Change It's Approach? Mystal, please.

"It's approach"? Why can't you give it just a quick proof?

Is it true that UVA hates arabs?

"It's approach"?!

Sixth.

At other schools, any student can apply for screening interviews with the entire V20; there's just an element of chance involved and you're not likely to get all 20. But if you're a law-review-top-grades-style gunner, it's not that hard to do a little legwork and get screening interviews with the firms that Symplicity didn't assign to you.

This isn't 2005-7. In this hiring climate, there is no chance someone who doesn't make basic cutoffs - and wouldn't be interviewed in a pre-screen system - is going to wow someone in a 30 minute OCI interview enough to make up for that.

Quit whining. This summer isn't going to be a lot of fun anyway, nor is it certain by any means to lead to permanent employment.

At Vanderbilt employers get to pre-select a certain percentage of their interview schedule.... do we think this is a better approach?

Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.

***

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart.

maybe those dorks should call it OCI like the rest of the country. "on grounds interview" -- give me a break

To be noted: the person who wrote the article and the person who wrote the UVA law blog piece that expresses a wide range of opinions are actually the same person.

Pre-selects do not necesarily mean that you've got a better chance at a callback. A lot of employers will "fill the slate" with backup choices, but if none of the top 8 or so people they want are horrible, the rest of the slots might as well not exist.

UVA pre-screens students to make sure all balls are photocopied properly.

wow, i don't think CLS is having this level of difficulty at all

I think it should be noted that the guy who wrote the article and the guy who did the UVA Law Blog post are probably the same person.

The reality is that top firms don't look below their cutoffs (particularly at schools outside the top 5 to 10) and if they were to go below their cutoffs, it would be very slightly below.

Unfortunately, a lot of slots at schools that use a lottery are taken up / wasted by kids that are woefully below the grade cutoff and think they can wow you. Even if they do manage to wow you, it's all a waste because the recruiting committees are hesitant to budge on the grades point.

Bottom line, I don't think UVA's system is harming students with respect to hiring at top firms.

UVA pre-screens Asians and Arabs all the time, it is no big deal.

MooreCLOPS.

Why does everyone assume that he didn't proof read? Maybe this is a 1000 times better than the first draft?

Maybe UVA students aren't getting offers because they are tools.

OGI is a racist system.

11--It's been called the Grounds since 1819 and it has to do with centering the University around learning and not a church. Just get over it--why do you care if you don't/didn't go there?
-CLAS '03

Univ. of MN Law has a part lottery, a combination of prescreening and lottery based on student demand/rank order preference. I know we aren't T-14 we are ranked 22nd. Here if you aren't in the top quartile you can't get any OCI really. It sucks for people in the bottom 3/4 but the fact is the larger firms aren't going to hire someone not in the top quartile anyway, so why even interview? Most of our prescreening is based on quartile. some employers require journal but most require either journal or moot court. At UMN everyone is on either a journal or a moot court because it is our 2L writing requirement, so that aspect of the prescreening doesn't really effect anyone. I don't see the problem with prescreening. It just saves everyone a lot of time because the employers are going to drop out everyone under what their prescreen cutoff would be anyway.

On the flip side, lotteries hurt people at the top of the class. There were numerous tardwads at my T14 who insisted on interviewing with V10 firms despite being firmly in the bottom quarter of the class. Trusting egomaniacal law students to bid according to their realistic chances is not always a good idea. I say let firms pre-screen, they'll sort via GPA anyways.

The reality is that top firms don't look below their cutoffs (particularly at schools outside the top 5 to 10) and if they were to go below their cutoffs, it would be very slightly below.

Unfortunately, a lot of slots at schools that use a lottery are taken up / wasted by kids that are woefully below the grade cutoff and think they can wow you. Even if they do manage to wow you, it's all a waste because the recruiting committees are hesitant to budge on the grades point.

Bottom line, I don't think UVA's system is harming students with respect to hiring at top firms.

Arizona uses this antiquated system as well (which leads to many 2Ls having difficulty finding jobs outside of AZ, NV, or CA)....get with it AZ. The legal markets out east are your only hope.

OGIng sinc 1819

OGIng since 1819

It's actually not that bad of a system, even in a year like this. I'm a 50% grade 2L at UVa, and though I had fewer interviews than the LR kids, I got more than I needed by far. The system works pretty well, and law firms like it- which is one of the reasons UVa gets the second highest amount of firms coming to interview.

