ITT: Schools that have great name rec. but bad law schools. Forum

[vanwinkle]

Ok understood. The reason I mentioned Richmond is due to their very high LSAT and other requirements. This would seem to indicate that many law school applicants deem to to have a great name. Frankly, in our area of Wash DC/ northern Virginia, Richmond does have a very good name. Frankly though, with the same LSAT required, there are much better choices,which is the main point of my post.

What?

Their LSAT median is a 162. That doesn't seem to be a "very high LSAT" requirement for a school in its range. It shares #67 in the rankings with Lewis & Clark (161) and Brooklyn (163). Also, in DC, I don't think it's that highly regarded at all. There are a large number of more highly regarded schools in DC, including GWU, W&M, and GMU, and of course, every single T14 in the country, which all have students hoping to work in DC. In terms of the schools sending people into that market, Richmond is behind a very long line of well-respected schools.

In fact, Richmond's strength as far as I could ever tell was that it wasn't DC-focused. If anything, it's popular for people who want to go to school in VA but stay in VA, hoping that people in the state's better schools will find work in DC or NYC and not stay and compete with them there. It's worked that way in past years, and it's only a problem now because of how much hiring in DC and NYC has shrunk. But even back then, Richmond wasn't really regarded as a "great school". There are so many schools that are considered better than it in the same state and region.

[bogart]

-Syracuse was thought of as below BC, everywhere I lived and is known only for Basketball outside of the Northeast where as BC gets a little respect in other parts of the country. The people I know who went to Syracuse got rejected from places like UNH, Maine, etc.

-Cornell is considered the easiest Ivy to get into (at least for UG) and I know too many people who turned it down for other schools in Group 3 to rank it ahead of them.

-UNC is strong in the south (probably in the Group 4 level...I knew I missed a few) but doesn't seem to have as big of a region as teh Group 3's. UT was on the edge of my group 3- group 4, because they dominate Texas (which is a pretty big place). In Texas it pulls the top students that stay in-state over Rice and SMU while UNC loses many top students to Duke and to a lesser extent WF. Florida competes head to head with Miami (but I viewed it as a backup school to get into when I applied for UG (I attended one of my Group 3 schools for disclosure)

bc does not have better name rec than syracuse. I don't know who you have hung out with around the country but there is just no way bc is more highly regarded than syracuse. As far as academis, they are absolutely peer schools, hell compare alumni lists of the two schools, syracuse comes out ahead. Not to mention newhouse which is a far better school than anything bc has (and I love bc for the record).

Also, Cornell beats Brown.
I am from NY/NJ so my opinions are admittedly biased. Like I said before, your list is mostly solid.

[Exeter]

What about Oberlin?!

[robotclubmember]

What about Oberlin?!

Their law school is ranked a little beneath Princeton's but still pretty good.

[fogcue2]

Good school but I'd put Oberlin with the Wesleyen, Bowdoin , Vasser, Smith etc group.

All of them sound prestigious and most people will at least give you "the I've heard of there" even if they have no clue. But the truth is that most people outside of a few hundred miles of any of these schools will not have heard of it....with the exception of older people who still might recognize the Ivy sister schools or How I Met Your Mother fans who all know of Wesleyen now.

[Exeter]

Ah, I was kidding. I never understood the LAC and high price tag phenom. These schools are always ungodly expensive and it kind of blows my mind.

[bport hopeful]

Princton.

[ndirish2010]

-Syracuse was thought of as below BC, everywhere I lived and is known only for Basketball outside of the Northeast where as BC gets a little respect in other parts of the country. The people I know who went to Syracuse got rejected from places like UNH, Maine, etc.

-Cornell is considered the easiest Ivy to get into (at least for UG) and I know too many people who turned it down for other schools in Group 3 to rank it ahead of them.

-UNC is strong in the south (probably in the Group 4 level...I knew I missed a few) but doesn't seem to have as big of a region as teh Group 3's. UT was on the edge of my group 3- group 4, because they dominate Texas (which is a pretty big place). In Texas it pulls the top students that stay in-state over Rice and SMU while UNC loses many top students to Duke and to a lesser extent WF. Florida competes head to head with Miami (but I viewed it as a backup school to get into when I applied for UG (I attended one of my Group 3 schools for disclosure)

bc does not have better name rec than syracuse. I don't know who you have hung out with around the country but there is just no way bc is more highly regarded than syracuse. As far as academis, they are absolutely peer schools, hell compare alumni lists of the two schools, syracuse comes out ahead. Not to mention newhouse which is a far better school than anything bc has (and I love bc for the record).

Also, Cornell beats Brown.
I am from NY/NJ so my opinions are admittedly biased. Like I said before, your list is mostly solid.

LOL are you kidding me. Syracuse is a TTT. They let in people with like 850 SATs. Everyone knows it is a joke. I'm from Long Island.

