really only planning to bid 3 main Chicago firms with big classes: Sidley, Jenner, and Mayer. I lived in Illinois for a little while.

As for NY, I was going to bid the firms with the largest class sizes and leave out Cravath, Wachtell, and S&C since I probably have no shot.

Talk to someone at your new school about bidding.

If you bid that way at some schools, you'd get up with 15 California interviews, and maybe 2-5 NYC/Chicago firms.

Unless you are at UVA, bid order matters a lot because you only get your low bids.

You only get your low bids? That's contrary to everything I had understood. I thought you only got your top few bids and a smattering of the rest throughout...

Anonymous User wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:OP here. I was top 2% at a T-50 and transferred to MVPB. I was panning on using my top 15 bids for CA, the next 10 or so for NY and Chi, and the rest CA.

I was really only planning to bid 3 main Chicago firms with big classes: Sidley, Jenner, and Mayer. I lived in Illinois for a little while.

As for NY, I was going to bid the firms with the largest class sizes and leave out Cravath, Wachtell, and S&C since I probably have no shot.

Talk to someone at your new school about bidding.

If you bid that way at some schools, you'd get up with 15 California interviews, and maybe 2-5 NYC/Chicago firms.

Unless you are at UVA, bid order matters a lot because you only get your low bids.

You only get your low bids? That's contrary to everything I had understood. I thought you only got your top few bids and a smattering of the rest throughout...

he means high, as in 1-20~

I did this at my T20, worked fine. Got callbacks in my FL secondary market, midwestern secondary, and DC. But at OCI I focused on DC and FL, with mass mail focus on the Midwestern secondary.

I did 3+ markets but I was really selective about the firms I bid outside of my primary markets and had really good reasons to sell them on. I used most of my bids on NY/DC and got a pretty decent mix. I had good, but not top of the class grades. You should just recognize that your bidding strategy puts CA as your primary and pushes NY way way down the list.

Depending on what you hear from your classmates, I think you're better off bidding a reasonable mix of CA and NY in your top 20 (with heavier weight to CA since you seem to prefer). Odds of getting offers in NY with transfer worthy grades is much higher than it is in CA, particularly if you're smart about the firms you target (big classes, transfer friendly, etc..).