Students at schools with total lottery-based systems in the T14 can still keep many options open and can still wind up with 30 or 40 on-campus interviews if they choose. I'm not sure how the two options are mutually exclusive. Sure, you may get your "first" choices 1-11, not get #12 or #13, but you still get #14-22. And you can always shoot an e-mail to recruiting. If you're as amazing as you think you are, they'll tack you on at the end.

As a student as another t14 I'd absolutely prefer prescreens. If a firm only cares about grades (which is virtually true for most firms), it won't matter whether you give them your transcript before, during, or after the interview - they're gonna reject a certain GPA no matter what. Allowing a prescreen saves both the employer and student time and effort of doing an interview where there's no chance of a callback.

The prescreen also makes whatever interviews you do get much more productive. The employer already has an interest and familiarity with the candidate. The student, instead of phoning the same carbon copy interview 35 times in 5 days, can instead truly research the firms he gets callbacks in.

As for the argument that the current system forces students to wisely rank their firms, that really isn't true in practice. Most OCIs allow students to sign up for interviews after bidding period. This means that if you didn't get an interview during bidding, you can easily pick up an interview spot afterwards. Students use this to their advantage and just take whatever interview they can get.

I would rather be an unemployed UVA 2L than an underpaid Half-Skadden associate.

For the full picture, UVA has both the pre-screening process, and an independent lottery. Each employer is required to have a certain number of lottery slots. I think it's about four or five per room per day. I don't know the success rate of students who do screening interviews through the lottery when they weren't offered an interview through the pre-screening process. My guess is that such success is rare, if it occurs at all.

25 is highly credited. Lottery interviews at UVa are always a waste of time I could have spent with the people I'll actually have to pick amongst for the day's callback offers.

Why the hell shouldn't employers be able to see resumes before they agree to interview candidates? If some Ivy kid is a legacy slacker and it's reflected in his/her grades, the employer deserves to have that information upfront rather than having to waste time interviewing the kid.

BONUS - I just heard STB matched CSM.

OGI is horribly racist. It judges people solely on GPA

It seems odd to me that UVA would be the only top 15 not to prescreen. Prescreening makes sense for employeers and for students not to waste their time, but not at a top school like UVA. Isn't the theory that even the middle of UVA is equivalent to top 10% at a lower ranked school? Then why prescreen?

37 - gpa = racism?

Why does everyone assume that he didn't proof read? Maybe this is a 1000 times better than the first draft?

UVa is doing just fine in interviews - it sounds like the kids answering the Blog poll should spend less time jerking it on the internet and more time studying to try and do better when they interview as 3Ls.

-UVA 2L, gainfully employed, V10

STB matched Cravath

http://www.xoxohth.com/thread.php?thread_id=890351&mc=1&forum_id=2

xoxo condor pwns abovethelaw
htfh

I was an on-campus interviewer for a v5 firm this past fall. I must say I wish all the schools allowed for pre-screening. Easily more than half of all on-campus interviews are a total waste of everybody's time because so many applicants' grades are just too low for consideration.

I'm sorry to say so, but there is a lot of deluded wishful thinking among rising 2Ls (and even more so among the 3Ls who interview). Especially in these challenging economic times students would be best advised to match all their interview slots as much as possible with firms within their grade-range.

39, everyone knows that GPA's are racist...get with the times, Jim Crow.

Damn you STB!!!

UVa is doing just fine in interviews - it sounds like the kids answering the Blog poll should spend less time jerking it on the internet and more time studying to try and do better when they interview as 3Ls.

-UVA 2L, gainfully employed, V10

UVa is doing just fine in interviews - it sounds like the kids answering the Blog poll should spend less time jerking it on the internet and more time studying to try and do better when they interview as 3Ls.

-UVA 2L, gainfully employed, V10

What the fuck is an "OGI"?

Prescreening is not the problem. Most of the 20 min OCI interviews at schools that don't prescreen serve two purposes: (1) collect the transcript, and (2) basic normalcy check. That's really it.

Did anyone think STB would do ANYTHING but match CSM, if even that? They have been getting crushed by their high A:P ratio, their extreme exposure to the worst financial work, and the economy in general.

Wait and see what S&C does this week.

UVA Football. The only thing they beat is the traffic

Simpson matches Cravath.

48 - Read all of the comments before you post a question that has already been answered. I'm not even going to say which comment it was answered in. Read them all, douche.

