How do we feel about Uchi ED these days? Forum

[throwawayaccount456]

I've read some debate on these forums about whether passing on Uchi ED is worth the risk to take a shot at HYS. They seem a little dated now, however, do to Uchi rise, i.e. being #1 in fed clerks last year.

Assuming your first semester GPA would be competitive for HYSC if you repeated, and you had basic prestigious goals (fed COA clerk, big fed, academia, etc), what would you do?

[crazywafflez]

I mean, I'd do it. But I would've done it prior to the ranking changes.

[talons2250]

From what I understand, Chicago has a numerical grading system, which means it's a lot easier to tell who is at the tippy top, middle top, barely top, middle, barely low, middle low, and super low of the class. This is not the case at Harvard and Yale. All of Chicago's wonderful clerkship outcomes with super competitive judges only really apply to Chicago students with high grades. Based on the curve and as a strict matter of probability, the odds are that you will not have high grades. I think this is a definite con for Chicago in terms of ED-ing and passing up on a chance at HYS. At Harvard, you're cum laude so long as you're in the top 40 percent. And Yale doesn't have any GPA-based honors at all.

[throwawayaccount456]

From what I understand, Chicago has a numerical grading system, which means it's a lot easier to tell who is at the tippy top, middle top, barely top, middle, barely low, middle low, and super low of the class. This is not the case at Harvard and Yale. All of Chicago's wonderful clerkship outcomes with super competitive judges only really apply to Chicago students with high grades. Based on the curve and as a strict matter of probability, the odds are that you will not have high grades. I think this is a definite con for Chicago in terms of ED-ing and passing up on a chance at HYS. At Harvard, you're cum laude so long as you're in the top 40 percent. And Yale doesn't have any GPA-based honors at all.

But if you have the grades to transfer in, you likely will do well at your new school. Maybe not near the top of the class, but well enough to benefit from having grades, would you not think? Plus, Uchi's system may give a transfer student more ability to get the benefits of the school name through merit, rather than being a year behind on all the other networking games that are more important when you don't get solid grades.

[talons2250]

From what I understand, Chicago has a numerical grading system, which means it's a lot easier to tell who is at the tippy top, middle top, barely top, middle, barely low, middle low, and super low of the class. This is not the case at Harvard and Yale. All of Chicago's wonderful clerkship outcomes with super competitive judges only really apply to Chicago students with high grades. Based on the curve and as a strict matter of probability, the odds are that you will not have high grades. I think this is a definite con for Chicago in terms of ED-ing and passing up on a chance at HYS. At Harvard, you're cum laude so long as you're in the top 40 percent. And Yale doesn't have any GPA-based honors at all.

But if you have the grades to transfer in, you likely will do well at your new school. Maybe not near the top of the class, but well enough to benefit from having grades, would you not think? Plus, Uchi's system may give a transfer student more ability to get the benefits of the school name through merit, rather than being a year behind on all the other networking games that are more important when you don't get solid grades.

I think all of these theories are too speculative to be proven or disproven. It might be true that if you have the grades to transfer in, you'll likely do well at your new school. But wouldn't that logic also mean that if you have the undergrad grades and LSAT score to get in, you'll also probably do well at the school where you got in? In every law school class, 10% is in the top 10% and 90% aren't. That's just a fact. Regarding getting the benefits of the school name through merit, I don't really think that much important networking happens during 1L anyway. So you will not have missed out on much networking by virtue of being a transfer. But that could depend on various factors, I guess.

[nixy]

The thing is, performance in law school classes is way more predictive of ability to do well in law school classes than performance on LSAT/UGPA are; it’s apples to apples. Also, it’s anecdotal, but most transfers report doing well at their new schools as well.

That said, one semester of good grades doesn’t necessarily guarantee continued success, either. So there are risks on either path.

Something that might matter here is where the OP would be transferring from. If they’re already in the T14 or maybe high up in the T20, maybe it’s worth parsing the very fine differences between Chicago and HYS. But if these schools are all materially better than where OP is now, any gives a better shot than where they currently are. So there’s no bad outcome.

