Top Law Schools

romothesavior wrote: Being unemployed and six figures in debt or doing temporary doc review for $20 an hour with a degree from a T20 law school is on par with working in a mall for 40 hours a week and making enough money to make your student loan payments every month and feed your family of four? GTFO here if you really think that is even remotely comparable. Also, there are maybe 15,000-20,000 permanent legal jobs for 45,000 graduates. You're saying that dentists and doctors face the same market?

I don't mean this to be a jerk, but you just sound like you want to lazily walk your way into riches without any risk of adversity, financial hardship, or hard work.

BobCostas wrote:I never expected to stop at the B.Sc level, hence why I haven't. I'm pretty sure I want to pursue law, but I want to make sure I'm fully aware of the risks and that I have realistic expectations before committing to it.

BobCostas wrote: Nope definitely didn't confuse these two things. I put a fairly significant amount of research into all of these careers and medicine, dentistry, optometry and science (specifically biology and chemistry) are not as wonderful as they seem. Their respective professional schools will preach high attrition rates, increased demand etc but in reality it's a similar situation. Medical, Dental and Optometry schools are being opened up at quite a rate as well, and the standards to get into those schools isn't much higher than it is for Law Schools. A 300 on the OAT, an 18 on the DAT, a 27 on the MCAT combined with a GPA above 3 can give you a pretty good shot, it just depends how much you're willing to spend. Hop over to student doctor forums and you'll see people talking about the professions with the same pessimism I see on TLS.

Some people have said they know tons of lawyers who aren't in a good position. Well I know tons of doctors, dentists, optometrists and biologists facing similar fates. In fact, the people who I know who are the best off are....lawyers! I will admit I don't know nearly as many of them, but 100% of the ones I do know are rich.

I'm just failing to see any concrete evidence that the law profession is in that bad of shape, or that it's significantly worse than the other professions I've mentioned. I am most definitely very concerned, but I'm also somewhat skeptical.

KeepitKind wrote:OP, pretty impressive you wrote all those test.. have u considered working professionally for a test writing board, like LSAC or the ADA?

romothesavior wrote:

BobCostas wrote:Nursing? Are you deadly serious? Look I don't want to get into a flame war here but nursing is in far worse shape than law.

I am beginning to think you are a troll.

BobCostas wrote:Nursing is in dire straights, seriously look in to it.

I'm not trolling, I'm just trying to gather information. I appreciate everyone's input and I am taking all of this seriously.

@romo - thank you for providing those statistics. Quantifying something make it much easier to put in perspective.

BobCostas wrote:Nursing is in dire straights, seriously look in to it.

BobCostas wrote:@romo - thank you for providing those statistics. Quantifying something make it much easier to put in perspective.

ze2151 wrote:yep, there are tons of nursing jobs... IF you have experience, or IF you're willing to wipe backsides at nursing homes.

it is not all you think it's cracked up to be (pardon the pun).

ze2151 wrote:yep, there are tons of nursing jobs... IF you have experience, or IF you're willing to wipe backsides at nursing homes.

it is not all you think it's cracked up to be (pardon the pun).

my wife is a very successful rn, partly because her timing was right. she got a job at one of the best children's hospitals in the country directly out of undergrad. that hospital no longer offers the program by which she got her offer. they don't have to. there are nurses w/ experience lined out the door.

yes you can probably get a nursing job, but i doubt it's all you think it is. it's just ROUGH out there and you have to hustle at whatever you do. nothing is guaranteed. so you better be smart, you better be motivated, and you better be prepared to fail a little.

BobCostas wrote:Well what I've learned about nursing is that they are constantly being replaced.

Say you have 10 nurses working at a private clinic, they're being replaced with 1-2 nurse practitioners and 10+ 2-year medical assistant grads. This is cost effective for the clinic, as they have lower overall costs but don't experience that significant of a drop-off in service. This is becoming fairly common. Perhaps if the increased demand for medical services goes as predicted the demand for nurses will increase, but I've heard that things aren't in great shape currently.