Kids at my high school used to do OGI all the time, it was no big deal.

partial lottery is the worst kind of compromise. the kids who get the limited lottery slots will not get a call back and they're pushing kids who the employer would have otherwise selected into alternate slots

I am a 2L at an NYC law school (not Columbia or NYU). Our OCI has a pretty good draw as far as the big firms go, but there are a couple in the V10 that don't come to campus (one does resume collect, the other doesn't even do that). It sort of boggles the mind that these firms would apparently rather see the worst student in the class at Columbia (who could potentially win an interview by means of the lottery) than the guy at the TOP of our class. I do not doubt that the kids in the middle of the pack at Columbia and top schools may contain many excellent candidates. But the guy at the bottom of the class is surely a complete dillshitter. And how much more so at UVA? I take solace in the fact that this straight C student will likely not land the job if given the interview.

(1) UVA's OGI actually has a lottery back-up, if you don't meet the grade cut-off. (At least it did in 2002.) Each student has a set number of points each year, from which they can bid to get a lottery spot if they don't think their grades and resume will make the firm's cut-off. So, there is a back-up in place. This may be less effective now that UVA has compressed its OGI process like most other schools. Back when it lasted from September 1 through October 31, you had to ration points and could have a better chance at the later-interviewing firms.

(2) Whether or not there is pre-screening, law firms ALWAYS screen for grades. The only ways that they don't screen for a rough grade cut-off are (a) if the candidate is diverse (I'm not being in any way derogatory, but it is ENTIRELY true, because I'm on my firm's recruiting committee) or (b) the interviewer is feeling a strong connection with that candidate AND the candidate is not that far outside the preferred grade cut-off. Period, end of story. Because if grades don't ding you at OGI/OCI, then they will back at the recruiting committee meeting at the callback. I've seen a lot of candidates get called back, only to have attorneys WHO NEVER SPOKE TO THE STUDENT dismiss them for inadequate grades.

(3) I don't think firms enjoy having their time wasted with the kids who don't meet their grade cut-off. Some of my boyfriend's funniest stories of his and his friends' initial interviews at a T5 were the ones where the interviewer and the student both knew from the first minute that there was not a snowball's chance in hell of getting a callback, and how they slogged through the interview anyways OR just cut their losses. Lots of awkward questions, fumbling, and silence. At least with prescreening, there's a far less chance that no one's time is wasted.

(4) Yes, my Ivy undergrad Law Review UVA friend got every interview she signed up for, a callback from every interview, and an offer at every callback she accepted. And that was FINE, because she was a better candidate in law school than I was. It didn't hurt me because I wasn't working at those kinds of firms or in those markets, and I did well with the type of firms in which I was interested.

I'm a UVA 2L. I don't believe that the situation is as dire as it has been made out to be, although certainly there are students for whom the maxim "Everyone at UVA will get a job - relax" has not yet rung true. I really do believe that these folks are in the minority, and that UVAlawblog's readership (which itself indicated that most people have found a job with limited difficulty) may not be reflecive of the entire 2L class. UVA students also may be more likely to seek out jobs in locations not typical for other T-14 schools - southern regions, and other smaller legal markets. I don't have the numbers - neither does UVAlawblogger - but hopefully we can keep speculation about whether there is a particularly high unemployment rate among UVA 2Ls, and whether it results from our OGI process, to a dull roar until we have this year's job data.

53: Thanks. Missed that.

-48

56: Fordham is a TTT

"Lots of awkward questions, fumbling, and silence."

Sounds like MysTTTal's first time with a woman.

61 - including the possibility of ending up in the fetal position crying in the corner.

GW>UVA

if you wanna wow them, wow them in the hospitality suite. pre-screening saves everyone some time.

Original Gangsta Interviews. Sign me up!

Original Gangsta Interviews. Sign me up!

I have good grades at a T6, but based on resume/grades/experience some firms were not going to hire me. . I wish my school hadjust let firms look at my transcript/resume and decide whether they wanted me or not. It would've saved me a lot of 20 minute interviews where for whatever reason, the interviewer wasn't interested in me from the start.

Law students do not know exactly what firms are looking for, so it's not like we can just figure out which firms to bid on based on grades.

60-
The retort "Fordham is a TTT" is not helpful. Ask the guy who's in the top 50% at Columbia how he feels about being edged out of an interview with one of his top choice firms because the d.f.l. (Dead Fuckin' Last) guy ranked that firm first in the lottery.
All I'm saying is, this notion of "fairness" to people in the middle-to-bottom of the class is horseshit.

