Class sizes and medians (c/o 2015) Forum

[Aberzombie1892]

You also have to remember that almost all law schools give some money to their parent university.

Of course, the core issue is US News methodology, which calculates the expenditures per student into the rankings (assuming we ignore the act that law schools obsess over such rankings, since that won't ever change).

[jne381]

You also have to remember that almost all law schools give some money to their parent university.

Of course, the core issue is US News methodology, which calculates the expenditures per student into the rankings (assuming we ignore the act that law schools obsess over such rankings, since that won't ever change).

IDK, I think expenditure per student is probably a fantastic way to help calculate the merits of a school, if the school is being administered in a decent way.

The more you pay for professors, the better the professors should be, theoretically. The more money you invest in resources for the students and the school, the better those resources should be.

As long as what they pay are not outside of market norms for whatever they are paying for, it is probably a highly reliable way to measure a school.

[thelawyler]

You also have to remember that almost all law schools give some money to their parent university.

Of course, the core issue is US News methodology, which calculates the expenditures per student into the rankings (assuming we ignore the act that law schools obsess over such rankings, since that won't ever change).

IDK, I think expenditure per student is probably a fantastic way to help calculate the merits of a school, if the school is being administered in a decent way.

The more you pay for professors, the better the professors should be, theoretically. The more money you invest in resources for the students and the school, the better those resources should be.

As long as what they pay are not outside of market norms for whatever they are paying for, it is probably a highly reliable way to measure a school.

Nah, it's better to do a ratio of expenditures divided by tuition. That way we can see true value and efficiency of schools instead of just jacking up tuition. Other sources of income for schools like endowments can be calculated as a separate score.

[Yukos]

You also have to remember that almost all law schools give some money to their parent university.

Of course, the core issue is US News methodology, which calculates the expenditures per student into the rankings (assuming we ignore the act that law schools obsess over such rankings, since that won't ever change).

IDK, I think expenditure per student is probably a fantastic way to help calculate the merits of a school, if the school is being administered in a decent way.

The more you pay for professors, the better the professors should be, theoretically. The more money you invest in resources for the students and the school, the better those resources should be.

As long as what they pay are not outside of market norms for whatever they are paying for, it is probably a highly reliable way to measure a school.

It's silly because if two schools are the exact same quality in every way -- quality of professors, employment prospects, clinical offerings, whatever -- and one spends twice as much money as the other to achieve the same results, the less efficient one is considered "better" by US News.

[timbs4339]

You also have to remember that almost all law schools give some money to their parent university.

Of course, the core issue is US News methodology, which calculates the expenditures per student into the rankings (assuming we ignore the act that law schools obsess over such rankings, since that won't ever change).

IDK, I think expenditure per student is probably a fantastic way to help calculate the merits of a school, if the school is being administered in a decent way.

The more you pay for professors, the better the professors should be, theoretically. The more money you invest in resources for the students and the school, the better those resources should be.

As long as what they pay are not outside of market norms for whatever they are paying for, it is probably a highly reliable way to measure a school.

Well, the problem is that the market value of the professor is determined by things that are of little value to the student. Number of publications/prestige of the law review is probably the main consideration. What scholarly area the school wants to improve upon.

Hiring professors who meet the academy's definition of what is valuable will increase academic reputation score, which increases USNWR rank, which was thought to correlate to job prospects, so in that sense it is good to hire professors that meet the market's definition of "better." However, I think what we've seen over the last few years is that USNWR only correlates to job prospects in a broad sense- T10 better than T50, T50 better than TTT. Investing $2 million to get a baller environmental law faculty might jump your USNWR rank 10 pts but isn't going to do shit for job prospects.

[jne381]

It's silly because if two schools are the exact same quality in every way -- quality of professors, employment prospects, clinical offerings, whatever -- and one spends twice as much money as the other to achieve the same results, the less efficient one is considered "better" by US News.

It is the probability that this would not happen, though. If a law school was being managed in a half way competently manner, administrators would not pay double for similar quality professors. They would either cut the wage or hire more qualified professors.

I do think the argument about what is considered a good professor is quite a valid point though.

[Yukos]

It's silly because if two schools are the exact same quality in every way -- quality of professors, employment prospects, clinical offerings, whatever -- and one spends twice as much money as the other to achieve the same results, the less efficient one is considered "better" by US News.

It is the probability that this would not happen, though. If a law school was being managed in a half way competently manner, administrators would not pay double for similar quality professors. They would either cut the wage or hire more qualified professors.

I do think the argument about what is considered a good professor is quite a valid point though.

That's a huge fucking assumption when we're talking about law schools.

The point is there's not much incentive to find more efficient routes, since in the end the more you spend the better it reflects on you.

[jne381]

This thread should use the spread sheet linked to in the OP of this thread http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=194489 or make one just like it.

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

Who is the dipshit that fucked up the order?

Apparently those who read this thread are idiots and shouldn't go to law school because they keep fucking up the spreadsheet.

[onionz]

This thread should use the spread sheet linked to in the OP of this thread http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=194489 or make one just like it.

