What T14 schools use lotteries for on-campus recruiting?

[queencruella]

Yes, it is not random at all.  You rank your firm choices.  You will likely get your top 30 or so bids.  I have never heard of a school which assigns your interviews "randomly."  That doesn't make any sense.  Anyway, in a lottery system, you must be strategic, because you don't want to use all your top bids on firms you likely will not receive callbacks from.  Anyway, this is how Northwestern does it, as well as most of the top schools.  It is also how Georgetown does it. 

UVA is clearly different.   

Pre-screening is dumb, because it cuts off the bottom pile of students.  It frankly makes it harder for them to get jobs.  They get less interviews.

Not that I think pre-screening is good, but after the word "because" in the bolded statement, not one good reason is given as to why it is "dumb".

When the "bottom pile" is anyone below the top 10-25% does that really make sense? There are many law students who will interview at every firm available just because they can. Meanwhile students with grades slightly lower who actually want to work at those firms don't get a chance. The lottery system keeps those recreational interviewers in check.

[Goodfella]

Yes, it is not random at all.  You rank your firm choices.  You will likely get your top 30 or so bids.  I have never heard of a school which assigns your interviews "randomly."  That doesn't make any sense.  Anyway, in a lottery system, you must be strategic, because you don't want to use all your top bids on firms you likely will not receive callbacks from.  Anyway, this is how Northwestern does it, as well as most of the top schools.  It is also how Georgetown does it. 

UVA is clearly different.   

Pre-screening is dumb, because it cuts off the bottom pile of students.  It frankly makes it harder for them to get jobs.  They get less interviews.

Not that I think pre-screening is good, but after the word "because" in the bolded statement, not one good reason is given as to why it is "dumb".

When the "bottom pile" is anyone below the top 10-25% does that really make sense? There are many law students who will interview at every firm available just because they can. Meanwhile students with grades slightly lower who actually want to work at those firms don't get a chance. The lottery system keeps those recreational interviewers in check.

Exactly. UVA leaves some room for leeway but basically wants people to interview with firms they have realistic shots at. That makes it more efficient for everyone. You still have a chance to get up to 10 interviews with firms that normally wouldn't interview you so you can show off your mad interviewing skillz, but the way we do it makes sure top students can interview with top firms, students near the mean have a wide variety of opportunities and students below the curve will interview mostly with firms they actually have a shot at but have 5-10 chances to break in with firms that normally wouldn't bother with them.

[Towelie]

Yes, it is not random at all.  You rank your firm choices.  You will likely get your top 30 or so bids.  I have never heard of a school which assigns your interviews "randomly."  That doesn't make any sense.  Anyway, in a lottery system, you must be strategic, because you don't want to use all your top bids on firms you likely will not receive callbacks from.  Anyway, this is how Northwestern does it, as well as most of the top schools.  It is also how Georgetown does it. 

UVA is clearly different.   

Pre-screening is dumb, because it cuts off the bottom pile of students.  It frankly makes it harder for them to get jobs.  They get less interviews.

Not that I think pre-screening is good, but after the word "because" in the bolded statement, not one good reason is given as to why it is "dumb".

When the "bottom pile" is anyone below the top 10-25% does that really make sense? There are many law students who will interview at every firm available just because they can. Meanwhile students with grades slightly lower who actually want to work at those firms don't get a chance. The lottery system keeps those recreational interviewers in check.

Exactly. UVA leaves some room for leeway but basically wants people to interview with firms they have realistic shots at. That makes it more efficient for everyone. You still have a chance to get up to 10 interviews with firms that normally wouldn't interview you so you can show off your mad interviewing skillz, but the way we do it makes sure top students can interview with top firms, students near the mean have a wide variety of opportunities and students below the curve will interview mostly with firms they actually have a shot at but have 5-10 chances to break in with firms that normally wouldn't bother with them.

Although you claim the UVA system makes it more efficient, it really makes it more efficient for employers, not students. As I was saying before, and have said earlier, if you are a good interviewer the UVA system screws you. And I have no hatred towards UVA, I just hate this system... I don't think it has any place in a top law school.

[SugarJ]

Now I'm confused 

Random? Why would the lottery be completely RANDOM? Then what if by chance NOBODY gets to interview with their top firms? I thought it was more along the lines of what 2elandbored said.

[LittleRussianPrincess, Esq.]

any other T14 schools?

predictably, boalt.

[Mickey Ward]

Lotto at Michigan, too. You pick the employers you're interested in and they assign on lottery basis. No pre-screening.

[Jolie Was Here]

Well, it's not a lottery at Michigan in the sense that it's random - your preferences play a role.  But like Mr. DeM. said, you bid for up to 30 employers in order of preference, and most students get 20-22 interviews out of that 30.  No employer pre-screening involved. 