I chose Simpson over Skadden. GODDAMNIT

63--keep dreaming.

I'm sure MysTTTAL got into Harvard on his merits ... and affirmative action had no bearing on the admissions calculus...

69 - that sucks. I chose Skadden over Simpson. I didn't even have a good reason at the time, I flipped a damn coin. But now I look pretty smart. I'm not going to tell anyone that is how I picked. I'm telling them that I made the decision on some type of merit.

When it comes time for OCI at my T14 I will beat the odds through the bid system. My exquisite $2,000 suit and $150 haircut will ooze prestige and impress my V10 interviewer the minute I walk through the door. "This gentleman," he will think to himself, "is partner material."

I'll sit down, my hands delicately folded, my back postured straight and slightly forward, and with one foot tucked neatly behind the other. He'll notice my Italian leather-soled shoes, and will smile acceptingly as he takes in my appearance.

Before he has a chance to ask a question I'll ease any remaining tension with a humorous anecdote about my summer and then delve into a lengthy monologue, focusing primarily on my prestigious liberal arts undergraduate education. "Ah yes," the interviewer with think, "he will fit in nicely down at the firm."

For the next twenty minutes words will continue to flow effortlessly. Emotions will rise as I regale him with public interest endeavors in which have engaged. Laughter will bubble over as I sneak in a clever, yet tasteful joke. And on I will go. I will speak as I have never spoken before. My voice will portray confidence, intelligence and sincerity. My body language will complement my eloquence convincingly. And the interviewers eyes will widen in amazement.

"Never before," he will think to himself, "have I met a young man with such promise. Never before have I been so sure of anything in my life." As the interview, turned one man show, comes to a close the attorney will cut me short. He will rise to his feet, his face aglow with awe and admiration, and cast aside my transcript with its myriad of B- and C+'s. "Young man," he will say, "you're hired." And I will rise, knowing all along how this would end, grasp his hand, give a knowing wink and exit in triumph.

The next day I will awake, and the pain will set in. I had that dream again. I will be late for my internship at the local insurance defense firm that morning.

Assuming this person's stats are correct, that 25% of the class are having trouble finding a job, so what? I'd assume those 25% are at the bottom of the class. I don't care what law school you're at--if you're at the bottom of your class, you're not that great a legal thinker, and to think you're somehow entitled to a BIGLAW job is ludicrous.

And if people want to criticize me for this opinion, I'm a snob rather than a jealous loser from a crappy school--I'm a federal clerk with no job problems whatsoever.

Look: screening sucks, but don't all the firms all do it at some point in the game? Does it really matter when they do it? (Pre-OCI vs. pre-callback -- or even post-callback?)

It seems like the earlier it happens, the better off everyone is. I went on 3 or 4 OCI interviews, kicked ass, and then didn't get a callback. Who knows what happened there. But personally, I would have rather been pre-screened if it was a matter of GPA cutoffs.

I know someone who went 1 for 21 at OCI. He wasn't even gunning for the top. If those firms had been able to pre-screen, maybe he could have started researching other alternatives in September as opposed to October.

I think the point everyone has missed so far is that a UVA student made reference to the T-!!15!!.

For that, you deserve your shitty career prospects.

PLEASE NOTE

To be fair, his poll with "some unhappy" was 1% no job 20% did not get their top choice

to clarify that was

1 % = no job yet
20% = good job, not their top firm

Columbia should start pre-screening. I am a 2L with good grades at Columbia but I am going to a V15-20 firm. Fucking sucks!

79: you can't be serious. I call bullshit.

Lottery systems for OCI are a pain. The students who fill these slots rarely meet the minimum hiring criteria at a given firm and it's a waste of time. Firms are not going to lower their standards because someone seems nice. There are schools that actually tell their students to REFUSE to submit transcripts if asked prior to OCI!

Newsflash to students and schools: when candidates' resumes are silent on academic achievements, it is assumed that they have none. If you are in the bottom half of your class, you are not going to be hired by a top firm unless you are related to someone who can make it so. Moving on . . .

80 - sounds like typical columbia to me. -uva grad

I don't think it's all that bad at UVA. Are there 2Ls who still don't have jobs? Sure. I know of at least one. But I also know people who were very doom-and-gloom a month-and-a-half ago who got jobs in the last two or three weeks.

