Class sizes and medians (c/o 2015) Forum

[KevinP]

^
You make a good point. It's similar to Cooley justifying it's 8.5% tuition increase simply because its tuition would amount to $37,140 per year -- 33rd lowest among 117 private law schools.

[Englander742]

WUSTL is actually 203 students per orientation today.

[sunynp]

Keep in mind, transfers are judged by firms on their class rank in their old school almost as much as the fact that they have been accepted at their new school. So if T14s start to accept transfers who would have had no shot at a big firm job from their old school, its unlikely that they will be taking away jobs from students who started at T14s. If NYU starts taking transfers who were top 1/4 or 1/3 at their TT, those individuals will probably have a rough OCI at NYU. (I understand that NYU will not have to dig that deeply, but I exaggerate to make a point.)

Also, transfer applications will possibly be down since there will be less 1Ls at a lot of the schools people typically transfer from.

In general, we should be happy that enrollment is going down as seems to be, it will make our lives slightly easier over the coming years.

I think you are missing the big picture here. Applications and class sizes are down in large part because better information about how tight the job market is available. Schools now have to report the large number of students they had been placing in low paid fellowships largely ( but not in all cases) just to boost their employment stats.

There simply arent enough jobs. Have you looked closely at the numbers of solid SAs in your market. I've seen estimates of about 20-30 SAs in all of Denver - a location where there are 2 large law schools competing for jobs. According to campos, there were 2 public defenders total hired from CU law school last year.
Atlanta seems to be very small as well, and two top firms are deferring associates this year.
New York is recovering from the lowest market filled with deferrals and layoffs, but how many SAs do you think there are from all the schools that are interviewing for them? Even with reduced class sizes, there are more qualified applicants than there are jobs.

Don't forget the reason that these numbers are down. I expect as more accurate information continues to be released, enrollment will continue to drop.

i find it hard to believe that a few websites like LST are triggering "in large part" the decrease in apps/class sizes. probably more indicative of ITE in general

Not true. People flocked to law school to try to "ride out" the recession. And it isn't a few websites , there has been a lot of mainstream press on employment for lawyers.

[justonemoregame]

Hopefully those giving bad press to TTTs will keep the foot on the pedal.

For the c/o 2014, there were 31 law schools with a combination of median LSATs at 153 or lower and 1L enrollment of at least 175 students. Combined 1L enrollment (last year) for these schools: 9,874

These are the schools:

Akron
Albany
Barry
California Western
Capital University
Charleston
Charlotte
Duquesne
Florida A & M
Florida Coastal
Golden Gate
Hamline
John Marshall - ATL
John Marshall -CHI
Loyola -New Orleans
Mississippi College
New England School of Law
Nova Southeastern
Oklahoma City Univ.
Phoenix
Roger Williams Univ.
Southern
Texas Southern
Thomas Jefferson
Cooley
Touro College
Dayton
Detroit-Mercy
Western State
Whittier
Widener


You can check the figures at LST -- for schools with median LSATs of 154 (NYLS, Suffolk, St. Mary's, St. Louis, So. Texas, & Pace), there were an additional 2,242 matriculants.

So, over 12,000 students to these dumps - an average of over 325 1Ls per school while Chicago, Duke, Yale, etc are sending out 200 new lawyers per year.

[sunynp]

So if we assume an average cost of about $40,000 per year- that is $480,000,000 if $30,000 we get 360,000,000. For three years at 40,000 we are at 1,440,000,000.
I think a substantial amount of that is in student loans that may never be repaid.

[Nova]

^Nearly all of those schools are terrible. Nearly all should be shut down.

St. Mary's is not a dump. A low LSAT median does not mean the school does not have a market to serve.

78.3% of graduates were known to be employed in long-term, full-time legal jobs. This figure includes no school-funded jobs..
88% graduates were employed in long-term jobs.
88.4% graduates were employed in full-time jobs.

[Wakelaw15]

I don't know if it's true, but I heard today that Charlotte's class for this year is around 100 students larger (it was 479 last year). Their numbers for c/o 2014 were medians of 3.0 (gpa) and 149 (lsat), with an age range of 19-63 years old.

[vincanity1]

453 people at NYU

[lovelaw27]

I don't know if it's true, but I heard today that Charlotte's class for this year is around 100 students larger (it was 479 last year). Their numbers for c/o 2014 were medians of 3.0 (gpa) and 149 (lsat), with an age range of 19-63 years old.

