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I'm curious: Why do some law schools accept so many transfer students? Columbia had 78 transfer in last year. NYU had 58. I can't see how this really benefits the schools. What am I missing?

I know that the students who transfer in are smart and capable and did very well in their first years at other schools. But students who transfer in do their most important year of law school somewhere else.

Oh, also: Good luck to everyone trying to transfer this year!

puppylaw wrote: What am I missing?

$$$, no accountability/lack of need to report stats

Millions of dollars in revenue.

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

Yeah I would say the benefits of accepting a large number of transfers are fairly obvious from the school's perspective.

Money only kind of makes sense. If you wanted more tuition dollars why not just accept a larger incoming class? And isn't the amount spent on a first student, who sits in classes with one professor and 80 students, way less than the amount you spend on upper level students who are in more seminars and small classes?

.

puppylaw wrote:Money only kind of makes sense. If you wanted more tuition dollars why not just accept a larger incoming class?

Because then a school would be accepting students with lower LSATs/GPAs, which they report to USNWR and thus lowers their medians. By accepting transfer students, they receive tuition dollars without the downside of having to report anything to USNWR.

EDIT: See what Jessuf said above.

puppylaw wrote:Money only kind of makes sense. If you wanted more tuition dollars why not just accept a larger incoming class? And isn't the amount spent on a first student, who sits in classes with one professor and 80 students, way less than the amount you spend on upper level students who are in more seminars and small classes?

Big transfer classes allow for them to give out more scholarship money up front to students who are admitted regularly. This boosts LSAT and GPA stats by attracting those willing to sacrifice a little prestige for less debt. Then, they make up the difference by charging a bunch of transfer students full cost.

It's a sneaky way of boosting your stats without actually boosting your stats.

My guess is eventually they will factor in transfer stats into the rankings. It's just like how places like GW used to have massive part time programs and accepted sub-par people for $$$ and then they added that to rankings and they plummetted (though eventually made up by trimming that program).

Give it a few years and the rankings will probably adjust for schools that water down their programs with transfers for money.

Columbia only had 42 transfers this year.

1) Because transfers are smarter than natives. We walk in 2L year to our new schools, and contrary to what is sometimes said on this board, we do just as well at our new schools
2) We kill it at OCI, thus boosting employment figures.
3) $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

*I should have probably put $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ first.

1. It brings in more $$ to the school (since the school gets a bunch of new students without a need to drop a penny of scholarship $$ on them)

2. Allows them to get great students who may not have the LSAT/undergrad GPA figures that the school wants to report. The school wants the best students possible, but the reporting system and rankings makes it impossible for a school to assemble the best possible class during the initial admissions cycle

3. It allows the school to rope in 50 kids who are certainly qualified to be there, and who will do incredibly well at OCI (transfers tend to be among the most successful subsets of students come OCI). So while this might displace some slightly below median kids, the school only cares about job figures, which go up by virtue of bringing in all this surefire placement

So that non-transfers can feel superior.

johansantana21 wrote:So that non-transfers can feel superior.

not sure why, since transfer students usually do well at their new schools

ilovesf wrote:

johansantana21 wrote:So that non-transfers can feel superior.

not sure why, since transfer students usually do well at their new schools

They laugh at your failure to do well on a test as easy as the LSAT.

johansantana21 wrote:They laugh at your failure to do well on a test as easy as the LSAT.

If I transfer, I hope someone laughs at me for that.

JoeFish wrote:

johansantana21 wrote:They laugh at your failure to do well on a test as easy as the LSAT.

If I transfer, I hope someone laughs at me for that.

that would be funny, ha

JoeFish wrote:

johansantana21 wrote:They laugh at your failure to do well on a test as easy as the LSAT.

If I transfer, I hope someone laughs at me for that.

This

kaiser wrote:transfers tend to be among the most successful subsets of students come OCI

Does anyone have any hard data to back this up? I've seen the stuff on the yahoo group, but that can hardly be considered reliable data to support this claim.

As a potential I pray that this is true, but I have never seen more than anecdotal evidence to support it.

rockthered86 wrote:

kaiser wrote:transfers tend to be among the most successful subsets of students come OCI

Does anyone have any hard data to back this up? I've seen the stuff on the yahoo group, but that can hardly be considered reliable data to support this claim.

As a potential I pray that this is true, but I have never seen more than anecdotal evidence to support it.

1) The Yahoo group doesn't have anything about OCI
2) That statement is really only for the T14 schools. Below that, transfers don't usually do well at OCI. Also, I don't know if "most successful" is 100% accurate, but a fewer % of transfers end up unemployed then native students.

There is one database in the yahoo group titled "OCI Results for Transfers"

rockthered86 wrote:There is one database in the yahoo group titled "OCI Results for Transfers"

Really? I didn't even know it was there . And considering how much time I spent working on transfer things last year (and the fact that my stats are on the Yahoo group for general cycle stuff) that says something about how much it's used.

keg411 wrote:

rockthered86 wrote:There is one database in the yahoo group titled "OCI Results for Transfers"

Really? I didn't even know it was there . And considering how much time I spent working on transfer things last year (and the fact that my stats are on the Yahoo group for general cycle stuff) that says something about how much it's used.

Haha, yeah. There are not many recent entries in it.