#1 @ school in 30-40 range. Chances & is it worth it? Forum

[mscarn23]

I am at a school in the 30-40 range, was ranked #1 after first semester, and after receiving my spring grades and talking with the students ranked #2-5 last semester, it looks like I will still be #1 by a pretty good margin once our official ranks finally get posted.

Basic stuff about my application besides grades... ~8 years work experience, CALI/Book awards in 6/8 substantive classes, 3 strong recommendations, think my PS was decent. Secondary market big law job that I landed through OCI for this summer, one pretty interesting soft on my resume (interesting enough that it would out me if I mentioned it).

Transferring to improve clerkship and V5-type opportunities (would specifically love the chance to at least interview @ Wachtell), as well as to relocate closer to family who are all in the northeast. Applied to HY/CN/P shortly after the apps came live, thinking I should wait to send spring grades until my official rank posts so schools can see I have kept my ranking. Not applying to Stanford or Chicago because of their locations relative to my family. I completed the Harvard write-on, though I'm not holding my breath that my submission will be successful. In addition, I've taken the GMAT (got a 750) and might be interested in the possibility of a JD/MBA (which is why I have Penn on this list).

What do my chances look like for these 5 schools? Is it worth giving up my #1 ranking, full scholarship, and law review to go elsewhere? I really like the school that I'm at, have several close faculty relationships, and am confident that I will be able to secure a full-time position graduating from here. I am less confident about clerkship opportunities, or super-prestigious firm jobs in DC/Boston/NYC (all of which I'd be interested in relocating to after school).

Right now I'm feeling like H or Y would be worth it if I were accepted, but CN/P might not be. I'm not especially debt averse (though I passed up a few T14 opportunities to take $$$ at my current school) though the idea of graduating from NYU with $140k (or whatever 2 years will cost) in loans definitely gives me pause.

Comments, criticisms, or general thoughts on my situation will be appreciated.

[keg411]

YHSCNP are all definitely worth it if you want to relocate to the Northeast and don't want to practice in your school's legal market. If you want to practice in your school's legal market, it probably isn't worth it if you have a large scholarship, since pretty much all of the major firms at your school's OCI will preselect you (especially if your school's LR is grade-on and you don't need to worry about the writing competition).

[mscarn23]

LR is grade-on at my school, so I am not doing the write-on competition.

[CanadianWolf]

Your chances are outstanding & yes, it is worth transferring to a Top 6 law school in your situation.

[thecilent]

Plz tell us all your secrets to success. tyia

[flcath]

You should get at least one of HY, and those I think are definitely worth it.

Congrats!

[JamMasterJ]

You should get at least one of HY, and those I think are definitely worth it.

Congrats!

+1. For the record, I think CN and P are worth it too, but you won't have to make that decision. Congrats

[3ThrowAway99]

Holy cow dude, congrats!!!

Out of curiousity, did you have a shot (or acceptances) at T14 when you accepted your full-scholly at current school? How about at T6 or even Y/H/S? (i.e. did you apply to those schools, or at least have the numbers to have a shot). Just curious.

And yeah, I think it is probably worth the transfer, esepcially to one of Y/H/S.

[KMaine]

Congratulations both on your success in law school and in the Olympic Games. Your parents are, no doubt, very proud of you. I think you will do well either way. I do not remember if you said you have a scholarship. If it is a big one, or you could make it a big one through negotiation, consider staying. It will limit your chances at ultra-elite firms, but I think you could land a market-paying job in almost any market to which you have ties (and def. in NYC regardless of ties). Your chances also seem good to land a federal clerkship (if you keep your grades up and your are interested in one) from your current school. If you have any interest in academia, enjoy Harvard!

[mscarn23]

Thanks for all the responses, I'll try to respond to them as best I can...

I'm 7 pages in to what I'm sure will be a real snoozer of a history of my 1L year/ study techniques, so if anyone is interested I'll post that soon.

