Duke 1L (soon to be 2L) taking questions Forum

[06102016]

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[beachbum]

1.How are the gyms and rec facilities? Pretty crowded?

The facilities themselves are really nice. I'm at the Wilson Center all the time, and it has just about everything you could want (including a ~30-foot rock climbing wall, if that's your thing). It does get pretty crowded during peak hours but, unless you can't wait a minute or two for a bench to open up, it's not a big deal. (If you go during the morning/night, you're golden.) And the gym itself isn't that far of a walk from the law school.

2. Which basketball court should I play on if I don't want to get stomped on by vastly superior players?

I'm not much of a basketball player, so I can't help you there. But law students organize pickup games pretty frequently, and I don't think we have the next Jordan here.

[curious66]

Are any of the first year classes pass/fail? Do professors routinely give out C's? Just wondering on how the grading works at Duke. Any insight would be much appreciated!

[lawyerwannabe]

Are any of the first year classes pass/fail? Do professors routinely give out C's? Just wondering on how the grading works at Duke. Any insight would be much appreciated!

Might as well post it here too.

- No classes 1L year are P/F (including LARW)
- There are no letter grades; grades are given out as a numerical figure
- If the equivalent of a "C" is a 2.0, then I have never heard of anyone getting that low of a grade (any grade lower than a 2.8 is discretion and at most 5% of the class can receive a grade of 2.7 or lower; I have personally only ever heard of one person getting a grade as low as a 2.6 once, which I think is because most professors cap their lowest grade at 2.8 for the most part)

[curious66]

Are any of the first year classes pass/fail? Do professors routinely give out C's? Just wondering on how the grading works at Duke. Any insight would be much appreciated!

Might as well post it here too.

- No classes 1L year are P/F (including LARW)
- There are no letter grades; grades are given out as a numerical figure
- If the equivalent of a "C" is a 2.0, then I have never heard of anyone getting that low of a grade (any grade lower than a 2.8 is discretion and at most 5% of the class can receive a grade of 2.7 or lower; I have personally only ever heard of one person getting a grade as low as a 2.6 once, which I think is because most professors cap their lowest grade at 2.8 for the most part)

THANKS!!

[whosonfirst]

Are any of the first year classes pass/fail? Do professors routinely give out C's? Just wondering on how the grading works at Duke. Any insight would be much appreciated!

Might as well post it here too.

- No classes 1L year are P/F (including LARW)
- There are no letter grades; grades are given out as a numerical figure
- If the equivalent of a "C" is a 2.0, then I have never heard of anyone getting that low of a grade (any grade lower than a 2.8 is discretion and at most 5% of the class can receive a grade of 2.7 or lower; I have personally only ever heard of one person getting a grade as low as a 2.6 once, which I think is because most professors cap their lowest grade at 2.8 for the most part)

Does this make the grading more arbitrary or less so than other schools?

[lawyerwannabe]

Are any of the first year classes pass/fail? Do professors routinely give out C's? Just wondering on how the grading works at Duke. Any insight would be much appreciated!

Might as well post it here too.

- No classes 1L year are P/F (including LARW)
- There are no letter grades; grades are given out as a numerical figure
- If the equivalent of a "C" is a 2.0, then I have never heard of anyone getting that low of a grade (any grade lower than a 2.8 is discretion and at most 5% of the class can receive a grade of 2.7 or lower; I have personally only ever heard of one person getting a grade as low as a 2.6 once, which I think is because most professors cap their lowest grade at 2.8 for the most part)

Does this make the grading more arbitrary or less so than other schools?

IMO, Duke's grading system makes grading less arbitrary.

For example, let's compare Duke's grading system to a school that uses letter grades instead. The person who is the first B+ in a class (i.e. the highest score on the exam to receive a B+ and not an A-) would be stuck with a B+ (or a 3.3) at a school that uses letter grades, while the person with the last A- (i.e. the lowest score on the exam to receive an A-) would receive an A- (or a 3.66/3.7). At Duke, a similarly situated B+ person may receive a 3.5 and a similarly situated A- person may receive a 3.6. This makes the grading less arbitrary IMO because if only a single point separated the two on the exam, it seems more appropriate to have their actual grades be only be separated by .1 (or maybe even .2 depending on the teacher's discretion) instead of as much as .4.

[beautyistruth]

After the first semester, what options are there for working on campus? I'm particularly interested in finding an RA position during the school year. Do those exist? Are they paying positions? How difficult is it to obtain one?

[jvincent11]

What schools did you choose Duke over and why?