Besides, generally speaking Chicago will get you almost anywhere that HYS will. I also don’t think that if your grades at Chicago aren’t good enough to get you where you want to go, that you’d do better at HYS or that the HYS grading systems will magically hide that. If the top 40% at H get cum laude and being in the top 40% isn’t sufficient for your goals, having cum laude after your name isn’t going to make up for that - top gigs know how to figure this out if it matters to them.

Really I think the only answer here is risk-aversion. I think applying ED to Chicago is less risky than passing on ED to take a shot at HYS, because OP knows they have the grades now, but they don’t know they’ll have the grades at the end of second semester. And I don’t think the risk of having a bad outcome out of Chicago outweigh the risk of losing the chance to transfer to any of these schools; again, if OP goes to Chicago and doesn’t do well enough to get their stated goals, I don’t think they’d do well enough at HYS to do magically better. I don’t think top-40% students are HLS are getting those fancy clerkships you have to be top of the class at Chicago to get.

[talons2250]

Not sure how useful of a data point this is, but Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch were both cum laude but not magna cum laude at HLS, meaning they were not top 10% but were top 40%. (Where in that 30%-wide band of "cum laude" they were is unclear, of course.) Both clerked on SCOTUS and ended up on SCOTUS themselves. Do Chicago grads not in the top 10% of the class clerk on SCOTUS with the same frequency as HLS grads who aren't in the top 10% of the class? I don't think so, but perhaps I'm wrong. Of course, SCOTUS clerkships are really rare for anyone at any school and there's lots of luck involved, but I think there is an illustration here.

[staygoldenponyboy]

Something that might matter here is where the OP would be transferring from. If they’re already in the T14 or maybe high up in the T20, maybe it’s worth parsing the very fine differences between Chicago and HYS. But if these schools are all materially better than where OP is now, any gives a better shot than where they currently are. So there’s no bad outcome.

Not OP, but I am debating what to do. I have a 4.2ish from a school ranked between 30-50. I definitely want to transfer. Feel confident about my exams, but also recognize that I would need to be pretty lucky for repeat performance. Thoughts? I am also a federalist society member for what that's worth, I hear Uchi is a good place for those of us in that camp.

[staygoldenponyboy]

Not sure how useful of a data point this is, but Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch were both cum laude but not magna cum laude at HLS, meaning they were not top 10% but were top 40%. (Where in that 30%-wide band of "cum laude" they were is unclear, of course.) Both clerked on SCOTUS and ended up on SCOTUS themselves. Do Chicago grads not in the top 10% of the class clerk on SCOTUS with the same frequency as HLS grads who aren't in the top 10% of the class? I don't think so, but perhaps I'm wrong. Of course, SCOTUS clerkships are really rare for anyone at any school and there's lots of luck involved, but I think there is an illustration here.

I mean, this year both Harvard and Uchicago had 7 SCOTUS Clerks, and considering how many more Harvard grads there are, seems that Uchicago pulls more than its weight now

[nixy]

Not sure how useful of a data point this is, but Ketanji Brown Jackson and Neil Gorsuch were both cum laude but not magna cum laude at HLS, meaning they were not top 10% but were top 40%. (Where in that 30%-wide band of "cum laude" they were is unclear, of course.) Both clerked on SCOTUS and ended up on SCOTUS themselves. Do Chicago grads not in the top 10% of the class clerk on SCOTUS with the same frequency as HLS grads who aren't in the top 10% of the class? I don't think so, but perhaps I'm wrong. Of course, SCOTUS clerkships are really rare for anyone at any school and there's lots of luck involved, but I think there is an illustration here.

So ending up on SCOTUS is totally irrelevant here because that's such an incredibly politicized process, it depends so much on what you do after clerking (most SCOTUS clerks do not become SCOTUS justices), and both had a lot of compelling reasons for being appointed by the presidents in place at the time.

