Median at Penn; OCI - Chicago possible? Forum

[Platopus]

Finished up 1L at median at Penn; we dont have GPAs, but grades were A, A-, B+, B+, B+, B, B, and and Honors/High Pass in Legal Writing. Good work experience before law school, and a good in-house position this summer in Chicago. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and otherwise have strong ties. I’m a fairly strong interviewer.

What are my chances of landing Chicago BigLaw, assuming I bid Penn’s regional OCI program for Chicago, and otherwise split bids between NY and Chicago for regular OCI? Do I even have the luxury of splitting bids between NY and Chicago, or should I bid exclusively NY?

[cavalier1138]

You've got Chicago ties, so I think you're safe bidding Chicago firms. But ask your career services people; they're going to have actual data about whether certain Chicago offices have GPA cutoffs.

[Dunnkirk85]

Network w/ Alums while there this summer. Don't rely on OCI

[icansortofmath]

I am sure OCI knows which Chicago offices are within your reach. You should start contacting people.

You’re not a bad candidate. It’s just I don’t think Chicago offices recruit heavily at Penn so you have to be proactive to make sure a spot that could have gone to you doesn’t go to some random median at, say, GULC.

[2013]

I am sure OCI knows which Chicago offices are within your reach. You should start contacting people.

You’re not a bad candidate. It’s just I don’t think Chicago offices recruit heavily at Penn.

Agree that I don’t think there are many Penn grads in Chicago. Not sure if that’s self-selection or not. I doubt you will have a chance at any of the top shops there because you’re competing directly against Chicago and NW (and, to a lesser extent, top students from Indiana, Illinois, Notre Dame), but if you’re fine going to slightly less selective firms, I think you have a shot. People may ask why you went to Penn, so be prepared to have a good response for that.

[RedPurpleBlue]

Finished up 1L at median at Penn; we dont have GPAs, but grades were A, A-, B+, B+, B+, B, B, and and Honors/High Pass in Legal Writing. Good work experience before law school, and a good in-house position this summer in Chicago. I grew up in the Chicago suburbs and otherwise have strong ties. I’m a fairly strong interviewer.

What are my chances of landing Chicago BigLaw, assuming I bid Penn’s regional OCI program for Chicago, and otherwise split bids between NY and Chicago for regular OCI? Do I even have the luxury of splitting bids between NY and Chicago, or should I bid exclusively NY?

I don't think you have the luxury of exclusively bidding Chicago, but I do think you can split NY and Chicago bids. Talk to career services about how to do this wisely. You should focus on the few Chicago shops that are not grade selective. I know that out of NU median callback grades are around 3.7-3.8 for the most Chicago $190k market shops. I know this won't necessarily be true for Penn, but I wanted to give you a point of reference from a relatively peer school to emphasize how tough the Chicago market can be for even local students. Make sure you bid plenty of non-grade sensitive nY firms too. The point out of OCI is to get a job. You can do a lot of networking from OCI to graduation to end up in Chicago, and I can guarantee you it's much easier with a biglaw return offer, even if that's from some random NY V50.

[dknightisyoung]

I know of 2 Penn students who both had median grades and ended up nabbing several offers in Chicago--one of them is at JD and the other at Paul Hastings, both are not from Chicago but went to really prestigious undergrads and are charming AF. You're definitely not locked out of Chicago, but I'd throw in a couple of less grade sensitive NY firms to your bid list

[Platopus]

Thank you everyone, this has been mildly encouraging - I thought I had almost zero chance. I'll be sure to implement everyone's advice by bidding smartly and exercising my networking muscle this summer. Thank you!

[Anonymous User]

why leave this to OCI? i would spend your summer in Chicago networking. i used to work at K&E and i would not say these grades below any cutoff per se, so you may have a shot any some of the more selective firms if you can get your foot in the door somehow. however, i do not think OCI is likely to pan out for K&E/Sidley - the interviewers will likely be from NY and not inclined to give CBs to so-so grades for a different office, particularly when they are going to be seeing top 20% candidates for their own office.

on the flip side, i can only really speak to K&E, but diversity is a huge plus and we did not get a ton of Penn in Chicago.

[Anonymous User]

why leave this to OCI? i would spend your summer in Chicago networking. i used to work at K&E and i would not say these grades below any cutoff per se, so you may have a shot any some of the more selective firms if you can get your foot in the door somehow. however, i do not think OCI is likely to pan out for K&E/Sidley - the interviewers will likely be from NY and not inclined to give CBs to so-so grades for a different office, particularly when they are going to be seeing top 20% candidates for their own office.

on the flip side, i can only really speak to K&E, but diversity is a huge plus and we did not get a ton of Penn in Chicago.

I am not sure I understand this post. When I was there, average GPA for Sidley NY was below median and for KE NY was around median (maybe a bit above).

[mickey_mouse]

May have missed it, but are you transactional focused? Assuming so since you're in house this summer, but maybe not. Transactional continues to be in demand in Chi (I know it is at my firm), and I don't think you'd be out of the running at the big firms with your pedigree. But yea, network, because so many of the firms here can just fill up their classes with top kids from midwest schools if they want.

[Platopus]

why leave this to OCI? i would spend your summer in Chicago networking. i used to work at K&E and i would not say these grades below any cutoff per se, so you may have a shot any some of the more selective firms if you can get your foot in the door somehow. however, i do not think OCI is likely to pan out for K&E/Sidley - the interviewers will likely be from NY and not inclined to give CBs to so-so grades for a different office, particularly when they are going to be seeing top 20% candidates for their own office.

on the flip side, i can only really speak to K&E, but diversity is a huge plus and we did not get a ton of Penn in Chicago.

I am not sure I understand this post. When I was there, average GPA for Sidley NY was below median and for KE NY was around median (maybe a bit above).

Penn does a regional OCI program in late July where you essentially get to do a screener at the firm's office, so I'd mostly likely get to interview with someone from the actual Chicago office if my regional OCI bids are accepted. Probably wouldn't help however, since Penn's regional OCI program has only 7 chicago firms, half of which are probably too grade selective for me anyway (Sidley, K&E, Latham, Skadden). However, our career office data shows that K&E and Sidley gave out the most offers, so I'm not sure what to make of that. In any case, I wasn't going to bid the V20 very high either way, but I really have no choice at the regional OCI program, since there are so few firms participating in that to begin with. I'm going to a couple of networking events this summer, so hopefully I can get a foot in the door that way.

May have missed it, but are you transactional focused? Assuming so since you're in house this summer, but maybe not. Transactional continues to be in demand in Chi (I know it is at my firm), and I don't think you'd be out of the running at the big firms with your pedigree. But yea, network, because so many of the firms here can just fill up their classes with top kids from midwest schools if they want.

Yes, I am definitely transactional focused. I'm working for our transactional group in-house, and I used my elective courses this spring to focus on traditional transaction classes (i.e., Bankruptcy).