Transfer Students Now Ineligible for Order of the Coif Forum

[meatmarket]

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[09042014]

As it should be.

[maf70]

Every school I applied to made this abundantly clear...this isn't news.

[random5483]

Some schools informed me transfers are eligible and others told me specifically that they are not. However, I did not base my transfer decision on an honor like Order of the Coif.

[rayiner]

I don't think this is hostility. Here at NU, where there is substantial grade inflation after 1L, it would be unfair for a transfer student to be eligible for Coif when only incorporating 2L and 3L grades. At a place like UVA, where nearly all classes remain on the 1L curve, things would be different.

[keg411]

My old school wasn't even part of Order of the Coif and never gave that out, so I don't particularly care. At least here, transfers are still eligible for all the school's honors.

[Transferthrowaway]

.

[vanwinkle]

I'm ineligible for Order of the Coif 'cause they don't award it here.

[transplantedbuckeye]

FWIW, WUSTL allowed transfer students to be chosen for Order of the Coif.

[nleefer]

From Boalt website, don't know if it will change or not now...

Transfer students who come to Boalt at the start of their second year are eligible for Coif membership based exclusively on their graded courses at Boalt. Again, at least 75% of their total required law school credits (at Boalt and before) must be in graded courses. At a minimum, transfer students must have 36 graded credits in their two years at Boalt to qualify for membership.
http://www.law.berkeley.edu/190.htm

[ToTransferOrNot]

No problem with this as long as it was made clear *before* people made the decision to transfer in. If it was jumped on people afterwards, beyond the pale doesn't even come close.

[kaiser]

So what? You likely got a huge boost from transferring, and that more than outweighs any particular graduation honor.

[ToTransferOrNot]

So what? You likely got a huge boost from transferring, and that more than outweighs any particular graduation honor.

If it hits current 3Ls, the prospect of certain graduation honors completely changes how many people approach coursework.

If it only hits incoming 2Ls, in some cases availability of graduation honors might influence someone's decision among schools that are otherwise equal. In addition, I would say that a school that doesn't allow transfers to get coif or honors is communicating something about how they view transfer students (or, alternatively, how seriously the school takes its 2L/3L curriculum).

If a transfer comes in and takes all uncurved (or higher-curved classes), I admit that they probably shouldn't have access to honors. But I would say the same of "natives" who pad their GPAs in 2L/3L, too. If you want to go that route, do it more directly: make honors and such contingent on having a certain percentage of your classes be curved classes. The schools that do away with the curve during 2L and 3L are doing it wrong anyway.

[keg411]

An individual school's honors is different from Order of the Coif, which is apparently an outside organization that some schools use as a separate "honors". At least, that's what they told us at Michigan transfer orientation. We're all still eligible for standard latin honors, just not Order of the Coif (which my old school didn't even participate in, so it doesn't matter for me).

[ToTransferOrNot]

Oh, did this come down from the coif organization itself? If that's the case, so it goes - can't really fault the school for that, and no one in their right mind would completely forgo transfering just to get coif.

[Jchance]

FYI this is no longer true. After mid-2014, transfer students are now eligible for Order of the Coif because this new rule allows you to count your 1L classes from old school toward your 75% of graded credits. This came from the Coif organization and applies to all schools.