Cornell v Michigan Forum

[cron1834]

At some point your theories need to account for facts. And the facts that count show that Mich has been by far the worst non-GULC T14 for biglaw for some time now.

So Berkeley doesn't exist anymore? And less than two percentage points worse is "by far the worst"? I don't know man. I think I'll take possibly correct theories over patently false information any day.

Columbia: 73.2 + 4.8 = 78%
Stanford: 48.5 + 29.4 = 77.8%
Chicago: 62.3 + 10.2 = 72.6%
Harvard: 54.5 + 17.0 = 71.5%
Penn: 59.8 + 9.3 = 69.1%
Cornell: 57.5 + 10.9 = 68.4%
NYU: 58.3 + 8.8 = 67.0%
Yale: 30.5 + 35 = 65.5%
Northwestern: 55.6 + 7.7 = 63.4%
UVA: 50 + 12.9 = 62.9%
Duke: 51.4 + 8.7 = 60.2%
Michigan: 49.4 + 7.8 = 57.1%
Berkeley: 47.8 + 8.0 = 55.8%
GULC: 41.4 + 5.1 = 46.5%

JFC dude. LR fail. Even this data shows Mich as a laggard, and they were below Berkeley the previous two years.

WTF? I definitely vote for Michigan here, but it's demonstrably true that Michigan has been a T14 bottom-feeder in Biglaw numbers for several years. What exactly are you gaining by disputing the data?

ETA - I might even to to Mich myself! It's a good school. But facts are facts

He's disputing the "by far" language, as he said.

Okay. Mich is arguably the worst non-GULC T14 for biglaw (and you would win that argument). Better?

[yost]

JFC dude. LR fail. Even this data shows Mich as a laggard, and they were below Berkeley the previous two years.

WTF? I definitely vote for Michigan here, but it's demonstrably true that Michigan has been a T14 bottom-feeder in Biglaw numbers for several years. What exactly are you gaining by disputing the data?

ETA - I might even to to Mich myself! It's a good school. But facts are facts

I wasn't really disputing the data, just your overly harsh interpretation of it. But don't mind me. I'm just a huge Michigan homer who likes arguing minutia.

Okay. Mich is arguably the worst non-GULC T14 for biglaw (and you would win that argument). Better?

I'll take it.

[cron1834]

Dude, I was srs when I said I might end up at Mich

Just didn't appreciate the other dude bagging on Cornell re: Mich because of NY firm preftige or whatever!

Mich is clearly better for OP of these two proposals.

[lecsa]

I think that it's also worth noting that Michigan has pared down its class size, which I think will probably help its employment percentages. There were 399 people in c/o 2013, but only 315 new 1Ls in the class that entered this year for c/o 2016. Cornell's has hovered around 200 for the past couple of years.

I think someone on here said Mich is targeting fewer than 300 entering this year.

[bruinfan10]

.

[wiltthestilt]

Thanks everyone for the help, I appreciate it.

cron, bruin, yost, etc. I think you guys are talking past eachother a bit. Cornell does have the better biglaw placement, but bruin could be absolutely correct in saying that the only reason is due to lower v100 firms, and the callback issue, is an actual issue to keep in mind, and that Mich is actually better for nationwide placement and placement into better firms.

[cron1834]

Michigan, on the other hand, gets you a callback from DPW, STB, etc (and not just in NYC--I'm talking offices all over the country) with not much better than a median GPA. Does it place as many grads in Biglaw as Cornell? No. But you don't need top-10% to get an interview at Davis Polk, and you can work outside Manhattan. My post indicated that if you're not OK with working at a middling NYC firm, Michigan might be a better choice. I'm not sure how your "michigan is the new gulc" posts interact with that conclusion (and just on that note, seriously? there's like 1 percentage point difference between UVA, Duke, Michigan, and Berkeley AND Michigan isn't even lowest on that list--get it together dude). But best of luck with your school search.

