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Hey all,
3.55 at USC/UCLA + Law Review and trying to put together OCI Bid List. Mainly wondering whether it is a wasted bid to bid Gibson or Irell considering my gpa or whether they are worth a shot. I currently have the following for the top of my bid list:
1. Gibson
2. Irell
3. Sidley
4. MoFo
5. Cooley
6. Paul Hastings
7. Jones Day
8. Proskauer
9. Wilmer Hale
10. Crowell and Moring
11. Sheppard Mullin
12. Alston & Bird
13. Ropes & Gray

For reference I am mainly bidding for LA and SF offices. Any advice on this list would be greatly appreciated!
Cheers!

Look at the GPA chart that OCS has-- I'm pretty sure that your GPA is too low for both Gibson and Irell, even with law review.

For usc:

pretty sure 3.6 is a hard cutoff for Irell

I actually think 3.55 has a shot at Gibson

Why does everyone love sidley lol

Either way I would take Irell off and move Gibson down especially since Gibson usually has a ton of slots

Don't know why you don't have Latham but 3.55 is right at their cutoff

Everyone loves sidley I think because they’re like “our students have had averages of 3.4 over the years!” so everyone gets happy, when that’s most definitely a complete lie.

Latham should be on there (If USC/UCLA says they only hire above 3.6, they are wrong – which doesn’t surprise me about either of their CSOs)

Irell is a wasted bid. Gibson I agree also has a chance. Eitherway, Gibson and Latham should be towards middle/end of your list since they have sooo many spots. You’re guaranteed to get either if you bid them basically, outside of conflicting interview times.

You need Sidley #1 or else you ain’t getting them. It’s that crazy, and prob only bc they give out that bogus GPA info which is totally wrong.

OP here... Thanks so much for the advice! So besides adding Latham, chopping Irell, and moving Gibson down the list, does the rest of what I have look reasonable?

Thanks again!

You can bid Gibson pretty low. They have like 10 interview rooms. You'll get your interview.

Based on last year, I also second the note that you need to bid Sidley #1 to get an interview, especially with the new Century City office and expanding class size.

Yea put Gibson literally last
Latham can be bottom half

I think students also love Sheppard and Alston for similar reasons, they're always popular. Especial Sheppard

I know Alston is incredibly selective, Sheppard and Pillsbury seem to just have no rhyme or reason for their decisions (at least from what I've seen in the past). OP, def need to bid those high if you want them (personally, I'd drop alston all together since they're just probably interested in top 10%; also they apparently love transfers)