I'm all for prescreening at my school. I think that it will attract employers that don't want to waste their time on a day of interviews with students they already know they won't want. The justification given for the lottery system is that it gives everyone a chance to really "wow" them in the interview. I'm sorry, but I think that you have to have something really significant on your resume or have supernatural powers of persuasion to overcome a lack of statistics for most firms with a summer program. I sat through plenty of interviews where it was obvious at the 5 or 6 minute mark that I wasn't getting a callback, and it occurred to me, "Who on Earth is this system benefiting?"

Maybe there's some happy medium between pure lottery and pure precreen, ie requiring students to meet the employer's stated requirements before they can bid on the interview or something.

82-
Fantastic. I can't wait to work with people like that at my this summer.
-80

it can't be that bad at UVA - i know a bunch of transfers and they all have jobs.

It is amazing that schools DON'T pre-screen. The entirety of the law profession from the start (getting into law school on basically GPA and LSAT) is a meritocracy... why should getting a job be any different? Lottery system is just another affirmative action system (not alluding to race, but in the broader sense) that is supposedly equitable but really just causes inefficiencies in the hiring process.

Is this story really newsworthy? It seems that the only reason that it is is that UVa is the only T14 school to use this system. But from the comments above, it seems that at least 3 T25 schools do it, and I believe (but I'm not 100% sure) that Wash U in St. Louis does too. That's 4 schools in the T25. UVa is the highest-ranked, but is that enough to whine about the system? Someone has to be the highest-ranked to do it... looks like it would be Vandy if UVa went to a lottery system.

88 - with that argument you are failing to separate the t14 from the t25. They refer to it as the t14 for a reason.

87:
Agreed. The top schools do it so that they can keep convincing students to shell out $$$ to go there over TTT schools that would offer them full scholarships. If a system of pre-screening were in place at say, Columbia, a person might be more likely to say, "Hmmm, maybe I should just go to a TTT school and rank at the top of my class and my job prospects will be just as good if not better than if I'm in the middle of the pack at Columbia." Of course, we all know that this would be an idiotic choice. But for the top schools to remain the most competitive in terms of admission, and to maintain their perceived prestige level, they need to perpetuate the idea that everyone, but everyone, can get biglaw jobs

89, what's the difference? Is the difference between Georgetown and Vanderbilt really much larger than the difference between Duke and Georgetown? It seems arbitrary to me... There's a difference between HYS and Duke/Georgetown/Vanderbilt/UCLA. I don't see an easy way to differentiate within the latter group.

-88

Sense of entitlement anyone? Why should law firms give you the time of day without having the chance to see if you're minimally qualified first? Like most other posters here, I don't see the rationale for a lottery system at all. Those lottery people who do not meet grade / work experience requirements will not be getting callbacks anyway, so why bother?

I'd love to see one of these law school students (those who think they are entitled to a lottery system) try to apply for a job in the real world, and argue for a lottery system. Get with the program, people, this is (for the most part) about merit, not whether you happened to score the right lottery number.

My school allows prescreening, but I don't think it necessarily leads to GPA-based exclusion. My GPA was so-so, but firms were able to evaluate that along with everything else on my resume in advance, making sure that nobody's time was wasted. The V5 interviewer's remarks at 43 are instructive: without advanced disclosure of relevant information, people's time gets wasted on both ends.

P.S. I'm 2L at a TTT and am hired in SF; sorry UVA but I don't really feel that bad given that pesky sense of entitlement that rings through all of your pathetic posts. Good luck!

I'm a UVA grad and I've done a fair amount of interviewing for my V20 firm at UVA. I agree with 24, 25, 57 and 81. Pre-screening does little harm and most lottery interviews are almost a complete joke. Students are way too optimistic about their chances. UVA has a 3.3 mean and I've gotten students with 2.8 and 2.9 GPAs through the lottery system. These students could have the most compelling stories ever, but they would never make it past my hiring committee.

One frustrating thing about the present system is that it essentially allows firms to double-prescreen. That is, they prescreen for grades when they first get the resumes and transcripts. However, since they have to fill out an interview schedule, they fill in the rest with other kids with pretty good grades, but usually short of the LR-level first choices they have. As a result, there's a certain class of people (usually folks in the 15-20%) range, who can get interviews with a whole host of top firms, and then get dinged when it comes to callbacks. Usually it works out for these people, as many of the top firms, particularly the DC ones, run 2 or 3 slates of 20 interviewees, presumably meaning there are more callbacks to be had; this allows the callbacks to flow a little lower down the list. Of course, doing that just pushes the same issue a bit further down the grades list. There's no real good solution, except to allow firms to do something like 1.5 slates of interviews, so they're not causing people to accept interviews they have no chance in. That said, much better than a full lottery system.