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

Who is the dipshit that fucked up the order?

Apparently those who read this thread are retarded and shouldn't go to law school because they keep fucking up the spreadsheet.

Also, although I know we all like dropping medians, it's still weird to see negative numbers highlighted in green and positive numbers highlighted in red..

[manofjustice]

You also have to remember that almost all law schools give some money to their parent university.

Of course, the core issue is US News methodology, which calculates the expenditures per student into the rankings (assuming we ignore the act that law schools obsess over such rankings, since that won't ever change).

IDK, I think expenditure per student is probably a fantastic way to help calculate the merits of a school, if the school is being administered in a decent way.

The more you pay for professors, the better the professors should be, theoretically. The more money you invest in resources for the students and the school, the better those resources should be.

As long as what they pay are not outside of market norms for whatever they are paying for, it is probably a highly reliable way to measure a school.

Do you even go to law school? Can you "sense" when one of your professors make more than another?

[otnemem]

I've been running over a few numbers today. Over 50,000 students started law school for the class of '13, and over 46,000 started for the class of '14. It is still too early to tell, but it looks like for the class of '15 will have between 42,000-43,000 students entering this fall. If the 10% attrition of previous years remains constant, C/O 2015 will have 38,000+ students graduating, making it the smallest graduating class since 2002 (which had 38,576 graduating students).

[hung jury]

I've been running over a few numbers today. Over 50,000 students started law school for the class of '13, and over 46,000 started for the class of '14. It is still too early to tell, but it looks like for the class of '15 will have between 42,000-43,000 students entering this fall. If the 10% attrition of previous years remains constant, C/O 2015 will have 38,000+ students graduating, making it the smallest graduating class since 2002 (which had 38,576 graduating students).

Any chance you know the average percentage of those graduates who (a) sit for the bar and (b) eventually pass the bar in at least one state?

[otnemem]

I don't know how many people sit for the bar on average. This study seems to suggest that 95% of those who try eventually pass the bar; http://www.unc.edu/edp/pdf/NLBPS.pdf

[Rahviveh]

I've been running over a few numbers today. Over 50,000 students started law school for the class of '13, and over 46,000 started for the class of '14. It is still too early to tell, but it looks like for the class of '15 will have between 42,000-43,000 students entering this fall. If the 10% attrition of previous years remains constant, C/O 2015 will have 38,000+ students graduating, making it the smallest graduating class since 2002 (which had 38,576 graduating students).

Where do you get these numbers?

[otnemem]

--LinkRemoved--

Just copy and paste into a spreadsheet and then use functions to sum or average, etc. I'm assuming an 7-9% decline from C/O 2014 based on the numbers in this thread, which is speculative of course.

[manofjustice]

http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/cl ... enrollment

Just copy and paste into a spreadsheet and then use functions to sum or average, etc. I'm assuming an 7-9% decline from C/O 2014 based on the numbers in this thread, which is speculative of course.

Might that drop be a little low? Summing the total class size OLD and NEW, I calc a drop of 10.4%...but the OLD has more data points than the NEW, so once we have all the NEW, the drop is going to be more. Let's say 12%.

And might we assume a slight uptick in attrition given the drop in standards at most schools and b) the increase in scholarships (viz. more students call it quits without having sunk much cash)?

What if we assume a 12% attrition and a 12% drop? What's the number of graduates then?

but...
# of new job openings still predicted to be a far lower 22,000.

[manofjustice]

Answering my own question:

35,312.64 graduates.

http://www.lawschooltransparency.com/cl ... enrollment

Just copy and paste into a spreadsheet and then use functions to sum or average, etc. I'm assuming an 7-9% decline from C/O 2014 based on the numbers in this thread, which is speculative of course.

Might that drop be a little low? Summing the total class size OLD and NEW, I calc a drop of 10.4%...but the OLD has more data points than the NEW, so once we have all the NEW, the drop is going to be more. Let's say 12%.

And might we assume a slight uptick in attrition given the drop in standards at most schools and b) the increase in scholarships (viz. more students call it quits without having sunk much cash)?

What if we assume a 12% attrition and a 12% drop? What's the number of graduates then?

but...
# of new job openings still predicted to be a far lower 22,000.

[manofjustice]

Actually, where do we get the attrition rate of 10%?

http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/ ... eckdam.pdf

http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/ ... ummary.asp

It looks like if you just compare 1L attrition to eventual graduates, per class, you get about 10%. But some people in that class are going to leave 2L or 3L+ years. It would seem total attrition is closer to 13.7%. (total attrition 2010-2011 divided by fall 2010 matric).

So, that, combined with a 5.2% eventual fail rate... ( http://www.unc.edu/edp/pdf/NLBPS.pdf in exec summary)

...combined with a 12% matric drop off for this year....(without figuring that pass rates will fall or attrition will go up...with assuming all graduates take the bar, which I think is substantial false)...

32830 competing for jobs in 2015.

Tack on a few thousand for qualified laterals/unemployed who haven't left the profession.