Um, nice try. For CO'11, Michigan was dead last among Mich-Cornell-Duke-UVA-Berk in biglaw+fedclerk, and not by 1 percent. They were dead last among that group for CO'12, and by almost an 8% spread at that. They were virtually tied for last with Berk for CO'13. I didn't say Mich = GULC, I said they clearly have the lowest %s of the non-GULC T14. Which is absolutely true. And not by 1%, either. Why you're trying to make me look bad is a little unclear, but the numbers here support me; Mich lags the others if any biglaw is your goal.

That said, OP is excluding NYC and targeting a specific region, so we agree that Mich is better for him. Plus it's cheaper.

OP, good luck to you, duder.

[MistakenGenius]

Post removed.

[antiochus3]

Dude, I was srs when I said I might end up at Mich

Just didn't appreciate the other dude bagging on Cornell re: Mich because of NY firm preftige or whatever!

Mich is clearly better for OP of these two proposals.

There are very few Cornell people on this board (tiny class size maybe? it's weird), and I've been waiting for someone to stand up for the school as I've been posting my doubts over the last couple weeks. My little brother is thinking of going there, and I wanted someone to sell me on the school. Unfortunately, all you're bringing to the table are the biglaw placement stats that my post was attempting to make sense of.

What I said was, (1) Cornell has great biglaw placement numbers exclusively because of its placement in NYC (which happens to be the biggest/easiest market to crack)--placement in non-NYC offices is negligible. (2) They have extremely harsh callback medians for good firms even within NYC. This leads me to believe that they put up their solid V100 numbers primarily by feeding into low-end NYC firms. Forget the strongest/most secure firms that generate the best exit-options, forget firms in any other major legal market.

Michigan, on the other hand, gets you a callback from DPW, STB, etc (and not just in NYC--I'm talking offices all over the country) with not much better than a median GPA. Does it place as many grads in Biglaw as Cornell? No. But you don't need top-10% to get an interview at Davis Polk, and you can work outside Manhattan. My post indicated that if you're not OK with working at a middling NYC firm, Michigan might be a better choice. I'm not sure how your "michigan is the new gulc" posts interact with that conclusion (and just on that note, seriously? there's like 1 percentage point difference between UVA, Duke, Michigan, and Berkeley AND Michigan isn't even lowest on that list--get it together dude). But best of luck with your school search.

All of the current Michigan associates at Davis Polk have Latin honors, and a good deal of them are law review or Order of the Coif. Callbacks with not much better than median grades have got to be pretty rare.

[oblig.lawl.ref]

Michigan. I feel its ability to feed into east coast big law, partic. NYC and DC, is being undersold in this thread. Not that that is what you want, but it is a good backup plan for you and there is no doubt that you can get back to your home market after a few years in east coast big law. Plus Michigan is going to provide pretty ready access to Chicago and Detroit big law, for what those are worth as additional backups. Too many good things can happen out of UM to turn it down especially when you are saving $$. And if you want tiebreakers, consider how its 20 minutes from an hub international airport and 40 minutes from a major city. For someone who sounds like he is going to be moving around to see people elsewhere and to interview for jobs elsewhere, that is notable. Ithaca is lovely but so very far removed.

How is Michigan's ability to feed into NYC/DC biglaw being undersold? We have exact figures of how many kids each school is putting into biglaw, and Cornell does a better job.

I've seen the callback medians that career services lists for each school. Cornell's are scary, even in NYC. We're talking like top-10% to get a callback at Davis Polk, top-20% to get a callback somewhere like Gibson Dunn. Michigan has WAY more forgiving callback medians than that. I'm starting to think that Cornell's employment stats are kind of a flame--they're totally NY-centric (unlike Michigan's), and given the callback medians, I think they're placing kids into bottom barrel V100s in NYC. For PNW, I'd definitely choose Michigan, and wow, look at that, it's like 30k cheaper. No brainer, imho.

This is interesting. I've always wondered why Michigan's placement was so low. I can vouch for the fact that top 20% can get cbs at Davis Polk at Michigan. Idk if that's true at Cornell. I can also tell you there there is a lot of Michigan kids that will not go to NYC. That may affect some of the rate too. Something like 12% of us (yes I go there) are from Michigan and anecdotally probably a majority of those that I know refused to go further than Chicago.

