Top Law Schools

WUSTL is ranked #19, but why?

Lower-ranked schools consistently outplace WUSTL in terms of NLJ250 hires, so what gives? Does anyone think that it's possible for WUSTL to actually "get their act together"? I've reason a lot of threads that actually state that phrase as written on this post.

Considering the fact that placement at the NLJ250 largely depends on the alumni network, I'm afraid that WUSTL will never get their act together to a point where they'd be able to maintain their current USNWR rank. Any thoughts?

WUSTL has a great reputation amongst midsize firms. They focus more on midsize firms than most of the schools with similar ranking.

ec2xs wrote:WUSTL has a great reputation amongst midsize firms. They focus more on midsize firms than most of the schools with similar ranking.

Ahhh, I see; does the entire NLJ250 consist of large-size firms (relative to the mid-size firm that you suggest a lot of WUSTL grads end up at)? Where did you find this information?

I read a thread about how this thing called midlaw doesn't exist, and that most mid-sized law firms don't really employ recent law graduates. I'm assuming that this isn't the case for WUSTL?

I'm hoping that WUSTL will be able to get its act together by proving that the 30% or so of their graduates are sent off to biglaw, whereas a significant portion of its graduates also obtain midsize law firm associate positions.

bump

WUSTL is the 18th most selective law school by median LSAT/GPA (167/3.70), because they take a lot of splitters and reverse splitters. Also, they give out very generous scholarships compared to their peers, which gives them high per-student expenditures. They know how to game those US News rankings.

I'm just going out on a limb here but they really are the best law school in a very large area. Similar to Texas. An awesome size market with very limited competition from other t20 schools...

mst wrote:I'm just going out on a limb here but they really are the best law school in a very large area. Similar to Texas. An awesome size market with very limited competition from other t20 schools...

Do you mean Missouri or something?

Because if you mean the midwest....

Chicago
Northwestern
Michigan
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
UMN
OSU
IUB

Competition is why their placement sucks.

Desert Fox wrote:

mst wrote:I'm just going out on a limb here but they really are the best law school in a very large area. Similar to Texas. An awesome size market with very limited competition from other t20 schools...

Do you mean Missouri or something?

Because if you mean the midwest....

Chicago
Northwestern
Michigan
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
UMN
OSU
IUB

Competition is why their placement sucks.

Lulz at leaving out ND.

I do NOT care where I end up. I don't care as long as I don't end up in Alaska, but that's probably harder to penetrate than the Midwest market.

I just want a JOB; even that's going to be very difficult, because I need to get an H1B visa sponsor from my employer, since I don't even have permanent residency in the U.S.

PLATONiC wrote:I do NOT care where I end up. I don't care as long as I don't end up in Alaska, but that's probably harder to penetrate than the Midwest market.

I just want a JOB; even that's going to be very difficult, because I need to get an H1B visa sponsor from my employer, since I don't even have permanent residency in the U.S.

What do you expect on your LSAT?

A'nold wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

mst wrote:I'm just going out on a limb here but they really are the best law school in a very large area. Similar to Texas. An awesome size market with very limited competition from other t20 schools...

Do you mean Missouri or something?

Because if you mean the midwest....

Chicago
Northwestern
Michigan
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
UMN
OSU
IUB

Competition is why their placement sucks.

Lulz at leaving out ND.

Although the go-to law schools list shows ND to be slightly ahead of WUSTL, would WUSTL still have better employment prospects? The above poster mentioned how WUSTL also concentrates on employment in midsize law firms, and this wouldn't really reflect on the NLJ250 percentages.

Desert Fox wrote:

PLATONiC wrote:I do NOT care where I end up. I don't care as long as I don't end up in Alaska, but that's probably harder to penetrate than the Midwest market.

I just want a JOB; even that's going to be very difficult, because I need to get an H1B visa sponsor from my employer, since I don't even have permanent residency in the U.S.

What do you expect on your LSAT?

My high is 172, and my low is 166. So I'm expecting at around 168~169 or so on the LSATs.

PLATONiC wrote:

A'nold wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:
Do you mean Missouri or something?

Because if you mean the midwest....

Chicago
Northwestern
Michigan
Illinois
Wisconsin
Iowa
UMN
OSU
IUB

Competition is why their placement sucks.

Lulz at leaving out ND.

Although the go-to law schools list shows ND to be slightly ahead of WUSTL, would WUSTL still have better employment prospects? The above poster mentioned how WUSTL also concentrates on employment in midsize law firms, and this wouldn't really reflect on the NLJ250 percentages.

They are peer schools. Go to whichever gives you more cash.

Desert Fox wrote: They are peer schools. Go to whichever gives you more cash.

Given my hypothetical numbers (note: hypothetical), would I even get cash from either of these schools???

PLATONiC wrote:

Desert Fox wrote: They are peer schools. Go to whichever gives you more cash.

Given my hypothetical numbers (note: hypothetical), would I even get cash from either of these schools???

Prob not. Retake and try to get a 170 if you fail. That'll get you some. Though if you do, MVP are your targets.

I personally think that IUB is a shithole, so I'm pretty much crossing them out. But if I ever decide to retake, I'll probably take a year off from the LSAT and try to take a stab at it again. Right now, work is way too busy for me to try and devote some more energy into the test. I already have a 55 hour work week, but I promised some mothers that I'd start teaching their children around mid-august...

