get E&E for life?

Congrats Karak, that's pretty sweet. What's the scale for you to be worrying about being top 10/5? I'd guess you're almost definitely in there.

Mind doing a TR of first semester? I was happy with my grades (3.3, top 25% based on previous years), but I'm definitely looking for things to do better.

Congratulations to Karak for the great semester.

And congratulations to the rest of us who have gotten zero grades back and don't have to hear him bitch about not having his fourth grade back or whatever.

It exists. DUCY? by David Sklansky obviously.

Yea I'll do a TR and write-up.

:-P

Probably top 10 in the class. Have fun figuring our who's ahead of you and praying for their demise.

i went to law school fifteen years ago and I have a question about property; do they still jack around with the rule against perpetuities? lol so glad im done with law school, giant buzz kill

yes

A life advice book by Sklansky at best hear-say.

karak, try to transfer to a non-TTT imo

Karak - Congrats! I am not sure how much you are spending on tuition, but transfering might be something to consider. I certainly considered it. I asked a couple professors, and they both recommended it to me. Transfering gives you a better chance at better clerkships and at teaching, among others. For me, I had a full tuition scholarship (not so thinly veiled brag) and I just couldn't see paying 50K a year to go to BigLaw when I could get the same job for free, which is what happened. However, if you're already paying lots of monies for school (and I don't think you want BigLaw, although that might change when they start taking you out to Broadway shows and restaurants), you should seriously consider it.

My property professor taught it, but told us it wouldn't be on the exam. (and it wasn't.)

I am highly considering it. I am going to apply to GULC EA for sure. I already took care of locking up a letter of recommendation (I have shivers thinking about the 4-6 weeks it took me to get LoRs for LS apps, so I'm not wasting time here), and I'll try to get the application done in the next week or two. I wanna get this stuff out of the way before I have to start working on the semester.

The more difficult decision will be Chicago ED (binding) or not. If I'm 1-5, then I have really great shot at it. Problem is if I am accepted and repeat my performance, then I shut the door on HYS and Columbia. I dunno.

lol I did some data searching and found I'd be #1 in any of the past few years

just found out one of my roommates has a higher GPA then me. guess not this year :-P.

wow i bet the correlation between roommates GPAs in lawschool crushes uGrad

I have 3 roommates. One is probably top 30-40 %. Another is likely top 10 %, almost certainly 15 %. Then there's the other two of us who are likely top 5 %. We all found each other on facebook to room with. Weird how that works out.

We never studied together or anything. We all studied independently. Barely even talked about class content.

I was third in my class after my first year. My roommate was first. We studied together.

Karak - I urge you to stick by your original stance of not going to BigLaw, but I will be happy to give any answers to any questions if you do consider it (which will try to steer you away!) as well as information on firms and which ones to blacklist and which are "nicer." I worked at one of the "nicer" ones and it still sucked monkeyballs.

Yeah, I don't awnt to do BigLaw. Only reason I would do it is to crawl out from under a pile of debt. As it stands now, I'm looking at six figures of debt from my T2. It would cost me an extra 40k or so overall to go to GULC or Chicago, so that seems worth it to me over the course of my career. This, of course, assumes that my school won't give me an increased scholarship. I've heard rumors that they don't do this, but I don't believe them. However, the sheer amount of kids that transferred out last year (seriously like 5 % of the class) seems to indicate that this might be true.

However, I do want to get a job working in politics eventually. I don't want to be a politician, but I'd like to work for the people that support and/or work against politicians. Obviously pedigree and prestige mean a lot in that field, which is why I am seriously considering a transfer even though my plans right now are to stay where I'm at.

I also wanted to ask you guys an ethical question: I received my final grade at 11 AM today. On my way out at 3, I decided to stop by that professor's office to see if he was in and maybe take a look at the exam. He said he was just leaving, and I asked to make an appointment to talk about the exam and some "other things." He pressed me as to what the other things were, and I admitted (awkwardly) that I was considering a transfer app to GULC EA, and that even though we didn't have class rank yet, I assumed I would be top 10 % maybe top 5 %.