An additional point, which I don't think anyone has touched on, is the role of the second round of OGIs. UVA has both a week of interviews before class starts (2/3 of firms) and one during the semester (final 1/3 of firms). Because many of the very top students get absolutely saturated with callbacks from the first round, the second round tends to trickle down a little lower. This tends to spread the wealth around a bit, and actually seems to have some of this effect, even this year.

- UVA 2L with a good job

1. UVa has a terrific track record--one of the best --in placing lawyers at top firms and having them make partner in the long run. NLJ had UVa grads 5th nationally in top 250 firms--and remember Harvard is twice the size. Another survey from a year ago has Virginia 3rd in partners at major law firms. And 99% of UVa alums have jobs after they graduate.

2. As an alum and partner in a big firm, I second the comment of the student saying lotteries waste the time of the student and the firm. At many other schools I see a student who has had to dress up, act bright and interesting, but just isn't going to pass the cut against often equally bright and interesting students who also have done much better across 10+ classes. So whom would you ask back? Worse, that slot would have gone to another student who, though not with the best grades, was close. Be assured, almost anyone will pass on a jerk with great grades and law review for someone smart, eager and unpretentious, even if not VaLRev.

Bottom line: it ain't broke, so don't fix it.

It's not your retarded OCI system that's broke, it's the economy, STUPID.

@95

Your first paragraph makes no sense. On another note, this bitching about prescreening is silly. "OMG THEY MIGHT SEE MY GRADES BEFORE THEY SEE MY BEAUTIFUL PERSONALITY."

Firms have to use imperfect criteria to select candidates. Grades, law school, undergrad school, extracurricular activities, journals, race and work experience all affect, to varying degrees, whether a candidate is accepted by a firm. To TEMPORARILY prohibit firms from considering one particular criterion makes the process more burdensome, but it is unlikely to change the result.

Most of my lottery interviews were tolerable because I wasn't that far out of range for the firms I bid on, but when I won a slot with my "reach" firm, the interviewer was an asshole and spent the whole time asking me inane questions. I did get an offer from one of my lottery wins.

The bottom line is that the UVA system is really not impediment for the vast majority of students. Those who complain most loudly are likely overvaluing their own personalities and undervaluing studying.

Recruiters in a GPA-sensitive profession cannot be thwarted with lottery systems that temporarily conceal GPAs. Get over it.

-UVa student w/good job

What's a "good job"? Why did people keep saying w/good job at the end of their posts? Seriously. Are you a fucking law student right now? If so, I'm pretty sure you don't have a "good job."

99-

First one, who the hell knows why; maybe it means a good summer associate position for next summer. I guess that means at any firm that isn't laying people off. Second one's obviously a satire of the first. I'd advise switching to decaf.

Why do people/law students hate the word "competition" so much? Competition is what got them into law school in the first place. Competition for survival of the species is what will get most of the worthless humans with no personality the ability to mate based solely on their brains and large earning potential. Competition is great and it encourages people to continue to work harder. Complacency breeds mediocrity, which is short-hand for crap. Mediocrity is the worst form of performance. Try hard and fail miserably. Getting a B because you didn't try very hard is unforgivable.

BTW, I forgot to mention that Elie is a fat lard.

-99

Fine, I have an offer for summer employment with a good firm. Yes, I'm a "fucking law student." From the perspective of a "fucking law student," a reasonable expectation of summer employment at a particular employer is widely referred to as "having a job." No, the firm isn't paying me now, and yes, the firm could rescind the offer. Nevertheless, "having a good job" is a colloquial way of explaining that I am no longer actively engaged in the interview process.

The reason people mention having "a good job" at the end of their posts is so the fine citizens of teh interwebs, such as yourself, understand that our comments do not flow from our own, bitter failure during the interview process. Readers are more likely to perceive our comments as the result of reason, rather than sour grapes.

If you'd like to have a vigorous discussion as to what a "good" firm is, I suggest you head for AutoAdmit, or peruse some of the posts on this site. Otherwise, I suggest a subjective definition, such as "a place where I am likely to be less bitter than I would be at most other places."

- a student with a "good job"

Virginia should keep its pre-screen system so that Michigan can keep on killing it in recruiting every year.

