Should Fordham Law be Sued for Fraud? Forum

[JJim1919]

Here are the numbers from the site:

General Employment Statistics (99.15% of the Class of 2008 reported employment information)
At Graduation Employment Rate: 85.34%
9 Month Out Employment Rate: 95.05%

Salary Information:

Average Salary: $131,477
Median Salary: $160,000
With 87.13% of graduates reporting salary information...

Going off of these, you would only need at most 44ish percent of all students to get placed at firms paying $160k (or higher). Considering this is a well-ranked school that doesn't push out clerkships like its higher-ranked competitors in the area, it's not outlandish that Fordham could be supplying large amounts of associates for law firms in NY. Even non-biglaw was paying $160k in 2008. Fordham may also be able to skew the stats a little higher relative to other NY schools since they have the highest ranking PT program in the area. A bunch of working professionals who could have gone to better schools if they had chosen the FT route along with enough IP grads, and these numbers aren't impossible. Misleading, of course, but not impossible.

TITCR. They said only 87% reported. In the huge boom years fordham placed about 44% of its grads in biglaw and other top firms. Hence, they were making 160k and that was the median salary for those who reported. The OP's should read statistics MORE CLOSELY.

[Quine]

False.

The mean is 6.4 with a standard deviation of 5. There are no extremes in your data set. An extreme should be at least 2 standard deviations from the mean.

THE MEDIAN !!!

OP is using MEDIAN NOT MEAN -- BIG DIFFERENCE!!!

"The median salary for the class of 2007 was $160,000."

A difference you are apparently unable to see.

Yes, the median is the middle number and the mean is the average.

Extremes can have a greater impact on the median than mean which is why I bet they are reporting the median

No, I think you don't see it !!!

Outliers skew means, not medians.

1 1 5 5 5 5 6 6 6 6 6 6 7 7 7 7 8 8 8 8 8 200 250

Mean: 25
Median: 6

I hope this helps.

Also notable, because not only are your definitions wrong, but so are your conclusions, is that the median is used because the median is less affected by extremes. In this case, extremes would be people making $0, not people making $500,000. They are reporting a median at the market starting salary, it's the people making below that that they are attempting to conceal, not those (if there are any) making more.

[zanda]

Here are the numbers from the site:

General Employment Statistics (99.15% of the Class of 2008 reported employment information)
At Graduation Employment Rate: 85.34%
9 Month Out Employment Rate: 95.05%

Salary Information:

Average Salary: $131,477
Median Salary: $160,000
With 87.13% of graduates reporting salary information...

Going off of these, you would only need at most 44ish percent of all students to get placed at firms paying $160k (or higher). Considering this is a well-ranked school that doesn't push out clerkships like its higher-ranked competitors in the area, it's not outlandish that Fordham could be supplying large amounts of associates for law firms in NY. Even non-biglaw was paying $160k in 2008. Fordham may also be able to skew the stats a little higher relative to other NY schools since they have the highest ranking PT program in the area. A bunch of working professionals who could have gone to better schools if they had chosen the FT route along with enough IP grads, and these numbers aren't impossible. Misleading, of course, but not impossible.

TITCR. They said only 87% reported. In the huge boom years fordham placed about 44% of its grads in biglaw and other top firms. Hence, they were making 160k and that was the median salary for those who reported. The OP's should read statistics MORE CLOSELY.

this makes sense.

[MrOrange]

Whoops...my fail.

[yagrish]

I'm not a math person or anything, by Cranium suggested that high extremes could throw the median off and then went on to give an example without any extremes in it. Lxw pointed it out.

In any case, from what I remember, the mean is sensitive to extremes, not the median: 1,1,1,1,1000

[98234872348]

Law school essay argument:

Since the content of this argument has been subject to so much confusion and misinterpretation, it is clear that statistics can be manipulated in favor of a school's preferences... Aspiring law school applicants should not recover damages since said statistics are subject to manipulation, however, it would be advisable to force said law schools to display, in a conspicuous fashion, a disclaimer that purports the unreliability of statistics... (i.e. "said statistics are self reported and do not guarantee that X applicant is assured to make this much money upon graduation)

[JJim1919]

I'm not a math person or anything, by Cranium suggested that high extremes could throw the median off and then went on to give an example without any extremes in it. Lxw pointed it out.

In any case, from what I remember, the mean is sensitive to extremes, not the median: 1,1,1,1,1000

Of course.

If we have these two data sets...

set #1...1,2,3,4,5,55
set #2...1,2,3,4,5,6

Obviously, set #1 has an outlier (or extreme), which is 55 because it is so far away from the other numbers.

