hahaha wow. paul campos with the copy/paste-- and he scores.

so FYI my expected outcome was optimistic but for whatever it's worth I knew that going in. I think expecting a decent outcome is better than expecting a poor outcome, but that is a whole other conversation. how optimistic was it, though? I'm legitimately curious.

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=150681: shows 20% of the class clearing sixty in the private sector with something like 8% in art III clerkships. As campos states this info could show a more negative view than is necessary. There are non private firm jobs that pay a salary near 60k--I know DA offices in Boulder/Denver start out at 57k. (although, the median public sector salary was 50k) Also all of these salary assumptions are just that-- we assume on TLS there is a 100% correlation in regards to our views on salary reporting. By that I mean: we assume that 100% of graduates with a decent job report and that very few of the graduates with low paying jobs report. I think these assumptions are largely accurate, but how accurate? Accurate across the board for every school? (TLS seems to completely ignore culture when dissecting law schools, and I just think it's ridiculous to leave it out when comparing schools like CU-Boulder with Columbia as they attract completely different students).

From my perspective, the middle person in the class may actually be at 52k instead of 60k, and while significant I don't think that eight grand pushes me over the top to "deluded 2L." However, I welcome criticism and I am capable of changing my mind. What do we think the middle person is actually paid from a school like CU? 45k? 50k or more? I'll guess 52k which includes lots of legal jobs and lots of non legal jobs *most of the 3L's I know who cleared 50k did so with non-legal jobs. However, even if the real number is 43k it doesn't change my stance in the initial post. When you are 150k in debt you are totally broke whether you make 60k or 43k. Living the "normal life" that americas contemporary culture desires means spending money on other things aside from student loan debt, and I imagine that everyone from 43k to 60k will pretty much remain in debt the rest of their natural lives.

Also, if the average at CU is 43k what is the average from DU? (the school OP actually got into)

viewtopic.php?f=1&t=150681: shows 6% clearing 55k with zero art III clerks. Does the middle person (who, yes, is employed according to the data) make 30k a year? What jobs actually pay 30k? I was a glorified clerk as a twenty year old and my monthly salary would have put me at 32k... Surely there is some large group muddled around 40k-50k, which isn't substantially different than 60k. Please feel free to correct me.

I go to DU. The amount of people paying sticker is staggering to me. I'd venture to say 85% of my classmates have no scholarship whatsoever.

The school publishes this to us news.
Grants (Full-time students)

Students receiving grants of less than one-half tuition 28.6%
Students receiving grants of one-half tuition or more but less than full 13.3%
Students receiving grants of full tuition 6.2%
Students receiving grants of more than full tuition 0.3%
Median grant amount $17,000
Grant range (25th–75th percentile) $10,000–$22,000
Full-time students receiving grants 48.4%

Maybe you are right and they are gaming these numbers as well-- who knows.

They do publish that the average indebtedness is 120k...

Agreed. If you do decide to retake the exam, check out 7sage lsat prep. It's very affordable and very helpful.

Well I don't know about those numbers. The only people I know of with scholarships over 1/2 tuition are those who get the public interest scholarship. As for those grants, I don't know but I didn't get one and I'd venture to say I would have if all these people were getting grants. My parents make less that $65,000 a year and I had no income whatsoever before applying. So I think its fishy

Really? I was offered 21K/year at DU and had less than stellar numbers at the time I applied, and judging by the DU C/O 2015 thread a lot of people were offered scholarships. Perhaps it's an unrepresentative sample

Or they bumped up scholarships this year for some reason, I don't know obviously. But your 21 k a year is literally the highest non-public interest one I've ever heard of. Not that I've asked everyone in my section about it, but I'd say of the 70 or so people in my section I've talked to 35 or 40 or so about it, and the ones with scholarships are almost all of the 10k variety with a few 20ks.

21K/yr seemed to be standard, there were quite a few people in that thread that snagged 26K/yr (that was the highest I saw), the lowest I saw was 15K/yr

Interesting, and quite frustrating for me. Looks like I was a year too early! Wonder why the sudden increase in scholarships?

Trying to fill seats?

Is this normal? Do people in law school really ask their classmates how much they're paying? That seems completely fucking tactless.

Yeah, my whole section did pretty much. One big complaint about how much it costs

DU should cut class size down. five year plan to get down to 200, as a start. sorry you built that huge law school but the jerbs just ain't coming back.

doing so would also help their usnews ranking that the dean cares so much about.

1) Isn't that the Dean's job? To care about US News Rankings?
2) Aren't they reducing class size as we speak?

No, I would hope the Dean of DU Law would consider his job to be much more important than that, though I get where you're comin from.




Yeah, but I asked them and they told me they had no further plans to reduce class size. It's still largely an unemployable zoo over there.

I do agree with you that they could accomplish their goal of higher US News Ranking by reducing size. Cut the bottom 25% out of their admitted class and they have a 25th percentile LSAT over at least 160. That'd be good for a 10 spot jump probably

They have a median of 159 right now, so they would have to cut more way more than 25% of their class to get their 25th percentile to a 160. The real problem is that they cannot feasible do this without laying off tons of people and this is a political non-starter.

Why not? Cut the fat. You keep the best faculty, too.

I'm sure the best faculty will love to stay there, too. And talent will definitely go to you in DROVES after that.

"the-fat," i.e., the students paying full boat with shitty LSATs, are the ones who are paying the bills over there. Would a bunch of 160+ 3.6s all of a sudden start running to DU without the same scholarships? Besides, they just built that massive law school and it would be politically impossible to admit that doing so was a mistake. Can you imagine less than 900 law students in that building? It would appear empty and serve as a constant reminder of a horrible mis-calculation. Also, how many tenured faculty do they have? The work-load is already very light.. would they buy out a bunch of contracts? An alum would have to write them a check for 50 mil to make any of this worthy of discussion. They do not have the money to radically change their business model, which unfortunately relies on ruining the financial futures of 22 yr olds. 6% of the class of 2009 cleared 55k, no art III clerks, and the class carried an average debt load of 120k. how many hundreds of graduates were screwed from that one class alone? DU doesn't have the money or the political will to address these problems.

Hmmmmmm....so it seems according to this thread no one should go to law school unless they have a full ride to HYS

Keep mowin' down those strawmen bro

Boom. Nailed it.