Regarding pre-law prospects, I got into 3 T14s, but no T6 as an 0L. I didn't have the GPA to break into T6.

I'm happy to hear so many people think any of those schools would be worth making the jump to, I wasn't sure if I was misguided for thinking so.

I do have a significant scholarship at my current school, and graded on to law review there. I completed (but doubt I made it on to) Harvard's write-on, but wasn't able to complete Columbia's unfortunately (it was during the same week as Harvard's, and between that and my first week of work I couldn't pull it off.).

I think that's all to add for now, but I'll edit if I missed anything (iPhone doesn't want to let me scroll through previous posts for some reason.).

[3ThrowAway99]

Congratulations both on your success in law school and in the Olympic Games.

Hold on, wait, what? Is this something that was mentioned in another thread? I re-read the original post and glanced through the other posts because I thought I missed the reference to the Olympics... but still haven't seen it. Wondering where KMaine pulled this from...

Honestly, I have to say that I'm just as impressed by the 6 Calis out of 8 classes as I would be by participation in the Olympics.. but if OP has both going for him/her then the more power....

[Kabuo]

one pretty interesting soft on my resume (interesting enough that it would out me if I mentioned it).

Maybe that was it and either Kmaine knows OP and decided to out or made a super lucky and random guess.

Or maybe it is something to do with the name and neither of us is Olympic savvy enough to figure it out.

Or, and I think the math is on the side of this one, maybe OP didn't participate in the Olympic Games and it was just something crazy Kmaine said in some obscure attempt to boost ratings for his show on ESPN.

[mscarn23]

It would probably be more interesting to pretend I were an Olympian, but unfortunately that isn't the case. A mathlete maybe, but no Olympic gold.

[FantasticMrFox]

Do it! And good luck/congratulations

[vanwinkle]

I've known a couple of transfers who were #1 or very close to it at T1 schools. Some T25-T30, some lower T1. Not a single one has regretted transferring here (HLS). Everyone I've known who did OCI did very well there overall, and but for a few exceptions, employers looked at transferring as a positive since it's so difficult to do. And that's without any of them making HLR...

It's a lot tougher to tell T14 people what to do. But from the 30-40 range, wanting BigLaw, and wanting to move to the northeast? H/Y would be an absolute no-brainer. here, and CLS is probably a good move as well, since (at least in the northeast) it's going to be a powerful name on your resume too. Plus, you can easily sell your desire to transfer to employers (wanting to both move upward and move geographically closer to your family/where you want to be) and reinforce your desire to work for them for the same geographic reasons.

You should look into whether you're allowed to apply for JD/MBA consideration as a transfer. I think at HLS you have to apply for the joint degree program by the end of 1L, which kind of disqualifies transfers from the process. Talk to someone at HLS about it this summer, and at Penn to see if they're the same way.

[mscarn23]

Thanks for the head's up about the JD/MBA thing. I'm by no means dead-set on doing it, but it's definitely better to know going in that it's not an option than to be disappointed after matriculation. I did a little digging around schools' websites, and for anyone else who's interested in doing the JD/MBA as a transfer, here's what I came up with:

Penn seems like it would allow you to do it (they let students start the MBA after finishing 2L year)- --LinkRemoved--

Harvard says no (must be enrolled @ HBS by 2nd year @ Harvard, and I doubt they'd buy a "technically it's my 1st year" argument)- --LinkRemoved--

Columbia says no for the 3-year program, but looks like yes for the 4-year (requires you apply by halfway mark of the law degree)- http://www4.gsb.columbia.edu/students/m ... =kb.detail

NYU looks like a yes (their standard JD/MBA schedule has students spending first 2 years @ law school- http://www.law.nyu.edu/admissions/jdadm ... /index.htm

Yale looks like a yes (same schedule as NYU's program)- http://my.som.yale.edu/StudentServices/ ... ttern.aspx

[MrKappus]

Plz tell us all your secrets to success. tyia

There is no "secret," dude. OP's just smart. You're not going to duplicate his/her results. Sorry.

