<p>To clarify, Skadden is not the hottest firm for M&A.</p>
<p>Signing up and receiving an interview with any firm you choose is standard procedure at top law schools. UVA is the sole exception to this.</p>
<p>I'm fairly confident that the majority of students at nearly every American undergraduate school receives A's. I believe you meant to say that the majority of distributed grades at Harvard College are A's. I don't believe this to be true for the college and it is not the case for the law school.</p>
<p>EDIT: When I refer to an "A", I am excluding an A- mark. If you consider an A- to be an A, then my statement about the college may be inaccurate. I think it is still true for HLS.</p>
<p>"Signing up and receiving an interview with any firm you choose is standard procedure at top law schools."</p>
<p>that;s true, especially at harvard. and that is something i have always found 'unfair'.</p>
<p>"I'm fairly confident that the majority of students at nearly every American undergraduate school receives A's."</p>
<p>thats not true.</p>
<p>"I believe you meant to say that the majority of distributed grades at Harvard College are A's. I don't believe this to be true for the college and it is not the case for the law school."</p>
<p>i meant to say that harvard hands out A LOT of easy A's. maybe not a majority. and this is true for undergrad and grad levels. i wouldnt speak on this if i didnt know first hand. profs at harvard just dont give students C's. its like taboo or something. i will say harvard stuednt are at harvard for a reason and most work very hard and are productive human beings. yet this is not the case for my friend, who is a complete slacker. and she gets a free pass when she messes up. not cool.</p>
"Signing up and receiving an interview with any firm you choose is standard procedure at top law schools."</p>
<p>that;s true, especially at harvard. and that is something i have always found 'unfair'.
I think it is very fair. Law school grades can be arbitrary and aren't indicative of your ability to practice law. This method of interview allocation allows students who may not have the top grades to interview with reach firms and not be discounted because they have a sub 6.0.</p>
<p>
"I'm fairly confident that the majority of students at nearly every American undergraduate school receives A's."</p>
<p>thats not true.
So you believe there is a non-insignificant number of colleges where at least half of the student body never receives an A during the course of their undergraduate studies? I'm skeptical, but I went to an undergrad that most would consider grade-inflating.</p>
<p>It is pretty hard to get Cs here. However, there are no easy As 1L year. There are easier As during 2L and 3L year.</p>
<p>Grade inflation is nothing new and has been studied and written about for years. By 2001, over 90% of Harvard grads graduated with honors. Magna cum laude was awarded to those with GPAs of 3.3 and over and that happened to be the majority of the class so magna didn't mean much. In 2005, they changed from honors being awarded according to GPA to awardiing it based on a percentage of the class. Even now, 50% of the class will graduate with honors. The Ivies argue over which one was the culprit and some addressed it several years ago by decreasing the number of As given out. Some studies for example saw schools lower the number of As from upwards of 50% to closer to 40%, but the guidelines were not really enforced and some departments didn't follow them. The numbers of As remained very high for juniors and seniors, however. Typically, the changes only resulted in more Bs. Of course, the students were not happy without As. If I had a dime for every law school transcript I have seen, I could retire and I have very rarely seen a C on transcripts from the top schools. I see fewer As than I did in the late 90s but not really any more Cs.</p>
<p>cartera, this is a little off the topic of the thread, but I was wondering what in your experience is considered a "good" law school GPA? I know grades vary among law schools, and there are a lot of other factors involved in hiring, but are there certain rough cutoffs where a hiring committee might say "unless this person has a lot of other things going for her there's no way we're interviewing someone with this gpa" or "wow--she did really well in school!" </p>
<p>I know what the curve for each class is at my law school, but I don't have a good idea of how GPAs themselves are distributed and I don't know where I fall (my school doesn't publicly announce rank; I guess finding out if you're Order of the Coif at graduation is about the only insight you get). </p>
<p>Most of my clients are large firms or recruit like them so any Cs on a transcript can be problematic. Some of the top schools produce transcripts that are the hardest to decipher and seem to set out to make it difficult to compare students. Yale is the classic example. If you get into Yale, you don't have to worry too much about grades. Schools vary quite a bit with regard to cutoffs for honors. Some schools, including Harvard, give honors through the top 40%. GWU does that too. While my clients may go for that with Harvard, they won't necessarily do that for GWU. The GPA for top 40% Harvard will also look quite different from the top 40% GWU or University of Maryland for example. Generally, you want to shoot to graduate with some type of honors in order to keep doors open. When I verbally present a candidate to a firm, if I don't specifiy honors, the first question will be "any honors?" For my clients, I need to see GPAs 3.3 and above. Law review can make up for some grade glitches, but can only go so far.</p>
<p>cartera45: is this true even for the T14? For instance, if you graduate from one of HYS with a C average, will it drastically diminish your career prospects, or will the fact that you were admitted to and graduated from one of HYS balance the prospects out with someone from a significantly less prestigious law school with, say, a B average?</p>
<p>DocT, I'd imagine there are fewer As now than in the 70s, 80s and 90s. However, having "cum laude" on your transcript while graduating in the top half of your class is not a bad deal.</p>
<p>Yale's grading policy makes it impossible to tell how anyone really compares to anyone else. If you get in, you will be able to do pretty much anything you want. Everyone knows that Cs are not freely given at Harvard Law so graduating from there with a C average would give my clients great pause. I don't see too many Stanford transcripts on the east coast so I'd have to do some research into the grading policy there. "Biglaw" can be very unforgiving. Even if you land that incredible job out of law school, when no one has seen the final transcript, that transcript can come back to haunt you when you look for the next job - and almost everyone will be looking for that next job. Anyone who gets into HYS should be capable of graduating with better than a C average. Remember that the top grade at Harvard is an A+ so they tend to differentiate pretty well without having to go far down the scale. Top half at HYS and a couple more can take you far. Top 1/3 may be needed for equal treatment for those below that in T15 and top 10-15% might be needed for firms from T15 - T30. I have had clients tell me that they would rather hire an associate who graduated Coif from a lesser school than top half from Harvard. They don't always do what they say though.</p>
<p>I should explain that I deal with lateral hiring. Anything goes often right out of law school. Rank is often not known and much flows from the first year grades and the summer job after the first year. My analysis kicks in after that since "biglaw" and law firms in general can be the great equalizer. I don't care how many As you get at Harvard - if you don't pull your weight, write well, analyze issues quickly and intelligently, you cannot rest on that degree.</p>