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Robb

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Robb » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:47 am

OneLisfun wrote:
WeeBey wrote:
OneLisfun wrote:
WeeBey wrote:I use BL + FC as a proxy for how low your class rank can be and still come out with a BL job. Arent federal clerks usually the top of the class? I don't care if a federal clerk struck out at 2L OCI because obviously their grades weren't the issue.

If a school is placing 70% into BL + FC, I'm assuming that being a little below median isnt a big issue. Yes, there are some who got BigLaw jobs because of IP, URM, highly relevent work experience and connections, but there are probably an equal amount who had the grades for BL but didnt because they weren't interested, bid extremely stupid, got prestigious Gov't or PI, or were just really socially awkward and sucked at interviewing.

To your point, I agree with you, 70% is an insane number and there's probably nothing to worry about at a school like that if you can be an at all regular student and person in general. My question is more relevant for people making a decision based on a school like UMich, often having somewhere in the mid to low 40s without federal clerkships, then going up to over 50% each year once we add federal clerkships in. I'm not so sure median is a happy place to be at a school like this for someone who wants big law in a major market and does not plan to be applying for district court clerkships in Kansas. When I say I'm not so sure, I mean just that, I truly do not know.
If you aiming for NYC biglaw, I doubt firms look at the lower half the T14 any differently (excluding maybe Penn and GULC). Mich placed 53% in BLFC, Cornell did 74%. I doubt its because firms will dig deeper into Cornell's class but rather that Cornell has better access and more of their students big exclusively NYC at OCI.

I would beg to differ. I think it seems as though they are digging deeper into the class at Cornell, and I don't really see any reason to think otherwise. Michigan looks a lot more like GULC than it looks like Cornell every year, especially in the most recent year, where GULC's big law numbers were actually higher, and UMich only came out ahead by 5% once federal clerkships were added in. Cornell's BL + fed clerk difference from UMich is about four times that of the difference between GULC and UMich in the most recent cycle.


To address your other point about how you don't care if they couldn't actually get big law because it wouldn't be their grades/school. Every single T14 has numerous big law recruiters that take students that are around median and noticeably below median. It should matter to you whether the number you're looking at is partially comprised of people who struck out with grades that were higher than some other people who did get big law in deciding which school to attend, because grades are not the only thing these employers are looking at and luck is definitely involved (talk to different people who were around median at any T14, including GULC, there will be those who got five offers, and those who got zero). To consider everyone who got in the top half golden just because you know there were other people with worse grades who got the job is not intelligent. The idea is to maximize one's chances as much as possible, and the more students that got offers at a school, the better the bet is that when you go, you will be one of those people. And there WILL at any DCNG be people who were in the 60th percentile and just for whatever reason things didn't work out for them (luck/bidding/the person who interviewed them had a bad day) and there will be other people in the 45th percentile who got big law. If your goal is to go to a school where being a great interviewer with great work experience and great bidding skills will get you NY big law, the search ends at T14, no need to look further, any will do. That's not what I assume you are trying to do here though.
Then you're not looking.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by OneLisfun » Sat Apr 18, 2015 3:38 am

Robb, I'm confused as to what your point is. I was simply saying that when one school has 73% getting BL + fed clerk and the other has 53%, it's probably pretty safe to assume that firms are digging deeper into the one with 73%. Also, if you're not aware, Cornell has severe grade inflation which gives them a much higher median than a school like Michigan. This helps them make their below median students look more attractive to employers than schools like Michigan where most below median students will not meet minimum cutoffs.

Whatever effect you're talking about would not mitigate a 20% difference in employment. Any person who's going to sit here and argue that NY big law employment prospects are anywhere near close to equal between UMich and Cornell is prestige blinded by U.S. News rankings or goes to UMich or both.

Further, not that I even need to add this because the difference is so huge, the 20% greater is actually roughly 40% more percentage of students getting it (as in 20 is 40% of 50). These schools are not close, any nuances etc. would not come close to closing this gap. The stat differences are too large here.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Tiago Splitter » Sat Apr 18, 2015 8:53 am

I don't know why you're so willing to give HYS a free pass but not other schools. The same reason people give credit to HYS clerks is the reason they give credit to clerks from the rest of the T-14.

Whether someone could have gotten biglaw isn't really the question. The question is whether they can get a quality legal job after the clerkship. And the vast majority of federal clerks can, which is why we count fed clerks in the "good outcomes" category.