Anyways, I have no desire to be a nurse. As far as law school, I've read the NY times article and a bunch of the blogs, if anyone has additional links, perhaps with more a quantitative approach and ones that don't focus on T4 grads who lived a lavish lifestyle on borrowed money, it would be greatly appreciated

Desert Fox wrote:In order to make a decision about law school you have to consider the type of school you can get into. Lower t14 have probably 60% chance of getting big law, fed gov, or something good enough to pay their loans. T6 probably has 70%. HLS 85%, YS nobody really knows.

Above T18 that drops down to below 20%. After T1 it's below 15%. And by T3, it's probably 5%.

Below T18 any more debt than 60K is probably a mistake.

romothesavior wrote:

BobCostas wrote:@romo - thank you for providing those statistics. Quantifying something make it much easier to put in perspective.

No problem. Here's some reading for you... its not great, but it is a good starting point for finding out more about the risks of law school:


http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ ... eckdam.pdf

Desert Fox wrote:

BobCostas wrote:Well what I've learned about nursing is that they are constantly being replaced.

Say you have 10 nurses working at a private clinic, they're being replaced with 1-2 nurse practitioners and 10+ 2-year medical assistant grads. This is cost effective for the clinic, as they have lower overall costs but don't experience that significant of a drop-off in service. This is becoming fairly common. Perhaps if the increased demand for medical services goes as predicted the demand for nurses will increase, but I've heard that things aren't in great shape currently.


Anyways, I have no desire to be a nurse. As far as law school, I've read the NY times article and a bunch of the blogs, if anyone has additional links, perhaps with more a quantitative approach and ones that don't focus on T4 grads who lived a lavish lifestyle on borrowed money, it would be greatly appreciated

In order to make a decision about law school you have to consider the type of school you can get into. Lower t14 have probably 60% chance of getting big law, fed gov, or something good enough to pay their loans. T6 probably has 70%. HLS 85%, YS nobody really knows.

Above T18 that drops down to below 20%. After T1 it's below 15%. And by T3, it's probably 5%.

Below T18 any more debt than 60K is probably a mistake.

romothesavior wrote: Didn't your dean come up with some calculation showing that ~60k is what people need to make in order to really pay off their loans?

So you're saying less than 20% of T20-30 students are going to have starting salaries over 60k? And what about all the people who are going to do PI and get IBR/LRAP?

I get your point and I agree with your message, but you constantly exaggerate how bad things are outside the T14.

BobCostas wrote:Besides, the OAT is literally the easiest test ever created

BobCostas wrote:

romothesavior wrote:

BobCostas wrote:@romo - thank you for providing those statistics. Quantifying something make it much easier to put in perspective.

No problem. Here's some reading for you... its not great, but it is a good starting point for finding out more about the risks of law school:


http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ ... eckdam.pdf

Pretty solid link, thank you.

Also, I was not attempting to boast with respect to my other test scores. Besides, the OAT is literally the easiest test ever created, I was just attempting to convey my point which was that I was not pursuing law school because it was my only resort. I apologize if it came off as such.

As far law school, my intention throughout this whole process was to attend Arizona State. I have family in Phoenix, have visited the city many times and love the climate. I never had aspirations of the T14 (granted this was before I read the tls articles on law school) and would be fully content practicing in the southwest US.

BobCostas wrote:Nursing is in dire straights, seriously look in to it.

Desert Fox wrote:

romothesavior wrote: Didn't your dean come up with some calculation showing that ~60k is what people need to make in order to really pay off their loans?

So you're saying less than 20% of T20-30 students are going to have starting salaries over 60k? And what about all the people who are going to do PI and get IBR/LRAP?

I get your point and I agree with your message, but you constantly exaggerate how bad things are outside the T14.

His calculations showed that law school added value after 60K compared to the average college graduate. IIRC he used long term repayment. I'm not sure I buy it.

PI is a lifestyle choice not a backup plan. There aren't that many PI jobs available.

How many of WUSTL class of 2011 are looking at jobs that pay 60K or more? At NU the people who don't have anything before graduation are scrambling for anything.