103 - Numbers?

Fuck you, 92. The reason you have to give the time of day to anyone my school damn well tells you to is that your firm needs us. If you didn't, you wouldn't come, or you would insist on pre-screening, the way do at shitty schools. Instead, you suck it up and talk to any bottom-trawling loser at my school who ranks your firm high enough because you need our top kids, you need our mediocre kids, and you're willing to pay the price in your time. Don't like it? Go elsewhere, and we won't miss you.

102: Well said.

98: You're right, it more or less doesn't. It's at least mostly incoherent. What it's supposed to mean is that sometimes the requirement that firms fill out their schedules results in them interviewing some folks through the non-lottery selection process who nonetheless have no shot. For example, they may have to give out 16 SELs, even though they only want 10 of the people who apply, for example.

-95

102-
You don't have shit. Open your eyes and see what's going on around you. The world that could have supported your "good job" is crumbling before your very eyes.

102:
And I would love to hear what your idea of a "good firm" is, since you're enough of an ass-clown to go around proclaiming that you have a "good job."

104 -- cursory glance at career services websites for the two schools puts post-grad 2007 employment for UM at 99.54% and for UVA at 95%. More involved research you can do yourself.

107-108: Reading comprehension not your thing, eh?

109: Does that include graduates working at the copy center?

110 -- Yes, it includes you.

What's the big deal? Other Tier 1 one schools use pre-screens with no problems, my school does. It sucks for people in the bottom 85%, there is always the lottery life-line.
But seriously, why should firms waste time screening people they are not interested in?

UVA has the system that other schools should follow. If you get selected for an interview, it means you at least have a shot. You can't say that at other places. Law dorks can't talk their way into jobs - they're generally 23 or 24 year old tools who are pompous, inexperienced, and suffer from some sort of social problem.

The economy is awful. Maybe HYS are having no problem placing their bottom of the barrel students. But beyond those programs, I guarantee all the schools will have the largest number of dissatisfied 2Ls since the 80s at the very least.

When Cravath is cutting pay, you're f'd.

Stop whining and start networking, is what I'd say, as a UVA JD and MBA.

What is racist about UVA is their "boot camp" for minority students two weeks before the first year begins

114 - Does such a program really exist? Is it mandatory? Are Asian students exempted?

Texas also does prescreening.

Why do people bitch about this? I don't get it.

I am only in the top 1/3 and I still managed to get a "good job" with a "top firm" even though there was prescreening.

Quit bitching. Just because you're a law student at a good law school doesn't mean you're entitled to anything.

U Va kids aren't struggling because of their OCI system, they are strugging because their impression of themselves is much higher than top firm's impression of them.

No you opportunities at U Va are not the same as HLS, SLS, YLS. Sorry.

Hey, I was nothing at UVa, top 3rd maybe? not sure really cause it was not that close.

I got 10 v-25 offers, mostly in DC but some in NYC/Chi/Boston. They all seemed to love UVa.

I think the UMich guy is right if you want to be in Wisconsin/detroit/chi that UM can't be beat.

If you want to be on the east coast ,particularly NYC or DC, go to UVa

116: You don't get it because people at UT are well adjusted and understand that the world doesn't owe us anything.

I'm happy with my "good" job at a firm that is #1 in the specialty I'm interested in, but isn't V10. Guess I'll just have to be happy about my job instead of jerking off on ATL about what Vault thinks of my firm.

Lol! Hahaha you UVA softball losers. Enjoy your shitty job prospects.

- NYU 2L

GW >> UVA

UVA state law school!! LOL. best state law school! long live autoadmit

Why does everyone keep suggesting that UVA kids have a sense of entitlement? There's pretty much one guy who thinks that we should get rid of prescreening, and everyone else is happy with what we have.

118 - not trying to fan the flames, but saying that UM is better for grads who want to be in "Wisconsin/detroit/chi" is ridiculous. Go back to autoadmit, since you obviously don't have a clue about law school, placement, or the UM student body. Don't you have a psych final coming up?

121: Haha. I'd like to see a poll of GW 2Ls and their employment prospects.

Sorry, 118, while it's true that UM is tops (or at least tops with UChi) for the midwest, only 33% of the graduating class stayed in the midwest. Another 21% went to NY, another 14% to California, and 11% to DC, Unlike most top schools, UM doesn't feed to just one market.

(Like all top schools, however, UM is better than UVA.)

