Howard is up there with the T14

[lalalagirl007]

Very few firms hire on name alone and zero would say that they do. Just because they interview at Howard doesn't mean they give equal opportunity to interview.  Many firms set standards at schools outside the T-14 (you must have GPA of X.XX, you must be top 10% of class) that they don't have at top schools.

So they'll obviously go deeper into the class at Harvard than at Howard.  But even a horrible person at Harvard who is a disaster in interviews has a fantastic chance of getting a good job. 


An interview is up to the individual to impress the firm, but your school comes as part of your individual package... X Law School is always interviewing with you.

I got an interview based entirely on my school yesterday.  The guy said he hadn't even had a chance to look at my resume yet; he'd just seen the school and decided to interview me.

That's sweet...what school do you attend? (if you don't mind me asking)

[EatYourVeggies]

T14.

[Burning Sands, Esq.]

Very few firms hire on name alone and zero would say that they do. Just because they interview at Howard doesn't mean they give equal opportunity to interview.  Many firms set standards at schools outside the T-14 (you must have GPA of X.XX, you must be top 10% of class) that they don't have at top schools.

So they'll obviously go deeper into the class at Harvard than at Howard.  But even a horrible person at Harvard who is a disaster in interviews has a fantastic chance of getting a good job. 


An interview is up to the individual to impress the firm, but your school comes as part of your individual package... X Law School is always interviewing with you.

This is entirely accurate on how biglaw operates unfortunately.  Students will receive interviews like this based on one of two criteria: (i) the school name;  and/or (ii) The GPA.

There is a pecking order to the OCI system and those two factors are at the #1 and #2 slots respectively.  Outside of whether or not you made Law Review, nothing else on your resume will serve the same function with respect to catching an automatic interview at a firm.  Firms are like law school ad com's - they simply don't have the time to go through the apps.  They need quick identifiers.  Thus, the aforementioned criteria.


I had a friend from a lower tiered school land a slew of interviews at a regional job fair clearly based off of her GPA alone, but as soon as she got into the interview room the interviewers (for the first time no doubt) suddenly realized that she had a 3.9999999 GPA....but it was at an undesirable school.  As a result, she got, say, a dozen interviews whereas other people only got 3 or 4 on average, but out of her dozen interviews, she got 0 offers.

The main point of this discussion, imo, is not that Howard provides more opportunities, but that being black provides more opportunities. Which we all already knew.

This has already been addressed and corrected so I don't feel the need to say much about it other than to point out that if anybody truly believes that the original statement is true as is (without a whole lot of qualifiers), then such a person clearly has not practiced law a day in their life.

[. . . . . .]

hmmmm Vandey or Full Ride at Howard?

[Temporary Relief Assistant Trailer Park Supervisor]

I actually buy tL's post on my thread:  Firms interview at Howard for show.  The # of Howard grads actually hired is about equal to the # of grads hired from similarly ranked institutions.  I don't know what your opinions are of Vanderbilt socially, but I would definitely go there over any TTT full ride.

This is definitely wrong.  Howard places more like the bottom tier 1 schools in biglaw than it does the borderline t3/t4 school its student numbers and bar passage rates indicate it to be.  That being said, I imagine there are a pretty decent number of very qualified black students who choose Howard because of its history and overall reputation in the black community, so there might be a huge difference in student quality between the top 5 or 10% and the median.

[Kirk Lazarus]

I actually buy tL's post on my thread:  Firms interview at Howard for show.  The # of Howard grads actually hired is about equal to the # of grads hired from similarly ranked institutions.  I don't know what your opinions are of Vanderbilt socially, but I would definitely go there over any TTT full ride.

This is definitely wrong.  Howard places more like the bottom tier 1 schools in biglaw than it does the borderline t3/t4 school its student numbers and bar passage rates indicate it to be.  That being said, I imagine there are a pretty decent number of very qualified black students who choose Howard because of its history and overall reputation in the black community, so there might be a huge difference in student quality between the top 5 or 10% and the median.

Good post. In fact, I know this to be the case.