If you're focused on whether they could have gotten biglaw because that's all that matters for someone who only cares about biglaw, then that's reasonable. But from what I've seen the answer to that question is that comfortably 90% fed clerks coming from the T-14 could have started at biglaw in their first year had they chosen to do so. The vast, vast majority of these folks worked 2L SA's and have offers to return.

Most of the fed clerks who couldn't get biglaw for their 2L summer came from schools outside the T-14, where having excellent grades doesn't always guarantee biglaw. You generally need very strong grades from any school to get a Federal clerkship, and if you have those in the T-14 biglaw is basically a done deal. From a school like Notre Dame, though, there will be some people with strong 1L grades who still strike out. When year 2 rolls around they double down and really kill it academically and apply to clerkships going into their 3L year with elite grades. That option is almost never available for someone who struck out at a T-14, because their 1L GPA sets them too far back.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by cron1834 » Sat Apr 18, 2015 9:23 am

Federal clerkships suck and shouldn't be considered good outcomes. Mich can't place into NYC even though a majority of the class doesn't target there.

OneLisfun is really knocking it out of the park here.

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Robb

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Robb » Sat Apr 18, 2015 9:32 am

OneLisfun wrote:Robb, I'm confused as to what your point is. I was simply saying that when one school has 73% getting BL + fed clerk and the other has 53%, it's probably pretty safe to assume that firms are digging deeper into the one with 73%. Also, if you're not aware, Cornell has severe grade inflation which gives them a much higher median than a school like Michigan. This helps them make their below median students look more attractive to employers than schools like Michigan where most below median students will not meet minimum cutoffs.

Whatever effect you're talking about would not mitigate a 20% difference in employment. Any person who's going to sit here and argue that NY big law employment prospects are anywhere near close to equal between UMich and Cornell is prestige blinded by U.S. News rankings or goes to UMich or both.

Further, not that I even need to add this because the difference is so huge, the 20% greater is actually roughly 40% more percentage of students getting it (as in 20 is 40% of 50). These schools are not close, any nuances etc. would not come close to closing this gap. The stat differences are too large here.
That makes sense, until you realize a full 13% of the class is employed in Michigan after graduation, 17% in Illinois, and 13% in California. 19% are in NY. Cornell has 57% of their grads working in New York, more than 3x more than Michigan has in its highest ranking state.

Cornell is a fantastic option for most. If I had to make my decision again, and Michigan and Cornell were the only two schools on the table, I would pick Cornell absent a huge price difference in favor of Michigan. But location certainly could mitigate a 20% difference in employment, "and I don't really see any reason to think otherwise" without data indicating Michigan and Cornell grads are actually competing for the same jobs. The numbers above indicate that they are not, and this could have a massive effect since NY jobs are generally considered some of the easiest to get compared to the midwest and California. In fact, given the 38 percentage point difference in grads in New York, Michigan's BL + FC rate difference at 20 is pretty darn impressive. Of course, the real question is how many grads would have worked biglaw in New York. After all, no one cares or should care about employment outcomes except as a proxy for placement ability. If the sentiment at Michigan is similar to Chicago, I wouldn't be surprised if many would rather be homeless (perhaps I've been redditing to much lately but I feel the need to link this as a preemptive measure) than work in New York.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by JFO1833 » Sat Apr 18, 2015 10:05 am

I don't know what is causing the delay in reporting for the last four schools but if we compare this year to last year, with those four schools excluded, it looks like there was modest improvement in the overall market. I broke down the statistics by US News ranking. Important note, I used 2016 US News numbers for both this year and last year's stats. This means a school that jumped groups it will be considered as part of this year's group only. This means, for example, that GW is considered T22 in both in calculating the T22 number for 2014 and the difference for T22 from 2013.

It looks like a modest gain in employment prospects across all tiers of schools.

T6: - BL+FC-72.6% (.7%), FTLTBR-90.0% (-.2%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-84.4% (-.7%)
T8-T14: - BL+FC-61.9% (3.8%), FTLTBR-88.3% (2.1%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-81.3% (2.4%)
T15-T20: - BL+FC-35.9% (2.1%), FTLTBR-79.5% (4.9%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-70.0% (2.4%)
T22-T30: - BL+FC-26.1% (.4%), FTLTBR-73.6% (2.2%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-66.6% (2.4%)
T31-T40: - BL+FC-24.6% (2.1%), FTLTBR-70.1% (5.7%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-68.2% (4.7%)
T41-T149: - BL+FC-9.1% (.2%), FTLTBR-56.4% (2.7%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-55.8% (2.6%)
RNP/UNR: - BL+FC-2.5% (.2%), FTLTBR-37.0% (2.1%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-36.8% (2.1%)

