C/O 2017 Median LSAT/GPA/Class Size Forum

[Attax]

dean, does it concern you that a full quarter of your class scored a 151 or below on the lsat?
isn't the real reason for admitting these students the financial incentive to fill seats, and not a genuine belief that these students will see a positive return on their law school investment?
when you look at the 17% of 2012 bar takers from ttu who failed to pass (i'm sure you've seen prof campos' article in the atlantic discussing lsat scores correlating with bar bass rates) do you regret admitting them?

I am not the dean, but in defense something to consider is that I doubt law schools are ignorant to this. They can't finance it for everyone, and can't deny everyone who they think won't have a positive outcome. If they did that, they wouldn't have the tuition coming in to even stay alive. It sucks, but its the way of the game. Do I think its right? No. But do I think that we should explicitly hold schools accountable for this behavior? Not necessarily. If they do it in a predatory way, such as Infinilaw places, then definitely so. But a school like TTU has its place. I don't think that many students go to TTU planning on doing biglaw. Many of the TTU grads I know stay out in West TX which isn't really a biglaw place. It is a relatively cheap school, and serves it purpose, but it simply must be recognized that to continue operations the school simply must admit some people with lesser stats. The information is out there, and if those individuals don't do their research should we blame the schools or them for falling for the law school trap?

[Tiago Splitter]

Before this goes any further let's nip the flame that Infilaw is any more predatory than many non-profits right in the bud.

As to the Dean's statement, his own school enrolled 6.5% more people this year, solidly outside of his stated 5% buffer that is supposedly indicative of random fluctuation. This by his own admission suggests that Tech intended to grow the class. More importantly, law schools should be decreasing class size. Keeping the class the same size is not acceptable when you provide such horrifyingly poor employment outcomes, and if decreasing in size were the goal an increase in class size should not be a real risk.

Now back to our regularly scheduled medians...

[03152016]

at least up until very recently, students have been conditioned to view law as a lofty and prestigious profession
students see lawyers portrayed this way in the media, their advisors in high school and college encourage them to pursue a legal education, as well as their parents, they may know lawyers who graduated in a better job market doing quite well for themselves
i do not buy this 'blame the student' mentality
when almost everything in one's life affirms a certain perception, i'm not surprised that people are unswayed by anonymous forum posters and scamblogs (aside: that's why lst is so important, and why we did the wiki thing)
and many people lack the cultural capital to even know to look

i'm not saying texas tech should close down
and i commend them for keeping tuition "low"
but as long as they keep class sizes so large, as long as they keep admitting people they know they can't place
as long as 45% of the class can't get ft/lt/jd and 22% of the class is underemployed
it is fair game to criticize them

[03152016]

i have a follow up question
professor loewy is paid $301k+, per year, by your law school
professor forney is paid $276k+ per year
is there really no place you can cut costs to reduce the number of students?
if that is the case, what unique or compelling feature does ttu have that other law schools admitting classes of 100 or 150 don't?

[Attax]

In regards to medians: I wouldn't expect anything from Texas anytime soon.

In regards to TTU: Good points, and especially on being outside their own buffer. But, regardless of the specific school, not all can manage to shrink classes and still provide the education because they can't afford it. IDK if that's the situation at TTU or not, but they have to get the money from somewhere. Yes the media and people may glorify things, but that doesn't mean that the burden of actual research isn't on the individual. Doctors are glorified by people, but I highly doubt being a doctor is like it is in Grey's Anatomy, what the work is like, what the lifestyle is like, job prospects, etc.

Now, I don't think all the blame lies on an individual, there definitely is blame on the schools as well. Obviously shrinking class sizes is important in this economy, being more transparent is (and damn on that Wikipedia project I hated Texas A&M's because their ABA disclosures were so difficult to find!), etc. But fully blaming the school for keeping class sizes at a size that will still allow for them to give good scholarships to top applicants, but still manage to fund the school isn't the only source of blame. Both are to blame appropriately for their own appropriate actions.

I'm ending my part of the discussion here because it is a bit off topic.

Medianmedianmedian. GO

[03152016]

if, arguendo, i accept the student and law school are both to blame
i think it's clear that more blame falls on the savvy deans
i can accept that if a corrupt sleazy used car salesman sells a clueless customer a lemon, the customer shares some of the blame for not doing her own dd
but that does not mean their blameworthiness is proportional
similarly, many could have bought cars from the salesman and been quite pleased
perhaps the salesman should reduce the number of cars on the lot, selling only those that would result in a fair outcome for the purchaser
if the salesman responds he can't and remain financially solvent, he should either find ways to reduce costs or close the doors
i'm not saying he should be forced to, i'm not saying that it's an entirely practical solution in all cases
but if the seller cannot remain solvent without selling lemons, that is a problem he has a moral responsibility to address

[whitespider]

While I agree it's concerning that Tech is growing in size considering diminishing applications and horrible general legal employment situation, I do have to commend Dean Perez for putting himself out there and thoughtfully answering questions. pond scummings, he is not.

