Top 1-14 US News Predictions Forum

[Nom Sawyer]

Personally, I have a better GPA in my economics major than in my political science major. Political science is too subjective to consistently pull a 4.0 in.

Econ is too damn hard and random and curved to consistently pull a 4.0 in (at least at my school).

same here... my Math GPA > Econ, even though math was probably harder.

[DanInALionsDen]

Engineering courses grade on a curve. A harsh curve at most schools. Liberal arts classes give out A's like candy.

The average gpa for a liberal arts major is significantly higher than the average engineering major. That isn't even counting for differences in difficulty.

I'm just going to point out that this is exactly what I was talking about earlier. Why are you trying to put down my major, and a number of other people's because you're not at the top of yours? Your issue is with your own department and their grading standards.

He's not putting down your major so much as pointing out a reality in the difference in GPAs. And I think his issue is with your department and how it gives out more A's, not with his and how it gives out less.

There is a lot of grade inflation especially in liberal arts programs these days. Engineering departments resist that, perhaps because being able to tell who's the smartest of the bunch actually has the potential to make a difference and save lives given the work engineers are asked to do. A liberal arts major is never going to be entrusted to make plans that if wrong could kill massive numbers of people, so there's less harm in letting them all have A's.

This has the unfortunate effect of being so much harder on engineering majors that even a 3.0+ GPA can be considered good, while a liberal arts major having less than a 3.5 makes you wonder if they have some kind of disability or impairment they should get tested for.

That's funny, I thought most heads of state were liberal arts majors, often with law degrees?

[PDaddy]

OMG. USNWR 2010 Law School Rankings Leaked!


1. Yale
2. Harvard
3. Stanford
4. Chicago
5. Columbia
6. NYU
7. Cal/Michigan
9. Penn
10. Northwestern
11. Virginia/Duke
13. Cornell
14. UCLA
------------------
15. Vanderbilt/Texas
17. USC
18. WUSTL

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

[vanwinkle]

That's funny, I thought most heads of state were liberal arts majors, often with law degrees?

And in this case it's the law degree that sets them apart, not the liberal arts degree. That only reinforces the liberal arts degree's uselessness in gauging potential for real-world success.

[09042014]

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

Get ready for T13. Because nobody is going to call Vandy a T14 because it got in there for one year.

[Hopefullawstudent]

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

Get ready for T13. Because nobody is going to call Vandy a T14 because it got in there for one year.

More likely than the T14 actually changing is that the legal markets will evolve/grow over time and this will affect particular schools' rankings (ahem, UCLA, Texas). Unfortunately for Vandy I just don't see anything sprouting up in middle America that will cause Vandy to become a "go to" for job placement.

[For the record, I absolutely LOVE Vanderbilt and it will always be highly respected. Still, I just don't see the markets developing to where Vanderbilt becomes geographically more advantageous than it currently is. UCLA, you bet. Texas, maybe.]

[5ky]

Personally, I have a better GPA in my economics major than in my political science major. Political science is too subjective to consistently pull a 4.0 in.

Econ is too damn hard and random and curved to consistently pull a 4.0 in (at least at my school).

same here... my Math GPA > Econ, even though math was probably harder.

This is true as well; I don't have a 4.0 in Econ, but I have found it is somewhat less random at my school than Political Science. Though, to be fair, Econ and Math are the two majors with the lowest GPAs. I just think it's harder to consistently get A's in Political Science at my UG than in Econ.

[PDaddy]

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

Get ready for T13. Because nobody is going to call Vandy a T14 because it got in there for one year.

LOL. You are correct on one level: one year does not a trend make. I think the "T14" will still stubbornly include the school that falls. I think the moniker should disappear over time. You all know my feeling. T14 is really T18 or even T20.

[Dignan]

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

Get ready for T13. Because nobody is going to call Vandy a T14 because it got in there for one year.

LOL. You are correct on one level: one year does not a trend make. I think the "T14" will still stubbornly include the school that falls. I think the moniker should disappear over time. You all know my feeling. T14 is really T18 or even T20.

