Yale v. Ruby Forum

[Borg]

JD/MBA grad from one of the top schools working in investment banking (and with some debt) checking in. Don't listen to these idiot 0Ls.

Here's the deal. Every 0L is going to tell you that people are going to think you're a genius for life if you go to Yale and that you'll have all these amazing connections forever and that it's Yale and that when they call, you go etc. They are right that Yale is good. They are wrong that it's going to matter forever, or that people are automatically going to think you're a genius for having gone there. You'd be amazed at how quickly the fine distinctions that proliferate on TLS fade after graduation. Outside of clerkships, people aren't going to react differently whether you go to Yale or UChicago. Drill this into your head.

Yale is only really worth going to from your position if you are going to take advantage of the things that Yale is good at, namely churning out clerks and professors and public interest people. You want Yale if you want the debt forgiveness because you want to get a job with some sort of think tank or policy institute or university or other thing where you spend your life writing papers. That's great, but it doesn't sound like your cup of tea. You sound like me. You sound like a guy whose dreams are largely aligned with capitalism, and any of the T-6 facilitate those sorts of goals equally well. Columbia has more members of the Forbes 400 than any other law school. Harvard is obviously a corporate machine. UChicago is right in there with them. The fact is, you don't need Yale to work at Proskauer or whatever else you want to do. The others do that just fine.

U of C is FREE and it's going to facilitate any goal you may have. That means when you graduate, you'll be making $160k at a firm and NOT paying $1,000+ every month for the next 20 years of your life. You can move to New York City, stick with biglaw and actually be able to save money for the future. I know this sounds ridiculous, but my friends who work in biglaw in NYC who have full debt loads do not manage to save much at all. After taxes they walk off with checks hovering around 7k/month, with 2k going to rent, another 2k to loans, and then 2k in various expenses. Yale isn't going to change that math. This all means that if you go to UChicago you can switch to a lower paying job, like an assistant on a sports desk at United Talent or CAA (which is what you have to do to get in the door btw, law degree notwithstanding), and not worry that you're going to default. Another plus is that you'll be going to law school in a city and can work during school, which I highly recommend during 2L and 3L. Law classes are fine, but the best education I got was from working in investment management during school instead of just reading fucking books.

The University of Chicago is offering you something that Yale cannot. That thing is freedom. Do not squander the gift.

[rickgrimes69]

-Your general career goals
Two true paths:
1. Clerk, work in biglaw a few years for experience, enter academia (either for PhD then professor at a business school, or straight to professor at business school - teaching business undergrads biz law courses
2. Work for a firm on sports league clients or become an agent, after a few years go back for MBA, move into front office of a sports team
(I'll let my experiences in law school help guide this choice based on what I like)

This section has caused some confusion, so let me be clear: In academia I would want to be a professor at a BUSINESS school, not a law school. Does anyone have experience with this hiring? Some of the professors I speak to say I'll have to get a PhD which I can do from either school so Yale's not much of a boost. Others say I may not need the PhD so there is a boost.

Serious question: why are you going to law school? It doesn't sound like you really want to be a lawyer. Your ultimate goals are all non-law related.

Take the Ruby.

[moopness]

Don't listen to these idiot 0Ls.

Here's the deal. Every 0L is going to tell you that people are going to think you're a genius for life if you go to Yale and that you'll have all these amazing connections forever and that it's Yale and that when they call, you go etc.

How about we don't make general statements like this when they are clearly wrong? Not all 0Ls are short sighted.

[Borg]

Don't listen to these idiot 0Ls.

Here's the deal. Every 0L is going to tell you that people are going to think you're a genius for life if you go to Yale and that you'll have all these amazing connections forever and that it's Yale and that when they call, you go etc.

How about we don't make general statements like this when they are clearly wrong? Not all 0Ls are short sighted.

Let me thank you on behalf of OP for your informative and useful post.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I don't have a lot of personal experience with business academia, but from what I do know, my sense is that yes, for teaching in a business school, you will want a PhD in business, and when you're following that path, while I'm sure a Yale JD is still a great qualification, it's not going to make a significant difference whether you went to Yale or Chicago - both are excellent schools, and your admission to a business PhD program will depend almost entirely on what kind of research agenda and prowess you can demonstrate. An applicant with a JD from Chicago who has a clearly defined research agenda and has made progress in conducting research and publishing the results will be miles ahead of an applicant from Yale who went to Yale and clerked and has worked but has no research agenda or publications. And while Yale is obviously the clerkship powerhouse, someone who excels at Chicago will be able to get any/all clerkships that Yalies can get.

