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I've been applying to COA clerkships on OSCAR but to no avail. Wondering if I should just throw in the towel. Stats are:

Graduated from DCNG two years ago. Above median but no latin honors. Work at NYC firm in somewhere in the V20-V30 range. Generic D. Ct. clerkship (i.e., not SDNY, DDC, CDCA, NDIL or the like). Published a few law review articles but not in any super prestigious journals.

Anyone have any advice on getting around the OSCAR 10% required grade preferences? Should I even apply for those jobs? Also, are those things super hard-line rules? My D. Ct. judge did mail apps so I have no idea how OSCAR works.

Anonymous User wrote:I've been applying to COA clerkships on OSCAR but to no avail. Wondering if I should just throw in the towel. Stats are:

Graduated from DCNG two years ago. Above median but no latin honors. Work at NYC firm in somewhere in the V20-V30 range. Generic D. Ct. clerkship (i.e., not SDNY, DDC, CDCA, NDIL or the like). Published a few law review articles but not in any super prestigious journals.

Anyone have any advice on getting around the OSCAR 10% required grade preferences? Should I even apply for those jobs? Also, are those things super hard-line rules? My D. Ct. judge did mail apps so I have no idea how OSCAR works.

At my lower T14 the people who got COA clerkships were top 5-10%, so it's going to be hard. Paper apps might help -- at least the judges who have grade preferences can't screen you out automatically without even eyeballing your resume. I'd try to work connections using your D. Ct. judge/law firm partners/professors, etc., and obviously applying in the same jurisdiction as d.ct. clerkship helps. But with those numbers, you're going to need someone who can make a call to a judge to get your app pulled from the pile.

Is DCNG a thing?

From when I was applying to law schools, this was an acronym for the bottom end of the T14. Even though people say T13 now, I still think that those schools are relatively comparable in terms of hiring power (with Georgetown being a slight cut below).