Michigan ($$) vs Penn (sticker) Forum

[whymeohgodno]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

[irishman86]

Michigan consistently placed V10s around top 1/3 in better times, and this year we've placed NYC V10 (non-IP/LR, too) as low as median. Penn sends a higher percentage of their class to NYC and firms might be used to taking more Penn students because of that, but that's largely because Michigan has a much better spread of target markets. For the majority of people seeking biglaw at Michigan, NYC is and always has been the "safety" market. This "stronger" NYC placement that you're speaking of really isn't all that much to brag about, and it certainly doesn't demonstrate any particularly impressive attribute that Penn possesses and Michigan lacks. I bet your ass dollar for dollar that Michigan would place just as well in NYC if we channeled that market as hard as Penn does instead of sending so many others to DC/Chicago/Bay Area. The fact that Penn sends 61% into NYC and only 7% to the Pacific (LA/SF/Portland/Seattle) and 4% to the midwest (Chicago) may suggest to you that they have the edge in NYC placement; to me, I recognize that NYC is the easiest market and those other markets where Michigan places significantly better are all significantly tougher. I hardly think it's a stretch to suggest that these students wouldn't place just as easily into NYC if they wanted to fall back on NYC.

Your Penn sticker over Michigan at $50k argument is a joke.

TCR. Top of the class does not typically bid on New York, but if they did, they'd have an easy time in New York. My friends with really good grades all bid DC, SF, etc. New York is seen as the "safety market."

Also, a few v20s I know of have a ton of Columbia/NYU summers and then other T-14 people, including more Mich summers than Penn summers next year...Every firm has their own school preference list.

[IAFG]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

[whymeohgodno]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

While I agree, $$ (at least 20k/y?) imo would make up for that different in NYC placement.

[irishman86]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

Fewer people bidding on New York from Michigan does not mean that Michigan is at a disadvantage with respect to New York placement. (If you have seen summer lists for certain v20s, it certainly does not seem that they favor Penn (although there is a clear bias for Columbia/NYU at v20s. In fact, I won't specify, but certain firms have more UVA summers than Penn summers and New York isn't as popular of a market at UVA.) The plurality of firms at Michigan's OCI this year were from New York. The top of the class typically bids on DC and elsewhere, not New York, so you don't have to compete with the top of the class at the screening interview stage.

[IAFG]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

While I agree, $$ (at least 20k/y?) imo would make up for that different in NYC placement.

As I have said before, in my opinion, it would take a very hefty scholarship to ease the sting of striking out. OCI is too all-or-nothing to let a relatively small scholarship sway you.

[irishman86]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

While I agree, $$ (at least 20k/y?) imo would make up for that different in NYC placement.

As I have said before, in my opinion, it would take a very hefty scholarship to ease the sting of striking out. OCI is too all-or-nothing to let a relatively small scholarship sway you.

Read the Penn OCI thread. Median at Penn with no good work experience ==> striking out, just like it probably is at most places outside of HYSCN.

Also, why are 0Ls in this conversation?

[IAFG]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

Fewer people bidding on New York from Michigan does not mean that Michigan is at a disadvantage with respect to New York placement. (If you have seen summer lists for certain v20s, it certainly does not seem that they favor Penn (although there is a clear bias for Columbia/NYU at v20s. In fact, I won't specify, but certain firms have more UVA summers than Penn summers and New York isn't as popular of a market at UVA.) The plurality of firms at Michigan's OCI this year were from New York. The top of the class typically bids on DC and elsewhere, not New York, so you don't have to compete with the top of the class at the screening interview stage.

the fact that a large portion of OCI firms were fro
NYC supports my point as much as it could undermine it. Also, UVA's class size is big so in raw numbers, that isn't a good comparison point.

As far as Wachtell goes though, I am fairly certain the 2011ers they took were all JD-MBAs so not really apples-to-apples.