[Goodfella]

Yes, it is not random at all.  You rank your firm choices.  You will likely get your top 30 or so bids.  I have never heard of a school which assigns your interviews "randomly."  That doesn't make any sense.  Anyway, in a lottery system, you must be strategic, because you don't want to use all your top bids on firms you likely will not receive callbacks from.  Anyway, this is how Northwestern does it, as well as most of the top schools.  It is also how Georgetown does it. 

UVA is clearly different.   

Pre-screening is dumb, because it cuts off the bottom pile of students.  It frankly makes it harder for them to get jobs.  They get less interviews.

Not that I think pre-screening is good, but after the word "because" in the bolded statement, not one good reason is given as to why it is "dumb".

When the "bottom pile" is anyone below the top 10-25% does that really make sense? There are many law students who will interview at every firm available just because they can. Meanwhile students with grades slightly lower who actually want to work at those firms don't get a chance. The lottery system keeps those recreational interviewers in check.

Exactly. UVA leaves some room for leeway but basically wants people to interview with firms they have realistic shots at. That makes it more efficient for everyone. You still have a chance to get up to 10 interviews with firms that normally wouldn't interview you so you can show off your mad interviewing skillz, but the way we do it makes sure top students can interview with top firms, students near the mean have a wide variety of opportunities and students below the curve will interview mostly with firms they actually have a shot at but have 5-10 chances to break in with firms that normally wouldn't bother with them.

Although you claim the UVA system makes it more efficient, it really makes it more efficient for employers, not students. As I was saying before, and have said earlier, if you are a good interviewer the UVA system screws you. And I have no hatred towards UVA, I just hate this system... I don't think it has any place in a top law school.

It's better for students too because you get more interviews with firms that will actually give you callbacks.

[LittleRussianPrincess, Esq.]

Yes, it is not random at all.  You rank your firm choices.  You will likely get your top 30 or so bids.  I have never heard of a school which assigns your interviews "randomly."  That doesn't make any sense.  Anyway, in a lottery system, you must be strategic, because you don't want to use all your top bids on firms you likely will not receive callbacks from.  Anyway, this is how Northwestern does it, as well as most of the top schools.  It is also how Georgetown does it. 

UVA is clearly different.   

Pre-screening is dumb, because it cuts off the bottom pile of students.  It frankly makes it harder for them to get jobs.  They get less interviews.

Not that I think pre-screening is good, but after the word "because" in the bolded statement, not one good reason is given as to why it is "dumb".

When the "bottom pile" is anyone below the top 10-25% does that really make sense? There are many law students who will interview at every firm available just because they can. Meanwhile students with grades slightly lower who actually want to work at those firms don't get a chance. The lottery system keeps those recreational interviewers in check.

Exactly. UVA leaves some room for leeway but basically wants people to interview with firms they have realistic shots at. That makes it more efficient for everyone. You still have a chance to get up to 10 interviews with firms that normally wouldn't interview you so you can show off your mad interviewing skillz, but the way we do it makes sure top students can interview with top firms, students near the mean have a wide variety of opportunities and students below the curve will interview mostly with firms they actually have a shot at but have 5-10 chances to break in with firms that normally wouldn't bother with them.

Although you claim the UVA system makes it more efficient, it really makes it more efficient for employers, not students. As I was saying before, and have said earlier, if you are a good interviewer the UVA system screws you. And I have no hatred towards UVA, I just hate this system... I don't think it has any place in a top law school.

It's better for students too because you get more interviews with firms that will actually give you callbacks.

And one has no way of knowing that before they actually interview with the firm. My OCI experience is illustrative of this.

Although Boalt has no pre-screening, at my first OCI as a 2L I found myself only bidding on firms I thought I had a realistic shot at, based on the "grade cutoff book" provided by our career services. I got virtually all my top bids, got plenty of callbacks and a good number of offers. The strange part of it all was that some of the firms, especially more regional ones with little or no NYC presence almost acted as if they had an inferiority complex with me. In my callbacks at these secondary markets, they drilled me on why someone from Boalt -- who could go virtually anywhere -- would want them in particular. At the end of my split-summer clerkships as a 2L, I decided that maybe there was something to what those firms were saying to me.

I was comfortable; I had offers and nothing to lose, so I bid on firms that last year I thought would laugh at me for showing up. I got the interviews, and [GASP!] got some awesome callbacks. I ended up getting a permanent position offer from a firm that I would have been too scared to interview with last year. So you never know how strict a firm's grade cut-offs are and what their other priorities may be. I know that a friend of mine with much better grades interviewed for the same position and didn't even get a callback. 

[Quail!]

Ok so apparently I was reading that post that I commented on from a different slant as everyone else.  What I was saying is that pre-screening from an employer's standpoint on it's face seems like a reasonable practice.

It looks like from everyone else's reading that it was meant to say that it was dumb for the CSO to allow pre-screening and that from a student's standpoint pre-screening is dumb.  So yea, my mistake I guess it was just a semantical misunderstanding.