(In that vein, I hope you realize that going into any kind of academia is all about the research that you can do, not about teaching undergrads.)

I also agree with rickgrimes that it doesn't actually sound like you want to be a lawyer (which to me weighs even more in favor of the Ruby, since why go into debt for something that's really just an add-on to what you want to do, not required). You could just get a PhD in business and focus on business law in that program.

[kaiser]

Like I said, OP, when there seems to be an overarching consensus among actual grads, I'd put quite a bit of stock into that. And it seems like there clearly is here.

[jbagelboy]

What percentage of Yale admits do you guys think get either Hamilton or Ruby or even Levy? Seems like by TLS logic, Yale shouldn't even exist.

When you get to these law schools...Harvard, Yale, Columbia, probably Chicago too, ect...you realize there are just as many (or maybe even more) ridiculously rich/spoiled kids than you thought you knew in college, who will never face crippling debt (or the true specter of that debt without support to fall back on). And I went to the kind of fancy private college with a fair number of the exeter/carrera set. TLS seems to attract a higher than average proportion of "the help", so to speak, which encourages part of the debt reduction rhetoric. This isn't shared in all quarters. And so for these people clearly Yale makes sense - taking the scholarship is so petit bourgeois, after all.

Sometimes when I make a quality joke about my Stafford loans, it lands.. In other crowds people just stare blankfaced or awkward smiles ("wait whats a loan?").

[Cellar-door]

I'd take the Ruby.
Especially since you don't appear to want to be a lawyer.
$200k less debt will let you be a lot more flexible.

[jbagelboy]

JD/MBA grad from one of the top schools working in investment banking (and with some debt) checking in. Don't listen to these idiot 0Ls.

Here's the deal. Every 0L is going to tell you that people are going to think you're a genius for life if you go to Yale and that you'll have all these amazing connections forever and that it's Yale and that when they call, you go etc. They are right that Yale is good. They are wrong that it's going to matter forever, or that people are automatically going to think you're a genius for having gone there. You'd be amazed at how quickly the fine distinctions that proliferate on TLS fade after graduation. Outside of clerkships, people aren't going to react differently whether you go to Yale or UChicago. Drill this into your head.

Yale is only really worth going to from your position if you are going to take advantage of the things that Yale is good at, namely churning out clerks and professors and public interest people. You want Yale if you want the debt forgiveness because you want to get a job with some sort of think tank or policy institute or university or other thing where you spend your life writing papers. That's great, but it doesn't sound like your cup of tea. You sound like me. You sound like a guy whose dreams are largely aligned with capitalism, and any of the T-6 facilitate those sorts of goals equally well. Columbia has more members of the Forbes 400 than any other law school. Harvard is obviously a corporate machine. UChicago is right in there with them. The fact is, you don't need Yale to work at Proskauer or whatever else you want to do. The others do that just fine.

U of C is FREE and it's going to facilitate any goal you may have. That means when you graduate, you'll be making $160k at a firm and NOT paying $1,000+ every month for the next 20 years of your life. You can move to New York City, stick with biglaw and actually be able to save money for the future. I know this sounds ridiculous, but my friends who work in biglaw in NYC who have full debt loads do not manage to save much at all. After taxes they walk off with checks hovering around 7k/month, with 2k going to rent, another 2k to loans, and then 2k in various expenses. Yale isn't going to change that math. This all means that if you go to UChicago you can switch to a lower paying job, like an assistant on a sports desk at United Talent or CAA (which is what you have to do to get in the door btw, law degree notwithstanding), and not worry that you're going to default. Another plus is that you'll be going to law school in a city and can work during school, which I highly recommend during 2L and 3L. Law classes are fine, but the best education I got was from working in investment management during school instead of just reading fucking books.

The University of Chicago is offering you something that Yale cannot. That thing is freedom. Do not squander the gift.

This is solid advice.

[worldtraveler]

Go to Chicago.