As a gay dude with no interest in practicing in Texas, I certainly won't be applying. I see how it could be the right call for some Texas natives, though.

[should-i-do-it]

I think the bigger problem is the fact that we still have new law schools popping up. UNT is opening/or already has opened up one in Dallas. This is completely unnecessary, Texas already has more than enough law schools. Also the ABA doesn't seem to care at all about the thousands of grads that aren't and probably won't ever find jobs as lawyers. I don't know why they aren't forcing schools to limit class sizes.

[rebexness]

Ugh Less Talking, More Medians.

[should-i-do-it]

Ugh Less Talking, More Medians.

+1

[Hand]

[Attax]

Ugh Less Talking, More Medians.

+1

This is not a median.

[should-i-do-it]

What happen to Spivey?

[SPerez]

dean, does it concern you that a full quarter of your class scored a 151 or below on the lsat?
isn't the real reason for admitting these students the financial incentive to fill seats, and not a genuine belief that these students will see a positive return on their law school investment?
when you look at the 17% of 2012 bar takers from ttu who failed to pass (i'm sure you've seen prof campos' article in the atlantic discussing lsat scores correlating with bar bass rates) do you regret admitting them?

I will respond to various folks' comments over in my thread to avoid hijacking this one (even more).

Dean Perez

[ms9]

What happen to Spivey?

I had that fundraising race up in mountains for LST and I stayed up here a few days

I back tomorrow and will ask for Moar medians!!

[Adrian Monk]

What happen to Spivey?

I had that fundraising race up in mountains for LST and I stayed up here a few days

I back tomorrow and will ask for Moar medians!!

thanks for your help!, and if possible would love info on hastings/ santa clara! thank you!

[MikeJD]

What happen to Spivey?

I had that fundraising race up in mountains for LST and I stayed up here a few days

I back tomorrow and will ask for Moar medians!!

thanks for your help!, and if possible would love info on hastings/ santa clara! thank you!

Consider that UC hastings was down 20% in apps and Santa clara about 13% I would say at least -2 on the LSAT median to maintain class size.

[Adrian Monk]

What happen to Spivey?

I had that fundraising race up in mountains for LST and I stayed up here a few days

I back tomorrow and will ask for Moar medians!!

thanks for your help!, and if possible would love info on hastings/ santa clara! thank you!

Consider that UC hastings was down 20% in apps and Santa clara about 13% I would say at least -2 on the LSAT median to maintain class size.

that would be bad for them, but awesome for me!, Im targeting hastings/santa clara. I believe im above the gpa median for hastings, and very well above the gpa median for santa clara. So, for me it all comes down to the lsat, im taking the sep one and all i hope for is to be as close as possible to their lsat medians.

[Creditisgood]

I had that fundraising race up in mountains for LST and I stayed up here a few days

I back tomorrow and will ask for Moar medians!!

Thank you Mr. Spivey.
Sending my contribution to LST today.

[JCougar]

Yeah, basically everyone should send in a few dollars to LST. The information they have fought to uncover is worth potentially tens of thousands of dollars to your average law school applicant today. So throwing them the cost of one LSAC application fee, at the very least, would do them justice. The people in charge there basically work for nothing except for the good they do for you guys.

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1p3lb/ab/e3Z2ff

[jenesaislaw]

Yeah, basically everyone should send in a few dollars to LST. The information they have fought to uncover is worth potentially tens of thousands of dollars to your average law school applicant today. So throwing them the cost of one LSAC application fee, at the very least, would do them justice. The people in charge there basically work for nothing except for the good they do for you guys.

https://fundrazr.com/campaigns/1p3lb/ab/e3Z2ff

+1

Thank you for the very kind words.

[ilikebaseball]

I dont care what anyone says, MUCH respect to Dean Perez for actually coming onto the boards and handling the biz himself. Even though the results are likely not as good as he had hoped, he still came up on here, facing all of the harsh and critical people on these boards, and said, "here are our #'s."

[TheodoreKGB]

.

[rebexness]

I dont care what anyone says, MUCH respect to Dean Perez for actually coming onto the boards and handling the biz himself. Even though the results are likely not as good as he had hoped, he still came up on here, facing all of the harsh and critical people on these boards, and said, "here are our #'s."

Couldn't agree more.

[should-i-do-it]

This thread needs moar medians