Totals: - BL+FC-16.8% (1.1%), FTLTBR-58.1% (3.0%), FTLTBR (w/o LSF)-56.2% (2.8%)

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bowser

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by bowser » Sat Apr 18, 2015 11:43 am

I always defend Michigan. Lawyers seem to think Michigan is just as prestigious as Virginia, and prestige is what most of this shit is based on, so it doesn't make intuitive sense that Michigan people looking for biglaw are at some kind of disadvantage. But then again Columbia is supposedly a little more prestigious than Penn, at least in New York, and they often have similar placement numbers-wise.

But it's fair for an 0L to look at BL+FC and be scared off by a near-20 point discrepancy. That's huge. Even if I believe most of it can be explained by self selection, that's asking 0Ls for a little too much faith.

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Robb

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Robb » Sat Apr 18, 2015 12:03 pm

I'm not sure if that's a response to me, but if it is, I completely agree. OneLisfun said "I don't really see any reason to think [that firms are not digging deeper into Cornell's class]". But there is good reason to think otherwise, it's silly to assume it's not otherwise. Presenting employment numbers as an absolute proxy for placement ability is simply incorrect and misleading, especially to the 0L's (the primary audience on this forum) who do not know better. But like I said, as an 0L, I'd pick Cornell over Michigan in a heartbeat if the money were right. Guaranteed placement ability is better than speculative placement ability. If Michigan's students are self-selecting out, Michigan could poll incoming students and share that information to enlighten us; the onus is on them.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by A. Nony Mouse » Sat Apr 18, 2015 12:24 pm

OneLisfun wrote:
scottidsntknow wrote:Haven't most fed clerks still had a 2L SA, generally with an offer to return after the clerkship?

That is supposedly the case. However, what if a bigger percentage of these federal clerks are actually clerking under magistrate judges than we think? Also, most wouldn't be enough to lump the two together the way that they are, considering the frequency with which advice on big law prospects is given using the BL + fed clerk method, the number should be (conservatively) 85% or higher in my opinion.

Again, if there's any data to support this idea that almost all of these fed clerks could have gotten big law or will get big law from doing the federal clerkship, everything I've said is moot.
I realize people have responded to this, but I wanted to reiterate that the only data is going to be anecdotal from people who have clerked and know people who've clerked, but it doesn't support the concerns you're expressing here. The vast majority of clerks have offers to go back to firms. Also, magistrate clerks aren't flooding the numbers in the way you worry about (but the job also isn't some kind of kiss of death, either).

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by OneLisfun » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:16 pm

Robb wrote:I'm not sure if that's a response to me, but if it is, I completely agree. OneLisfun said "I don't really see any reason to think [that firms are not digging deeper into Cornell's class]". But there is good reason to think otherwise, it's silly to assume it's not otherwise. Presenting employment numbers as an absolute proxy for placement ability is simply incorrect and misleading, especially to the 0L's (the primary audience on this forum) who do not know better. But like I said, as an 0L, I'd pick Cornell over Michigan in a heartbeat if the money were right. Guaranteed placement ability is better than speculative placement ability. If Michigan's students are self-selecting out, Michigan could poll incoming students and share that information to enlighten us; the onus is on them.

As far as the responses to my comments on federal clerks, thank you for the responses. If you guys are sure that this is the case, then it seems they can be counted as big law for people who only want big law at T14s.

As far as what Robb is saying, no Robb, I do not think that you should present employment numbers as an absolute proxy for placement ability, and I am the biggest advocate for what you're saying if you look at my prior posts. I simply said that when a school places close to 40% more of of the percentage of their students in big law than another, it is probably (almost definitely) the case that one school has firms dig deeper in the class than the other. It's not 100% definitely the case, but we're not talking 5% here. The things you're saying would almost certainly not account for 20%. I also find it interesting how happy UMich fanboys seem to be to argue that 20% might be mitigated by the markets students are targeting, yet I feel that if I were to bring up that the 5% difference (one fourth of the difference between UMich and Cornell) between UMich and GULC has a good chance of being accounted for by the fact that GULC students target DC, the most competitive market of all, suddenly raw numbers are all that matters, and 5% is a gigantic difference. These same people will also be happy to bring up that the difference is not the markets being targeted, but GULC's gigantic class size. The difference between Cornell and UMich's class size is also gigantic. (I'm not saying you're one of these people, but I've seen this before. If you don't agree with that, and just think all 3 of these schools probably can place similarly in NY and all of the differences must be based solely on the markets students are targeting, then at least you are consistent,but I still disagree with you.)