[BruceWayne]

Not according to rayiner, US News, and autoadmit, the absolute authorities on law school placement!!! LMAO

DBrooks, you lost your right to evaluate metric quality when you said pulling the same quality of girls made your ugly, fat ass as attractive as your roommate.[/quote]


IAFG each post you make is more ignorant than the last; which is quite an accomplishment when you look back at many of your posts. D Brooks hasn't posted on here in ages, and I don't even know what you're referring to in regards to this comment. The thing is almost everyone on here knows who I am and it's not D Brooks. I started posting way before he did. And I'm sorry but a female poster with as many posts as you have and with an avatar like that really shouldn't be pulling the physical attractiveness card considering the extremely high likelihood that you are not attractive.

Like numerous posters are explaining to you, you really seem to have a problem understanding that at schools like Michigan, Stanford, Berkeley, and UVA the students actually do not want to work in NYC for the most part. Penn students prefer NYC over other markets, that's why Penn sends so many more students there. Frankly, for a lot of people here at UVA, they end up in NYC because they couldn't really work where they wanted to. Most people at Michigan/UVA aren't dreaming of a V10 in NYC--most people at Penn are. On top of that NYC is the easiest market to break into. If there's a market where it makes sense to take scholarship money over a slight (and arguable) placement edge it's NYC. The only firm in NY that will hire from Penn and not from Michigan is Wachtell. Other than that all of the V10 will hire from Michigan--they just give a little bit of an edge to Penn. It's not like Sullivan is going to take a 3.3 from Penn and require a 3.6 from Michigan.

[FlightoftheEarls]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

While I agree, $$ (at least 20k/y?) imo would make up for that different in NYC placement.

As I have said before, in my opinion, it would take a very hefty scholarship to ease the sting of striking out. OCI is too all-or-nothing to let a relatively small scholarship sway you.

While there are those who will disagree about $50k being a relatively small scholarship, there's also the fact that you're completely and utterly missing the argument here.

Penn has "better" placement only by virtue of people going to an "easier" market and, quite possibly, not having the access into other, more-selective markets that Michigan has. Now, that could be entirely self-selection into NYC on Penn's part (although it seems quite odd that only 10% of Penn's class would want to be in Chicago, SF, LA, Seattle, etc), but that is equally beside the point. The fact is that the people from Michigan who are going to these other markets are typically much more competitive than the people going to New York. While some people at the top of the class do occasionally prefer NYC, the more "selective" markets are accessed by a large number of people that could easily have had NYC biglaw if they'd wanted. And, because we place a much higher percentage of our graduates in these "other" markets across the nation, Michigan has a much higher percentage of these "non-NYCers" than Penn does.

So what does this mean, and what does this not mean? This does not mean you have a higher chance of striking out at Michigan vs. Penn for any given candidate. What that does mean, however, is that your chances of landing biglaw are better if you aim at NYC vs. the other markets where Michigan has significant clout. This is the strategy that Penn students use much more frequently than Michigan students (even if by self-selection), and this means that they will therefore have "better" NYC placement statistics. By comparison, Michigan must send the better part of its top-1/3 candidates to markets other than NYC if it is going to have the DC/SF/Chicago placement that it does. If Michigan didn't have so many other "more desirable" (at least according to GPA requirements) markets where we sent a much higher number of graduates to rather than NYC, I suggest that you would be very hard pressed to find any discernible difference between the schools' NYC biglaw placement. And certainly not $50,000 worth.

[BruceWayne]

While there are those who will disagree about $50k being a relatively small scholarship, there's also the fact that you're completely and utterly missing the argument here.

Penn has "better" placement only by virtue of people going to an "easier" market and, quite possibly, not having the access into other, more-selective markets that Michigan has. Now, that could be entirely self-selection into NYC on Penn's part (although it seems quite odd that only 10% of Penn's class would want to be in Chicago, SF, LA, Seattle, etc), but that is equally beside the point. The fact is that the people from Michigan who are going to these other markets are typically much more competitive than the people going to New York. While some people at the top of the class do occasionally prefer NYC, the more "selective" markets are accessed by a large number of people that could easily have had NYC biglaw if they'd wanted. And, because we place a much higher percentage of our graduates in these "other" markets across the nation, Michigan has a much higher percentage of these "non-NYCers" than Penn does.

