How to properly analyze difference in placement? Forum

[damage-inc]

I have question regarding the biglaw placement of schools relative to their class sizes. This question came up in my research of NLJ250 firms and the comparison between Penn and Cornell's placement into those firms. Although Penn alumni outnumber Cornell alumni by a wide margin, how much of the difference should be attributed to the difference in class size? Is there a better way to look at the number of employees from a select school than to mindlessly count the numbers?

I am actually even wondering if this issue is that big of a point in this case, given the fact that Penn's class is only about 50-60 students more than Cornell's. The difference between Cornell's and Georgetown's class, for example, is much larger and would probably raise a red flag in the research of employeed alumni.

any insight?

[aliarrow]

Just look at the % of the class that gets NLJ 250 jobs.

(Google "law.com go to law schools")

[bdubs]

When you are talking about these things at the individual firm level I'm not sure you can make much of a distinction other than the following:

1) The firm does or does not recruit during the school's OCI
2) The firm imposes a substantial GPA difference on various schools -- this is hard to tell from the website, but you can gather a bit by looking at honors. Current students will be able to help even more since they have the callback sheets.
2a) Do all of the associates from school x have a clerkship prior to starting? This could be a road block to standard SA->Associate recruiting channels.
3) There are an overwhelmingly large number of alumni at the firm from one school relative to the other -- think partners on down, is there a culture of hiring from school x?