Cornell has an extremely small class size, and severe grade inflation. Their 73% big law numbers indicate that a student who goes there who is in the bottom third has a very reasonable chance at big law, not just a fighting chance as has been anecdotally expressed by students at multiple other T14s. If you include the fact that there's certainly people who interview horribly and don't get big law regardless of grades at any school, it looks like Cornell students who can just act pretty normal may even have a legitimate shot at big law when they're not even 20th percentile, certainly 25th percentile students over there who are relatively normal have an extremely solid chance. I don't think we can safely say this for UMich. Anyone who wants NY big law should not consider choosing UMich over Cornell, it's as simple as that.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Cobretti » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:32 pm

OneLisfun wrote:As far as the responses to my comments on federal clerks, thank you for the responses. If you guys are sure that this is the case, then it seems they can be counted as big law for people who only want big law at T14s.

As far as what Robb is saying, no Robb, I do not think that you should present employment numbers as an absolute proxy for placement ability, and I am the biggest advocate for what you're saying if you look at my prior posts. I simply said that when a school places close to 40% more of of the percentage of their students in big law than another, it is probably (almost definitely) the case that one school has firms dig deeper in the class than the other. It's not 100% definitely the case, but we're not talking 5% here. The things you're saying would almost certainly not account for 20%.
I'm not disagreeing with you that a 40% difference isn't indicative of a real difference in placement power, but just wanted to say self selection is a real thing. Jobs in NYC are so much more plentiful and less competitive than any other market that whoever targets NYC is going to place substantially "better". As much as people say that on here its still such a stark difference that its shocking after going through OCI bidding NYC + other secondaries. So with that being said, no it probably won't make up a 40% difference, but it can easily account for much more than 5%, and possibly even 20%.

Its certainly possible that NYC firms give cornell a slight boost over Michigan and are willing to go deeper in the class, but I would be surprised if their actual cutoffs were noticeably different. And your argument about grade inflation doesn't really have much merit because the only firms that aren't sophisticated enough to track what actual medians are at their target schools are smaller firms that mostly would not count as biglaw.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by OneLisfun » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:41 pm

Cobretti wrote:
OneLisfun wrote:As far as the responses to my comments on federal clerks, thank you for the responses. If you guys are sure that this is the case, then it seems they can be counted as big law for people who only want big law at T14s.

As far as what Robb is saying, no Robb, I do not think that you should present employment numbers as an absolute proxy for placement ability, and I am the biggest advocate for what you're saying if you look at my prior posts. I simply said that when a school places close to 40% more of of the percentage of their students in big law than another, it is probably (almost definitely) the case that one school has firms dig deeper in the class than the other. It's not 100% definitely the case, but we're not talking 5% here. The things you're saying would almost certainly not account for 20%.
I'm not disagreeing with you that a 40% difference isn't indicative of a real difference in placement power, but just wanted to say self selection is a real thing. Jobs in NYC are so much more plentiful and less competitive than any other market that whoever targets NYC is going to place substantially "better". As much as people say that on here its still such a stark difference that its shocking after going through OCI bidding NYC + other secondaries. So with that being said, no it probably won't make up a 40% difference, but it can easily account for much more than 5%, and possibly even 20%.

Its certainly possible that NYC firms give cornell a slight boost over Michigan and are willing to go deeper in the class, but I would be surprised if their actual cutoffs were noticeably different. And your argument about grade inflation doesn't really have much merit because the only firms that aren't sophisticated enough to track what actual medians are at their target schools are smaller firms that mostly would not count as biglaw.

Yes, I'm aware of this NYC versus certain other markets. I still don't think it's going to account for anywhere near 20% (40% more, approximately). That's why I mentioned that if you believe in this market selection stuff accounting for large percentages, that's where I believe GULC and UMich seem to be the same idea for someone targeting NY big law (an argument I've made in the past), but that's something I'm not nearly as sure of as that UMich and Cornell are not in the same tier for someone targeting NY big law.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Cobretti » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:45 pm

I think Robb already hit the nail on the head here
Robb wrote:That makes sense, until you realize a full 13% of the class is employed in Michigan after graduation, 17% in Illinois, and 13% in California. 19% are in NY. Cornell has 57% of their grads working in New York, more than 3x more than Michigan has in its highest ranking state.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by OneLisfun » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:54 pm

Cobretti wrote:I think Robb already hit the nail on the head here
Robb wrote:That makes sense, until you realize a full 13% of the class is employed in Michigan after graduation, 17% in Illinois, and 13% in California. 19% are in NY. Cornell has 57% of their grads working in New York, more than 3x more than Michigan has in its highest ranking state.

