Class sizes and medians (c/o 2015) Forum

[DoctorShawHi]

I just don't understand how some schools have yet to release class profiles for the fall 2012 entering class already. After the scandals at Villanova and Illinois you'd think schools would be more open about their numbers. Sigh

Why give out the info a second early and risk someone going on a fact checking crusade against you? Better to keep that shit on lock down, double check it, and release it only when you have to.

I personally would be transparent, but I can see the above being the logic followed.

not if youre trying to keep your numbers in a respectable territory.

one year of depressed medians isnt the end of the world. its a blip. but illinois is compounding the problem. who is going to go to illinois with a good score and run the risk of boarding a sinking ship now?

[Yukos]

I just don't understand how some schools have yet to release class profiles for the fall 2012 entering class already. After the scandals at Villanova and Illinois you'd think schools would be more open about their numbers. Sigh

Why give out the info a second early and risk someone going on a fact checking crusade against you? ranking-obsessed 0Ls realizing you abandoned all pretense of standards in an eventually doomed effort to maintain revenue/class size. Better to keep that shit on lock down, double check it, and release it only when you have to.

I personally would be transparent, but I can see the above being the logic followed.

Unless your medians went up, there is literally zero upside to releasing your stats early. People being "suspicious" of you is a lot better than people knowing for sure that you had an American University-style median free fall.

[DoctorShawHi]

I just don't understand how some schools have yet to release class profiles for the fall 2012 entering class already. After the scandals at Villanova and Illinois you'd think schools would be more open about their numbers. Sigh

Why give out the info a second early and risk someone going on a fact checking crusade against you? ranking-obsessed 0Ls realizing you abandoned all pretense of standards in an eventually doomed effort to maintain revenue/class size. Better to keep that shit on lock down, double check it, and release it only when you have to.

I personally would be transparent, but I can see the above being the logic followed.

Unless your medians went up, there is literally zero upside to releasing your stats early. People being "suspicious" of you is a lot better than people knowing for sure that you had an American University-style median free fall.

i disagree. either way we already do know that their lsats are going down. hiding it only makes the program look worse.


own up to it, law schools. its much easier to recover from an lsat drop than an lsat drop + active shirking of reporting traditions.

[Paul Campos]

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 1028143253

1L enrollment down nearly 8,000 over the past two years.

[Nova]

http://www.law.com/jsp/nlj/PubArticleNL ... 1028143253

1L enrollment down nearly 8,000 over the past two years.

Good.

[jump_man]

[HarlandBassett]

tight, tight, tight

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPfxMIhEUrQ

[florida1949]

cool, cool cool cool

[ddacey]

.

[Kurst]

Will admission standards change in response to smaller class size?

If so, how?

Admissions standards are falling across the board, and a number of terrible schools are actually increasing their class sizes:

[Nova]

Nice chart

[justonemoregame]

I'm awful at math, and I would like to know at what point do you have a situation where section stacking at a school like Washington and Lee is unavoidable. I know they put stipulations on their scholarships. I applied last year and mine was something like top 60%.

If a greater number than that are on scholarship (about 65% of W&L students receive grants according to LSAC - and perhaps the number is greater than that for c/o 2015) - how does this work?

[ddacey]

.

[2014]

Apps were down like 16%, enrollment only down 9%, that means necessarily standards fell.

Especially considering that the decrease in apps was slightly disproportionately higher scorers.

[Pathika]

I'm awful at math, and I would like to know at what point do you have a situation where section stacking at a school like Washington and Lee is unavoidable. I know they put stipulations on their scholarships. I applied last year and mine was something like top 60%.

If a greater number than that are on scholarship (about 65% of W&L students receive grants according to LSAC - and perhaps the number is greater than that for c/o 2015) - how does this work?

I'll use numbers that make it easy to understand:

If the incoming class is 100 people, and 65% (65 students) all have a scholarship to which a top 60% stipulation is attached (i.e. they must be in the top 60 at the end of 1L), then necessarily at least 5 of the 65 students (7.7%) will lose their scholarship. However, the percentage, and raw number of students losing their scholarship will likely be higher because,of the 35 students without scholarships (or without stipulations on their scholarships), some of the 35 will likely be in the top 60%, and every spot they occupy in the top 60% necessarily blocks one of the stipulation scholarship students.

