Why the hate on Gtown? Forum

[dingbat]

"Still a T14" is so meaningless. It's not like you can flash your T14 Club Card at the reception of employers and get interviews.

You just described OCI.

Yes, because only T14s have OCI.

A LOT of other schools have OCI, bro.

[IAFG]

"Still a T14" is so meaningless. It's not like you can flash your T14 Club Card at the reception of employers and get interviews.

"So you go to Northeastern?" - everyone outside of Chicago, lawyer or not.

[Tom Joad]

"Still a T14" is so meaningless. It's not like you can flash your T14 Club Card at the reception of employers and get interviews.

"So you go to Northeastern?" - everyone outside of Chicago, lawyer or not.

I once hit on a girl solely because I was impressed she went to Northwestern.

[John Milton]

Both people I know who graduated from GULC didn't actually end up going into law. I am not saying it's definitely because they couldn't find jobs in law, but that may have been part of it.

[bk1]

Both people I know who graduated from GULC didn't actually end up going into law. I am not saying it's definitely because they couldn't find jobs in law, but that may have been part of it.

Awesome sample size.

[swtlilsoni]

most of the people I know here at GULC aren't interested in BigLaw

[DIH49]

most of the people I know here at GULC aren't interested in BigLaw

That's odd because just about everyone I know is. Are you in Section 3?

[John Milton]

Both people I know who graduated from GULC didn't actually end up going into law. I am not saying it's definitely because they couldn't find jobs in law, but that may have been part of it.

Awesome sample size.

Just a personal inference.

Not writing a thesis paper on it...

[D. H2Oman]

most of the people I know here at GULC aren't interested in BigLaw

As another gtown student let me just make sure everyone realizes that this is bullshit.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

To me, the reason GULC is deserving of the hate is because of the huge transfer classes they admit. Most schools admit a handful of transfers each year, but GULC admits 100+ after 1L and after 2L. These people mostly transfer up and pay sticker, and the school doesn't have to report their GPA/LSAT.

GULC doesn't admit transfers after 2L. Pretty sure ABA rules require your degree granting institution to have you for 2 years. Please correct if wrong.

[swtlilsoni]

most of the people I know here at GULC aren't interested in BigLaw

As another gtown student let me just make sure everyone realizes that this is bullshit.

No, it's not.

[haus]

To me, the reason GULC is deserving of the hate is because of the huge transfer classes they admit. Most schools admit a handful of transfers each year, but GULC admits 100+ after 1L and after 2L. These people mostly transfer up and pay sticker, and the school doesn't have to report their GPA/LSAT.

GULC doesn't admit transfers after 2L. Pretty sure ABA rules require your degree granting institution to have you for 2 years. Please correct if wrong.

I believe that you are fundamentally correct. But this restriction would not prevent a part-time student who had completed two years from transferring, as they would still have two years left to go within GLUCs PT program.

[DIH49]

most of the people I know here at GULC aren't interested in BigLaw

As another gtown student let me just make sure everyone realizes that this is bullshit.

No, it's not.

Trust me, by the time you get to OCI, everyone will be going for BigLaw.

[swtlilsoni]

most of the people I know here at GULC aren't interested in BigLaw

As another gtown student let me just make sure everyone realizes that this is bullshit.

No, it's not.

Trust me, by the time you get to OCI, everyone will be going for BigLaw.

Maybe that's true but my observation is from the people I know right now 1L year, and it's certainly not BS.

[Gooses]

Maybe that's true but my observation is from the people I know right now 1L year, and it's certainly not BS.

You will see them at EIW interviewing with firms, trust me.

[DIH49]

Maybe that's true but my observation is from the people I know right now 1L year, and it's certainly not BS.

Yes, but, who cares? It's easy to say 1L that you want to save the world because you don't actually have to make a real choice really affecting your future. What matters is OCI because that's when people actually have to decide if they're going to go for BigLaw, and just about everyone I knew in my GULC section did.

[jenesaislaw]

I agree with IAFG that self-selection definitely hurts GULC. See:

I'll agree that GULC gets hurt by its large class size but I feel that TLS exaggerates the difference between it and the rest of the T14 (consider that GULCers are more likely to want govt work and are more likely to target DC, one of the hardest markets, rather than NYC, one of the easiest markets). I could be wrong but I feel that it is a lot of conjecture on either side of the argument. I understand that this is a simplistic analysis but looking at NLJ250 data (which of course doesn't account for clerkships and a myriad other things): GULC was within 0.5% of UMich in 2011, within 0.5% of Duke in 2010, over 1% ahead of Cornell in 2009, roughly 5% behind UMich (50vs55) in 2008, roughly 5% behind Berkeley (48vs53) in 2007, almost 5% ahead of Berkeley (53vs49) in 2006, and tied with Berkeley in 2005. Yes GULC is the laggard at the tail end of the T14 because it has a lot of students, but I would not say that the difference is substantial enough to dismiss it outright when compared to another lower T14 at similar cost.

Not to mention on the unemployment/underemployment front GULC does about as poorly as other lower T14's (http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=181723). Which gives credence to the idea that self-selection hurts GULC's biglaw placement and not its job placement ability.

