Also, I think a lot of people missed the point of the original using the term TOP Tier Toilet rather than Third Tier Toilet. The TTT abbreviation and the third tier toilet phrase are crude and thrown around too much- I totally agree with Ken. However we realize that the term came from the idea that they are not a wise investment and you are just flushing money down th toilet by paying to go to one of those schools. (which isn't exactly true- third tier schools can actually be quite good- they just aren't always good from an economic sense.)
So, emphasizing the change to TOP in the abbreviation seems to indicate "yeah it's a good highly ranked school, but are you throwing your money away by going there because it's such a big risk?"
Yeah, I agree completely. There are top 50 schools that I just don't get: for example, I don't understand why anyone goes to American. The key issue is this: if you've got median numbers for Fordham, would it be wiser to take a scholarship at a lesser ranked school? I think Fordham is right on that edge where it makes a lot of sense to trade ranking for cost. If you want NYC biglaw, then sure, go to Fordham if you can't get T14 + maybe a couple others. But if you really want NYC biglaw and nothing else, you might not want to go to law school at all if Fordham is your best choice because you're just not that likely to get it coming from there......
Edit: by "not that likely", I mean that more will not get it than will.
