I agree with you. I'm sure people do overstate cultural differences at GULC, just like individual students at every school overstate their desire for X after being rejected at Y. It's cognitive dissonance-- I can't reach the fruit at the top branch so I'll just convince myself that I never wanted it in the first place. However, just the fact that there are some cultural differences between law schools, especially top-privates vs. large state schools, suggests that it would at least be partially unfair to create a ranking system based on "across the board," absolute assumptions about the types of careers that all students desire.jenesaislaw wrote:My point was actually just that people overstate the cultural aspects of Georgetown and many other schools when they say there are droves of people seeking and being happy with the JD Advantage jobs. If somebody is going to cite to Georgetown's numbers in one year, they need to explain why they look so drastically different in the immediately preceding years, or else explain why the school saw a sudden cultural shift.Lord Randolph McDuff wrote:I'm aware of this data. It fits both your theory and my own, however. I've said that most law school students want JD Required work. You seem to imply that all or nearly all law school students want JD Required work. Either way, the shortage of JD Required work is going to effect your employment score, and your proposal to exclude non JD Required work from the USNEWS employment rate would, aggregately, provide some advantage for the purpose of "ranking" law schools.jenesaislaw wrote:Here is something you should look up. Look at GULC's numbers pre-crash for JD Preferred and Professional jobs.Lord Randolph McDuff wrote:Providing less "points" for JD Advantage/ Other Professional unnecessarily plays favorites among schools. Is GULC worse than Texas Tech or LSU? I bet LSU and Tech have better full-time, long-term JD rates than GULC. (by the way, I'm not going to look this up, but even if the schools are close my point is made). There are cultural differences between schools. GULC is a good example, but there are also plenty of lower ranked schools which attract students with varied career goals.
2009: http://www.lstscorereports.com/?school=gulc&class=2009
2008: --LinkRemoved--
For fun: http://lawprofessors.typepad.com/legalw ... ustry.html
"The JD-Advantaged and Professional jobs appear to be, on balance, less desirable than those requiring bar passage. They increase nearly three times in relative proportion as we move from T14 to Tier 1 to Tier 2. Many are likely compromise jobs—not as good as practicing law, but better than non-professional alternatives."
My point is two-fold: One, the advantages gained by your proposal to better rank the schools would be real, but would be applied sloppily across the board, resulting in some schools being unfairly bolstered and others unfairly diminish because law schools often have different cultures with students with different career goals. Two, the practical policy result of your proposal will likely be to influence CSO across the country to steer all applicants away from JD Advantage or Other Professional jobs, and I don't think I need to explain why that would be a bad idea in this environment.
While your proposal would be an improvement over what we have, I still think there is a better way forward that is much, much easier. The simplest solution is to influence USNEWS to differentiate between long-term, full-time work and everything else. If they do this, and if they stop counting school funded as long-term, the new rankings formula in regards to employment would become a thousand times better already. This would more fair and less controversial, though arguably would create a (slightly) less precise employment ranking method for USNEWS magazine. But, is that what we really care about anyway?
Also, and this was said by someone else, maybe Spivey, but they should switch how they calculate class medians as well. Think about how law school admissions would be difference if USNEWS stated that medians would be calculated by the formula 25th + 75th / 2. No more Minn. Law with 166 median, 166 75th. These schools might actually admit people with different LSAT scores!
It very well could be the case that students are just as happy (or close to it) with the JD Advantage jobs. It is more likely that these jobs are less desirable to this body of people because (a) I don't think there's any evidence whatsoever of a cultural shift and (b) of the strong connection between non-BPR jobs and lower rank.
If we're talking about a % to use in the rankings, I think the LT, FT % is a great place to start, fwiw. Also, your median suggestion is actually what the rule used to be. I don't recall why they changed it.
If you have time, I would be specifically interested in hearing your response to any effect your proposal my have on CSO offices..? I am actually proud that our CSO tells us how bad the legal market is, and encourages us to look at a wide range of options for our future careers. I'd hate for our dean to tell them to quit, and I bet he would if your proposal was accepted. ( on that note, don't be surprised if CU does better in the new rankings-- our (new-ish) dean has implemented school funded post bar internships (urr uhm, jobs), and he seems much more likely to game the rankings than the prior dean. )
Finally, thanks for the info on the old medians. I can't imagine why they switched, though surely they had some reason.