Yes lets make these arguments for every T14 until we consider them all the same for targeting NY big law. Might as well just ignore every percentage that isn't one indicating the amount of students actually getting big law. Do you at least concede based on this thinking style that GULC must be the same for NY big law as both Cornell and UMich then since they have 38% of their students employed in DC, a tougher market than both Illinois and Michigan (which adds up to 30% of UMich's class size). If you want to add in California, 7.5% of GULC's class is in California, plus the 8% left over, so that 15.5% accounts for that 13% California difference. I'm glad we can all agree that UMich, GULC, and Cornell seem to have about an equal chance at getting you NY big law.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Cobretti » Sat Apr 18, 2015 2:57 pm

OneLisfun wrote:
Cobretti wrote:I think Robb already hit the nail on the head here
Robb wrote:That makes sense, until you realize a full 13% of the class is employed in Michigan after graduation, 17% in Illinois, and 13% in California. 19% are in NY. Cornell has 57% of their grads working in New York, more than 3x more than Michigan has in its highest ranking state.

Yes lets make these arguments for every T14 until we consider them all the same for targeting NY big law. Might as well just ignore every percentage that isn't one indicating the amount of students actually getting big law. Do you at least concede based on this thinking style that GULC must be the same for NY big law as both Cornell and UMich then since they have 38% of their students employed in DC, a tougher market than both Illinois and Michigan (which adds up to 30% of UMich's class size). If you want to add in California, 7.5% of GULC's class is in California, plus the 8% left over, so that 15.5% accounts for that 13% California difference. I'm glad we can all agree that UMich, GULC, and Cornell seem to have about an equal chance at getting you NY big law.
They give a substantially more similar ability to get NY big law than the BL+FC numbers ITT seem to suggest.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Robb » Sat Apr 18, 2015 3:07 pm

Georgetown does get far too bad a rap on TLS. Yes, they should decrease their class size, but I'd be surprised if their numbers weren't also substantially impacted by self-selection, but of two types. In particular, people who go to Georgetown are more likely to work for the Government (13.8% vs 5.7%, continuing to use Cornell as our example), and they seem more likely to target D.C. (39.6% of employed graduates are employed in D.C., nearly twice as many as in New York). But I'm more willing to buy the story for Michigan: people who got into Michigan probably got into Cornell, so by choosing to attend Michigan they've demonstrated a likely preference against living on the East Coast. D.C. and New York are fungible, at least in my mind. Either way, they're certainly more fungible than New York and Ann Arbor. (Wrote this before reading the below, but I do think it's responsive.)
OneLisfun wrote:
Cobretti wrote:I think Robb already hit the nail on the head here
Robb wrote:That makes sense, until you realize a full 13% of the class is employed in Michigan after graduation, 17% in Illinois, and 13% in California. 19% are in NY. Cornell has 57% of their grads working in New York, more than 3x more than Michigan has in its highest ranking state.

Yes lets make these arguments for every T14 until we consider them all the same for targeting NY big law. Might as well just ignore every percentage that isn't one indicating the amount of students actually getting big law. Do you at least concede based on this thinking style that GULC must be the same for NY big law as both Cornell and UMich then since they have 38% of their students employed in DC, a tougher market than both Illinois and Michigan (which adds up to 30% of UMich's class size). If you want to add in California, 7.5% of GULC's class is in California, plus the 8% left over, so that 15.5% accounts for that 13% California difference. I'm glad we can all agree that UMich, GULC, and Cornell seem to have about an equal chance at getting you NY big law.
As Cobretti said
They give a substantially more similar ability to get NY big law than the BL+FC numbers ITT seem to suggest.
In my view, they may very well be identical, there's no way to tell. Even if they're not identical, there are factors that suggest the employment numbers don't tell the whole story.

Edit: Also, interesting note to add: this is actually an advantage of looking at Clerkship numbers over BL numbers, because Clerkships are less likely to be subject to regional selection since people generally apply widely and most schools require applicants to accept the first offer they get. The primary mode of selection would be based on whether a student was interested in a clerkship in the first place (thus partially explaining Columbia's 4.7% Clerkship rate, one-third to one-half that of its peers).