When the USNWR rankings debuted in 1987, Texas was 11th and UCLA was 14th. It's only over the last four or five years that the top 14 schools have been relatively stable.

[PDaddy]

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

Get ready for T13. Because nobody is going to call Vandy a T14 because it got in there for one year.

More likely than the T14 actually changing is that the legal markets will evolve/grow over time and this will affect particular schools' rankings (ahem, UCLA, Texas). Unfortunately for Vandy I just don't see anything sprouting up in middle America that will cause Vandy to become a "go to" for job placement.

[For the record, I absolutely LOVE Vanderbilt and it will always be highly respected. Still, I just don't see the markets developing to where Vanderbilt becomes geographically more advantageous than it currently is. UCLA, you bet. Texas, maybe.]

Good argument, except for the fact that the very reason you cite as Vanderbilt's non-inclusion is really its strength. It is a top school that recruits students who want to go to other markets. Think of Tulane and how it appears to be more "national" than schools ranked above it. Vandy could begin and continue a trend of recruiting nationally, targeting students who want to work in L.A., S.F., Chicago, Seattle, and even Houston. We all know Vandy places in NY, ATL and, to a lesser degree, D.C.

Thing is, Vandy has more potential to recruit that type of base, whereas UCLA is always going to have a niche market and recruit for it. Even though UCLA grads are certainly competitive enough to work anywhere in the country and for any employer, I think that limits UCLA. Nobody wants to leave So. California. Vandy is already the rich man's Tulane, but doesn't realize it yet. Once it does, I believe it can be a consistent #11-14.

[los blancos]

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

Get ready for T13. Because nobody is going to call Vandy a T14 because it got in there for one year.

LOL. You are correct on one level: one year does not a trend make. I think the "T14" will still stubbornly include the school that falls. I think the moniker should disappear over time. You all know my feeling. T14 is really T18 or even T20.

I honestly think the T14 designation is pretty dumb, but T18 or T20 is even more asinine. Acting like Penn and WUSTL have remotely similar career prospects is ridiculous. Hell, pre-ITE WUSTL barely placed half of what Cornell did into the NLJ250, and Cornell is at the bottom end of the T14.

[09042014]

More than a few people believe that GULC or Cornell will fall soon. The argument is over which school will replace the school that falls. I put money on Vandy, but a lot of people feel it will be UCLA. I hope the T14 gets blasted. It will be the shot heard 'round the world! Things will never be the same.

Get ready for T13. Because nobody is going to call Vandy a T14 because it got in there for one year.

LOL. You are correct on one level: one year does not a trend make. I think the "T14" will still stubbornly include the school that falls. I think the moniker should disappear over time. You all know my feeling. T14 is really T18 or even T20.

T3>T6>T14>T17>T1

There are better T1's than the others but they don't correspond to ranks well enough.

[los blancos]

T3>T6>T14>T17>T1

Mine would look more like:

HYS
CC
NMVPB
DNC
GULC/UCLA/UT/Vandy

[Kronk]

T3>T6>T14>T17>T1

Mine would look more like:

HYS
CC
NMVPB
DNC
GULC/UCLA/UT/Vandy

I would agree if NYU didn't have possibly the best faculty of any school in the nation. They can only go up.

[los blancos]

T3>T6>T14>T17>T1

Mine would look more like:

HYS
CC
NMVPB
DNC
GULC/UCLA/UT/Vandy

I would agree if NYU didn't have possibly the best faculty of any school in the nation. They can only go up.

Actually, yeah. I just usually bump them down in my head because to me Penn = NYU.

[Kronk]

T3>T6>T14>T17>T1

Mine would look more like:

HYS
CC
NMVPB
DNC
GULC/UCLA/UT/Vandy

I would agree if NYU didn't have possibly the best faculty of any school in the nation. They can only go up.

Actually, yeah. I just usually bump them down in my head because to me Penn = NYU.

They place similarly into BigLaw, but Penn has one of the worst faculties of the T14, strangely.

[Nom Sawyer]

1. Princeton law school
2. Harvard/Yale
4. Stanford
5. Columbia
6. Chicago/ NYU
7. B
8-11. MVPD
13. NW
14. Cornell
______________

You heard it here first.... & bye Georgetown!!