The median of both sets is 3.5. So extremes do not affect it.
But the mean of set#1 is 11 2/3, while set#2 mean is 3.5,

Clearly, the mean is much more sensitive to outliers or extremes.

[1474292940502124]

People... this shit is 6th grade math... Why are we having a page of posts about it????

[lawlover829]

Here are the numbers from the site:

General Employment Statistics (99.15% of the Class of 2008 reported employment information)
At Graduation Employment Rate: 85.34%
9 Month Out Employment Rate: 95.05%

Salary Information:

Average Salary: $131,477
Median Salary: $160,000
With 87.13% of graduates reporting salary information...

Going off of these, you would only need at most 44ish percent of all students to get placed at firms paying $160k (or higher). Considering this is a well-ranked school that doesn't push out clerkships like its higher-ranked competitors in the area, it's not outlandish that Fordham could be supplying large amounts of associates for law firms in NY. Even non-biglaw was paying $160k in 2008. Fordham may also be able to skew the stats a little higher relative to other NY schools since they have the highest ranking PT program in the area. A bunch of working professionals who could have gone to better schools if they had chosen the FT route along with enough IP grads, and these numbers aren't impossible. Misleading, of course, but not impossible.

TITCR. They said only 87% reported. In the huge boom years fordham placed about 44% of its grads in biglaw and other top firms. Hence, they were making 160k and that was the median salary for those who reported. The OP's should read statistics MORE CLOSELY.

Hahaha maybe OP just hates Fordham?

[iminlstrick]

In line with OP's question -- should Rutgers be sued as well for claiming in the letter they sent me today that they are second only to Yale in getting their students federal and state clerkships?

I mean srsly? Are they? I found that hard to believe, but maybe I'm misguided?

[Quine]

I'm not a math person or anything, by Cranium suggested that high extremes could throw the median off and then went on to give an example without any extremes in it. Lxw pointed it out.

In any case, from what I remember, the mean is sensitive to extremes, not the median: 1,1,1,1,1000

Of course.

If we have these two data sets...

set #1...1,2,3,4,5,55
set #2...1,2,3,4,5,6

Obviously, set #1 has an outlier (or extreme), which is 55 because it is so far away from the other numbers.

The median of both sets is 3.5. So extremes do not affect it.
But the mean of set#1 is 11 2/3, while set#2 mean is 3.5,

Clearly, the mean is much more sensitive to outliers or extremes.

So, just to rub it in, I think we can all agree that Cranium was really wrong.

[yagrish]

In line with OP's question -- should Rutgers be sued as well for claiming in the letter they sent me today that they are second only to Yale in getting their students federal and state clerkships?

I mean srsly? Are they? I found that hard to believe, but maybe I'm misguided?

wtf? I just checked it out and it's 28 (!) %: http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchRes ... BA2512.pdf
how did that happen?

[Cranium]

Hey, I was just pointing out that he was talking about MEDIAN not MEAN

[Quine]

In line with OP's question -- should Rutgers be sued as well for claiming in the letter they sent me today that they are second only to Yale in getting their students federal and state clerkships?

I mean srsly? Are they? I found that hard to believe, but maybe I'm misguided?

wtf? I just checked it out and it's 28 (!) %: http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchRes ... BA2512.pdf
how did that happen?

I wouldn't be surprised if they are just more aggressively pursuing less prestigious state clerkships.

[Action Jackson]

Did anyone check the mean and medians Fordham reported? The mean is lower than the median, which means they're telling you that some people made shit to drag the mean down by ~$20k. Also, "Private Practice" is the only category where such a dramatic shift down of the mean is observed.

It's still fascinating, even if it's not untrue.

[lawlover829]

lets all take a stats class.

Also, why is everyone actually calcuating? Just wikipidia average, mean, and median.

That is the bueaty of cut and past peeps.

[Quine]

Hey, I was just pointing out that he was talking about MEDIAN not MEAN

Yet the significance of such a claim was lost only on you.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Hey, I was just pointing out that he was talking about MEDIAN not MEAN

I don't think there was ever any confusion, except for maybe you

I hope this explains it: outliers and extremes pretty much mean the same thing, and medians are resistant to outlier effects because the presence of outliers do not usually impact the determination of the median. Means are affected by outliers because the value of an outlier is used to calculate the mean. The same is not true for the median. The only way for outliers to substantially affect a median value is if there are a lot them, and if there are a lot of outliers they cease to being outliers.

[rondemarino]

^^ This. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming - Fordham Fraud.