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by OneLisfun » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:02 pm

Robb wrote:Georgetown does get far too bad a rap on TLS. Yes, they should decrease their class size, but I'd be surprised if their numbers weren't also substantially impacted by self-selection, but of two types. In particular, people who go to Georgetown are more likely to work for the Government (13.8% vs 5.7%, continuing to use Cornell as our example), and they seem more likely to target D.C. (39.6% of employed graduates are employed in D.C., nearly twice as many as in New York). But I'm more willing to buy the story for Michigan: people who got into Michigan probably got into Cornell, so by choosing to attend Michigan they've demonstrated a likely preference against living on the East Coast. D.C. and New York are fungible, at least in my mind. Either way, they're certainly more fungible than New York and Ann Arbor. (Wrote this before reading the below, but I do think it's responsive.)
OneLisfun wrote:
Cobretti wrote:I think Robb already hit the nail on the head here
Robb wrote:That makes sense, until you realize a full 13% of the class is employed in Michigan after graduation, 17% in Illinois, and 13% in California. 19% are in NY. Cornell has 57% of their grads working in New York, more than 3x more than Michigan has in its highest ranking state.

Yes lets make these arguments for every T14 until we consider them all the same for targeting NY big law. Might as well just ignore every percentage that isn't one indicating the amount of students actually getting big law. Do you at least concede based on this thinking style that GULC must be the same for NY big law as both Cornell and UMich then since they have 38% of their students employed in DC, a tougher market than both Illinois and Michigan (which adds up to 30% of UMich's class size). If you want to add in California, 7.5% of GULC's class is in California, plus the 8% left over, so that 15.5% accounts for that 13% California difference. I'm glad we can all agree that UMich, GULC, and Cornell seem to have about an equal chance at getting you NY big law.
As Cobretti said
They give a substantially more similar ability to get NY big law than the BL+FC numbers ITT seem to suggest.
In my view, they may very well be identical, there's no way to tell. Even if they're not identical, there are factors that suggest the employment numbers don't tell the whole story.

Edit: Also, interesting note to add: this is actually an advantage of looking at Clerkship numbers over BL numbers, because Clerkships are less likely to be subject to regional selection since people generally apply widely and most schools require applicants to accept the first offer they get. The primary mode of selection would be based on whether a student was interested in a clerkship in the first place (thus partially explaining Columbia's 4.7% Clerkship rate, one-third to one-half that of its peers).

I agree with almost everything you've said, and I am one of the biggest advocates of what you're saying as far as looking at BL + fed clerk alone and not taking into account other factors, as you would very quickly see if you just looked at posts I've made in the last few days. I just think 20% aka 38% is too large a difference and the fact is Cornell's class size is far smaller. Will UMich shrinking their class size help bring them more into Cornell's league in the coming year? Maybe, I doubt it will get them anywhere close to the same for NY big law prospects though.

Cornell is in NY and a disproportionately large percentage of big law firms are in NY. Cornell reaps the benefit of that.

My last thing I have to disagree with you on is your belief that the students going to UMich likely got into Cornell and chose UMich because they knew they didn't want to be in NY. This may be true for a decent amount of students, but I believe you are severely overestimating the general population (even the general population of students who get into T14 law schools) as far as their ability to choose schools based on the reasonable likelihood of them obtaining the job they want from that school instead of the perceived prestige of that institution and what LSAT score and GPA it takes to get in. Lots of people who got into Cornell and UMich 3 or 4 years ago and wanted NY big law (we are looking at the class of 2014) would choose UMich simply because it is higher up in US news rankings, is perceived by many to be a "better" school, and their median LSAT is over 170, unlike the (to the prestige-obsessed typical law school applicant) lowly Cornell and GULC which have median LSAT scores that fall below 170. If your typical law student/applicant was your typical TLS user, I might agree with you, but this is not the case.


And just to clarify, again, yes, I agree, all three of the schools are more similar for placing into NY big law than the stats suggest, just not 20% aka 38% more.

Edit: Just wanted to point out by the way, in case you didn't realize, that you and Cobretti have been arguing against a straw man for part of every post you've both made. None of the three of us believes that the BL + fed clerk numbers tell the whole story or that BL + fed clerk differences can't be mitigated to some degree by self-selection.