LST has last year's incoming class at 529 with a median lsat of 148. Where are you getting your numbers from?

--LinkRemoved--

[Wakelaw15]

I don't know if it's true, but I heard today that Charlotte's class for this year is around 100 students larger (it was 479 last year). Their numbers for c/o 2014 were medians of 3.0 (gpa) and 149 (lsat), with an age range of 19-63 years old.

LST has last year's incoming class at 529 with a median lsat of 148. Where are you getting your numbers from?

--LinkRemoved--

The Charlotte law website: (http://www.charlottelaw.edu/uploadedFil ... 202011.pdf)

[lovelaw27]

I don't know if it's true, but I heard today that Charlotte's class for this year is around 100 students larger (it was 479 last year). Their numbers for c/o 2014 were medians of 3.0 (gpa) and 149 (lsat), with an age range of 19-63 years old.

LST has last year's incoming class at 529 with a median lsat of 148. Where are you getting your numbers from?

--LinkRemoved--

The Charlotte law website: (http://www.charlottelaw.edu/uploadedFil ... 202011.pdf)

I’ve been noticing schools have been publishing incoming class data that is different than what the ABA says it is. I wonder why. LSAC also say it is 529.

https://officialguide.lsac.org/RELEASE/ ... lData.aspx

[mushybrain]

Exact enrollment at Berkeley wasn't given, but Dean Tom mentioned in passing that it is ~280. 2014 was 254.

[2014]

ATL says Cooley will be down 14% whatever that is.

[romothesavior]

WUSTL is actually 203 students per orientation today.

This is fantastic news. If you are a member of the c/o 2015, you should consider yourself very lucky.

[justonemoregame]

ATL says Cooley will be down 14% whatever that is.

This may put them under 1,000 1Ls this year (awful!). But, they had 1,500 two years ago, so it's good news. I read they jacked tuition 8% to help make up for it.

[AllDangle]

WUSTL is actually 203 students per orientation today.

This is fantastic news. If you are a member of the c/o 2015, you should consider yourself very lucky.

Can you elaborate?

[romothesavior]

WUSTL is actually 203 students per orientation today.

This is fantastic news. If you are a member of the c/o 2015, you should consider yourself very lucky.

Can you elaborate?

In general, smaller class sizes make it easier to secure employment. Obviously, if you cut a class in half, a school's employment doesn't double (because the curve still punishes people), but the fewer students competing for jobs, the better.

[VUSisterRayVU]

Exact enrollment at Berkeley wasn't given, but Dean Tom mentioned in passing that it is ~280. 2014 was 254.

Very odd

[Robespierre]

WUSTL is actually 203 students per orientation today.

This is fantastic news. If you are a member of the c/o 2015, you should consider yourself very lucky.

Can you elaborate?

In general, smaller class sizes make it easier to secure employment. Obviously, if you cut a class in half, a school's employment doesn't double (because the curve still punishes people), but the fewer students competing for jobs, the better.

Agree. But again, as others have said, you still have to worry that next year the school will make up for the lost revenue by either (a) jacking up tuition (bad for your pocketbook) or (b) bringing in even more transfers than usual (bad for job prospects). Time will tell.

[justonemoregame]

Is transfer class size data published anywhere?

[hung jury]

Based on the (biased) sample of confirmed schools in the OP, the decline in total enrollment is 15.1%. 4339 v. 4993.

[Robespierre]

Is transfer class size data published anywhere?

The numbers are in the data each individual school gives to the ABA (and published in the LSAC Official Guide). But I don't know of any chart/comparison/one-stop source.

[crossingfingers]

Alabama mentioned in a fee waiver that the medians for the incoming class are 165 and 3.83.

[mcs268]

Exact enrollment at Berkeley wasn't given, but Dean Tom mentioned in passing that it is ~280. 2014 was 254.

Very odd

Their scholarship matching program maybe? Schollies were given like candy this past cycle, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that may be a factor.

[thelawyler]

Exact enrollment at Berkeley wasn't given, but Dean Tom mentioned in passing that it is ~280. 2014 was 254.

Very odd

Their scholarship matching program maybe? Schollies were given like candy this past cycle, it wouldn't be unreasonable to think that may be a factor.

Well, 280 used to be their old standard enrollment, I believe. So they are just going back to that. Plus they had a ranking bump... which might have helped? haha