Transfer from Berkeley to Columbia or Harvard Forum

[getmeout123]

I got all H's my first semester. Berkeley does not rank so I am unsure of where that would place me.

What are my chances?

[plurilingue]

Out at Harvard and a far-less-than-even chance (i.e., 25%) at Columbia. HLS likes top 5% lower T14 grades and Columbia likes top 15%

The H grade at Berkeley is coextensive with the A- and B+ range at a traditional law school. Even though most of H overlaps with a traditional A-, people don’t always give you the benefit of the doubt and think it’s really a B+. The grading system at Berkeley is really designed to obscure the talents of very good but still not excellent law students — a bucket you fall into. Had you had the same grades at Duke or Michigan, I would actually be more optimistic about your chances because it’s entirely possible your grades were straight A-. That grade sheet would be competitive at Columbia and have an outside shot at Harvard.

You would probably get into NYU, which will take top 25% T14 transfers.

Edit: FYI Berkeley has a GPA calculation system for graduation honors and class rank (for clerkships?). It’s P = 2.0, H = 3.0 and HH is 5.0. You really need those HH grades to have any decent shot at getting a high rank at Berkeley. It’s really unfair and incentivizes people getting P’s in two classes and one HH in a unit heavy class rather than all H’s in three classes. My understanding is that at graduation, 3.0 is top 33%, and a 4.0 is top 10%. Post 1L, a 3.0 is top 25%. So you are a better match for NYU than Columbia.

I would apply to all of CCN and see which one you get into. If you have no scholarship at Berkeley, I think any of them will get you better outcomes and a more prestigious degree.

[Dcc617]

But why? What outcome are you hoping for that you can't get with good grades from Berkeley? What's your current scholarship info?

[plurilingue]

Also, just to add to the discussion of Berkeley’s opaque grading system: Given the way the curve is constructed, employers tend to use the presence of P and HH grades to come to a determination as to how strong an H grade really was. For example, if you have a P P H set of grades, an employer might reasonably think that your H should be looked at more as a B+ than an A- since the surrounding grades were also weak. If you have HH H H, and certainly HH HH H, then they look more like an A-.

In your case, a grade sheet of three H’s is most likely an A-, A-, B+ grade sheet at another school. It looks exactly like what the band represents at another school.

This is actually really bad for Berkeley’s OCI placement at selective law firms. Skadden Arps, for example, will regularly hire median or slightly below median NYU and Columbia students. Their target for peer schools like UVA and Penn is around a 3.5, or top 25%. But their target for Berkeley is mostly H’s with at least one HH. Essentially law firms are not giving the benefit of the doubt to Berkeley candidates that a P was a B+ and not a B, and that an H was really an A- and not a B+. Many law firms insist upon the presence of an HH on the transcript to make it clear that the candidate is capable of top-notch legal work. Because the band is so wide, the H grade alone does not create that inference.

I don’t think any of this operates to the benefit of Berkeley kids at OCI. I have a Berkeley friend (a Penn undergrad) who had straight P’s in 1L and asked each professor where he was within that band. He was in the top 10% of the people in the P band, consistently. He would most likely have had straight B+‘s at UVA or Penn — a transcript that is honestly a world apart from what he had.

[getmeout123]

Also, just to add to the discussion of Berkeley’s opaque grading system: Given the way the curve is constructed, employers tend to use the presence of P and HH grades to come to a determination as to how strong an H grade really was. For example, if you have a P P H set of grades, an employer might reasonably think that your H should be looked at more as a B+ than an A- since the surrounding grades were also weak. If you have HH H H, and certainly HH HH H, then they look more like an A-.

In your case, a grade sheet of three H’s is most likely an A-, A-, B+ grade sheet at another school. It looks exactly like what the band represents at another school.

This is actually really bad for Berkeley’s OCI placement at selective law firms. Skadden Arps, for example, will regularly hire median or slightly below median NYU and Columbia students. Their target for peer schools like UVA and Penn is around a 3.5, or top 25%. But their target for Berkeley is mostly H’s with at least one HH. Essentially law firms are not giving the benefit of the doubt to Berkeley candidates that a P was a B+ and not a B, and that an H was really an A- and not a B+. Many law firms insist upon the presence of an HH on the transcript to make it clear that the candidate is capable of top-notch legal work. Because the band is so wide, the H grade alone does not create that inference.

I don’t think any of this operates to the benefit of Berkeley kids at OCI. I have a Berkeley friend (a Penn undergrad) who had straight P’s in 1L and asked each professor where he was within that band. He was in the top 10% of the people in the P band, consistently. He would most likely have had straight B+‘s at UVA or Penn — a transcript that is honestly a world apart from what he had.

Thank you. This was very helpful for me. Fingers crossed I transfer to NYU at least.

[QContinuum]

Just wanted to chime in and thank you, plurilingue, for this very helpful and in-depth analysis of Berkeley's grading scale and its ramifications. This is superb stuff and really something that should make its way into some kind of TLS knowledgebase to use whenever we have a "Choosing Law Schools" thread involving Berkeley and one or more other T14s as options.