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Tiago Splitter

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Tiago Splitter » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:24 pm

OneLisfun wrote: Lots of people who got into Cornell and UMich 3 or 4 years ago and wanted NY big law (we are looking at the class of 2014) would choose UMich simply because it is higher up in US news rankings, is perceived by many to be a "better" school, and their median LSAT is over 170, unlike the (to the prestige-obsessed typical law school applicant) lowly Cornell and GULC which have median LSAT scores that fall below 170. If your typical law student/applicant was your typical TLS user, I might agree with you, but this is not the case.
GULC had a higher LSAT median than Michigan for a long time, which makes sense given that GULC was at 170 and Michigan hasn't been at 170 ever as far as I know.

Also, when the class of 2014 headed off Cornell had just come off of its absurd 81% biglaw+fed clerk rate seen by the class of 2010. But the very next year Cornell effectively tied Michigan. The difference this year has been striking, and it's been growing in recent years, but I wouldn't assume a 20 percentage point difference will be persistent between the two.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by OneLisfun » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:35 pm

Tiago Splitter wrote:
OneLisfun wrote: Lots of people who got into Cornell and UMich 3 or 4 years ago and wanted NY big law (we are looking at the class of 2014) would choose UMich simply because it is higher up in US news rankings, is perceived by many to be a "better" school, and their median LSAT is over 170, unlike the (to the prestige-obsessed typical law school applicant) lowly Cornell and GULC which have median LSAT scores that fall below 170. If your typical law student/applicant was your typical TLS user, I might agree with you, but this is not the case.
GULC had a higher LSAT median than Michigan for a long time, which makes sense given that GULC was at 170 and Michigan hasn't been at 170 ever as far as I know.

Also, when the class of 2014 headed off Cornell had just come off of its absurd 81% biglaw+fed clerk rate seen by the class of 2010. But the very next year Cornell effectively tied Michigan. The difference this year has been striking, and it's been growing in recent years, but I wouldn't assume a 20 percentage point difference will be persistent between the two.

If that's true, my mistake. I maintain the point about perceived prestige and US news rankings though, especially as a person from NY who knows other people who applied to law school who wouldn't consider Cornell but saw UMich as a solid option.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Tiago Splitter » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:45 pm

I dunno. It sounds crazy that people would go to Michigan and end up unemployed rather than work in NYC, but the OCI process is a tricky one. There should be no question that plenty of people choose Michigan planning to work somewhere other than NYC, and this proportion is certainly higher among Michigan's students than Cornell's. This means people end up bidding too aggressively on difficult markets. And as I said earlier in the thread, students who strike out often don't realize how they screwed up until it's too late.

We emphasize this over and over on TLS because it's true: If you spend good money on law school intending to get biglaw, you need to be open to working in NYC. But we emphasize that over and over because people don't know it. This all too often includes 1L's who are about to start OCI. So it's not unreasonable to think that people really do just screw up with bad bidding a lot more from Michigan than from a place like Cornell. Maybe not 20 percentage points like class of 2014 (or 11 (2013) or 13 (2012)) but maybe the 3 that represented the difference for class of 2011. Hard to say but it's gotta matter. People aren't striking out because they choose unemployment over NYC biglaw, but instead because by the time they realize they should have bid NYC the music already stopped.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by skers » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:50 pm

I know a fair number of kids at Mich and it's really surprising the number that strike out for a wide variety of reasons. The bid NY advice doesn't seem to have quite filtered through, but that doesn't wholly explain what's going on there.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by OneLisfun » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:51 pm

Tiago Splitter wrote:I dunno. It sounds crazy that people would go to Michigan and end up unemployed rather than work in NYC, but the OCI process is a tricky one. There should be no question that plenty of people choose Michigan planning to work somewhere other than NYC, and this proportion is certainly higher among Michigan's students than Cornell's. This means people end up bidding too aggressively on difficult markets. And as I said earlier in the thread, students who strike out often don't realize how they screwed up until it's too late.

We emphasize this over and over on TLS because it's true: If you spend good money on law school intending to get biglaw, you need to be open to working in NYC. But we emphasize that over and over because people don't know it. This all too often includes 1L's who are about to start OCI. So it's not unreasonable to think that people really do just screw up with bad bidding a lot more from Michigan than from a place like Cornell. Maybe not 20 percentage points like class of 2014 (or 11 (2013) or 13 (2012)) but maybe the 3 that represented the difference for class of 2011. Hard to say but it's gotta matter. People aren't striking out because they choose unemployment over NYC biglaw, but instead because by the time they realize they should have bid NYC the music already stopped.

