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Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 1:36 pm
by BeachedBrit
A lot of firms for Spring OCI at Texas seem to require top 33%, which UT doesn't publish. Does anyone know roughly where top 33% falls GPA wise?

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 1:45 pm
by burtonrideclub
I've seen 3.52 thrown around in the past. It fluctuates every year but 3.5 plus will probably put you there. FWIW, unless firms list a specific gpa they will give call backs to people with grades a little lower than those listed if you impress them.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 4:05 pm
by de5igual
burtonrideclub wrote:I've seen 3.52 thrown around in the past. It fluctuates every year but 3.5 plus will probably put you there. FWIW, unless firms list a specific gpa they will give call backs to people with grades a little lower than those listed if you impress them.
+1

those listed class rank cutoffs are not to be trusted. however, since this is 1L spring OCI, maybe they do carry more weight.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 4:43 pm
by BeachedBrit
f0bolous wrote:
burtonrideclub wrote:I've seen 3.52 thrown around in the past. It fluctuates every year but 3.5 plus will probably put you there. FWIW, unless firms list a specific gpa they will give call backs to people with grades a little lower than those listed if you impress them.
+1

those listed class rank cutoffs are not to be trusted. however, since this is 1L spring OCI, maybe they do carry more weight.
Not to be trusted in that they take lower rank or usually only take people with a higher rank?

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 6:32 pm
by granger
anyone have a guess/way of figuring out where a 3.69 would be?

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:36 pm
by BeachedBrit
Well ~3.63 is top 25% so..

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 7:44 pm
by de5igual
BeachedBrit wrote:
f0bolous wrote:
burtonrideclub wrote:I've seen 3.52 thrown around in the past. It fluctuates every year but 3.5 plus will probably put you there. FWIW, unless firms list a specific gpa they will give call backs to people with grades a little lower than those listed if you impress them.
+1

those listed class rank cutoffs are not to be trusted. however, since this is 1L spring OCI, maybe they do carry more weight.
Not to be trusted in that they take lower rank or usually only take people with a higher rank?
some go higher, most go lower. since it's 1L spring OCI, though, they can be a lot more selective. For 2L OCI, you'll find that almost every firm lists top 25% or top 10% and LR, but that's almost never the case.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 8:40 pm
by granger
BeachedBrit wrote:Well ~3.63 is top 25% so..
word of mouth, or do you know this?

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 9:38 pm
by japes
granger wrote:
BeachedBrit wrote:Well ~3.63 is top 25% so..
word of mouth, or do you know this?
http://www.nalplawschoolsonline.org/ndl ... _quick.asp#

nalp data on percentiles.

There's a good calculator on page 3 of the rank estimator sticky. save a copy of the spreadsheet and work from the secured copy sheet. That should get you where you need to go.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Fri Jan 20, 2012 10:40 pm
by de5igual
japes wrote:
granger wrote:
BeachedBrit wrote:Well ~3.63 is top 25% so..
word of mouth, or do you know this?
http://www.nalplawschoolsonline.org/ndl ... _quick.asp#

nalp data on percentiles.

There's a good calculator on page 3 of the rank estimator sticky. save a copy of the spreadsheet and work from the secured copy sheet. That should get you where you need to go.
those are the numbers at graduation, which are typically higher because of grade inflation. For the 1L cutoffs last year, check the grade report: https://www.utexas.edu/law/career/hando ... Ls_3Ls.pdf

after all grades are in, they'll publish one this year for just first semester 1L

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 4:21 am
by nonprofit-prophet
Don't mean to derail the thread, but you all seem like knowledgable UT people. Does anyone know where 3.87 places me in the class (rough estimate of course)? What is top 10%?

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 12:16 pm
by japes
nonprofit-prophet wrote:Don't mean to derail the thread, but you all seem like knowledgable UT people. Does anyone know where 3.87 places me in the class (rough estimate of course)? What is top 10%?
The estimator I mentioned in my above post puts that around top 9%.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:06 pm
by BeachedBrit
I want to say I remember something about that estimator not working for Texas because the grades/curve aren't normally distributed.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 3:19 pm
by Richie Tenenbaum
japes wrote:
nonprofit-prophet wrote:Don't mean to derail the thread, but you all seem like knowledgable UT people. Does anyone know where 3.87 places me in the class (rough estimate of course)? What is top 10%?
The estimator I mentioned in my above post puts that around top 9%.
Top 10% should be around 3.8.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sat Jan 21, 2012 9:28 pm
by japes
BeachedBrit wrote:I want to say I remember something about that estimator not working for Texas because the grades/curve aren't normally distributed.
Yeah, it seems like it's really stacked around the middle.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 9:38 am
by JusticeHarlan
BeachedBrit wrote:
f0bolous wrote:
burtonrideclub wrote:I've seen 3.52 thrown around in the past. It fluctuates every year but 3.5 plus will probably put you there. FWIW, unless firms list a specific gpa they will give call backs to people with grades a little lower than those listed if you impress them.
+1

those listed class rank cutoffs are not to be trusted. however, since this is 1L spring OCI, maybe they do carry more weight.
Not to be trusted in that they take lower rank or usually only take people with a higher rank?
I think this is in regards to 2L OCI instead if 1L, but I think the same sentiment applies:
thesealocust wrote:A wise and insightful person once wrote:

PSA - when a firm lists its GPA preference and requirements, you should do the following: Ignore them entirely and mother fucking ask career services.

Firms lie through their god damned teeth on those things, and I want to keep harping on it, because it is VERY IMPORTANT TO YOUR CAREER PROSPECTS. The firms are lying or naive or outsourcing their symplicity profiles to India or who knows what, but if you ask a 3 year old with a box of crayons to draw you the cut off for a firm you'll get a better answer than the firm's published cutoff on your OCI software.

Firms aren't consistently high, or consistently low - they're just consistently full of shit. A firm that says "top third required" might hire to median, it might hire from the top 3% without exception, and there's even a remote chance it will hire from the top third. But those pieces of data simply cannot be relied upon at all. Not even in a cursory way. Not for comparison's sake, not when nothing else will do. You need to completely disregard them, and beg/borrow/steal data from career services. Your (and that's the royal 'your' for everyone out there reading in paranoid law student land) career depends on it.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:27 pm
by Younger Abstention
Wow, you guys have crazy grade inflation. Is this a B+ curve, or higher?

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2012 10:31 pm
by nonprofit-prophet
B+ curve.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 12:10 am
by shock259
My T1 curves to a B+ too (3.3). I haven't been able to figure out where I am with a 3.78. The NALP data is old and doesn't account for the median change last year. And my school has been unresponsive. I can't find a data point to use with the TLS calculator either. Rawr.

Is there any reason why my school wouldn't be substantially similar to UT's curve? Class size is way smaller (~170), but I don't think this would change anything. If it is the same-ish curve, I'd be sitting pretty with almost top 10%. Crazy.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 1:38 am
by BeachedBrit
It probably means little or nothing to you. We have required percentages of each letter grade to be given out and A+ = 4.3, unless your school had the same policy it seems unlikely to be very relevant.

Re: Top 33% at Texas

Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2012 2:47 am
by shock259
Ok, thanks. I'll just keep waiting on the registrar to get back to me...

And we don't even have an A+, so our curve is probably even more smushed around the median. Good for me, I suppose.