So what does this mean, and what does this not mean? This does not mean you have a higher chance of striking out at Michigan vs. Penn for any given candidate. What that does mean, however, is that your chances of landing biglaw are better if you aim at NYC vs. the other markets where Michigan has significant clout. This is the strategy that Penn students use much more frequently than Michigan students (even if by self-selection), and this means that they will therefore have "better" NYC placement statistics. By comparison, Michigan must send the better part of its top-1/3 candidates to markets other than NYC if it is going to have the DC/SF/Chicago placement that it does. If Michigan didn't have so many other "more desirable" (at least according to GPA requirements) markets where we sent a much higher number of graduates to rather than NYC, I suggest that you would be very hard pressed to find any discernible difference between the schools' NYC biglaw placement. And certainly not $50,000 worth.

It's astounding how many people miss this considering how obvious it is. I've mentioned it numerous times. NYU, Penn, Cornell and Duke have "better" biglaw placement numbers than a lot of the other top 14 because a massive percentage of their class actually has the nation's easiest market as their first choice. All of the other top 14 schools (with the obvious exception of Columbia, but the thing about them is that they do place better into non NYC markets than the aforementioned NYC focused schools) have a student body that does not have NYC as their primary focus. Their students are going after more competitive positions in other markets. If Michigan students would stop desiring to work in California and Chicago to such a strong degree, and just made NYC their first choice, Michigan's "biglaw placement" (since many on here consider biglaw/law firm placement to be exclusive to NYC) would skyrocket. If UVA kids would stop putting DC as their first choice market and just deal with NYC, UVA's "biglaw placement" would skyrocket. This is one of the reasons why Stanford often comes out behind Columbia and NYU in firm placement stats.

[Reedie]

NYU, Penn, Cornell and Duke have "better" biglaw placement numbers than a lot of the other top 14 because a massive percentage of their class actually has the nation's easiest market as their first choice.

From 2007-2009 Michigan placed:

272 NY
110 DC
97 CA

From 2007-2009 Duke placed:

147 NY
115 DC
68 CA

Provided I'm understanding the way the sources are compiling the information http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/factsa ... fault.aspx and http://www.law.duke.edu/career/resources/facts . Whatever differences exist between Duke and Michigan can't be explained by an increased preference for NY at Duke in comparison with DC and CA. Michigan students are--on the other hand--much much more likely to want to work in Chicago than Duke students. I've heard that Chicago has been hit especially hard by the downtown, so in the short run this might hurt their placement stats. In the long run Michigan is a very national school without a home market, and like all other national schools attracts plenty of New York employers.

If OP wants to work in New York, I'd say that (combined with being a moderate splitter) argues for applying very broadly and against ED contracts excepting possibly Columbia or NYU. Go where you like it and where you can minimize debt. The differences in job placement between these elite programs are not that great. Also, don't trust people on here who tend to exaggerate extremely small differences in very limited data sets.

[BruceWayne]

^ My error; I actually didn't mean to include Duke. Nonetheless, you came to the same conclusion. Taking Penn at sticker over 50K at Michigan is utterly ridiculous for any market other than Philly.

[rayiner]

Michigan consistently placed V10s around top 1/3 in better times, and this year we've placed NYC V10 (non-IP/LR, too) as low as median.

That figure is comparable to NU and UVA. Penn is a notch better.

[rayiner]

I'd take Michigan $$ without a seconds hesitation. Michigan and Penn are peer schools and $$ is nothing to scoff at.

ITE they are not peers in terms of NYC placement. Michigan's lack of home market was to their advantage in better times but has hurt them as firms scale back hiring, especially since the market that hired most aggressively for 2012 and 2011 was NYC.

While I agree, $$ (at least 20k/y?) imo would make up for that different in NYC placement.

If your target market was NY, like OP, would $50k be enough to tip the balance for you?

[FlightoftheEarls]

Michigan consistently placed V10s around top 1/3 in better times, and this year we've placed NYC V10 (non-IP/LR, too) as low as median.

That figure is comparable to NU and UVA. Penn is a notch better.