As for clerking, apart from the fact that (as you note) we don't know where Brown Jackson and Gorsuch fell within the cum laude band, they're both compelling candidates in other ways. And while SCOTUS clerking may not be as politicized as getting onto the court itself, connections and the right kind of support (and political affiliation) is still huge, which isn't purely a function of grades. In any case, do you have any actual stats about the grades for Chicago v. Harvard SCOTUS clerks or are you just guessing? There are currently 9 Chicago clerks on SCOTUS and based on their LinkedIns (obv not definitive) four didn't graduate with honors (which looks to be about the top 10%, i.e in they were in the same band as Brown Jackson and Gorsuch). Is there a reason you think that the justices perceive a material difference between Chicago grades and Harvard grades?

As you also note, chances of clerking for SCOTUS are rare enough that it doesn't make sense to me to pick a school for that reason - not necessarily b/c the OP shouldn't aim for SCOTUS (maybe they're another compelling candidate) but because it's a small enough number, drawing statistical inferences seems like a bit of a fool's game; a few luminaries each year making different decisions can tip the balance.

Finally, if the OP doesn't do well enough at Chicago to get the kind of support necessary for a SCOTUS bid, they weren't going to be magically more successful at HLS - I don't think justices are "dipping lower" for HLS than for Chicago in the way that firms can have different grade cut offs for OCI. SCOTUS clerks are all incredibly impressive and SCOTUS justices can afford to be choosy and pick based on what matters to them (often that's school pedigree and grades, but not always or exclusively).

This all makes it sound like I'm 100% Chicago and honestly if the OP wants to shoot their shot at HYS, that's totally fair. I just don't think HLS has enough of a measurable advantage over Chicago in SCOTUS hiring for that to really weigh anything in the OP's decision.

[nixy]

Something that might matter here is where the OP would be transferring from. If they’re already in the T14 or maybe high up in the T20, maybe it’s worth parsing the very fine differences between Chicago and HYS. But if these schools are all materially better than where OP is now, any gives a better shot than where they currently are. So there’s no bad outcome.

Not OP, but I am debating what to do. I have a 4.2ish from a school ranked between 30-50. I definitely want to transfer. Feel confident about my exams, but also recognize that I would need to be pretty lucky for repeat performance. Thoughts? I am also a federalist society member for what that's worth, I hear Uchi is a good place for those of us in that camp.

Personally, I'd be more comfortable trying to lock in Chicago with known grades. But that's entirely subjective and I get if there are things about HYS that are really hard to pass up (even if those are personal life things, like one is closer to your family or where you want to work or whatever; those things matter). I do have the impression that Chicago is a good place for conservatives, but can't speak from experience or to the weight that should receive (like I'd imagine Harvard is big enough you could find your people, Yale might be a little bit more of a culture clash but it's Yale, etc).

The one thing I'd say is to look really carefully at where all these schools took transfers from and how much of a benefit EDing to Chicago confers (if any). If HYS are real stretches in a way that Chicago isn't, for me that's a bigger reason to ED to Chicago to protect the sure thing. If the odds on each are pretty similar (whether good or bad), I'd be more comfortable waiting and just applying to them all at the end of 1L.

And again, that's only how I'd feel about it. You (and others) may feel differently.

[lawschoolsplit2023]

Suppose you’ve had a perfect record and are up in your 30s and want to attend law school, as you have some goal of utilizing that degree in a non legal capacity.

Also suppose that while always having a clear record there may be a pending case open based on false allegations you don’t want to deal with now since there isn’t a warrant or open case, while could be charges filed with some court being unserved not knowing your current address. So you want to attend law school and want to assure acceptance, but not interested in sitting for the bar

If you fill out you have no criminal history and get accepted at ucla or southern cal could they background anyway and see an unserved case?

After 1l if you transfer to Berkeley or Stanford would they background check or likely not either? And how do you know? Hoping for a no for both