In 3 years you will thank yourself.

[kaiser]

What percentage of Yale admits do you guys think get either Hamilton or Ruby or even Levy? Seems like by TLS logic, Yale shouldn't even exist.

When you get to these law schools...Harvard, Yale, Columbia, probably Chicago too, ect...you realize there are just as many (or maybe even more) ridiculously rich/spoiled kids than you thought you knew in college, who will never face crippling debt (or the true specter of that debt without support to fall back on). And I went to the kind of fancy private college with a fair number of the exeter/carrera set. TLS seems to attract a higher than average proportion of "the help", so to speak, which encourages part of the debt reduction rhetoric. This isn't shared in all quarters. And so for these people clearly Yale makes sense - taking the scholarship is so petit bourgeois, after all.

Sometimes when I make a quality joke about my Stafford loans, it lands.. In other crowds people just stare blankfaced or awkward smiles ("wait whats a loan?").

Yeah law school was a new world for me. Someone once asked me "where did you prep?" and I'm like "huh? prep for what?" And then realized afterward that he just assumed everyone else went to prep school like him (which I did not). I totally hear you on being surrounded by so many spoiled brats while I was there. They are the very ones who would have been so fast to say "take YLS, dude, since YOLO and all"

[Blessedassurance]

as a general point, the fact that yale produces a disproportionate amount of legal academics doesn't mean it's easy to get legal academia coming out of yale. people around here keep throwing around yale once they see the word "academia" in any post without recognizing the infinitesimal chance of scoring legal academia even out of yale.

the overall academia numbers includes gigs such as teaching at washburn, barry etc., and even then the numbers aren't that great.

this is a spreadsheet of entry-level hires (note the graduation year, other degree, hiring school etc.):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 3ZFE#gid=0

[kaiser]

as a general point, the fact that yale produces a disproportionate amount of legal academics doesn't mean it's easy to get legal academia coming out of yale. people around here keep throwing around yale once they see the word "academia" in any post without recognizing the infinitesimal chance of scoring legal academia even out of yale.

the overall academia numbers includes gigs such as teaching at washburn, barry etc., and even then the numbers aren't that great.

this is a spreadsheet of entry-level hires (note the graduation year, other degree, hiring school etc.):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 3ZFE#gid=0

I think this is an excellent point that people overlook. Sure, Yale gives you the best chance by far of entering academia. Yet that somehow gets mistranslated into "good chance at academia", and everything we learned as kids about objective vs. relative just goes out the window.

[worldtraveler]

as a general point, the fact that yale produces a disproportionate amount of legal academics doesn't mean it's easy to get legal academia coming out of yale. people around here keep throwing around yale once they see the word "academia" in any post without recognizing the infinitesimal chance of scoring legal academia even out of yale.

the overall academia numbers includes gigs such as teaching at washburn, barry etc., and even then the numbers aren't that great.

this is a spreadsheet of entry-level hires (note the graduation year, other degree, hiring school etc.):

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... 3ZFE#gid=0

Yale also attracts far more people who want academia or alternative careers. One of my friends at Yale said in her 1L section she was the only one who actually wanted to be a lawyer.

[Emma.]

Take the Ruby.

Yale has a smooth operation for placing kids in clerkships, but there is little doubt as a Rubenstein Scholar you'll find similar institutional support. You'd have a faculty mentor who'll doubtless make calls to judges for you, and while the things that got you the Ruby certainly won't guarantee you'll wind up at the top of the class, I'd bet there's a very strong correlation between Ruby recipients and high grades. The fact that you'll have professors willing to take you under their wing from the get-go could also help with the academia route. Sure you might not want to be in legal academia, but any publication is going to help you with your academic goals.

FYI, the new NBA commissioner is a UChi alum.

[Blessedassurance]

this provides a clearer picture of the latest entry-level hiring for legal academia:

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblaw ... ng-report/

as a side-note, the competition is only going to get fiercer and fiercer, as the lemmings wise up and quit borrowing 200k for the cooley's and whatnot. why anybody will be planning his career around legal academia is beyond me. it's like investing in blockbuster/borders bookstore/kodak etc., circa 2011...

