NYTimes Article About Law School Scholarships Forum

[Grizz]

On the one hand I'm like yeah, read the fine print, but a lot of people don't expect that they should. Like the article says, this is completely different from most undergrads, where the money is a sweet reward.

[crit_racer]

glad this article was published.

[Knock]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I like how these important issues are finally starting to get some mainstream media attention, I just wish NYT could choose better examples. This and "Is Law School a Losing Game?" both discussed T4 schools, but this isn't just an issue for T4 schools .

[Flips88]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I like how these important issues are finally starting to get some mainstream media attention, I just wish NYT could choose better examples. This and "Is Law School a Losing Game?" both discussed T4 schools, but this isn't just an issue for T4 schools .

Yeah, no one should trust Golden Gate or Thomas Jefferson, but a T1 should be trustworthy and many of them are not.

[rose711]

I think that part of reading the fine print means you have to have data on how likely it is that you will meet the stipulations. The only data available is the number of students who have lost their scholarship. The stipulation may not seem that onerous until you know that a significant percentage of the students lose their scholarships. How can you understand a stipulation without context?

This article makes me hate the US News and World Report idiots even more.

[scammedhard]

This article makes me hate the US News and World Report idiots even more.

Me too. But you know, US News ranks lots of other professions, and they don't seem to have these issues. Why do you think that is the case?

[dr123]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I like how these important issues are finally starting to get some mainstream media attention, I just wish NYT could choose better examples. This and "Is Law School a Losing Game?" both discussed T4 schools, but this isn't just an issue for T4 schools .

Yeah, no one should trust Golden Gate or Thomas Jefferson, but a T1 should be trustworthy and many of them are not.

T1s aren't much different from GG or TJSL, they're all out to get that $$$

[Hannibal]

This article makes me hate the US News and World Report idiots even more.

Me too. But you know, US News ranks lots of other professions, and they don't seem to have these issues. Why do you think that is the case?

Because the US News actually matters for law schools because all law schools are the same.

[Hannibal]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I like how these important issues are finally starting to get some mainstream media attention, I just wish NYT could choose better examples. This and "Is Law School a Losing Game?" both discussed T4 schools, but this isn't just an issue for T4 schools .

Yeah, no one should trust Golden Gate or Thomas Jefferson, but a T1 should be trustworthy and many of them are not.

T1s aren't much different from GG or TJSL, they're all out to get that $$$

Schools are not businesses. Otherwise Yale wouldn't spend $150k/student.

[BeenDidThat]

This article makes me hate the US News and World Report idiots even more.

Me too. But you know, US News ranks lots of other professions, and they don't seem to have these issues. Why do you think that is the case?

Because the US News actually matters for law schools because all law schools are the same.

TCR is that lawyers are professional loophole leapers.

[swc65]

Why is merit scholarship retention not part of the U.S. News data haul? “The main reason is that we haven’t thought about it,” said Robert Morse, who oversees the rankings. “It’s not a great answer, but it’s an honest answer.”

Then Mr. Morse thought about it.

“This isn’t meant to be sarcastic,” he said, “but these students are going to law school and they need to learn to read the fine print.”

This thread is now about why Robert Morse and USNWR should have bought TLS.

yeah but they learn this IN law school. Can you imagine, halfway through contracts class, second semester "OMG THIS SCHOOL SCREWED ME!!!!"

[Zabini]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I like how these important issues are finally starting to get some mainstream media attention, I just wish NYT could choose better examples. This and "Is Law School a Losing Game?" both discussed T4 schools, but this isn't just an issue for T4 schools .

Yeah, no one should trust Golden Gate or Thomas Jefferson, but a T1 should be trustworthy and many of them are not.

T1s aren't much different from GG or TJSL, they're all out to get that $$$

Schools are not businesses. Otherwise Yale wouldn't spend $150k/student.

...not sure if serious...

[09042014]

People think 3.0? Ha, I rarely got C's in undergrad this will be easy. Not knowing that 3.0 is median or at some schools well above median.

[PDaddy]

Why am I not surprised that, according to the article, schools' fixation on the US News ranking is really behind this scam? They do provide a great service, don't they? Thank you future T4 law Professor Morse, looking out to educate law students about fine print.

Is it like no one really had this figured out before? This stuff had always been obvious to me.

Everything law schools do these days has at least one of four purposes: 1) lure increasingly better students each year, 2) maintain/increase profits so that they may 3) pay for better facilities and 4) pay top dollar for top faculty and administrative talent. Those goals serve the larger goal of improving schools' rankings.

I have said it before and I'll say it now...THIS IS OURRIGHT FRAUD! Any corporation that operated the way these law schools operate would see its execs marched out in cuffs on CNN. Bill O'Reilly, Geraldo Rivera and the rest would have a field day. This is fraud, pure and simple. They misrepresent their numbers but will expel a student in a heartbeat for leaving out speeding tix on his char-fit report. While I agree with the point Morse made about students' personal responsibility for reading "the fine print", the schools are still committing fraud.