I think there's a lot of things that hurt GULC's placement: gunning for DC and striking out, self-selecting out of biglaw, etc. I agree that there is some risk in GULC because it's hard to know how much self-selection really is at work. Considering that, I would agree with a call like IAFG's of taking another lower T14 even at a 10k/year higher cost than GULC. Though, in the end, I think if you are okay with other T14s at sticker I think you should be okay with GULC at sticker.

I also think LST's score is off and I'm not entirely sure why (maybe because gov jobs count as JD advantage?). Adding up firms of 100+, fed clerks, gov, and PI gets you 55% of GULC's class of 2011. That seems to me to be a reasonable percentage and I don't think it makes it a worse call than other schools (e.g. UMich at 60%).

Government jobs do not count as JD Advantage unless they are JD Advantage. JDA and Gov't are two answers to two different questions. Jobs can be JDA + Govt and they can be BPR + Govt.

With that said, it is worth looking back at the OP to see why the question was asked. OP wondered why the school had so many people saying that it wasn't worth a full ride when compared to HLS at sticker. While the analysis in the OP's quote is too simplistic for my taste, the gut of it is that people are starting to question the placement ability of some of the most prestigious schools in the country, and whether the juice is worth the squeeze (anybody know the reference?!).

The T14 designation has been stupid from the beginning. It's always been a shorthand for worth, and how it cuts has evolved over the years. During my application year (2007-08), the shorthand was that all schools in the T14 are worth sticker period. I argued against that then, and things have only worsened in that time because jobs are down, salaries at those jobs are down, and costs are way up.

One common trend is to look at Georgetown as a little more non-traditional. Whether people claim that it is a big fed feeder, or a public interest school, or a place where people go to use their JD in non-legal capacities, it's always something. The data, in my opinion, don't support any of these claims. Look at the trends:

The data for 2007 and 2008 data are sparse, but here is a loose estimation:

2007: 90% in BPR, 1% in JDA, and 2% in Professional

5.6% in federal clerkships, 68.3% in firms, 4.4% in public interest, 7.1% in gov't, 4.5% in business.


2008: 86.3% in BPR jobs, 2.9% in JDA, 4.9% in professional jobs.

7% in federal clerkships, 72% in firms, 5% in public interest, 6% in gov't, 4% in business.


2009: 78.3% in BPR jobs. 2.1% in JD Advantage. 4.7% in other Professional jobs.

4.9% in fed clerkships, 61.8% in firms, 10% in public interest, 1.8% in business, and 8.3% in gov't. We don't have data on firm size, though we know that GULC put 42.8% in the NLJ 250.


2010: 68.3% in BPR jobs. 19.3% in JDA jobs. 6.5% in professional. BUT, 11.3% were in jobs funded by the law school.

4.5% in fed clerkships, 49% in firms, 13.3% in public interest, 5.3% in business, and 15.9% in gov't. 41.9% in firms over 100 attorneys (full-time only).

2011: 63.8% in BPR jobs. 22.5% in JDA jobs. 2.8% in professional. 13% were in jobs funded by the law school.

3.9% in fed clerkships, 42.9% in firms, 15.2% in public interest, 9.8% in business, and 13.5% in govt. 33.9% in firms over 100 attorneys (full-time only)

Unless somebody has a good reason to think that Georgetown admitted different kinds of people than they did from 2003 through 2008, it appears that people take a lot of jobs from Georgetown that prior classes once selected away from.

[IAFG]

Unless somebody has a good reason to think that Georgetown admitted different kinds of people than they did from 2003 through 2008, it appears that people take a lot of jobs from Georgetown that prior classes once selected away from.

No question, there's a trend, but not a particularly remarkable one. When biglaw is easy to get and seductive (the money, the prestige, the ease and certainty of OCI), people who had other plans find themselves on a biglaw detour. When you have to do more to get biglaw (compromise on city, hustle more, take a less desirable firm) it's less seductive.

[bk1]

One common trend is to look at Georgetown as a little more non-traditional.

I don't think this entirely unreasonable. If GULC students are a little more non-trad, those who miss out on decent legal jobs might opt for something non-legal that is better than a crappy legal job. I don't think this makes it any worse than a school where the students who miss out on decent legal jobs instead just take a crappy legal job. Of course this is making an assumption that would be hard to prove and doesn't take away the risk that it isn't true.

I think the 2011 data arguably might back this up. For just FT/LT pulled from the ABA report: 216 in 100+ firms + 63 gov + 54 PI + 25 fed clerks = 358 good jobs. Divided by a total class size of 644 comes out to 55% good jobs (with up to 3% school funded). I guess the question would be how many of those PI/gov jobs are not BPR. This compares with GULC's overall FT/LT/BPR rate of 62%. Cornell's good jobs percentage is pretty similar to GULC's yet with a much higher FT/LT/BPR rate. Do GULC students really struggle to get crappy legal jobs compared to other schools? That seems unlikely to me. Though I will say that if a significant number of PI/gov jobs are not BPR (and the grads could have gotten them without the GULC degree) then that does mean that GULC is comparably worse.

[PickMe!]

Size?