Why do people feel that the only way to gauge a school's value is by its biglaw placement?

reverendt wrote:Why do people feel that the only way to gauge a school's value is by its biglaw placement?

Because biglaw placement roughly parallels job placement in all desirable jobs.

Dude platonic, I cannot even imagine the atom bomb like disaster that is going to be your life after you take the LSAT........I'm not trying to be mean, but it's like you've planned out every single aspect of your life down to specific firms and different things about specific schools and you don't even have a score in hand. I can't help but think you do the whole golf thing that I used to do where "I would have made that put on a real day" kind of "practice" but maybe not. I do wish you luck and I like you it's just like slow it down there guy. Trust me, I know how it is to be excited and I swear I was a lot like you a few years ago when I was looking into all of this, but I'm telling you, the real world is a lot different than what this site portrays, even down to if you could ever even handle the hell that is biglaw. Time will tell. You should pull back the reigns a little bit right now and focus on the things in front of you. Still research, but don't obsess over stuff you have no control over. If you don't hit your ideal LSAT score, I have this horrible feeling that you will jump off a bridge or something. You can be successful from many different schools dude. It's not as black and white as this site makes it seem.

Desert Fox wrote:

PLATONiC wrote:

Desert Fox wrote: They are peer schools. Go to whichever gives you more cash.

Given my hypothetical numbers (note: hypothetical), would I even get cash from either of these schools???

Prob not. Retake and try to get a 170 if you fail. That'll get you some. Though if you do, MVP are your targets.

-1

WUSTL's splitter scholarship (at least for this cycle, and there is little reason to expect it'll be any different any future given their "gaming" ) is 10k per year, even down to a 168/2.7x (and maybe lower)

DF's second post, deserves at least a +1. Nice recovery

A'nold wrote:Dude platonic, I cannot even imagine the atom bomb like disaster that is going to be your life after you take the LSAT........I'm not trying to be mean, but it's like you've planned out every single aspect of your life down to specific firms and different things about specific schools and you don't even have a score in hand. I can't help but think you do the whole golf thing that I used to do where "I would have made that put on a real day" kind of "practice" but maybe not. I do wish you luck and I like you it's just like slow it down there guy. Trust me, I know how it is to be excited and I swear I was a lot like you a few years ago when I was looking into all of this, but I'm telling you, the real world is a lot different than what this site portrays, even down to if you could ever even handle the hell that is biglaw. Time will tell. You should pull back the reigns a little bit right now and focus on the things in front of you. Still research, but don't obsess over stuff you have no control over. If you don't hit your ideal LSAT score, I have this horrible feeling that you will jump off a bridge or something. You can be successful from many different schools dude. It's not as black and white as this site makes it seem.

Things are very complicated for me insofar as I'm an international student who will have to finance his own education; just like I did for my undergraduate degree working under the table. I thought my parents were going to help me out, but that's not how it's going to turn out. I readily admit that I'm somewhat delving into this stuff a little more, and am goofing off on these forums way more than I should be.

As an international student, employment is so much more difficult, since document review isn't even an option for us. We can't get work authorization through temp attorney positions; there's not fallback, and I have to play my cards very carefully, and ever since you posted a comment on my other thread, I've somewhat been making very convservative assessments about my LSAT score, as well as my potential for making a living as an attorney. But I appreciate the wisdom of somewhat who has already gone through the process. Thanks.

Desert Fox wrote:

reverendt wrote:Why do people feel that the only way to gauge a school's value is by its biglaw placement?

Because biglaw placement roughly parallels job placement in all desirable jobs.

But to what percentage of WUSTL graduates get legitimate private sector jobs that are not biglaw??? Is the whole "midsize law firm" employment prospects previously mentioned a fluke?

PLATONiC wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

reverendt wrote:Why do people feel that the only way to gauge a school's value is by its biglaw placement?

Because biglaw placement roughly parallels job placement in all desirable jobs.

But to what percentage of WUSTL graduates get legitimate private sector jobs that are not biglaw??? Is the whole "midsize law firm" employment prospects previously mentioned a fluke?

Probably a lot, but those don't pay enough to justify 150K in loans.

PLATONiC wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

reverendt wrote:Why do people feel that the only way to gauge a school's value is by its biglaw placement?

Because biglaw placement roughly parallels job placement in all desirable jobs.

But to what percentage of WUSTL graduates get legitimate private sector jobs that are not biglaw??? Is the whole "midsize law firm" employment prospects previously mentioned a fluke?

WUSTL places a lot into midwestern cities that don't have (many or any) NLJ 250 firms, but do have firms that pay pretty well. A guy in the WUSTL 2013 thread did some calcs and came out with something like 60% of the last reported class making 6 figures or 90k or something (factoring in % reporting and all of that jazz). Probably not as good ITE, but keep in mind that NLJ 250 firm locations skew towards NY, DC, Chicago, LA, and maybe secondaries like Boston. Who's ahead of WashU in the NLJ250 rankings? Schools that are either in those markets or place almost solely into those markets (ahem, Fordham). However, what DF just said. Going off of TLS conventional wisdom, I don't think I'd pay sticker or close lower than T12ish/maybe Vandy (but again, I turned that down so no, I wouldn't).

They need to get their act together and increase my scholarship.