I understand where you're coming from but I don't understand why anyone would think their success in law school will be a matter of simple chance (thus the russian roulette and coin flipping metaphors). You aren't abandoning your future to the fates by going to a school that doesn't place 100% of its graduates in big law; you're putting yourself in a position where you have to work hard and be success to succeed (which is pretty much every situation you'll face in life). I find it particularly odd that this perspective is so dominant on TLS, where most people are ambitious and are, or have been, successful in their undergraduate programs.LetsGoRangers wrote: It's still a huge gamble if one is paying full tuition. There LST score is nothing to write home about and gives one a coin flips chance at FT legal employment. But it may be a better gamble for those with high debt loads because of its biglaw placement. It is still a game of russian roulette with Fordham.
I'm an older student and know a lot of people around my age working in law. They've gone to schools like Columbia, NYU, Irvine, Cardozo, Fordham, GW, CUNY, Brooklyn, Northeastern, Rutgers Newark, Seton Hall, etc. Every single one of them has a good job right now (except the Columbia grad, interestingly enough). They all did relatively well in their respective programs and none of them have struggled to find work (not even the ones who graduated in 2009-2011). I know this evidence in anecdotal, but I'm just trying to say that while it's obviously important to look at the statistics and to try to weigh cost/potential in the most thorough way possible, after doing so, as long as you apply yourself you greatly increase your chances of doing well. One has to have a bit of faith in one's ability to be successful at law school. Otherwise what's the point?