Yes, hence my belief that in the most recent year, the 5-6% difference between GULC and UMich is probably due to similar self-selection, only with GULC's issue being the students targeting the number 1 most competitive market. I agree that Cornell students are doing this, and that's why I think the 20% is not representative of the reality between it and Cornell, and the 25% is also not representative of the reality between it and GULC. However, I believe it is largely the result of Cornell being in NY (which gives them NY bias in addition to to a larger proportion of NY law firms at OCI), having a small class size, and their grade inflation. Self-selection, of course, accounts for some portion of it as well.
Last edited by OneLisfun on Sat Apr 18, 2015 5:04 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by Tiago Splitter » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:52 pm

skers wrote:I know a fair number of kids at Mich and it's really surprising the number that strike out for a wide variety of reasons. The bid NY advice doesn't seem to have quite filtered through, but that doesn't wholly explain what's going on there.
Do you think it really is much worse placement power or are there other things unique to Michigan bringing it down?

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by skers » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:55 pm

Tiago Splitter wrote:
skers wrote:I know a fair number of kids at Mich and it's really surprising the number that strike out for a wide variety of reasons. The bid NY advice doesn't seem to have quite filtered through, but that doesn't wholly explain what's going on there.
Do you think it really is much worse placement power or are there other things unique to Michigan bringing it down?

Fuck if I know. I think Michigan probably hasn't adjusted well to its diminished Chicago placement since the crash.

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Re: Latest employment data

Post by BigZuck » Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:56 pm

Tiago Splitter wrote:
skers wrote:I know a fair number of kids at Mich and it's really surprising the number that strike out for a wide variety of reasons. The bid NY advice doesn't seem to have quite filtered through, but that doesn't wholly explain what's going on there.
Do you think it really is much worse placement power or are there other things unique to Michigan bringing it down?
Word on the street is weirdos and kids these days love their cities just too damn much to live in a place like Ann Arbor. So, like, good candidates don't go to Michigan? (I think, I didn't really understand that argument so maybe I'm mischaracterizing it. I'll try to dig it up)

Eta:
jrthor10 wrote:A lot of guessing and misinformation in this thread, so I'll try to clear up a few things:

1. Michigan Drop: Yes Michigan dropped, but it was really only a spot from last year as Duke just moved up and we didn't follow suit. This isn't meant to imply the drop didn't happen, it did, but it's not as serious as some people have let on. Michigan has been towards the bottom of the top 10 for the last few years now, so a 1 spot drop is/should not be alarming.

2. Explanations For Drop: Lots of factors here, most of which have already been mentioned. We don't have a home market, so when the market contracted, we got screwed. That's true. I also think for a few years Michigan continued to admit an incoming class that did not have as much work experience, on the whole, as classes at peer schools. This hurt us as well at OCI. Finally, and this is certainly the hardest to explain, I think demographic and changes in living preferences has also played a huge role. Young people today want to be in cities, even much more so than 10-15 years ago. To many students from the coasts, Michigan seems like a foreign land (trust me, this continues even amongst such students from the coasts now attending). I think it is harder today to get good students to come to the middle of Michigan than it was 15 years ago. Hopefully some people will want to come see Harbaugh.

3. Adjustments Already Made: Our 2L class is smaller by about 50 people than previous classes. I think this will make a huge difference when OCI #s come out. All anecdotal information from students and OCP indicates that OCI went very well for our class this past fall. OCP also moved up OCI to the first week of August, I think this will also benefit students. Additionally, Michigan adjusted its grade curve last year, so we are now in line with our peer schools, whereas before we were unnecessarily below. Finally, Michigan decided to play along with the rankings game started by other schools; we have started "employing" graduates without jobs post-graduation. These numbers, though, won't show up in our employment data used by U.S. News for at least 1-2 more years, according to the Dean. Oh, we also hired a new football coach, so I am confident that will do wonders for us as well.

Michigan leadership is pretty honest that we are never going to get back to our place in the T-6, i.e. when the rankings first came out. Two of the biggest metrics now used are spending per student and endowment. Michigan, as a public school, is never going to catch HSY, Columbia, NYU, Chicago, or even Penn. That we know. But I wouldn't be surprised if we are are back in the lower part of the T-14 in the next few years.
I guess that was about the rankings drop so maybe it's not responsive to job stuff
Last edited by BigZuck on Sat Apr 18, 2015 4:59 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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