Top Law Schools

For schools that grade the top X (# or %) students onto XYZ Law Rev
How good would your grades have to be (# or %) for you to not write on, and bank on getting a spot anyway? What sort of cushion would you want to have before you made this bet?

M.I.T. L. Rev. wrote:For schools that grade the top X (# or %) students onto XYZ Law Rev
How good would your grades have to be (# or %) for you to not write on, and bank on getting a spot anyway? What sort of cushion would you want to have before you made this bet?

Pitt's law review is top 10%.

Even if I had all A's first semester I'd still do the competition, unless I got a grade or two back before the deadline that would solidify my position.

Luckily, I'm nowhere near top 10% so it's not a problem for me.

There are schools that will invite you if you don't do the write on ? At my school the top 5% will get invites if they put in a good faith effort on their packet, but they still have to turn in a packet.

If you can just get an invite based on your grades alone, I would still never take that risk. Unless you're some kind of law school wunderkind that aces every test, you should always try anyways. You won't know what your grades are when you do your write on and the prize of law review is just too important to let ride on chance.

At my school it's roughly top 7% grade on, and stories are legion of both students who got great grades + ignored the writing comp + failed to make any journal after 2nd semester grade drop as well as students who got great grades + ignored the writing comp + graded onto LR as planned.

What do people think the grade-on percentage is at Michigan? I was thinking it's somewhere between top 3-5% of the class, potentially closer to 3%. But yeah to answer OP it seems very unwise to ever bank on grading on.

(If 25% of the staff grades on and they select 45 people, that's 11 people that grade on. Eleven divided by 376 (Class of 2013 size) is just under 3%. Of course, not everyone with top grades applies but most probably do. Further, I think they drop the worst 25% of packets at the outset, but that probably wouldn't nix too many people at the top of the class. So I guess that puts it around 4% or so.)

At Chicago-Kent, you find out if you graded on before the comp starts, I had always assumed most schools were like that

My school invited the top 5% without having to write on. But at our school, you don't know how well you did (second semester 1L grades) until after the write-on competition was due. So why risk it? Your goal should be to get on law review, and you should do whatever it takes to increase your chances. How much of an asshole will you feel like if you skip the write-on and get a surprisingly low grade in a class you thought you aced?

I had straight A's first semester and still did the write on. It was miserable and hard to motivate myself, but I don't regret it (even though I did well enough to grade on second semester). It's an insurance policy and I figured the anger I would feel had I not graded outweighed the misery of writing a ten page note that will never be read because I graded on.

at NDLS the top 15 people grade on (out of 172) and an additional 10 can write on.

so class rankings just came out, and according to my school's website I should make the cut, how long after rankings come out to invites usually go out? Based on people's experience... Also I can't take this waiting anymore, first grades, then class rankings, now law review, next OCI... Grrrr

I decided to forgo the write on competition and wait for grades, but I had a bigger sample size for grades - baylor does quarters - and baylor has a write on competition in the spring and fall quarters

I guess if I had just hunkered down and done the stupid write on competition - and been accepted - I wouldn't have to wait right now, so I would advise trying the write on

Bronte wrote:What do people think the grade-on percentage is at Michigan? I was thinking it's somewhere between top 3-5% of the class, potentially closer to 3%. But yeah to answer OP it seems very unwise to ever bank on grading on.

(If 25% of the staff grades on and they select 45 people, that's 11 people that grade on. Eleven divided by 376 (Class of 2013 size) is just under 3%. Of course, not everyone with top grades applies but most probably do. Further, I think they drop the worst 25% of packets at the outset, but that probably wouldn't nix too many people at the top of the class. So I guess that puts it around 4% or so.)

I think you are probably pretty close with this. I would guess somewhere around 3% to 4%. Any guesses on what GPA would equate that percentage? 3.8ish?

JetstoRJC wrote:

Bronte wrote:What do people think the grade-on percentage is at Michigan? I was thinking it's somewhere between top 3-5% of the class, potentially closer to 3%. But yeah to answer OP it seems very unwise to ever bank on grading on.

(If 25% of the staff grades on and they select 45 people, that's 11 people that grade on. Eleven divided by 376 (Class of 2013 size) is just under 3%. Of course, not everyone with top grades applies but most probably do. Further, I think they drop the worst 25% of packets at the outset, but that probably wouldn't nix too many people at the top of the class. So I guess that puts it around 4% or so.)

I think you are probably pretty close with this. I would guess somewhere around 3% to 4%. Any guesses on what GPA would equate that percentage? 3.8ish?

It's unclear to me exactly where the top 5% is, let alone the top 4%. I'm guessing the cutoff for top 5% is somewhere between 3.75 and 3.78. Cut off for top 4% is probably anywhere from 3.78 to 3.85. It'd be nice if it were a bit more transparent.

CWSL is top 5% i think. They release grade before the write on competition, so no need to write if you have a guaranteed invite.

I'm curious about Cooley. If it's only top 5% does that mean there's about 100 people on law review?

Bronte wrote:What do people think the grade-on percentage is at Michigan? I was thinking it's somewhere between top 3-5% of the class, potentially closer to 3%. But yeah to answer OP it seems very unwise to ever bank on grading on.

(If 25% of the staff grades on and they select 45 people, that's 11 people that grade on. Eleven divided by 376 (Class of 2013 size) is just under 3%. Of course, not everyone with top grades applies but most probably do. Further, I think they drop the worst 25% of packets at the outset, but that probably wouldn't nix too many people at the top of the class. So I guess that puts it around 4% or so.)

Kind of seems like there's been conflicting stuff told about that dropping worst 25% being dropped thing. I know what you're referring to, but I've also been told/seen it written that in order to grade on one must make a "good faith" submission to the writing competition. That would seem to require a lot less than being in the 26th percentile or above of submissions. Also, I thought the wording in the packet was a little unclear.

goodolgil wrote:

Bronte wrote:What do people think the grade-on percentage is at Michigan? I was thinking it's somewhere between top 3-5% of the class, potentially closer to 3%. But yeah to answer OP it seems very unwise to ever bank on grading on.

(If 25% of the staff grades on and they select 45 people, that's 11 people that grade on. Eleven divided by 376 (Class of 2013 size) is just under 3%. Of course, not everyone with top grades applies but most probably do. Further, I think they drop the worst 25% of packets at the outset, but that probably wouldn't nix too many people at the top of the class. So I guess that puts it around 4% or so.)

Kind of seems like there's been conflicting stuff told about that dropping worst 25% being dropped thing. I know what you're referring to, but I've also been told/seen it written that in order to grade on one must make a "good faith" submission to the writing competition. That would seem to require a lot less than being in the 26th percentile or above of submissions. Also, I thought the wording in the packet was a little unclear.

Wording in the packet was definitely unclear. I certainly don't know the bottom 25% thing to a certainty. Of course, the "good faith effort" thing may just be shorthand for the drop 25% thing. Who knows. The opacity of the entire process is rather annoying.

Edit: Oh and one other curveball is that they take into account your Legal Practice grade.

Law review here only takes the top 7 students (Not top 7%, top 7 students) as grade-ons. We found out our rank about halfway through the competition, and if you grade on, you can just quit the competition. I think you have to sign up for the competition in order to grade on, though.

Edit: this year, the student ranked 7th was top 5%.

My school takes the top 15 ranked students as a grade-on and maybe another 15 can write-on. The writing competition takes place before grades are in, so everybody who wants law journal has to do the writing competition. You just cannot risk a slight grade slippage losing you law review. Grades are too random sometimes.