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i have 3.48 at lower t14. Some firms look like they take 3.5 and up. R those firms worth looking at or are their cut offs really that strict. I.e does a 3.48 bid about the same as 3.5?

Bid mostly the same, but there may well be some firms with a hard 3.5 cutoff. You won't be able to tell this from the fact they say "3.5 required," but your career services should tell you which firms have real hard cutoffs.

I had a 3.48 after 1L. During 1L summer I worked for the overseas office of a Vault firm that said it had "3.5 GPA required." I received positive evaluations of my work at the firm, and some work that I did was subsequently published in a journal under the name of a partner at the firm. Yet I did not receive an offer for the firm's American offices after going to a callback at OCI.

I deduce from this experience either that a) The firm was actually not pleased with my work during the summer, despite what they told me, or b) They take the GPA cut-off very seriously.

swampman wrote:[Y]our career services should tell you which firms have real hard cutoffs.

Probably not. Better to ask some alum at the firm -- maybe they'll ask someone on the recruiting committee. Some firms are secretive about their cutoffs.

AreJay711 wrote:

swampman wrote:[Y]our career services should tell you which firms have real hard cutoffs.

Probably not. Better to ask some alum at the firm -- maybe they'll ask someone on the recruiting committee. Some firms are secretive about their cutoffs.

Maybe not all career services will but they should. My school keeps track of who gets callbacks, so they know what the lowest GPS that got a callback is and can tell pretty easily if a firm has a hard cutoff. Whereas an alum may not know unless they're on the hiring committee.

swampman wrote:

AreJay711 wrote:

swampman wrote:[Y]our career services should tell you which firms have real hard cutoffs.

Probably not. Better to ask some alum at the firm -- maybe they'll ask someone on the recruiting committee. Some firms are secretive about their cutoffs.

Maybe not all career services will but they should. My school keeps track of who gets callbacks, so they know what the lowest GPS that got a callback is and can tell pretty easily if a firm has a hard cutoff. Whereas an alum may not know unless they're on the hiring committee.

Your'e absolutely right that they should. I'd take anything a career services office says with a grain of salt, though. Most of them are truly terrible at their jobs.

At CLS we get two bits of info for a firm.

What they say they're looking for, e.g., "Top 20%," "3.4+" and so on. Then we get what percentage of offers went to students with 3.41+ GPAs.

The requirements stated by the firms are nonsense. Pretty much every firm that has a stated requirement or preference offers a huge portion of people that don't meet their preference/requirement.

Anonymous User wrote:At CLS we get two bits of info for a firm.

What they say they're looking for, e.g., "Top 20%," "3.4+" and so on. Then we get what percentage of offers went to students with 3.41+ GPAs.

The requirements stated by the firms are nonsense. Pretty much every firm that has a stated requirement or preference offers a huge portion of people that don't meet their preference/requirement.

Were most of those that offered stating the GPA they preferred or were there a lot that claimed to require a certain GPA but still offered below it?

Hahalollawl wrote:

Anonymous User wrote:At CLS we get two bits of info for a firm.

What they say they're looking for, e.g., "Top 20%," "3.4+" and so on. Then we get what percentage of offers went to students with 3.41+ GPAs.

The requirements stated by the firms are nonsense. Pretty much every firm that has a stated requirement or preference offers a huge portion of people that don't meet their preference/requirement.

Were most of those that offered stating the GPA they preferred or were there a lot that claimed to require a certain GPA but still offered below it?

Some say top x% preferred, others say just top x%. Either way, I wouldn't pay very much attention to it.

There is some funny stuff on the list. One firm says they want top 20%, then gives 90% of its offers to people below the top third.

You might as well learn this now: most (if not all) firms are self-interested profit machines, and they only care about their cogs to the extent that doing so is necessary to keep the cogs working. Yes, individual partners, being human beings (I think), can sometimes be nicer and will be genuinely altruistic. But as a collective force, firms generally do not give a fuck about the truth or being frank with associates.

Applying this lesson here, realize that OCI is negotiation, and firms will posture in an attempt to glean better interviewees. Many have some absurdly high GPA cutoffs because they want to appear highly selective so the smartypant douchenozzles at the top of the class pick those firms in a vain effort to escape the plebs they go to school with. If you look at the cutoffs and actual past hires, however, you will quickly realize that it's horseshit.

Now, firms know they can only bullshit so much. The huge firm that hires a third of the class might say it only wants the top third, but this really means they'll consider everyone over median or so. The boutique that that only takes a few summers will say it only wants law review, but will really consider anyone in the top third or so. So while you should pay attention to their bullshit cutoffs to get a sense of the bigger picture, don't take the cutoffs at face value.