[bizzybone1313]

Thanks for starting this thread! I'm going to be moving down to Durham at the beginning of August but am visiting for a weekend in early June to check out apartments and (hopefully) sign a lease. I really like the Belmont's proximity to campus, but I haven't been able to get as clear a sense of it as I have of other places (Alexan, Pinnacle Ridge, the Lofts etc.). I spoke with their leasing office today and they weren't too pushy about getting me to join a waitlist and were confident they would have apartments available. I didn't know if that might be a reflection of students not really living there/the Belmont not being of as good quality as they claim to be in comparison to other apartment complexes. I am probably reading into all of this too much, but if you by any chance know anything about the Belmont/people's opinions about it I would be very grateful to hear any info. Thank you!

a ton of LLMs (in short, international students) lived at hte beltmont. as a jd, i would NOT live at the belmont.

most of the 1Ls lived at pinnacle or alexan. live at one of those. the lofts are overpriced and suck, do NOT live there. trinity is overpriced but very nice. if you need luxury, live there. but very few 1Ls live there.

bottom line: pinnacle or alexan. if you dont mind paying a bit more, definitely alexan. newer, nicer.

if you have any other more specific quetsions about housing shoot

How much is the rent per month for most decent apts in Durham? $600? $900? $1,200? For something decent?

[dabbadon8]

Depends on if you have a roommate. Decent 2 bedrooms can be had for 1000-1200. One bed rooms are like 800-1000. There's some cheaper stuff out there but that is for the popular place.

[bizzybone1313]

Depends on if you have a roommate. Decent 2 bedrooms can be had for 1000-1200. One bed rooms are like 800-1000. There's some cheaper stuff out there but that is for the popular place.

Hopefully, future TLS'ers that love to give advice read this thread before adding $100K to the COA for Duke. It seems everytime there is a T-14 vs. T-14 with $$ vs. T-14 with $$$ $100K automatically gets added regardless of the location of the school.

[NoodleyOne]

Depends on if you have a roommate. Decent 2 bedrooms can be had for 1000-1200. One bed rooms are like 800-1000. There's some cheaper stuff out there but that is for the popular place.

Hopefully, future TLS'ers that love to give advice read this thread before adding $100K to the COA for Duke. It seems everytime there is a T-14 vs. T-14 with $$ vs. T-14 with $$$ $100K automatically gets added regardless of the location of the school.

The number normally comes from the CoL quoted by the school and weird little things like 7.8% interest accruing on the loans you take out.

[bizzybone1313]

Depends on if you have a roommate. Decent 2 bedrooms can be had for 1000-1200. One bed rooms are like 800-1000. There's some cheaper stuff out there but that is for the popular place.

Hopefully, future TLS'ers that love to give advice read this thread before adding $100K to the COA for Duke. It seems everytime there is a T-14 vs. T-14 with $$ vs. T-14 with $$$ $100K automatically gets added regardless of the location of the school.

The number normally comes from the CoL quoted by the school and weird little things like 7.8% interest accruing on the loans you take out.

It still doesn't come out to $100K. And most of the time, you guys don't factor in the $30K or so from the 2L summer or the savings that most people have from prior WE. What about outside scholarships? Are those a flame too? I have about 3-4 spreadsheets and PDF's that have pages upon pages of available scholarships throughout the nation for law school. I won about half a dozen scholarships for undergrad. The point is that some of the COA figures you guys post are beyond ridiculous.

[Ruxin1]

Depends on if you have a roommate. Decent 2 bedrooms can be had for 1000-1200. One bed rooms are like 800-1000. There's some cheaper stuff out there but that is for the popular place.

Hopefully, future TLS'ers that love to give advice read this thread before adding $100K to the COA for Duke. It seems everytime there is a T-14 vs. T-14 with $$ vs. T-14 with $$$ $100K automatically gets added regardless of the location of the school.

The number normally comes from the CoL quoted by the school and weird little things like 7.8% interest accruing on the loans you take out.

It still doesn't come out to $100K. And most of the time, you guys don't factor in the $30K or so from the 2L summer or the savings that most people have from prior WE. What about outside scholarships? Are those a flame too? I have about 3-4 spreadsheets and PDF's that have pages upon pages of available scholarships throughout the nation for law school. I won about half a dozen scholarships for undergrad. The point is that some of the COA figures you guys post are beyond ridiculous.

30k from an SA? I suppose when you are POTUS you will be eliminating taxes, but until then chief.

[BigZuck]

Depends on if you have a roommate. Decent 2 bedrooms can be had for 1000-1200. One bed rooms are like 800-1000. There's some cheaper stuff out there but that is for the popular place.

Hopefully, future TLS'ers that love to give advice read this thread before adding $100K to the COA for Duke. It seems everytime there is a T-14 vs. T-14 with $$ vs. T-14 with $$$ $100K automatically gets added regardless of the location of the school.

The number normally comes from the CoL quoted by the school and weird little things like 7.8% interest accruing on the loans you take out.

