U. of Illinois Law suspends Dean of Admissions

[Thirteen]

Does anyone know if there's a working link for the appendices to the report? I want to check out the data for the class of 2012, but the link on the COL's website for appendices 1-75 isn't working.

[ilovesf]

As a current 1L at UIUC, the only way I could've possibly felt worse was if I hadn't been one of the "lucky 42" that didn't get their numbers changed at all.
That is, of course, a wry, sad joke, because which students had there numbers changed doesn't effing matter at all.

We are all somewhere between saddened and furious, or both. The iLeapers must feel awful because of what Pless said about them, people with awful numbers are going to feel like they're embarrassments, people with good numbers feel like they made a huge effing mistake, and everyone feels really, terribly hurt and betrayed.

A few thoughts:
The school has completely blamed Pless. Is it completely his fault? No way. I think probably a lot of people looked the other way, didn't follow things up like they should've, put faith in the wrong places, and approved of both specific actions an an overall culture that contributed to this really unfortunate happening. Pless was definitely the orchestrator of the whole thing, though. Everyone in the administration is assigning sole blame to him for obvious, selfish reasons, and everyone else is just too disheartened to not accept it. It's so much easier to lay everything at his feet.

Day-to-day life at the school hasn't changed, except that we spend hours discussing this.

Potential employers seem uniformly to be bringing this whole issue up during interviews with the current 2L class. Not looking forward to that discussion. It'll be fun trying to spin it positively. Or only a tiny bit negatively.

This has nothing to do with employment numbers. I definitely think that, of course, the way every school reports them is misleading, but I don't think there's any similar impropriety going on in that office. The official report did indeed conclude that, of the latest employment data, according to (the misleading) ABA standards of reporting, only 3 employment statuses were suspect, and not definitively flawed.

There are two things I'm really scared about:
1) Employment. Obviously. I don't think it's going to matter for the top 40% or bottom 40%. But somewhere in the middle, some ramifications, either in the form of hostility or cessation of interviews, are going to trickle down.
2) Who the hell's going to apply for the class of 2015? Sigh.

So: TL;DR: Current 1Ls feel exasperated, angry, and hopeless. In fact, every student and professor at the university feels that way. To relieve a little bit of that feeling, I've rambled, trying to maybe contribute something and definitely vent a little.

Sorry, what a sad way to start off law school

[bk1]

If the industry didn't accept that manipulation and lax standards were the norm, if they were open and vetted by the top people at each school in conjunction with one another, then there is a chance that your admissions stats are not trifled with. Instead everyone gets to go off to their secret office and emerge with the best numbers possible, any way they can.

Congrats on missing the point again. That's like, 17 times in a row. You're like the 1972 Miami Dolphins of being wrong.

Your patience with this goddamn herp derp is admirable.

Isn't MrAnon a confirmed troll?

[Kilpatrick]

Does anyone know if there's a working link for the appendices to the report? I want to check out the data for the class of 2012, but the link on the COL's website for appendices 1-75 isn't working.

It works for me. It's 3000 pages so it takes awhile to open.

[minnbills]

Isn't MrAnon a confirmed troll?

I think he's a scamblogger troll

[vanwinkle]

Isn't MrAnon a confirmed troll?

He's a confirmed idiot, but if I banned people for that, who would I browbeat when I'm bored?

[romothesavior]

Damn, I really feel for you Illinois students. This is ugly.

[bjsesq]

Isn't MrAnon a confirmed troll?

I think he's a scamblogger troll

xoxo leftover.

[romothesavior]

Also, going out on a limb and calling MrAnon is the worst poster on TLS. There are a lot of bad ones (a few of them mentioned a few pages back), but his attempts at being profound and serious in the on-topic threads while coming off so ignorant and stupid, combined with his arrogance and abrasiveness, probably make him the worst on the entire site.

[omninode]

Three things:

1. Other law schools (particularly UIUC's peers) have to be taking a hard look at their admissions people to make they don't have similar issues.

2. UIUC's administrators are going to need to do some pretty spectacular face saving if they want this year's applicants to take them seriously.

3. The school definitely owes something to its current students. I don't know how, but they have to try to make it up to them.

[chrisbru]

Looking at LSN, it wows me that their LSAT median ended up where it did. GPA makes a little more sense. Maybe shows that LSN is sort of a self-select of higher than average applicants?

http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/

[MrAnon]

Ban me but give Pless his own thread. Makes sense.