I've said it before and I'll always say--these debates over placement amongst lower T14s is pretty asinine. There are too many factors and people make major decisions on very small percentage differences on a year to year basis. I think some schools (Cornell, Duke, NU?) get hyped because they can place a million ppl into non-descript NLJ 250s without controlling for other factors.

[oblig.lawl.ref]

Dude, I was srs when I said I might end up at Mich

Just didn't appreciate the other dude bagging on Cornell re: Mich because of NY firm preftige or whatever!

Mich is clearly better for OP of these two proposals.

There are very few Cornell people on this board (tiny class size maybe? it's weird), and I've been waiting for someone to stand up for the school as I've been posting my doubts over the last couple weeks. My little brother is thinking of going there, and I wanted someone to sell me on the school. Unfortunately, all you're bringing to the table are the biglaw placement stats that my post was attempting to make sense of.

What I said was, (1) Cornell has great biglaw placement numbers exclusively because of its placement in NYC (which happens to be the biggest/easiest market to crack)--placement in non-NYC offices is negligible. (2) They have extremely harsh callback medians for good firms even within NYC. This leads me to believe that they put up their solid V100 numbers primarily by feeding into low-end NYC firms. Forget the strongest/most secure firms that generate the best exit-options, forget firms in any other major legal market.

Michigan, on the other hand, gets you a callback from DPW, STB, etc (and not just in NYC--I'm talking offices all over the country) with not much better than a median GPA. Does it place as many grads in Biglaw as Cornell? No. But you don't need top-10% to get an interview at Davis Polk, and you can work outside Manhattan. My post indicated that if you're not OK with working at a middling NYC firm, Michigan might be a better choice. I'm not sure how your "michigan is the new gulc" posts interact with that conclusion (and just on that note, seriously? there's like 1 percentage point difference between UVA, Duke, Michigan, and Berkeley AND Michigan isn't even lowest on that list--get it together dude). But best of luck with your school search.

All of the current Michigan associates at Davis Polk have Latin honors, and a good deal of them are law review or Order of the Coif. Callbacks with not much better than median grades have got to be pretty rare.

Here's the issue with this point--you have no idea what the latin honor's cut off is at Michigan. There's some dispute over that but for cum laude it is likely below top quarter.

ETA: law review is also one of those hybrid write on/grade on reviews and many people on it are likely top 25%-ish and maybe even lower.

[antiochus3]

Dude, I was srs when I said I might end up at Mich

Just didn't appreciate the other dude bagging on Cornell re: Mich because of NY firm preftige or whatever!

Mich is clearly better for OP of these two proposals.

There are very few Cornell people on this board (tiny class size maybe? it's weird), and I've been waiting for someone to stand up for the school as I've been posting my doubts over the last couple weeks. My little brother is thinking of going there, and I wanted someone to sell me on the school. Unfortunately, all you're bringing to the table are the biglaw placement stats that my post was attempting to make sense of.

What I said was, (1) Cornell has great biglaw placement numbers exclusively because of its placement in NYC (which happens to be the biggest/easiest market to crack)--placement in non-NYC offices is negligible. (2) They have extremely harsh callback medians for good firms even within NYC. This leads me to believe that they put up their solid V100 numbers primarily by feeding into low-end NYC firms. Forget the strongest/most secure firms that generate the best exit-options, forget firms in any other major legal market.

Michigan, on the other hand, gets you a callback from DPW, STB, etc (and not just in NYC--I'm talking offices all over the country) with not much better than a median GPA. Does it place as many grads in Biglaw as Cornell? No. But you don't need top-10% to get an interview at Davis Polk, and you can work outside Manhattan. My post indicated that if you're not OK with working at a middling NYC firm, Michigan might be a better choice. I'm not sure how your "michigan is the new gulc" posts interact with that conclusion (and just on that note, seriously? there's like 1 percentage point difference between UVA, Duke, Michigan, and Berkeley AND Michigan isn't even lowest on that list--get it together dude). But best of luck with your school search.

All of the current Michigan associates at Davis Polk have Latin honors, and a good deal of them are law review or Order of the Coif. Callbacks with not much better than median grades have got to be pretty rare.

Here's the issue with this point--you have no idea what the latin honor's cut off is at Michigan. There's some dispute over that but for cum laude it is likely below top quarter.