[southwick]

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblaw ... ng-report/

It's definitely true, and under-said, that chances at academia—out of any school—are vanishingly slim. But your chances at academia from Yale appear to be (from that data), what—three orders of magnitude higher than at Chicago? Yeah, still poor chances, but when you can increase your chances several-fold by choosing the right school, it's hard to look away.

[cotiger]

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblaw ... ng-report/

It's definitely true, and under-said, that chances at academia—out of any school—are vanishingly slim. But your chances at academia from Yale appear to be (from that data), what—three orders of magnitude higher than at Chicago? Yeah, still poor chances, but when you can increase your chances several-fold by choosing the right school, it's hard to look away.

Fyi, three orders of magnitude means 1000x, not 3x.

I was actually surprised at how high the number was for Yale. 21 hires out of a class of around 200 (assuming it's been around that level for a while) means that around 10% of the class eventually goes into academia. That's around the same level as get clerkships right out of school at lower T14, and I'd bet significantly fewer people want academia than want a clerkship.

[aboutmydaylight]

this provides a clearer picture of the latest entry-level hiring for legal academia:

http://prawfsblawg.blogs.com/prawfsblaw ... ng-report/

as a side-note, the competition is only going to get fiercer and fiercer, as the lemmings wise up and quit borrowing 200k for the cooley's and whatnot. why anybody will be planning his career around legal academia is beyond me. it's like investing in blockbuster/borders bookstore/kodak etc., circa 2011...

Any reason why Stanford doesn't seem to do that well for academia? Do students self select out of it for whatever reason?

[Blessedassurance]

I was actually surprised at how high the number was for Yale. 21 hires out of a class of around 200 (assuming it's been around that level for a while) means that around 10% of the class eventually goes into academia. That's around the same level as get clerkships right out of school at lower T14, and I'd bet significantly fewer people want academia than want a clerkship.

you're drawing faulty conclusions from the data. look at the year the hires graduated from law school vis-a-vis the year they got hired. only one yalie hire graduated in 2013, and he got his phd from MIT in 1998, he also taught law and economics before even entering law school (https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/jgelbach/cv.pdf). he's currently untenured by the way (although probably on tenure track).

the 21 include people who graduated in 1989 (yes, 25 years or so ago) etc. of the 21, only about 5 graduated in 2010 or later. and only 7 hires were at top 20 schools. these are not odds you should be betting 200 grand on.

[cotiger]

I was actually surprised at how high the number was for Yale. 21 hires out of a class of around 200 (assuming it's been around that level for a while) means that around 10% of the class eventually goes into academia. That's around the same level as get clerkships right out of school at lower T14, and I'd bet significantly fewer people want academia than want a clerkship.

you're drawing faulty conclusions from the data. look at the year the hires graduated from law school vis-a-vis the year they got hired. only one yalie hire graduated in 2013, and he got his phd from MIT in 1998, he also taught law and economics before even entering law school (https://www.law.upenn.edu/cf/faculty/jgelbach/cv.pdf). he's currently untenured by the way (although probably on tenure track).

the 21 include people who graduated in 1989 (yes, 25 years or so ago) etc. of the 21, only about 5 graduated in 2010 or later. and only 7 hires were at top 20 schools. these are not odds you should be betting 200 grand on.

I think you misunderstood what I was saying. In any one year there's of course not 10% of any particular class, but over the course of apparently 25 years, around 10% should get it. Which isn't an insignificant portion, considering being a law professor is kind of niche job.

I for sure agree that that's not worth betting 200k on, though.

[aboutmydaylight]

Legal academia is very hard to crack. Even though you only technically need a JD, a lot of recent hires tend to have PhDs now (economics being the most common, the average law student doesn't know nearly enough math for this to even be a reasonable goal). I know 2 law grads that were basically shut out and told they needed a PhD (Yale and Harvard grads). So now they're back in school because that's what they really want to do. A top degree is more or less necessary but you're going to need to hustle for much more than that.

[Cicero76]

My roommate took Yale over the Ruby. It was very, very close for him and he agonized over it, but he doesn't regret it (so far).

[kaiser]

My roommate took Yale over the Ruby. It was very, very close for him and he agonized over it, but he doesn't regret it (so far).

The time for regretting that kind of decision typically comes after school, once employment outcomes are more clear and debt repayment kicks in.

[04102014]

Make a poll is TCR.