Good grades at H/S but mediocre letters Forum

[slsstudent128]

Hi all

I am roughly in the top 10% of my class at H/S and looking to apply for district court clerkships. I feel that my transcript is reasonably competitive for the districts I'm targeting (SDNY, EDNY, DDC, NDCA), but I have no strong professor relationships. I have found 3 professors to write letters for me, but I doubt any of them would make a call or really "go to bat" on my behalf. I am on LR and have 6-years of pre-law school experience in finance.

Am I reasonably competitive for these districts or do I need to set my sights lower?

[Dede93]

Yes, if you are coming from Harvard or Stanford in the top 10% of your class, you are very competitive for these district courts. I can’t speak to feeder judges, but otherwise, you have a foot in the door for someone to actually give your application a serious look. Source: two-time clerk in one of the districts you listed.

[slsstudent128]

Thank you! From your time in these courts, do you have any insight into how they evaluate and H/P transcript? Are you looking for a specific number of Honors or a percentage? Is it different between Stanford and Harvard given the slightly different curve?

[Anonymous User]

Thank you! From your time in these courts, do you have any insight into how they evaluate and H/P transcript? Are you looking for a specific number of Honors or a percentage? Is it different between Stanford and Harvard given the slightly different curve?

I clerked for a judge on one of the courts you mentioned and evaluated transcripts. I went to HLS so found it easier to figure those out. I was looking for people who were roughly in the top 10 percent of their class - at Harvard, that meant roughly as many DSes as Ps.

[Anonymous User]

Thank you! From your time in these courts, do you have any insight into how they evaluate and H/P transcript? Are you looking for a specific number of Honors or a percentage? Is it different between Stanford and Harvard given the slightly different curve?

I clerked for a judge on one of the courts you mentioned and evaluated transcripts. I went to HLS so found it easier to figure those out. I was looking for people who were roughly in the top 10 percent of their class - at Harvard, that meant roughly as many DSes as Ps.

Can confirm this is about what we'd look for at HLS.

But OP, you say you're in 10%. Is that an educated guess or has someone said to you? If you already know you're in that band then the specific grades won't really matter. From what I've heard something like 75% H's probably puts someone in that range, does that sound right?

[slsstudent128]

Realizing my username is a giveaway so no use really obscuring that I’m at SLS

I am at ~80% Hs and yes have been told that 75% Hs is usually where 10% is. It’s just hard for me to believe knowing the unbelievable transcripts that some people in my class have that I would be in the top 20 of the ~180 students here. Also just curious how the people on the receiving end really see things - it’s one thing to be in the top 10% but I’m sure these chambers are reviving a *lot* of stellar transcripts from HYS.

[Anonymous User]

I clerked in one of these districts. Obviously this all varies by judge, but mine generally viewed grades as necessary but not sufficient, in that they would want to see grades in the ~magna range to give your application a close look. If an application was in the ballpark on grades, I found that they cared much more about the strength of your letters and interesting things on your resume than parsing the minutia of how you did in what classes for which professors.

All that's to say: seems like you're in the range of candidates we would have considered, and there's no harm in applying.

[slsstudent128]

Thanks anon above! And at a school like SLS where "magna" is not really a thing, how did your chambers go about determining the grade floor? Did the school provide information to you on how to guide your interpretation of transcripts? Or was it a less scientific, more vibes-based "does this person have a lot of Honors grades?" standard?

[Anonymous User]

Previous anon. By "magna," I mean to say that we were really looking for people in about the top 10%, though we didn't treat it as a strict cutoff. For HYS, where the school doesn't provide any indication of rank, we used the same general rules of thumb that students kick around at those schools, namely that for a 2L applying on plan, you would want to see about as many DSs as Ps from HLS, about 75% Hs at SLS, and pretty much all Hs at YLS.

[Anonymous User]

Previous anon. By "magna," I mean to say that we were really looking for people in about the top 10%, though we didn't treat it as a strict cutoff. For HYS, where the school doesn't provide any indication of rank, we used the same general rules of thumb that students kick around at those schools, namely that for a 2L applying on plan, you would want to see about as many DSs as Ps from HLS, about 75% Hs at SLS, and pretty much all Hs at YLS.

Different anon, but for SLS how do prizes factor into your analysis? Is there a meaningful difference between having like 80% H's but 0-1 prizes vs. maybe 70~ish% H's but 2-3 prizes? Something I've heard is that you can think of a prize as cancelling out a P for purposes of determining your H/P ratio (ex. if you have 5 P's and 15 H's, 2 of which are prizes, you're basically "equal" to someone with 3 P's and 17 H's with no prizes) - is that true?

[Anonymous User]

Also curious about the above. I have heard that the prizes "cancel out" Ps but do not "add" to the H tally so to speak. So 10 Hs and 3 prizes with 5 Ps is the equivalent of 10 Hs and 2 Ps, not 13 Hs and 2 Ps. I have heard those Ps referred to as "uncovered [by prizes.]" So often the question from professors will be "how many uncovered [by prizes] Ps do you have?" with the lower the number being the better. Uncovered Ps = Total Ps minus Book Prizes.

I doubt the actual nature of chambers review is so scientific. But curious to know what people who have seen the other side think!

[Anonymous User]

Same anon here. I didn't go to SLS (and neither did my co-clerks), so we had less fine-grained insight into what stands out in an application from that school. When I was looking at SLS apps from our pile, though, I remember thinking that it was a plus if you had some prizes in big doctrinals and still good, but marginally less so, if you had prizes in what seemed like a paper class, seminar, or clinic.

I don't think I ever formally computed what you're calling "uncovered Ps." But at least for plan week, my chambers would read applications by school, so we (or at least one of the clerks) looked at all of the SLS applications together as a bundle. This is totally unscientific, but after looking at quite a few applications, you get a good intuition for when it seems like there are just too many Ps by eyeballing the ratio of Ps to Hs. I would probably reach that point sooner if the applicant didn't have any prizes, or the Ps were mostly in doctrinal classes. We read the whole application either way, though, so we might pull an application for everyone to look at that had slightly weaker grades but better letters, etc.