ETA: law review is also one of those hybrid write on/grade on reviews and many people on it are likely top 25%-ish and maybe even lower.

Fair enough. But even if cum laude is top third, that's meaningfully better than median.

[koval]

Dude, I was srs when I said I might end up at Mich

Just didn't appreciate the other dude bagging on Cornell re: Mich because of NY firm preftige or whatever!

Mich is clearly better for OP of these two proposals.

There are very few Cornell people on this board (tiny class size maybe? it's weird), and I've been waiting for someone to stand up for the school as I've been posting my doubts over the last couple weeks. My little brother is thinking of going there, and I wanted someone to sell me on the school. Unfortunately, all you're bringing to the table are the biglaw placement stats that my post was attempting to make sense of.

What I said was, (1) Cornell has great biglaw placement numbers exclusively because of its placement in NYC (which happens to be the biggest/easiest market to crack)--placement in non-NYC offices is negligible. (2) They have extremely harsh callback medians for good firms even within NYC. This leads me to believe that they put up their solid V100 numbers primarily by feeding into low-end NYC firms. Forget the strongest/most secure firms that generate the best exit-options, forget firms in any other major legal market.

Michigan, on the other hand, gets you a callback from DPW, STB, etc (and not just in NYC--I'm talking offices all over the country) with not much better than a median GPA. Does it place as many grads in Biglaw as Cornell? No. But you don't need top-10% to get an interview at Davis Polk, and you can work outside Manhattan. My post indicated that if you're not OK with working at a middling NYC firm, Michigan might be a better choice. I'm not sure how your "michigan is the new gulc" posts interact with that conclusion (and just on that note, seriously? there's like 1 percentage point difference between UVA, Duke, Michigan, and Berkeley AND Michigan isn't even lowest on that list--get it together dude). But best of luck with your school search.

All of the current Michigan associates at Davis Polk have Latin honors, and a good deal of them are law review or Order of the Coif. Callbacks with not much better than median grades have got to be pretty rare.

Also looking at V10/20 to me is immaterial. Yes, obviously it would be great to snag Davis Polk or Simpson Thacher (or Kirkland if you're gunning for Chicago) but I'm looking for a job to pay off my debt. Therefore why would I care if I get placed at Cravath or Cahill (in the 50s) or Fenwick West (in the 80s). All accomplish relieving my debt. Exit options are good but they're secondary to paying off law school debt.

I'm not saying Michigan isn't a great school and for OP I would say he should probably go with Michigan because it's cheaper and the benefits of Cornell are hard to justify at the difference in cost but, honestly, who picks a school saying "this school gives me a better shot at Davis Polk". That is ridiculous.

[jbagelboy]

i just don't buy droves of "barely above median" michigan kids getting cb's at DPW, unless "median" is one of those amorphous concepts that really extends up to top 20% without anyone knowing it.

[oblig.lawl.ref]

Yeah, I did not mean to imply that barely above median gets cbs at DPW but given the context of the debate that might be a red herring/kind of irrelevant. I think the question is whether really good firms reach deeper into Michigan than Cornell. As to that I don't have an answer but I also feel like that is the important question raised by bruinfan. Not whether or not they reach down to barely above median.

[oblig.lawl.ref]

Dude, I was srs when I said I might end up at Mich

Just didn't appreciate the other dude bagging on Cornell re: Mich because of NY firm preftige or whatever!

Mich is clearly better for OP of these two proposals.

There are very few Cornell people on this board (tiny class size maybe? it's weird), and I've been waiting for someone to stand up for the school as I've been posting my doubts over the last couple weeks. My little brother is thinking of going there, and I wanted someone to sell me on the school. Unfortunately, all you're bringing to the table are the biglaw placement stats that my post was attempting to make sense of.

What I said was, (1) Cornell has great biglaw placement numbers exclusively because of its placement in NYC (which happens to be the biggest/easiest market to crack)--placement in non-NYC offices is negligible. (2) They have extremely harsh callback medians for good firms even within NYC. This leads me to believe that they put up their solid V100 numbers primarily by feeding into low-end NYC firms. Forget the strongest/most secure firms that generate the best exit-options, forget firms in any other major legal market.