He looked troubled, but quickly agreed to write me a letter even as I was stammering over myself trying to explain. He also pulled out past classes ranking info to give me an idea of where I'd fall.

Was this too quick? I really didn't intend to bring it up until after I reviewed my exam with him. It's worth noting he is one of the top guys at the law school too. I feel badly looking back on it now, and I'm wondering if I should write an e-mail to him clarifying that a) I didn't intend to come off badly and like I was eager to run away (even though I said during our meeting "I really like it here, and I'm not running away. I just want to keep all my options open) and b) I didn't mean to come at him so quick asking for it.

I did tell him I wasn't sure when the deadlines were, but that they started accepting apps in February (I admitted I had looked at this earlier in the week before getting his grade) and I just wanted to get on top of things as quickly as possible. I didn't say this to him, but in my experience academics can take as many as 4-6 weeks to get you a letter of recommendation, which is why I thought about mentioning it to him ASAP.

Thoughts? Sorry for the long post.

Don't worry about it. They're used to it. My prof said something like "Well I hate to see one of our top students leave, but I understand that you gotta do what you gotta do." The see this every year. I wouldn't email him. Just meet with him and go over your exam and ask any questions you may have.

Alright, awesome.

I am going to be well-amused if my roommate and I (and not only that we both live in the upstairs across from each other) are #s 1 and 2 in the class.

Thoughts on Chicago Early Decision?

Pros:

It's ****ing Chicago. Ship the $$s etc.

Cons:

It's ****ing Chicago.
Costs a lot of $$ in tuition.
If I get in (and I think I would), I have to maintain "similar grades" which I've read means within 10 % of class rank and 0.3 GPA (0.3 is a big # though. It would be hard to dip more than that if I blew a smester I think).

Game theory time:

Scenario A: I get in, maintain similar grades, and I'm going to Chicago in the fall.
Outcome: Great! It's Chicago!

Scenario B: I get in, my grades plummet, and I'm back at my old school in the top 20 %.
Outcome: Meh.

Scenario C: I don't apply, my grades stay the same, and I still probably get in regular decision. I also have a shot at Harvard, Stanford and Columbia. I prob have GULC EA in my back pocket (let's cross our fingers).
Outcome: Best outcome.

Scenario D: I don't apply, my grades plummet, and I don't get in anywhere.
Outcome: Really depressing. Although I might run away to GULC in this scenario if I get in EA.

C seems like the clear option here, right? Sorry for doing my work "out loud" here on the thread, but it helps to have your opinions.

I guess C. I don't really see why your grades would plummet. It's not like it gets any harder really, though I guess some of your classmates who were still getting a feel for things first semester might improve.

Are these only mid term grades? How many of them are final grades? I'm kinda surprised if they let you transfer just on mid term grades. Mid terms are graded easier than finals imo.

I've generally heard that Chicago has the toughest/meanest competition anywhere. It's gonna be hard to maintain similar grades.

Where do you go now?

He worded it a little confusingly, but he's talking about final grades from the semester, and Chicago and Georgetown are the two schools who will accept transfers on early decision based on first semester alone. And the maintain similar grades thing seemed really daunting to me too, until I realized he meant that he would just have to maintain similar grades at his current school for second semester to retain the acceptance.

LKJ as usual translates my incoherent babble into common sense haha.

Yeah it's based on my first semester, and yeah I just need similar grades int he second semester.

Right now I go to a mid Tier 2.

I'd go to Georgetown before I went to Chicago, but that's a personal thing. I hate everything about Chicago (the school, not the city). Also, if you're interested in politicky type stuff, Georgetown is in a city that does some of that stuff.

I was told when I was considering transferring that Harvard does not accept transfers unless you originally applied there. Not sure if that was/is true. Yale accepts transfers and that's where I really considered. My second choice was Columbia/NYU.

With regard to Harvard, I'm not too sure that's true. I know a guy who went to my school last year and is now a 2L at Harvard (met him through TLS, he has been hugely helpful in sending me outlines from last year, which he obviously killed to now be at HLS). He did mention up front that he had numbers that wouldn't have been competitive at any T14 heading into LS, so i don't think that he applied to any.