@OP: knew a #1 from a top 50 that got into Yale, so you're probably in great shape.

[thecilent]

Plz tell us all your secrets to success. tyia

There is no "secret," dude. OP's just smart. You're not going to duplicate his/her results. Sorry.

@OP: knew a #1 from a top 50 that got into Yale, so you're probably in great shape.

you're taking the word "secret" in my post so literally, why? obviously i know there are no secrets. was just tellin op to share his experiences with shizz, and obvi he has something to say, if he already has seven pages written

[mscarn23]

There is unfortunately no secret to finishing first, at least none that I've discovered. There is however a long (probably boring) narrative that I'm putting together about my 1L experience.

The basic elements to my own showing were probably 1) being smart (as Kappus said) and 2) working very hard. I treated law school like a fulltime job, and put in ~10 hours a day (including class time), 7-days a week. I took 2-days off during Thanksgiving, and didn't touch a book over Christmas break, but otherwise went without a day off the entire time school was in session. Dedication, paired with being relatively over-qualified compared to the average student, put me in the position to succeed.

Now that 1L is over I'm pretty sure that I would have finished in the top 10%, maybe even top 5% with a lot less effort, but there's obviously a lot less room for error if you're gunning to finish #1 overall. In retrospect I probably went a bit overboard, based on how far ahead I ended up, but at least I'm not kicking myself because I didn't work as hard as I could have.

Anyways, thanks everyone for the comments/thoughts. I'd like to hear from anyone else who wants to chime in, and will let everyone know how things shake out.

One last thing- I mentioned in my original post that I planned on waiting until our official ranks were released before updating schools with my spring grades. Since there have been no comments on this I'm assuming nobody thinks it would be better to update with grades ASAP and then amend once the rank officially comes out? Based on last semester I'd guess the official rankings should be released by around June 15.

[thecilent]

Lol well it's pretty clear what the secret is here: working 70-hour weeks with just about no days off ever. Haha I would never do that much

also, you say how smart you are, but from what i see, your writing is pretty bad. kinda makes me think flame

[mscarn23]

No client, this is not a flame, though I'm obviously crushed you don't like my writing (I take it you will NOT be waiting with bated breath for my 1L manifesto!). Rather than saying I was smart I guess I should have said "I got a 177 on the LSAT," and left it at that (although I think the takeaway is the same with or without the masturbatorial LSAT flexing). To make it more palatable let me instead say that I spent a lot of time studying and was NUMERICALLY more qualified than most students at my school.

[NYC Law]

No client, this is not a flame, though I'm obviously crushed you don't like my writing (I take it you will NOT be waiting with bated breath for my 1L manifesto!). Rather than saying I was smart I guess I should have said "I got a 177 on the LSAT," and left it at that (although I think the takeaway is the same with or without the masturbatorial LSAT flexing). To make it more palatable let me instead say that I spent a lot of time studying and was NUMERICALLY more qualified than most students at my school.

I like how you're using big words after he insulted your writing lol.

But seriously, congrats and I look forward to reading your posts about 1L year. Any timeline of when it will be released?

[NarwhalPunter]

Lol well it's pretty clear what the secret is here: working 70-hour weeks with just about no days off ever. Haha I would never do that much

also, you say how smart you are, but from what i see, your writing is pretty bad. kinda makes me think flame

Pot, meet kettle. Everything you post absolutely screams "simpleton."

[thecilent]

Lol well it's pretty clear what the secret is here: working 70-hour weeks with just about no days off ever. Haha I would never do that much

also, you say how smart you are, but from what i see, your writing is pretty bad. kinda makes me think flame

Pot, meet kettle. Everything you post absolutely screams "simpleton."

Haha

[mscarn23]

I don't know that masturbatorial is a big word, though I guess it would depend on the guy using it. I'll probably throw my 1L guide up tomorrow after I have a chance to read through it once more.