New LST Score Reports Launched! Forum

[jenesaislaw]

Remember, new data will be available Monday.

[rodmanhust]

appreciate the work in putting these together.

will you have 2013 employment stats on Monday for all schools?

Yes

awesome. thank you!
I wonder is there an option to save your head-to-head schools?

Not yet. Have a share feature in the works that will create an image for people to use on TLS. Just couldn't get it ready for the release.

Would it really be that useful to have a shorthand of comparisons you like? Or what do you see the feature looking like?

you already have the head-to-head comparisoin.
just wanted to save my top schools so I don't have to re-enter every time.

[jenesaislaw]

Right, I understood that part. What I'm asking is how you would envision it looking/functioning. The answer may be simple, but I like to consider a diversity of possibilities.

[rodmanhust]

Right, I understood that part. What I'm asking is how you would envision it looking/functioning. The answer may be simple, but I like to consider a diversity of possibilities.

i envision the saving feature to simply preserve the schools that i selected last.

[nyctibboy]

I've always found your site to be helpful and love using it. Just checked out your new features and I found something that I think might need to be fixed. I think you guys are getting your figures for long-term full time jobs wrong. Well the figure itself isn't wrong but I think the statement that says: "This figure includes no school-funded jobs" is wrong. For example, if you check out GW's Jobs Data on your site, you have their figure listed as 81%. I'm positive that this number has to be including school-funded jobs. It's obvious when you look at the % of students that are in school funded positions is above 20%. How is 81% of the school employed in long-term non school funded legal jobs when over 20% of the school is employed in school funded positions. Maybe there is an overlap here I don't know of with students in school funded positions and legal jobs but that doesn't seem likely to me.

[jenesaislaw]

I've always found your site to be helpful and love using it. Just checked out your new features and I found something that I think might need to be fixed. I think you guys are getting your figures for long-term full time jobs wrong. Well the figure itself isn't wrong but I think the statement that says: "This figure includes no school-funded jobs" is wrong. For example, if you check out GW's Jobs Data on your site, you have their figure listed as 81%. I'm positive that this number has to be including school-funded jobs. It's obvious when you look at the % of students that are in school funded positions is above 20%. How is 81% of the school employed in long-term non school funded legal jobs when over 20% of the school is employed in school funded positions. Maybe there is an overlap here I don't know of with students in school funded positions and legal jobs but that doesn't seem likely to me.

I don't think I'm seeing what you'e seeing. On GW's profile, I see an 80.9% Employment Score with an asterisk that says roughly 'This includes 20.7% school-funded jobs.' Where are you seeing what you're seeing? It definitely sounds wrong, I just need to know how to recreate the problem.

[Mahone Shore]

Thank you so much for sharing this!!!

Hi everybody,

I am REALLY excited to announce that we've launched a new version of our websites. Check out both http://www.lawschooltransparency.com and http://www.lstscorereports.com.

We'll be adding Class of 2013 employment data on Monday, but for now, we've added a ton of new 2010, 2011, and 2012 data. I'm very confident that we have all of the data ever made public about the class of 2010, class of 2011, and class of 2012.*

The site has a new layout, new URLs (but the old ones will work still), and new features. In particular, I think you all will love the financial planning tools, custom reports, and custom employment, under-employment, and firm scores. To take advantage of those features, you'll need to create an account.

I'll add more to this thread tomorrow because I am too tired to type more. Here's some links:

Compare up to 4 schools head-to-head: http://www.lstscorereports.com/compare/
A lot of LST Guides: http://www.lstscorereports.com/guides/
What schools should I apply to?: http://www.lstscorereports.com/guides/W ... -Apply-To/
Guide to LST's new customization features: http://www.lstscorereports.com/guides/I ... ustom-LST/
An example of a school's cost page, with tuition over time and a hypothetical discount price table: http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... osts/2012/
Job trends example: http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/american/trends/

Finally, a shoutout is in order to the beta testers, particularly the core group that not only sent me lists of bugs and suggestions, but actually contributed material to the new site.

Hope you all have as much fun playing with it as I had coding/designing/thinking about it.

Kyle McEntee
Executive Director, Law School Transparency

*the one exception may be salary data that schools submitted to U.S. News. We did not add those data for 2011 or 2012 because they're not reliable due to the way the questions are asked and the way U.S. News publishes the answers.

PS please donate to LST if you can. http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/donate/

[sighsigh]

How have more people not commented on this? The site looks amazing.

[DportIA]

LST previously transformed the way prospective students could consume information on choosing their schools, and this new updated site is outrageously awesome.

More informed consumers make for a more honest market.

[PrideandGlory1776]

This is great - thanks for all that your do to provide transparency and much needed accountability - your website is very admirable and I salute you all!

[jenesaislaw]

LST previously transformed the way prospective students could consume information on choosing their schools, and this new updated site is outrageously awesome.

More informed consumers make for a more honest market.

Ummm, this is going in our donor promo materials.


Thanks everybody!

[Big Dog]

on the Compare charts, might I suggest that you add the schools' est COL under tuition and fees. (yes, I realize that housing expense can be a personal choice, but still those law schools in high cost cities could be identified.)

[jenesaislaw]

on the Compare charts, might I suggest that you add the schools' est COL under tuition and fees. (yes, I realize that housing expense can be a personal choice, but still those law schools in high cost cities could be identified.)

There you go, added.

[20141023]

.

[Big Dog]

There you go, added.

Awesome. tx

[cm2015]

Question Re: Scholarship Loss Stats.