[Kronk]

1. Princeton law school
2. Harvard/Yale
4. Stanford
5. Columbia
6. Chicago/ NYU
7. B
8-11. MVPD
13. NW
14. Cornell
______________

You heard it here first.... & bye Georgetown!!

Wherever Uncle Phil went is clearly the best.

[Dignan]

T3>T6>T14>T17>T1

Mine would look more like:

HYS
CC
NMVPB
DNC
GULC/UCLA/UT/Vandy

I would agree if NYU didn't have possibly the best faculty of any school in the nation. They can only go up.

Why do you think that NYU might have the best faculty of any law school in the nation? (I'm not looking for a fight; I ask because I am genuinely curious.)

[ravens20]

T3>T6>T14>T17>T1

Mine would look more like:

HYS
CC
NMVPB
DNC
GULC/UCLA/UT/Vandy

I would agree if NYU didn't have possibly the best faculty of any school in the nation. They can only go up.

Actually, yeah. I just usually bump them down in my head because to me Penn = NYU.

I think NYU has a legitimate advantage over Penn in terms of Public Interest, but even if you just look at biglaw placement it appears that they have some advantage.

Check out V100 summer associate placement (2006):
http://lawfirmaddict.blogspot.com/2006/ ... ement.html
Check out V100 placement divided by percentage of students working in firms (as of 2008):
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =1&t=24207
Or Placement into elite 15 firms (also as of 2008):
http://www.leiterrankings.com/jobs/2008job_biglaw.shtml

Now I don't think that those stats close the book on the argument, but they at least seem to indicate that there is some difference between the schools. And you can't use the V100 is biased toward NYC market argument since Penn also targets the same market.

To be honest though, Penn is a damn good school in its own right that nobody should overlook. The differences I cited are marginal in the larger context of things.

[ravens20]

Interestingly, looking at the data that I just posted above, it seems that Northwestern and Duke (and to a lesser degree Cornell) are underrated in terms of their biglaw placement. They seem to outdo some of the MVPB schools at least in these categories. But of course this is only one way to look at biglaw placement and may not actually reflect the reality of biglaw hiring.

[ravens20]

1. Princeton law school
2. Harvard/Yale
4. Stanford
5. Columbia
6. Chicago/ NYU
7. B
8-11. MVPD
13. NW
14. Cornell
______________

You heard it here first.... & bye Georgetown!!

Wherever Uncle Phil went is clearly the best.

love the Fresh Prince reference

[sjj05]

I think everyone took what I said out of context esp. since I agree with a big chunk of what's on the board. I was just standing up for lib. arts majors who get their asses handed to them daily on TLS from people moaning about how easy it is to get an A in (insert chosen liberal arts class here). I am super glad that science/engineering kids go to law school--casue I sure as hell don't want to do IP/Patent Law and someone's gotta do it. Also, I can't build a bridge. But at the same time, I don't know where everyone else got their B.A. but I was required to take a lot of math and science and econ classses to graduate and my political science degree comes complete with WAY too many quantitative research methods seminars.

Everyone gets to chose what they major in and, hopefully, if you're smart, you major in something in which you will excell academically.

[sjj05]

Edit: I think engineers are great, but I am no way going to say engineering> all liberal arts. My roommate's ex-boyfriend was an engineer and he was stupider than a pile of rocks. No kidding, he once asked me what Israel was and another time if Thanksgiving is always on Thursday.

If he did well on the LSAT, he's a qualified and potentially-sucessful candidate in law school?

[Aeroplane]

Edit: I think engineers are great, but I am no way going to say engineering> all liberal arts. My roommate's ex-boyfriend was an engineer and he was stupider than a pile of rocks. No kidding, he once asked me what Israel was and another time if Thanksgiving is always on Thursday.

If he did well on the LSAT, he's a qualified and potentially-sucessful candidate in law school?

The whole engineering/humanities debate aside, your logic here is not sound. Ignorant is not the same thing as stupid, not by a long shot. IMO ignorance is absolutely no obstacle to law school success.