Northwestern 1L/2L/3L/Grads Taking Questions and Challenges Forum

[dru617]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

In my experience, they're average relative to the average non-transfer, as long as they're employment-secure.

Even if they are on parity with non-transfers as far as aptitude and motivation, they still get a huge GPA boost (over non-transfers) toward getting within top 10% of ALL graduating students by virtue of being able to get almost all of credits in non-curved/easy A classes (the only exception I can think of is Ethics, which is curved) unlike non-transfers where many have irreparable (for honors purposes) GPAs after 1L.

My broader point is that if 30 out of 300 got Coif and there are any transfers at all in that year's total top 10%, you don't really need to actually be top 10% by any measure. You don't need to be top 10% of non-transfers (30/270 = 11.1%), and you don't quite need to be top 10% of total graduates (because for each transfer within the top 10% total grads, one of the 30 who DID get Coif falls out of the top 10%).

That is all. And yes, I totally should be studying for the bar and am well aware that this is not going to be changed by the school.

[attractive_NUisance]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

In my experience, they're average relative to the average non-transfer, as long as they're employment-secure.

Even if they are on parity with non-transfers as far as aptitude and motivation, they still get a huge GPA boost (over non-transfers) toward getting within top 10% of ALL graduating students by virtue of being able to get almost all of credits in non-curved/easy A classes (the only exception I can think of is Ethics, which is curved) unlike non-transfers where many have irreparable (for honors purposes) GPAs after 1L.

My broader point is that if 30 out of 300 got Coif and there are any transfers at all in that year's total top 10%, you don't really need to actually be top 10% by any measure. You don't need to be top 10% of non-transfers (30/270 = 11.1%), and you don't quite need to be top 10% of total graduates (because for each transfer within the top 10% total grads, one of the 30 who DID get Coif falls out of the top 10%).

That is all. And yes, I totally should be studying for the bar and am well aware that this is not going to be changed by the school.

Totally a valid point. It would be good to have more transparency from the school about this, especially if they don't have a principled response to your numbers.

The bar study feelings are mutual.

[rayiner]

^^^ In the event of ties, all the tied students can be inducted. Given the mathematically available gradations in GPA, it is unlikely but quite possible for the GPA marking the top 10% cut-off to have several ties. If you assume people took the same distribution of 2/3/4 credit classes, which is very possible given the limited and specific number of 2/4 credit classes there are, there are basically only 8 possible grades between 3.8 an 3.9. It's quite conceivable that a few people all fell on that cut-off grade in a given year.

[Holly Golightly]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

LOL

[IAFG]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

LOL

Don't let one bad apple...

[dru617]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

LOL

Well, I know this doesn't speak to averages per se, but solely looking at the lower end of the spectrum, I have sat in many classes at NW, including my 1L section, where I and others were constantly thinking "how the fk did this person get in here?" in response to an inane question asked or response to a prof's question. I have never known any transfers to be anywhere near as dumb as some of the non-transfers I've seen in NW classrooms. And I think that speaks to the fact that performance in 1L (which is what transfers are largely evaluated based on) is a far better indicator of 2L-3L performance than undergrad GPAs and LSAT scores alone are (which non-transfers are largely evaluated on).

[Blumpbeef]

I have sat in many classes at NW, including my 1L section, where I and others were constantly thinking "how the fk did this person get in here?" in response to an inane question asked or response to a prof's question.

Oh god. I thought I wouldn't have to endure this stuff anymore after UG. I went to a reasonably competitive UG and I would ask myself this all the time. It was just full of massively incompetent people, and I knew a lot of smart kids who couldn't get in.

[Georgia Avenue]

You all sound fun.

[monstermasher]

Agreed. You are all pretty terrible.

[Blumpbeef]

You all sound fun.

Sorry if it bothers me that someone who doesn't do any of the work decides to waste a ton of class time asking irrelevant questions.

ETA: referring to UG here. And don't get me wrong, I would often not do work in UG, I just had the decency to not make the other 30 people in the room sit there as I asked a question I should have already known the answer to.

[monstermasher]

You all sound fun.

Sorry if it bothers me that someone who doesn't do any of the work decides to waste a ton of class time asking irrelevant questions.

ETA: referring to UG here. And don't get me wrong, I would often not do work in UG, I just had the decency to not make the other 30 people in the room sit there as I asked a question I should have already known the answer to.

No apology required - you just sound kind of insufferable. Also, dumb people don't go away after undergrad.

[mango2281]

Called career office today to get an appt with Bill before he leaves at the end of June.
Apparently he's not taking any more appointments, and the career office tells me that they still haven't figured out what to do with those of us left hanging. Very unhappy about this scenario.

[IAFG]

Each class will only have a handful of transfer students, and it is entirely plausible that they are all in the bottom 90%.

Unless I'm missing something?

No, we take in 30-40 post-1L's each year. And in my experience, they're smarter and more motivated than the average non-transfer.