This also, IMO, goes to show why we generally see more grades on the curve as you move down the law school ranks: Lower-ranked schools don't have strong enough placement to get away with lumping students into wide bands. Yale can get away with 2 grades on the curve (plus a "true" pass/fail first-semester of 1L), S/H have 3, Columbia/NYU have 4 (NYU used to have 5 until it very recently took the B- off the curve). And we've even heard some opine that even at the tippy top, lumping students into wide bands just means employers look more at other indicia of prestige, like a prestigious college or a prep school background, which disproportionately disadvantages first-gen students and URMs.

[hatelawandgoinghome]

Berkeley doesn't have a letter grade for 4.0? That's odd but interesting.

[LBJ's Hair]

Out at Harvard and a far-less-than-even chance (i.e., 25%) at Columbia. HLS likes top 5% lower T14 grades and Columbia likes top 15%

Do you have recent data for this? Just curious. My impression had always been that a top 25% or so student at a T6 could comfortably transfer in to HLS; sorta weird thing to do, but knew a few with that profile who did it.

If that's what your numbers say then I guess I knew the exceptions, but "top 5% at a lower T14" sounds like Yale's cutoff...

[plurilingue]

Out at Harvard and a far-less-than-even chance (i.e., 25%) at Columbia. HLS likes top 5% lower T14 grades and Columbia likes top 15%

Do you have recent data for this? Just curious. My impression had always been that a top 25% or so student at a T6 could comfortably transfer in to HLS; sorta weird thing to do, but knew a few with that profile who did it.

If that's what your numbers say then I guess I knew the exceptions, but "top 5% at a lower T14" sounds like Yale's cutoff...

I've spoken to many people, read through the boards for years and carefully examined the Yahoo! spreadsheets from way back when. A few points here:

(1) The numbers I gave are not cutoffs. They're the grades at which your admission becomes more likely than not assuming everything is okay in your application.

(2) A lower T14 transfer to HLS is generally going to be top 5%, with top 2% being very likely. It's possible but very unlikely starting at top 15%, and a bit more likely a top 10%. But I would say top 15% is minimally qualifying for a lower T14.

(3) I think that minimally qualifying cutoff becomes top 25% for Columbia or NYU. The higher the better for T6. I would say the mark at which it becomes more likely than not is top 10% for CCN. That's high enough you really, *really* have to care about the degree you're getting to want to do it; this is why most people would not tell a Columbia student to transfer to HLS unless there were very specific reasons for that transfer. The grades it usually requires are so high at Columbia that it's unclear what you're really getting out of the transfer.

(4) I don't think that top 25% is "comfortable" place from which to send an application at all. Nobody really knows except the HLS admissions committee, but from having spoken to many CLSers and NYUers over the years, a lot of people at CCN are sending apps to HLS and YLS and you only hear about the successful ones.

(5) There are always exceptions for exceptional people. Sometimes YLS tells people in its denial letter that if they reapply as a transfer, they will get exceptional consideration. A friend's friend was top 25% at a T10 and transferred to YLS this way. But that's very rare.

[cavalier1138]

But why? What outcome are you hoping for that you can't get with good grades from Berkeley? What's your current scholarship info?

Still think an answer to this would be useful. If the OP has even a moderate scholarship at Berkeley, this sounds like a horrible idea.

[LBJ's Hair]

Out at Harvard and a far-less-than-even chance (i.e., 25%) at Columbia. HLS likes top 5% lower T14 grades and Columbia likes top 15%

Do you have recent data for this? Just curious. My impression had always been that a top 25% or so student at a T6 could comfortably transfer in to HLS; sorta weird thing to do, but knew a few with that profile who did it.

If that's what your numbers say then I guess I knew the exceptions, but "top 5% at a lower T14" sounds like Yale's cutoff...

I've spoken to many people, read through the boards for years and carefully examined the Yahoo! spreadsheets from way back when. A few points here:

(1) The numbers I gave are not cutoffs. They're the grades at which your admission becomes more likely than not assuming everything is okay in your application.

(2) A lower T14 transfer to HLS is generally going to be top 5%, with top 2% being very likely. It's possible but very unlikely starting at top 15%, and a bit more likely a top 10%. But I would say top 15% is minimally qualifying for a lower T14.

(3) I think that minimally qualifying cutoff becomes top 25% for Columbia or NYU. The higher the better for T6. I would say the mark at which it becomes more likely than not is top 10% for CCN. That's high enough you really, *really* have to care about the degree you're getting to want to do it; this is why most people would not tell a Columbia student to transfer to HLS unless there were very specific reasons for that transfer. The grades it usually requires are so high at Columbia that it's unclear what you're really getting out of the transfer.

(4) I don't think that top 25% is "comfortable" place from which to send an application at all. Nobody really knows except the HLS admissions committee, but from having spoken to many CLSers and NYUers over the years, a lot of people at CCN are sending apps to HLS and YLS and you only hear about the successful ones.

(5) There are always exceptions for exceptional people. Sometimes YLS tells people in its denial letter that if they reapply as a transfer, they will get exceptional consideration. A friend's friend was top 25% at a T10 and transferred to YLS this way. But that's very rare.

Fair enough. I'm not fully persuaded, but we apparently have very different anecdotal priors, which is interesting.