That was just a general breakdown assuming an entering class with only 1 section. At my school, we have about 350 incoming students this year and the section with which you are graded is about 80-90. If you were take a situation like that, assume that 65% get scholarships (228 students) that all have a top 60% stipulation. If the school wanted to "stack" sections, they could have two full sections of students all with top 60% stips, necessarily forcing 40% of the scholarship students to lose their scholarships. For instance, an a given final, the lowest score in a "stacked" section could be 74, where as in a non-stacked section, the highest score could be a 74. Because each large section is graded separately, a scholarship student in a "stacked" section could have received an A in another section, but will receive a C because they were in a "stacked" section. "Stacking" allows the school to entice lots of students with large scholarships, but also allows them to save themselves the 40% they won't have to pay out. And, obviously, if a student loses their scholarship because they aren't in the top 60%, they don't have a chance in hell to transfer to another school, so the student is on the hook for full tuition for the last two years.

[justonemoregame]

I'm awful at math, and I would like to know at what point do you have a situation where section stacking at a school like Washington and Lee is unavoidable. I know they put stipulations on their scholarships. I applied last year and mine was something like top 60%.

If a greater number than that are on scholarship (about 65% of W&L students receive grants according to LSAC - and perhaps the number is greater than that for c/o 2015) - how does this work?

I'll use numbers that make it easy to understand:

If the incoming class is 100 people, and 65% (65 students) all have a scholarship to which a top 60% stipulation is attached (i.e. they must be in the top 60 at the end of 1L), then necessarily at least 5 of the 65 students (7.7%) will lose their scholarship. However, the percentage, and raw number of students losing their scholarship will likely be higher because,of the 35 students without scholarships (or without stipulations on their scholarships), some of the 35 will likely be in the top 60%, and every spot they occupy in the top 60% necessarily blocks one of the stipulation scholarship students.

That was just a general breakdown assuming an entering class with only 1 section. At my school, we have about 350 incoming students this year and the section with which you are graded is about 80-90. If you were take a situation like that, assume that 65% get scholarships (228 students) that all have a top 60% stipulation. If the school wanted to "stack" sections, they could have two full sections of students all with top 60% stips, necessarily forcing 40% of the scholarship students to lose their scholarships. For instance, an a given final, the lowest score in a "stacked" section could be 74, where as in a non-stacked section, the highest score could be a 74. Because each large section is graded separately, a scholarship student in a "stacked" section could have received an A in another section, but will receive a C because they were in a "stacked" section. "Stacking" allows the school to entice lots of students with large scholarships, but also allows them to save themselves the 40% they won't have to pay out. And, obviously, if a student loses their scholarship because they aren't in the top 60%, they don't have a chance in hell to transfer to another school, so the student is on the hook for full tuition for the last two years.

Thank you for this - I originally had W&L in mind because they jump off of the graphs posted above, and I know they are fairly generious with grants - it appears, though, that they mix their scholarship stipulations and some of their awards only require "good standing." And according to their website, relatively few people have had their scholarships reduced (not even taken fully away).

Nevertheless, it's a bothersome practice, and one that is surely used. I wonder if it will be used even more as budgets tighten due to enrollment drops.

Something else - it seems to me that the most ethical way to divide law school sections is to evenly disburse scholarship holders across the class. So, in a 1L class of 100 students with 60% on scholarship, if there are 4 sections of 25 1Ls in each section, there should be 18 scholarship holders in each section to give those students the greatest chance of retaining their financial aid. Is that about right?

[Pathika]

Something else - it seems to me that the most ethical way to divide law school sections is to evenly disburse scholarship holders across the class. So, in a 1L class of 100 students with 60% on scholarship, if there are 4 sections of 25 1Ls in each section, there should be 18 scholarship holders in each section to give those students the greatest chance of retaining their financial aid. Is that about right?

Well... yes and no. The most "fair" would be to have the composition of the section resemble the composition of the class w/r/t scholarships (i.e. if the school is 65/35 scholly/no scholly, each section should be 65/35 no scholly). However, in the example you provided, it would be 15 people per section, not 18.

[justonemoregame]

I shouldn't do math in public

[KevinP]

Not sure if this is the correct thread or if its already been posted, but the official ABA guide got updated: https://officialguide.lsac.org/release/ ... fault.aspx

NYU's median fell to 171 lulz.