[manofjustice]

With a heavy dose of qualified laterals/unemployed (like, 4 to 5 thousand of um...)...that's 60% total employment. Still dismal.

edit: excluding the qualified laterals/unemployed...(maybe we should...): It's more like 68%.

It's hard to know what to compare this number to, based as it is on a BLS projection. Full time/long term bar required? If so, it represents an improvement over 55% for 2011 (24%). Add back in the qualified laterals/unemployed and we still have a slight improvement (9%). It's impossible to know how many laterals/unemployed will be looking for entry level JD jobs in 2015...that might be more of a problem now and in the recent past than in the future. Eventually the unemployed will have to leave the profession.

Maybe the truth is in the middle...64%, a 16% improvement over 2011. Maybe we should get an over/under line going.



Contrast these numbers with 2007, the apex (that year was the best, then '08 started a slight downward trend http://www.nalp.org/uploads/1181_07selectedfindings.pdf ): 77% bar required (they didn't break-out long term/short term then.) So dock it 2 points. 75%.

So, define a range, from 55% to 75%. Define 75% as 100% recovery. 64% is essentially 50% recovery.

edit: This all makes a lot of sense. Take the 2011 matrics and decrease by 12%. 40128...13% less than 2004 matrics (who constitute the class of 2007). 2007 employed 75% in BR jobs. 2011 employed 55. Well, take that 13% drop and add it to the 55, and we get 68%: exactly the number predicted above without the "laterals and unemployed." That would be a 65% recovery.

So, take the outsourcing/insourcing/tec developed between 2007 to 2012...and maybe that brings us back down to 50%. Or maybe not. No one really has hard numbers on those trends. Either way, I think we have two models providing some support for a 50-65% recovery of the drop we felt from 2007 (the best of days, and two classes before the '08 crash) to 2011, which for some people might be sufficient, for others, maybe not. It is worth noting, however, that the best law schools have ever done in recent memory is about 75%.

2007 and 2008 were mostly the same. 2008 then 2009 then 2010 then 2011...each successively worse. I say go to LST and look up your schools 2009 and 2010 numbers, and you're gonna get about the same for class of 2015....with perhaps the exception of the bigFirm score if the economy doesn't at least appear to be trending positive before OCI next year.

[justonemoregame]

We have an average so far of about 20 less students per school, so that would be about 4,000 less matriculants this year -- but we haven't heard from a lot of the super shitty schools with huge class sizes either: Cooley, Fla. Coastal, Phoenix, Charlotte, the John Marshalls, Thomas Jefferson, et. al. One thing that scares me is their willingness to play Standards limbo, like we have seen already with Nova Southeastern and New England School of Law.

So the final tally may be skewed a bit depending on how many people they can set the hook on. Probably doesn't change the game too much in terms of competitiveness for actual legal jobs, though.

[Ruxin1]

We have an average so far of about 20 less students per school, so that would be about 4,000 less matriculants this year -- but we haven't heard from a lot of the super shitty schools with huge class sizes either: Cooley, Fla. Coastal, Phoenix, Charlotte, the John Marshalls, Thomas Jefferson, et. al. One thing that scares me is their willingness to play Standards limbo, like we have seen already with Nova Southeastern and New England School of Law.

So the final tally may be skewed a bit depending on how many people they can set the hook on. Probably doesn't change the game too much in terms of competitiveness for actual legal jobs, though.

But why do we even need to count those for our purposes...

[Yukos]

We have an average so far of about 20 less students per school, so that would be about 4,000 less matriculants this year -- but we haven't heard from a lot of the super shitty schools with huge class sizes either: Cooley, Fla. Coastal, Phoenix, Charlotte, the John Marshalls, Thomas Jefferson, et. al. One thing that scares me is their willingness to play Standards limbo, like we have seen already with Nova Southeastern and New England School of Law.

So the final tally may be skewed a bit depending on how many people they can set the hook on. Probably doesn't change the game too much in terms of competitiveness for actual legal jobs, though.

But why do we even need to count those for our purposes...

--ImageRemoved--

[hunter.d]

I think this is brand new, correct me if you guys already caught.

Georgetown

LSAT: 165(-2)/ 169 (-1) / 170 (-1)

GPA: 3.43 (-.01)/ 3.73 (+.01) /3.82 (+01)

That 25th LSAT took a beating. 2011 entering it was at 169

[minnbills]

I think this is brand new, correct me if you guys already caught.

Georgetown

LSAT: 165(-2)/ 169 (-1) / 170 (-1)

GPA: 3.43 (-.01)/ 3.73 (+.01) /3.82 (+01)

That 25th LSAT took a beating. 2011 entering it was at 169

lolol should have cut dat class size more, it is a degree mill after all.

[hunter.d]

I think this is brand new, correct me if you guys already caught.

Georgetown

LSAT: 165(-2)/ 169 (-1) / 170 (-1)

GPA: 3.43 (-.01)/ 3.73 (+.01) /3.82 (+01)

That 25th LSAT took a beating. 2011 entering it was at 169

lolol should have cut dat class size more, it is a degree mill after all.

My math could be wrong but I think less students means less people paying tuition......