[jkpolk]

Size?

Not a question for polite company

[PickMe!]

Size?

Not a question for polite company

[dixiecupdrinking]

People on TLS are way too quick to discount the notion that different schools attract marginally different kinds of people with different career interests. It seems to spur from the idea that places that claim to be more "PI-focused" are really just using that as an empty recruiting mechanism. Perhaps there is some truth to that, but regardless, the message resonates with certain kinds of applicants, who then tend to enroll in greater numbers. You're crazy if you think the median NYU or Berkeley or, perhaps, Georgetown student is just as gung-ho about BigLaw as the median Chicago student, for instance.

This is true even if, pre-ITE, the schools placed similar numbers in BigLaw. It's really quite myopic to conclude that, because a school placed X% in BigLaw in 2007 and Y% in 2011, X% is that school's "ideal" placement and (X-Y)% is the number of people at that school who are now fucked ITE.

In other words, student populations at different T14s have different indifference curves. You really only have to compare Yale to Harvard to see this. It's easy to throw Yale out as a unicorns and gumdrops outlier, which of course it is, but it nonetheless is proof that different schools attract different people with different preferences. As IAFG pointed out, a lot of those people still went into BigLaw when it was easy, but that only reveals so much about their career ambitions. Change the "price" of getting BigLaw away from effectively zero, and different people will have different reactions. This is why I wouldn't read too much into apparent "revealed preferences" from employment data from the 2007 salad days.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that Georgetown is probably not as much worse than other T14s as people seem to think based solely on the employment statistics.

[igo2northwestern]

People on TLS are way too quick to discount the notion that different schools attract marginally different kinds of people with different career interests. It seems to spur from the idea that places that claim to be more "PI-focused" are really just using that as an empty recruiting mechanism. Perhaps there is some truth to that, but regardless, the message resonates with certain kinds of applicants, who then tend to enroll in greater numbers. You're crazy if you think the median NYU or Berkeley or, perhaps, Georgetown student is just as gung-ho about BigLaw as the median Chicago student, for instance.

This is true even if, pre-ITE, the schools placed similar numbers in BigLaw. It's really quite myopic to conclude that, because a school placed X% in BigLaw in 2007 and Y% in 2011, X% is that school's "ideal" placement and (X-Y)% is the number of people at that school who are now fucked ITE.

In other words, student populations at different T14s have different indifference curves. You really only have to compare Yale to Harvard to see this. It's easy to throw Yale out as a unicorns and gumdrops outlier, which of course it is, but it nonetheless is proof that different schools attract different people with different preferences. As IAFG pointed out, a lot of those people still went into BigLaw when it was easy, but that only reveals so much about their career ambitions. Change the "price" of getting BigLaw away from effectively zero, and different people will have different reactions. This is why I wouldn't read too much into apparent "revealed preferences" from employment data from the 2007 salad days.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that Georgetown is probably not as much worse than other T14s as people seem to think based solely on the employment statistics.

But if we narrowed it to schools that did have comparable PI numbers, and saw that GULC had the lowest T14 biglaw And clerkship numbers, what conclusion would you draw?

I don't think people are saying that GULC is far worse than other T14s (personally, I think it's a no-brainer that OP should choose GULC at 50k); and people are saying that it's > any non-T14.

[dixiecupdrinking]

People on TLS are way too quick to discount the notion that different schools attract marginally different kinds of people with different career interests. It seems to spur from the idea that places that claim to be more "PI-focused" are really just using that as an empty recruiting mechanism. Perhaps there is some truth to that, but regardless, the message resonates with certain kinds of applicants, who then tend to enroll in greater numbers. You're crazy if you think the median NYU or Berkeley or, perhaps, Georgetown student is just as gung-ho about BigLaw as the median Chicago student, for instance.

This is true even if, pre-ITE, the schools placed similar numbers in BigLaw. It's really quite myopic to conclude that, because a school placed X% in BigLaw in 2007 and Y% in 2011, X% is that school's "ideal" placement and (X-Y)% is the number of people at that school who are now fucked ITE.

In other words, student populations at different T14s have different indifference curves. You really only have to compare Yale to Harvard to see this. It's easy to throw Yale out as a unicorns and gumdrops outlier, which of course it is, but it nonetheless is proof that different schools attract different people with different preferences. As IAFG pointed out, a lot of those people still went into BigLaw when it was easy, but that only reveals so much about their career ambitions. Change the "price" of getting BigLaw away from effectively zero, and different people will have different reactions. This is why I wouldn't read too much into apparent "revealed preferences" from employment data from the 2007 salad days.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that Georgetown is probably not as much worse than other T14s as people seem to think based solely on the employment statistics.

But if we narrowed it to schools that did have comparable PI numbers, and saw that GULC had the lowest T14 biglaw And clerkship numbers, what conclusion would you draw?

I don't think people are saying that GULC is far worse than other T14s (personally, I think it's a no-brainer that OP should choose GULC at 50k); and people are saying that it's > any non-T14.

I'm just not so sure it's worse than, say, Cornell once you control for these factors. But you're right, maybe I am responding more to an attitude that I've seen elsewhere than in this thread.