1)Great avatar.howell wrote:As a 3L at GSU, this is a terribly rosy picture of the situation here. The good news is that things ARE getting better for the newer classes due to the economy, but we have people in the top 10 (people, not percent) without jobs as 3Ls. Many in the top 10-20% could not line up summer employment last year. Maybe people are getting paid summer 1L internships w/out diversity programs, but that would be a huge change from what my class experienced as 1Ls, or even as 2Ls. Again, the class behind us (current 2Ls) is having a LOT more success than we did, so hopefully that continues to improve for the classes that come after them.panicunited wrote:Personally, I can't imagine the "thrill" of graduating from Emory after spending close to 300k and having less than a 60% chance of employment. I would imagine that that number wil increase this year (as will employment across GA schools, and others for that matter) because OCI's are much stronger than pervious years.kneedrag wrote:It will be interesting when someone with more free time (and inside knowledge than me) figures out why they each moved up. Was it the new methods for assessing post graduation statistics? better #s? etc.
On a related note - Emory's post graduation employment numbers look bad among those three, something that really does reflect what I have been hearing speaking to 2L/3Ls and current grads. I suppose one tries to weigh that with salary #s, but I just find those (and I suppose, also the employment numbers) so ridiculously misleading.
In my experience, the 7 interviews I had through OCI, each employer was looking for 10-25 interns for the summer. These were pulled from a class of 200 at GA state. Basically, half the class is already employed. I assume this is par across the board in GA (except for JM and Mercer), and I hope so, as having a state with 3 excellent programs is a huge plus for the overall status of the legal market in Georgia. This keeps firms, like mine (King and Spalding), hiring GA students for GA jobs.
I am happy all 3 schools had a good showing, and especially happy that GA state has the lowest student to faculty ratio, lowest acceptance rate, and lowest cost of the three. This means that you get a good education, have good classmates, and you can leave law school with all appendages in tact (financially).
I truly believe that going to school in GA is a good idea, and I am especially preferential to GA State (obviously), who continues to march up through the rankings. Lets hope that trend continues. All of us here are certainly working our asses off to give the next class a great legal name, which will get you a great legal job. It's working for me, and I am glad I came here over UGA, Emory, W&L etc.
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3.6 Overall
3.92 Major (Finance)
167 LSAT
Cheers!
GSU is one of the cheapest law schools in the country, but combined tuition & fees has gone up nearly 40% since I started in 2008. There is no sign that increase will stop. Certainly, that is just keeping pace with other schools' increases, but the value proposition of law school in general is becoming much, much different. I would think long and hard about whether you're willing to hustle and accept a job that is not financially "worth it" based on a cost-benefit analysis just so you can be a lawyer. For some people, that is certainly the case. For others, not so much.
There are a lot of great things about GSU that I'm certainly willing to discuss, but the economy hit the last few classes really hard. As I said, it seems to be getting a lot better, so I wouldn't be as concerned applying now, but I think there are very few schools where getting a great job will be easy going forward. Hopefully I'm wrong.
2)Thanks for providing us with a real picture of the job market, instead of the fluffed up version every law school I have visited has provided.