It still doesn't come out to $100K. And most of the time, you guys don't factor in the $30K or so from the 2L summer or the savings that most people have from prior WE. What about outside scholarships? Are those a flame too? I have about 3-4 spreadsheets and PDF's that have pages upon pages of available scholarships throughout the nation for law school. I won about half a dozen scholarships for undergrad. The point is that some of the COA figures you guys post are beyond ridiculous.

You are beyond rediculous. 60K+ cost of living with interest accumulating gets pretty close to 100K upon repayment. Plus a SA is never a guarantee so most people don't factor it in. And most people going to law school are in their early 20s and don't exactly have the job or the time to save up anything substantial.

[NoodleyOne]

Depends on if you have a roommate. Decent 2 bedrooms can be had for 1000-1200. One bed rooms are like 800-1000. There's some cheaper stuff out there but that is for the popular place.

Hopefully, future TLS'ers that love to give advice read this thread before adding $100K to the COA for Duke. It seems everytime there is a T-14 vs. T-14 with $$ vs. T-14 with $$$ $100K automatically gets added regardless of the location of the school.

The number normally comes from the CoL quoted by the school and weird little things like 7.8% interest accruing on the loans you take out.

It still doesn't come out to $100K. And most of the time, you guys don't factor in the $30K or so from the 2L summer or the savings that most people have from prior WE. What about outside scholarships? Are those a flame too? I have about 3-4 spreadsheets and PDF's that have pages upon pages of available scholarships throughout the nation for law school. I won about half a dozen scholarships for undergrad. The point is that some of the COA figures you guys post are beyond ridiculous.

Yeah, you're probably right. That number is probably exaggerated.

Oh wait:
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=columbia Non-discounted Tuition = 52k a year Non-discounted COA = 288,597 for three years (does this include tuition increases?)
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=duke Non-discounted Tuition = 49,617 a year Non-discounted COA = 252,727 for three years
http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=uva Non-discounted tuition = 49,600 out of state, 44,600 in-state, Non-discounted COA = 264,085 out-of-state, 245,070 in-state

As you can see, based on stuff like facts and statistics, we can see that 7.8% on 150k for three years is quite a lot, and in each instance, even in cheap ol' Cville VA, cost of living is going to set you back. Also, I'm not sure if the numbers quoted are at repayment or at graduation, which could change it by a bit more (and might put Columbia over the 300k threshold).

[fdo15]

What kinds of grades/ties are necessary to get a firm job in NC? I've gotten mixed signals about this.

[beautyistruth]

Also, how difficult is it to sublet your apartment for the summer? Should I be reasonably expecting to pay three months worth of rent on top of rent for wherever I end up working/staying?

[Balthy]

The more specific you can get, the better. Be able to tell your interviewer why exactly you love the city and want to be there; if the opportunity presents itself, name drop a little (such as a favorite restaurant or hangout) to show familiarity. Basically, just show them that you've invested yourself in the market. If you can (honestly) tell them that you're only bidding on New York firms, that'll be a big plus. If you can talk knowledgeably about city news and events, that's another plus. Throwing in something about the work in New York (such as the unparalleled M&A work) is fine, too. There isn't really a magic formula, and the "ties" test for NYC is unquestionably easier than it is for secondary markets and smaller major markets (like Chicago). But - for most firms, anyway - the test still exists.

Just curious. How exactly do firms test this?

[dabbadon8]

Also, how difficult is it to sublet your apartment for the summer? Should I be reasonably expecting to pay three months worth of rent on top of rent for wherever I end up working/staying?

Difficult to sublet but many places offer 9/10 month leases so you can avoid paying for the whole year.

[firstimer]

Any estimate of what % of the 2013 class doesn't have a job lined up (either PI or firm)? Do basically all students who want a law firm job get one?

[06102016]

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[worldwithoutend]

Any estimate of what % of the 2013 class doesn't have a job lined up (either PI or firm)? Do basically all students who want a law firm job get one?

I don't have any hard data, but it seems like a very small percentage (single digits) that doesn't have something lined up. Most of my friends are going into biglaw or have clerkships lined up, so I'm less aware of what the field looks like for public interest jobs. Most (but not quite all) who wanted a firm job got one.

Where's the best place to take a nap, indoor or outdoor, around the law school?

Probably the second floor of the library. Put two of the chairs by the windows together. It's not great, but it will do. Don't nap on the lawn in front of the law school. There are ants.

[amsong]

2. Is it common for students to rent houses, and are there any nearby neighbourhoods you would recommend? I have a big dog and I like my privacy and also want a yard (for said dog), so I'm considering renting a house instead of going into an apartment. I did a casual search and the prices didn't seem all that different from the apartments, but I don't know if I was looking at extraordinarily shitty, far or fake places.

3. A family friend tells me that allergies are the fucking worst in the springtime there. Is this true?