Michigan, on the other hand, gets you a callback from DPW, STB, etc (and not just in NYC--I'm talking offices all over the country) with not much better than a median GPA. Does it place as many grads in Biglaw as Cornell? No. But you don't need top-10% to get an interview at Davis Polk, and you can work outside Manhattan. My post indicated that if you're not OK with working at a middling NYC firm, Michigan might be a better choice. I'm not sure how your "michigan is the new gulc" posts interact with that conclusion (and just on that note, seriously? there's like 1 percentage point difference between UVA, Duke, Michigan, and Berkeley AND Michigan isn't even lowest on that list--get it together dude). But best of luck with your school search.

All of the current Michigan associates at Davis Polk have Latin honors, and a good deal of them are law review or Order of the Coif. Callbacks with not much better than median grades have got to be pretty rare.

Also looking at V10/20 to me is immaterial. Yes, obviously it would be great to snag Davis Polk or Simpson Thacher (or Kirkland if you're gunning for Chicago) but I'm looking for a job to pay off my debt. Therefore why would I care if I get placed at Cravath or Cahill (in the 50s) or Fenwick West (in the 80s). All accomplish relieving my debt. Exit options are good but they're secondary to paying off law school debt.

I'm not saying Michigan isn't a great school and for OP I would say he should probably go with Michigan because it's cheaper and the benefits of Cornell are hard to justify at the difference in cost but, honestly, who picks a school saying "this school gives me a better shot at Davis Polk". That is ridiculous.

Because it is all related. How deep into a class a firm is willing to reach just may be indicative of the value they place on that school's degree. It may not be and you can chose to ignore it but it may be a relevant stat.

NLJ 250 placement (or whatever metric you guys settle on as the relevant stat) is to a certain extent going to be indicative of the markets and preferences of the students that take those jobs. It's based on self-selection.

Don't get me wrong. I think anyone that doesn't go with a market paying firm is crazy (but I'm a rising 3L so my knowledge is likely almost as limited as people active on this thread) but I have met numerous people (lots) who did not bid on any NYC firms and when they didn't get anything from OCI just gave up. I know it's crazy but I've seen it happen with several people in a small sample.

So, in other words, in a rational world the NLJ 250 placement would be a pretty good benchmark for placement ability but due to the serious cognitive impairments of law students, I think it's pretty ridiculous to assume it is.

[Lincoln]

Dude, I was srs when I said I might end up at Mich

Just didn't appreciate the other dude bagging on Cornell re: Mich because of NY firm preftige or whatever!

Mich is clearly better for OP of these two proposals.

There are very few Cornell people on this board (tiny class size maybe? it's weird), and I've been waiting for someone to stand up for the school as I've been posting my doubts over the last couple weeks. My little brother is thinking of going there, and I wanted someone to sell me on the school. Unfortunately, all you're bringing to the table are the biglaw placement stats that my post was attempting to make sense of.

What I said was, (1) Cornell has great biglaw placement numbers exclusively because of its placement in NYC (which happens to be the biggest/easiest market to crack)--placement in non-NYC offices is negligible. (2) They have extremely harsh callback medians for good firms even within NYC. This leads me to believe that they put up their solid V100 numbers primarily by feeding into low-end NYC firms. Forget the strongest/most secure firms that generate the best exit-options, forget firms in any other major legal market.

Michigan, on the other hand, gets you a callback from DPW, STB, etc (and not just in NYC--I'm talking offices all over the country) with not much better than a median GPA. Does it place as many grads in Biglaw as Cornell? No. But you don't need top-10% to get an interview at Davis Polk, and you can work outside Manhattan. My post indicated that if you're not OK with working at a middling NYC firm, Michigan might be a better choice. I'm not sure how your "michigan is the new gulc" posts interact with that conclusion (and just on that note, seriously? there's like 1 percentage point difference between UVA, Duke, Michigan, and Berkeley AND Michigan isn't even lowest on that list--get it together dude). But best of luck with your school search.

Are you just making all this up?

Sincerely,
Cornell grad at V5.

[cron1834]