[omninode]

Looking at LSN, it wows me that their LSAT median ended up where it did. GPA makes a little more sense. Maybe shows that LSN is sort of a self-select of higher than average applicants?

http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/

You're exactly right about the self-selecting nature of LSN participants. To prove this, if you look at some lower ranked schools, especially lower T2 and T3, they generally show fewer data points than the higher ranked schools.

http://schools.lawschoolnumbers.com/schools?rank

[bjsesq]

Ban me but give Pless his own thread. Makes sense.

How does this even make sense to you?

[MrAnon]

2. UIUC's administrators are going to need to do some pretty spectacular face saving if they want this year's applicants to take them seriously.

3. The school definitely owes something to its current students. I don't know how, but they have to try to make it up to them.

number 2 does't matter much. People still see them ranked relatively high in US news and will apply. midwesterners will still apply. Suppose UIUC is the highest ranked school you get into. Do you go? You betcha.

number 3 the unfortunate truth is they won't give anything to anybody. That's the point of blaming it all on Pless. What could they possibly do. They were fooled just like you. Students don't have any recourse other than to be mad.

[MrAnon]

Ban me but give Pless his own thread. Makes sense.

How does this even make sense to you?

Isn't Pless' thread still up?

[bjsesq]

Ban me but give Pless his own thread. Makes sense.

How does this even make sense to you?

Isn't Pless' thread still up?

And? Remove all signs that the man existed? If you have a problem with the thread, go in there and caveat emptor that bitch. You make no sense, dude.

[SaintClarence27]

Is it weird that I still would have come here?

[Wart]

Maybe this has been covered, but have you seen nightrunner's new avatar? impressive.

[tennisking88]

Looking at LSN, it wows me that their LSAT median ended up where it did. GPA makes a little more sense. Maybe shows that LSN is sort of a self-select of higher than average applicants?

http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/

The graph says nothing. Just because people are admitted in no way means they'll attend. The list of people who actually clicked "Attending" paints a different picture: http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/applicants/1011/

[romothesavior]

3. The school definitely owes something to its current students. I don't know how, but they have to try to make it up to them.

I feel the worst for the 2Ls and 3Ls, and the 1Ls with good creds. But it looks like for the majority of the 1L class, they really have nothing to complain about. It actually looks like they have benefited here, not from the lying, but from the bad admissions year that Illinois had. They really don't really have any "damages" to speak of, and if they do, they are far outweighed by their good fortune of being at UIUC and not some borderline T1/T2 school with half the job prospects.

[SaintClarence27]

3. The school definitely owes something to its current students. I don't know how, but they have to try to make it up to them.

I feel the worst for the 2Ls and 3Ls, and the 1Ls with good creds. But it looks like for the majority of the 1L class, they really have nothing to complain about. It actually looks like they have benefited here, not from the lying, but from the bad admissions year that Illinois had. They really don't really have any "damages" to speak of, and if they do, they are far outweighed by their good fortune of being at UIUC and not some borderline T1/T2 school with half the job prospects.

That's right! Feel bad for me!

[birdlaw117]

Looking at LSN, it wows me that their LSAT median ended up where it did. GPA makes a little more sense. Maybe shows that LSN is sort of a self-select of higher than average applicants?

http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/

Acceptance =/= matriculation

[chrisbru]

Looking at LSN, it wows me that their LSAT median ended up where it did. GPA makes a little more sense. Maybe shows that LSN is sort of a self-select of higher than average applicants?

http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/

Acceptance =/= matriculation

I get that, it's just surprising that they didn't fare better than 163/3.7. They must have been really unlucky with acceptances.

Bet Pless regrets wait listing some of us 170+'s. I know I would have gone Illinois over Iowa for the same price.

[JusticeHarlan]

Looking at LSN, it wows me that their LSAT median ended up where it did. GPA makes a little more sense. Maybe shows that LSN is sort of a self-select of higher than average applicants?

http://illinois.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/1011/

Acceptance =/= matriculation

I get that, it's just surprising that they didn't fare better than 163/3.7. They must have been really unlucky with acceptances.

Bet Pless regrets wait listing some of us 170+'s. I know I would have gone Illinois over Iowa for the same price.

I think there was some speculation early in this thread that IUB throwing around $40k/year packages probably cut in to Illinois' yield.