Really? Because Penn sent 61% to NYC in 2009, and landed only 14% into V10. Looking at this in the light most favorable to Penn, let's say we can assume that all of the DCs come from top 1/3. These DC individuals account for at most 15% of the class (assuming Penn sent nobody to GA, FL, DE, MD, NC, SC, VA, WVA). In reality, I would imagine some 5-10 people from their CO 2009 went to these other states, and approximately 10-12% ended up in DC. Let's say another 3% went to SF, and 3% went to Chicago (http://www.law.upenn.edu/cpp/prospectiv ... stics.html). So of the other 18-20% of the class that is top 1/3 and probably targeting NYC, about 14% landed V10 (forgetting that some of the V10 might be already accounted for in DC or secondaries). Or are you arguing that they placed V10 consistently below top 1/3 (say top 40%), but maybe somewhere around half of all of those with V10 offers opted out of these firms in favor of a firm like Cleary and Paul Weiss? That also seems somewhat generous, as I doubt half of the people with offers at the ten most prestigious firms would be self-selecting into the 3 or 4 well-respected/competitive V15s (like Cleary, PW, Deb, GDC).

Also keep in mind: Michigan placed somewhere around 26% of its graduates into New York (the only link I could find was 2008 http://www.top-law-schools.com/michigan ... #Placement, but both C/O 2008 and 2009 were pre-burst OCIs), whereas Penn placed about 61%. While Michigan gets edged out for V10 placement by Penn, that edge is 14% to 9.1% (http://www.top-law-schools.com/archives ... =1&t=61294). Even though we all know how NYC-heavy the V10 is and how much better the V10 stats should be for schools that place predominantly into NYC, you have a ratio of 61:14 (22.9%) for Penn's NYC:NYC-V10 placement and 26:9.1 (35%) for Michigan's NYC:NYC-V10. I know those figures won't be perfect because you will get a few random V10s from other cities, but (as I mentioned) the fact that they're placing primarily into NYC as compared to Michigan should actually be helping Penn here.

Again, I'll repeat (since you seem to have become particularly adept at ignoring every single argument I've made here): Penn being worth $50k more than Michigan for NYC placement is absurd - they're peer schools.

[rayiner]

From the Lawfirm Addict data, I've got:

7 Penn 22.6%
12 Northwestern 19.8%
13 Cornell 19.7%
11 Duke 18.1%
8 Michigan 12.3%

Also, your 61% in NY for Penn is actually NY + NJ + PA. PA being the home market of Penn I'd estimate a non-trivial number of folks ended up there. Adding up the top markets in http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/factsa ... fault.aspx gives a NYC figure of more like 40% for Michigan.

In any case, I don't think that comparison is at all meaningful. Your method counts every student placed in an NYC V10 as +1 for both schools, every student placed outside of NYC as 0, and every student placed in a non-V10 NYC/NJ/PA firm as -1. That skews your measurement strongly for Michigan. There, folks who don't get a top NYC firm might target smaller firms in the midwest, etc, while at Penn folks who don't get a top NYC firm will target smaller NYC firms and firms in PA and NJ.

Both of us are basing our conclusions on anecdotal data and surreptitious glances at OCS charts, because that's the best we have. You don't have to agree with me, but I stand behind my original statement: if I were choosing between Michigan with $50k and Penn with $0, I'd choose Penn.

[FlightoftheEarls]

Also, your 61% in NY for Penn is actually NY + NJ + PA. PA being the home market of Penn I'd estimate a non-trivial number of folks ended up there.

Good catch - you're correct in that assessment.

Adding up the top markets in http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/factsa ... fault.aspx gives a NYC figure of more like 40% for Michigan.

I'm not entirely sure how you're getting 40% in NYC firms. We had 252 in NYC firms from 2007-2009 (http://www.law.umich.edu/CAREERS/FACTSA ... fault.aspx). If we take 252 and divide by 3 (2007, 2008. 2009), I'm coming out to an average of 84 NYC firm jobs per year. Since we graduate around 390-400 per year (after adding ~40 transfers), that puts NYC law firm placement at an average of about 21% of the class, unless I'm miscalculating.

In any case, I don't think that comparison is at all meaningful. Your method counts every student placed in an NYC V10 as +1 for both schools, every student placed outside of NYC as 0, and every student placed in a non-V10 NYC/NJ/PA firm as -1. That skews your measurement strongly for Michigan. There, folks who don't get a top NYC firm might target smaller firms in the midwest, etc, while at Penn folks who don't get a top NYC firm will target smaller NYC firms and firms in PA and NJ.