Current law student, but comparing schools just for kicks . . . I noticed that when you compare schools on the website it gives the percentage of students who lost their conditional scholarships after 1L year, however I can't seem to find it when looking at the respective schools' profiles and not using the comparison tool (comp. function is awesome, by the way).

In my opinion, this- along w/ % receiving scholarships- should be listed at the top of the page alongside employment stats. I assume this just got lost in the shuffle but I found some of those stats eye-popping (looking at you bama).

[jenesaislaw]

In my opinion, this- along w/ % receiving scholarships- should be listed at the top of the page alongside employment stats. I assume this just got lost in the shuffle but I found some of those stats eye-popping (looking at you bama).

I'm still waiting on the newest data from a law professor who is collecting it. Once I get it, I'll figure out how to add it to the school profiles. Could do it on the key stats page or could do it as its own subtab under costs. I'm leaning towards the latter.

ETA: will probably also add other scholarship info, which is part of the reason why I'm leaning that way.

Edit #2: http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/re ... holarships

[sighsigh]

On your site could you please devote a page to displaying the aggregate of the employment stats for all US law schools? It would be very interesting to know what the employment stats for the entire class of 2013 are - that doesn't only include what % landed in full-time long-term legal jobs, but also more specifically what % landed in 100+ firms, 2-25 firms, federal clerkships, etc. If you could do the same for the class of 2012 and 2011 we would be able to determine employment trends with even greater accuracy. Thanks!

[jenesaislaw]

On your site could you please devote a page to displaying the aggregate of the employment stats for all US law schools? It would be very interesting to know what the employment stats for the entire class of 2013 are - that doesn't only include what % landed in full-time long-term legal jobs, but also more specifically what % landed in 100+ firms, 2-25 firms, federal clerkships, etc. If you could do the same for the class of 2012 and 2011 we would be able to determine employment trends with even greater accuracy. Thanks!

We have something like this already, http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/re ... s-Tracker/, but I think I could do a "Trends" page on the national reports with more info. I'll try to find some time this week to do that.

[twenty 8]

Aboard the thumbs-up bandwagon...

[Cicero76]

YLS still getting smashed by LST's algorithm . The redesign looks great overall though, hopefully the increased amount of tools to play with makes more people use it

[sighsigh]

On your site could you please devote a page to displaying the aggregate of the employment stats for all US law schools? It would be very interesting to know what the employment stats for the entire class of 2013 are - that doesn't only include what % landed in full-time long-term legal jobs, but also more specifically what % landed in 100+ firms, 2-25 firms, federal clerkships, etc. If you could do the same for the class of 2012 and 2011 we would be able to determine employment trends with even greater accuracy. Thanks!

We have something like this already, http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/re ... s-Tracker/, but I think I could do a "Trends" page on the national reports with more info. I'll try to find some time this week to do that.

Thanks. All you would need to do is create an ABA employment data chart that was the sum of all the ABA employment data charts for individual law schools for a particular class year. The page you linked is a good start, but it misses many data points (e.g. maybe I want to know what % of the class of 2011 landed in state clerkships). If we have the info, why not display it?

[jenesaislaw]

YLS still getting smashed by LST's algorithm . The redesign looks great overall though, hopefully the increased amount of tools to play with makes more people use it

In part, YLS getting relatively smashed is an indication of the weaknesses of the ABA/NALP definition for JD Advantage. It's too close to a catch-all category to do anything of substance with. At some schools, grads in the category have awesome policy gigs. At others, grads in the category are paralegals.

In part it is also indicative of the problem with outcome metrics in general. Outcomes are only proxies for options, which is what people really care about.

What we're left with is two principles:

1) law schools largely exist to produce lawyers, so we emphasize the number who end up in long-term, full-time legal employment.
2) if the current metrics do not adequately highlight the options a school's graduates have, it is up to that school to figure out how to convey those options, provided it does not do so in an incomplete, misleading, or false manner or in violation of any law.

[jenesaislaw]

Thanks. All you would need to do is create an ABA employment data chart that was the sum of all the ABA employment data charts for individual law schools for a particular class year. The page you linked is a good start, but it misses many data points (e.g. maybe I want to know what % of the class of 2011 landed in state clerkships). If we have the info, why not display it?

The biggest reason things don't get done on the LST front is practical. I can't program and design all day; I have to field interviews, write position papers and editorials, figure out how to bring in revenue, and everything else associated with running an organization that people take seriously. If I had a staff of just 2 or 3 people, we could do more than anybody could imagine. Just look at what we've done with basically zero financial resources.

I'd also add that the "if we have the info, why not display it?" concept isn't a good principle. That's not to say you're not right in this instance; there is important trend information that we should add. We have to be careful what we lend LST's immense credibility to, however. For example, we do not display debt outcomes on school profiles because it doesn't make sense for a student to consider it when cost is the most predictable thing about going to law school. Another example is not including the salary information we have for solos; those numbers are BS. Another example is not including U.S. News ranking or Above the Law ranking or any other ranking. The examples actually go on and on. We not only want to limit emphasis where it'd be damaging, but we have to avoid information overload, which would produce people being too overwhelmed to get anything out of what we offer.

As for national trend numbers, legal markets are local markets and national trends are a bit misleading. That's the biggest concern I have about integrating these too much into the Score Reports. (As opposed to say a press release or an LST project on LST.com.) The last thing I want is somebody to say, "oh hey the biglaw numbers are up this year!" and use that to justify attendance at a school that places 1% of its graduates there. This is a battle LST wages constantly in the press, and journalists are definitely catching up to the logic...but those stories sure are sexy, thus you can only do so much to get a more accurate message out there.

[Dingo Starr]

Love the redesign!!!
Side by side rocks socks. Keep up the good work.