LOL

Well, I know this doesn't speak to averages per se, but solely looking at the lower end of the spectrum, I have sat in many classes at NW, including my 1L section, where I and others were constantly thinking "how the fk did this person get in here?" in response to an inane question asked or response to a prof's question. I have never known any transfers to be anywhere near as dumb as some of the non-transfers I've seen in NW classrooms. And I think that speaks to the fact that performance in 1L (which is what transfers are largely evaluated based on) is a far better indicator of 2L-3L performance than undergrad GPAs and LSAT scores alone are (which non-transfers are largely evaluated on).

One of the people in my section who I thought asked painfully dumb questions is rumored to have the best GPA in my class. Another person who seemed not-that-bright did terribly. Your metric is bad and you should feel bad.

[Blumpbeef]

you just sound kind of insufferable.

lol, maybe.

It's kind of a sore subject for me since it indirectly led to me getting my only C in upper division coursework. It was a law class too

[VulcanVulcanVulcan]

The types of questions people ask in class has absolutely no correlation with actual academic performance, in law school. I think it's a very different story in UG (when many more people are genuinely unprepared for class).

[monstermasher]

you just sound kind of insufferable.

lol, maybe.

It's kind of a sore subject for me since it indirectly led to me getting my only C in upper division coursework. It was a law class too

In my experience, most of the people that I thought were "dumb" early on in law school turned out to be nice, interesting people who actually were plenty smart but not always great in class. There were only a couple of irredeemable idiots.

Tip for law school/life: don't spend too much time worrying about what other people are doing. You will do better (and be happier) if you focus on yourself.

[attractive_NUisance]

You should probably not bank on getting great advice from Career Services regardless of Bill leaving. I would rely more on advice from students/alumni who have gone through it before and are generally happy to help. Bill is nice, but you can ask a few random 2Ls or 3Ls and will get much better advice.

Just make an appointment with the other guy who is still there (Dave?). It seems odd that you can't get an appointment with anyone in career services prior to going into 2L OCI. It seems wrong that he isn't taking appointments anymore when you are still paying his salary with your tuition $s unless he is literally a week from his last day.

[homestyle28]

you just sound kind of insufferable.

lol, maybe.

It's kind of a sore subject for me since it indirectly led to me getting my only C in upper division coursework. It was a law class too

In my experience, most of the people that I thought were "dumb" early on in law school turned out to be nice, interesting people who actually were plenty smart but not always great in class. There were only a couple of irredeemable idiots.

Tip for law school/life: don't spend too much time worrying about what other people are doing. You will do better (and be happier) if you focus on yourself.

What I took away:
1) I'm probably an irredeemable idiot.
2) It's good to be self-centered.

[rayiner]

You all sound fun.

Sorry if it bothers me that someone who doesn't do any of the work decides to waste a ton of class time asking irrelevant questions.

There are a lot of people who don't do the reading, bumble through class, then destroy the curve. Law school exams are all about how much you can digest that last month before finals.

[rayiner]

You should probably not bank on getting great advice from Career Services regardless of Bill leaving. I would rely more on advice from students/alumni who have gone through it before and are generally happy to help. Bill is nice, but you can ask a few random 2Ls or 3Ls and will get much better advice.

Eh. Bill is plugged-in in a way a lot of 2L's and 3L's aren't. I'm the resident NU employment stats gunner and he gave me invaluable advice in improving my bid list.

[Sauer Grapes]

You should probably not bank on getting great advice from Career Services regardless of Bill leaving. I would rely more on advice from students/alumni who have gone through it before and are generally happy to help. Bill is nice, but you can ask a few random 2Ls or 3Ls and will get much better advice.

Eh. Bill is plugged-in in a way a lot of 2L's and 3L's aren't. I'm the resident NU employment stats gunner and he gave me invaluable advice in improving my bid list.

On the other hand I know someone that relied too strongly on Bill's advice and is without a job. I can't blame it all on Bill by any means as there are probably other contributing reasons as well, but his predicament is at least some due to Bill's advice.

[attractive_NUisance]

Why did he decide to go to Depaul? More money? New dean forced him out? I would imagine that wanting more of a challenge in finding jobs for people was not his rationale.

[Sauer Grapes]

Why did he decide to go to Depaul? More money? New dean forced him out? I would imagine that wanting more of a challenge in finding jobs for people was not his rationale.

I'm not sure we'll ever be told the real reason, but I'm 99% sure the new dean wanted it. Apparently he did this at the last school he was dean.

[Blumpbeef]

You all sound fun.

Sorry if it bothers me that someone who doesn't do any of the work decides to waste a ton of class time asking irrelevant questions.

There are a lot of people who don't do the reading, bumble through class, then destroy the curve. Law school exams are all about how much you can digest that last month before finals.

Please don't tell me that. It's way too easy to get me to procrastinate. I really don't want to flunk out of LS.

[Blumpbeef]

Tip for law school/life: don't spend too much time worrying about what other people are doing. You will do better (and be happier) if you focus on yourself.

In this particular case, we had to write a term paper together. And he was really nice, he just never did any work. And when he did do work, it was really bad (and I didn't know how to tell him this, so I didn't and just went with it). We ended up getting a D on our paper and I ended up with a C+ in the class.

Alternatively, there was one girl who asked a lot of "dumb" questions, but her doing so saved my ass in an engineering class that I was too lost in to even begin formulating questions. I easily could have gotten a D or F in that class but ended up with a B+ (and she got an A).