I agree and admitted that the data is flawed. However, we both know that the vast majority of V10 numbers for any school come from NYC firms (especially in years where K&E is V11 and Michigan doesn't get that placement "bonus" at K&E Chicago that Penn likely lacks; I mean, where else is there that Michigan gets the data-skewing boost that Penn won't - maybe Skadden Chicago?). Even after providing significant wiggle-room because of these discrepancies and giving you your PA(10%)/NYC(50%) estimate, the numbers (which may be the best we can derive placement estimates from) still don't come out to any significant (or even any) advantage for Penn.

You don't have to agree with me, but I stand behind my original statement: if I were choosing between Michigan with $50k and Penn with $0, I'd choose Penn.

Fair enough, but you probably should recognize that that's a decision based on TLS' ridiculously unsubstantiated mentality of P>>>>MV!!!1!1 for NYC placement. If Michigan students cared to go to NYC in droves like Penn, the NYC placement statistics would probably be remarkably similar. Even as they stand, Michigan may be trailing Penn in pure numbers, but certainly not in placement. That is, of course, unless OP has his soul dead set on WLRK.

[IAFG]

I'm not entirely sure how you're getting 40% in NYC firms. We had 252 in NYC firms from 2007-2009 (http://www.law.umich.edu/CAREERS/FACTSA ... fault.aspx). If we take 252 and divide by 3 (2007, 2008. 2009), I'm coming out to an average of 84 NYC firm jobs per year. Since we graduate around 390-400 per year (after adding ~40 transfers), that puts NYC law firm placement at an average of about 21% of the class, unless I'm miscalculating.

Dividing evenly years 2007, 2008 and 2009? That seems... wrong

[FlightoftheEarls]

I'm not entirely sure how you're getting 40% in NYC firms. We had 252 in NYC firms from 2007-2009 (http://www.law.umich.edu/CAREERS/FACTSA ... fault.aspx). If we take 252 and divide by 3 (2007, 2008. 2009), I'm coming out to an average of 84 NYC firm jobs per year. Since we graduate around 390-400 per year (after adding ~40 transfers), that puts NYC law firm placement at an average of about 21% of the class, unless I'm miscalculating.

Dividing evenly years 2007, 2008 and 2009? That seems... wrong

Class of 2009 did OCI in 2007, which was pre-crash. Apart from deferrals, the first class that really had their OCIs wrecked was 2010 when the economy dropped right in the middle of CB/offer season. Then followed the class of 2011, which is frequently referred to as the Lost Generation.

[Reedie]

I'm not entirely sure how you're getting 40% in NYC firms. We had 252 in NYC firms from 2007-2009 (http://www.law.umich.edu/CAREERS/FACTSA ... fault.aspx). If we take 252 and divide by 3 (2007, 2008. 2009), I'm coming out to an average of 84 NYC firm jobs per year. Since we graduate around 390-400 per year (after adding ~40 transfers), that puts NYC law firm placement at an average of about 21% of the class, unless I'm miscalculating.

Dividing evenly years 2007, 2008 and 2009? That seems... wrong

Remember the purpose of the evidence: to get a sense of the geographic preferences of the two school's students, not their ability to place students.

[Law Sauce]

This is actually a great thread. Thanks for the heated discussion and all the fact checking.

[pereira6]

This is actually a great thread. Thanks for the heated discussion and all the fact checking.

+1

Additional, qualitative thought from an uninformed 0L: I haven't talked to anybody who remotely suggests they felt this way, but if we're comparing the two schools under the conditions of the topic title, and you visit the two schools, you might absolutely hate Michigan and love the atmosphere of downtown Philly. A happy student is a successful student usually.

I've only heard glorious things about Michigan and less-than-stellar things about Philly, but I have not been to either place ever in my life, so I can't support either of those assessments. Penn might end up being worth that additional money if you love it.

Also, I'm pretty sure I saw somebody else say this, but if Michigan gives you money you *might* be able to leverage that to Penn.

[FMaze]

Would you kindly explain what “leverage to U Penn” means? Thanks

[Mike12188]

Would you kindly explain what “leverage to U Penn” means? Thanks

Telling Penn about the money at Mich and trying to get money out of them