[lawlover829]

^^ This. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming - Fordham Fraud.

Hahahahaha

[Snooker]

The NALP data combined with NLJ's data should lead us to believe that the median salary is $60,000, not $160,000. NALP is saying there's 2 salary poles, the 60k one and the 160k one, the 160k offers coming from NLJ250 firms. The NLJ survey's say that around 30% of Fordham graduates, in most years, place into NLJ250 firms; Fordham's own statistics say instead that about 80% of their private sector graduates place into NLJ250 firms. So, when Fordham reported to the NYT that their 25-75 stats were 155k/160k for salaries, it was because they claimed virtually everyone in the private sector worked in the biggest law firms. In short, they pretended their employment stats were as good as Columbia's for the private sector.

Since you're speaking of fraud, how would it be reasonable to rely on a claim of the "median salary is $160,000?"

This is an interesting argument. I think it would be reasonable for two reasons:

1. There are 17 law schools which could accurately make this claim about past employment, and Fordham is generally perceived as being very close in quality to those schools.
2. As a major university, Fordham enjoys a level of credibility surpassing that of any private organization, or even the government. In Academic culture, material published in a University's periodicals are supposed to have "authority" - being under the aegis of the University implies the information has been subjected to rigorous scrutiny. If their publications about Civil War statistics are to be trusted, then a reasonable person would conclude that the university is publishing accurate information about its own graduates, a relatively simple project. Academic rigor, not outright deception, is expected of major universities.

More importantly: why do I feel this is a major issue?

Fraudulent reporting of law school graduates' salaries raises the perceived value of the JD as an investment, and therefore increases students' willingness to pay higher rates. Even if we're personally aware that the reporting is not accurate, we can't escape tuition inflation.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

The NALP data combined with NLJ's data should lead us to believe that the median salary is $60,000, not $160,000. NALP is saying there's 2 salary poles, the 60k one and the 160k one, the 160k offers coming from NLJ250 firms. The NLJ survey's say that around 30% of Fordham graduates, in most years, place into NLJ250 firms; Fordham's own statistics say instead that about 80% of their private sector graduates place into NLJ250 firms. So, when Fordham reported to the NYT that their 25-75 stats were 155k/160k for salaries, it was because they claimed virtually everyone in the private sector worked in the biggest law firms. In short, they pretended their employment stats were as good as Columbia's for the private sector.

While I do agree with you that there seems to be something fishy with Fordham's employment data, there are plenty of non-NLJ firms that pay market.

[Snooker]

^^ This. We now return to our regularly scheduled programming - Fordham Fraud.

Good bumpage for what will probably be my craziest thread ever. Nobody would ever think of accusing a major research university of fraud. Universities are supposed to be the good guys, but then the school is running around reporting to USNews and the NYT that their 25th percentile salary is six figures, and their median is 160k! Average salaries almost as high!

I mean, a major expose or some sort of attention should be cast on the fraudulent reporting issue. You don't run into people telling you how fake these statistics are until you start looking through what people on forums are saying. This should really be something every law applicant has in mind when going into school. The University is pulling the wool over your eyes and raiding your pockets for money so deeply that you have to get loans from four different sources to cover the difference.

[Leeroy Jenkins]

.

[Snooker]

The NALP data combined with NLJ's data should lead us to believe that the median salary is $60,000, not $160,000. NALP is saying there's 2 salary poles, the 60k one and the 160k one, the 160k offers coming from NLJ250 firms. The NLJ survey's say that around 30% of Fordham graduates, in most years, place into NLJ250 firms; Fordham's own statistics say instead that about 80% of their private sector graduates place into NLJ250 firms. So, when Fordham reported to the NYT that their 25-75 stats were 155k/160k for salaries, it was because they claimed virtually everyone in the private sector worked in the biggest law firms. In short, they pretended their employment stats were as good as Columbia's for the private sector.

While I do agree with you that there seems to be something fishy with Fordham's employment data, there are plenty of non-NLJ firms that pay market.

Another interesting point, this is especially true in the south, but I haven't been able to find as much about these mini-market paying firms in NYC. The NLJ actually extends into midlaw, as well. The smallest firm I found reported on an NLJ250 list was 160 attorneys. If you look on the Fordham site, the employment statistics are manipulated to say well over 70% of their graduates work at 250+ attorney firms, i.e. NLJ250 firms paying high salaries, and this is the source of the salary data. That is false, according to the NLJ data on Fordham.

It's not only Fordham which falsifies data. I am sure every T1 and T2 school is up to the same tricks.