This argument is such a waste of time. What matters is not if they prescreen, but if they are hiring...

The real disservice of career services is telling 1Ls how to apply for firm jobs this summer. I would laugh if it weren't so sad.

119,

See you at Vault's #53 firm this summer.

116

129, Allen & Overy has a TX office?

126, put your self-worth issues behind you and grab a beer. You're embarrassing UM.

UIUC has pre-screening before OCI, and I think it's a great idea. Why should I waste my time interviewing with a firm that doesn't even want to talk to me because something they saw/didn't see on my resume? My time is too precious to waste on an interview that is a foregone conclusion. I would rather walk into the interview with confidence that the firm already chose me to interview out of my peers.

The guy who writes the uva blog is a clown. Bring back tjsdoubleplay!

Agree completely with 95. The non-LR kids who got a ton of screening interviews bc they were in the top third get screwed when it comes to callbacks. Tons of screening interviews - few, if any, callbacks.

Round II was a savior.

Also, those with lower GPAs can adjust the firms they apply to properly. Career Services tells them to apply to "all jobs" they are interested in and they can choose from something like 500 opportunities. I think everyone can get a full schedule since you can apply for every firm listed, so long as you narrow it to 25 or less after you see who selects you.

I'm sick of the UVA blog kid writing into ATL everything that he posts.

130,

2009 rankings.

129

129, 130 (116, 119):
I will see you both at that firm this summer. And I'm willing to bet that when the dust finally settles, it will be ranked quite a bit higher than 53.

134: It's not UVALawblogger's fault he's always getting scooped; blame ATL.

I am a 2L at BU. There was a statement in the article about how a lottery wouldn't likely help students get a call back when they wouldn't have gotten the initial interview anyway. This is not entirely true. I didn't receive an interview from a firm, but I received a lottery slot and wound up with a call back from the interview. Sometimes lotteries really do work, and when firms meet you, they overlook that your grades may not be what they really wanted if you "fit" the firm.

138-
It's interesting that your school tells you whether you were granted the interview via pre-screening or lottery. At my T50 school, we have pre-screening with a lottery backup, but OCS doesn't tell you by which means you got the interview - although it should be pretty obvious if someone merely in the top half got an interview with a v5 firm, for someone in the top 15 to 25% (as I was), it's hard to tell.
I'm not sure if it's better for the candidate to know how he got the interview or not. On the one hand, if he knows that he was only granted the interview as a result of the lottery, he can more realistically assess his chances, and maybe even psych himself up for that interview knowing that he will have to make every effort to "wow" them. On the other hand, If the candidate thinks he may have made the pre-screening cut, he may go into the interview with more confidence.
This is one issue that I haven't seen commented on yet in this thread (that is, whether schools that do a combination of pre-screening and lottery should inform the students about which interviews came from which category). I'd be interested to hear your thoughts.

138 - This is BS. Your grades must have still been at least close, or the firm in question was not particularly grade conscious. Or the person that you interviewed with was unusually powerful in the firm for a screening interviewer (it happens).

The usual low-priority screening interviewer sent to a pre-screen school has no authority or weight to convince his recruiting committee to go outside their grade criteria. That's just not how the system works. The guy who interviewed you has to sell you to other people who are just looking at your paper and who have never met you.

In a majority of cases, the decisions have already been made before the screening interview, and won't be changed unless someone who the firm thinks they wants is horrible.

Now, when a senior equity partner comes in and gushes over an interviewee to the recruiting people, it can be a different story. That kid is more likely to get a callback so at least there is more information, and a better reason for saying no than a B instead of a B+ in one course. Recruiting people are supposed to be independent and not intimidated, but they're human.

GULC > GW > UVA

141, does it keep you up at night knowing that your dream-ranking is not reality?

The UVA OGI system works fine. The market sucks. Last year, there were no complaints because the market was great.

One hundred and forty fourth!!!

I'm on the hiring committee at my V20 NYC firm, and I can tell you that we generally prefer UVA kids to applicants from their peer schools because they are more likely to be able to hold a normal conversation. In the 4 years I've been involved with interviewing, this has proven to be true more often than not.

UVA should go to a pass/fail grading system to take away all GPA-based distinctions. Either that, or UVA should not permit law firms to review grades before they make hiring decisions. That way hiring can be entirely based on personality and resume and not on pesky, racist grades.

GW>HLS>YLS>CLS>GULC>Catholic>UDC>UVA>Tommy Chong