[Toronto9]

http://www.spam.com

[Patriot1208]

I believe WUSTL and ND are 13 and 19, respectively in USNWR.

I guess, but really? Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Berkeley, UVA, Cornell, Brown, UPenn, Columbia, Georgetown, CalTech, MIT, Johns Hopkins, Michigan, Carnegie Mellon, Northwestern, Duke (and I hate Duke), and since it is UG, Rice, Chicago, Cooper Union...and I am sure I am missing a few midwestern schools

I might just be a coastal elitist though

+1
It must be a regional thing...I always knew ND had a great undergrad but never heard of WUSTL before reading TLS. Students would actually go there above Brown/Cornell/Gtown? I do not mean to insult the school - I am genuinely interested.

Just to respond to this, yes, most kids at WUSTL turn down similarly ranked schools as WUSTL has medians comparable to those schools. When I transfered to WUSTL I turned down NYU and NU. I would have gone to Penn if I had gotten in. I know kids who have turned down schools like yale or princeton and most turned down other similarly ranked schools like cornell or hopkins. A lot of it has to do with programs, the business school is very well respected (class of 2010 had a median starting salary of 59k with a median signing bonus of 8,500 w/ 97% reporting) with a good number of kids getting prestigious banking, finance, and consulting jobs, so is architecture, and most come because of our amazing reputation in medicine. Something like 60% of freshman start as pre med. Also, as far as everyone saying it's a midwest thing, over 60% of the school is from over 500 miles away, which means not the midwest. All in all I think most schools like Rice, NU, JH, Tufts, ND, Emory, GT, etc are all pretty much peers and tend to have advantages over each other in specific programs, but not as a whole.

[ndirish2010]

I generally consider WUSTL to be the "Hopkins of the midwest." Of course, people from Missouri and WUSTL students might consider Hopkins to be the "WUSTL of the east."

[Exeter]

www.spam.com

Wtf

[WSJ_Law]

taxguy;didn't read

What a moronic path of reasoning to claim name prestige based on medians. Taxguy and TTTTax_son should killselves then retake.

[FeelTheHeat]

taxguy;didn't read

What a moronic path of reasoning to claim name prestige based on medians. Taxguy and TTTTax_son should killselves then retake.

If you're gonna be a prick on the forums, at least be funny doing it.

[vanwinkle]

taxguy;didn't read

What a moronic path of reasoning to claim name prestige based on medians. Taxguy and TTTTax_son should killselves then retake.

You're welcome to disagree with taxguy. I certainly did. But you can't be this hostile in the on-topic forums. It's not even excusable as funny, it's just mean. And since this isn't the first time you've attacked taxguy recently, you get a long timeout.

[moopness]

How has Berkeley not been mentioned yet?

[Mickey Quicknumbers]

How has Berkeley not been mentioned yet?

[moopness]

How has Berkeley not been mentioned yet?

totes

[TheOcho]

Yes, both schools seem to have great name recognition among applicants. Miami has a decent name recognition in south florida. Despite that and despite my being an alum from the law school, I never thought it was a good school and certainly not as good as many people believe.

Are you really an attorney?

[FeelTheHeat]

taxguy;didn't read

What a moronic path of reasoning to claim name prestige based on medians. Taxguy and TTTTax_son should killselves then retake.

You're welcome to disagree with taxguy. I certainly did. But you can't be this hostile in the on-topic forums. It's not even excusable as funny, it's just mean. And since this isn't the first time you've attacked taxguy recently, you get a long timeout.

Glad someone noticed it. We as a whole obviously disagree with taxguy a lot, but some of the flames on this site get a little ridiculous.

[firemed]

Yes, both schools seem to have great name recognition among applicants. Miami has a decent name recognition in south florida. Despite that and despite my being an alum from the law school, I never thought it was a good school and certainly not as good as many people believe.

Are you really an attorney?

Several of us can confirm that internet evidence points to him being an actual attorney, doing tax law. He also writes books and blogs.

[Run!]

I believe it to be the case that Syracuse has better name recognition than BC, but is a slightly worse UG. When you compare law schools however, BC wins both categories.

As far as Cornell being in tier 2, I disagree. Cornell is in line with those tier 3 school more. The reasoning is that those schools listed in tier 2 have far more international and even national recognition than Cornell. Cornell's Ivy status gives it ample prestige BUT because it is seemingly viewed as the 'worst' Ivy, its image is rather tainted.

[ahduth]

I feel like NYU belongs in this thread.

[$1.99]

NYU has great name rec but bad law school? it is probably the opposite. low lay prestige, great law school

[zdamico]

Villanova is a good UG school, but has never been great for law. They were in the mid 50s and 60s, but plummeted after the LSAC discovered they were falsifying admissions numbers.