When is a group of attorneys going to grow some balls and start suing the ABA, USNWR and the law schools for misleading the public and students?

[Hannibal]

Schools are not businesses. Otherwise Yale wouldn't spend $150k/student.

...not sure if serious...

About which part?

Yale spends 150k/student. Harvard spends 100k. UVA spends 70k. Minnesota spends 40. These are non-profit organizations.

[flpackerfan]

How many merit based scholarships don't have GPA requirements?

Also, isn't the general conception that getting good grades in law school is significantly harder than in UG?

[09042014]

How many merit based scholarships don't have GPA requirements?

Also, isn't the general conception that getting good grades in law school is significantly harder than UG?

Most top schools have no GPA requirements (or if htey have one it's basically, don't fail out).

Law school grades are harder because there is a curve and everyone tries. People who try very hard often just get beaten. In UG there isn't a fight for grades. IF you earn an A you get one.

[Zabini]

Schools are not businesses. Otherwise Yale wouldn't spend $150k/student.

...not sure if serious...

About which part?

The "schools are not businesses" part. That's fine as a normative statement ("schools should not be businesses") and works as a descriptive statement for some schools (like the ones you've mentioned) but...

[beachbum]

Interesting article, thanks for sharing. I like how these important issues are finally starting to get some mainstream media attention, I just wish NYT could choose better examples. This and "Is Law School a Losing Game?" both discussed T4 schools, but this isn't just an issue for T4 schools .

+1, though this is still much better than leaving the issue untouched

[PDaddy]

How many merit based scholarships don't have GPA requirements?

Also, isn't the general conception that getting good grades in law school is significantly harder than in UG?

We know the administration is in on it, but I'm starting to wonder if the profs who give the grades aren't also in on it. Sections aren't randomly assigned. Whether or not they are often one in the same, "top students" and "scholarship students" are grouped together. That's no accident. And don't believe for one second that absolutely no school has taken the supposedly blind grading system and made it unblind. Someone out there has done it. Imagine if profs knew exactly who was getting money and who wasn't. Then imagine that they somehow had a guide for discerning which students turned in which exams. Imagine further that they got bonu$e$ for doing this garbage. I know it sounds wild, but...

[overunderachiever]

As the article pointed out, its a damn shame that need-based aid dropped while merit scholarships skyrocketed...just another case of the have's vs. the have-not's

[flpackerfan]

How many merit based scholarships don't have GPA requirements?

Also, isn't the general conception that getting good grades in law school is significantly harder than UG?

Most top schools have no GPA requirements (or if htey have one it's basically, don't fail out).

Law school grades are harder because there is a curve and everyone tries. People who try very hard often just get beaten. In UG there isn't a fight for grades. IF you earn an A you get one.

Law schools don't hide the fact they grade on a curve. I don't understand how these people can claim to not know the risks of a GPA based scholarship. Being ignorant isn't much of an excuse.

[flpackerfan]

How many merit based scholarships don't have GPA requirements?

Also, isn't the general conception that getting good grades in law school is significantly harder than in UG?

We know the administration is in on it, but I'm starting to wonder if the profs who give the grades aren't also in on it. Sections aren't randomly assigned. Whether or not they are often one in the same, "top students" and "scholarship students" are grouped together. That's no accident. And don't believe for one second that absolutely no school has taken the supposedly blind grading system and made it unblind. Someone out there has done it. Imagine if profs knew exactly who was getting money and who wasn't. Then imagine that they somehow had a guide for discerning which students turned in which exams. Imagine further that they got bonu$e$ for doing this garbage. I know it sounds wild, but...

I wouldn't be shocked if some sub-100 ranked school was doing some shady stuff to save scholarship money, but to me the real issue is people not researching the risks and costs of law school.

[Hannibal]

Schools are not businesses. Otherwise Yale wouldn't spend $150k/student.

...not sure if serious...

About which part?

The "schools are not businesses" part. That's fine as a normative statement ("schools should not be businesses") and works as a descriptive statement for some schools (like the ones you've mentioned) but...

A majority of schools are like how I mentioned, or close to it. For-profit schools are businesses. The closest others come to that is fundraising for their UG, which most grad programs are in the first place.

[Ignatius Reilly]

How many merit based scholarships don't have GPA requirements?

Also, isn't the general conception that getting good grades in law school is significantly harder than in UG?

Law schools are graded on a curve, so only so many students get A's B's etc. Most UG institututions inflate gpa's, although it wouldn't suprise me if it was harder to get good grades in Big State schools in the hard sciences, but this is just speculation. However, at some schools teachers wont give lower than C's (in major classes) to students who deserve to fail. UG is a joke, although I would bet that the material itself is often harder in higher level classes.


I was under the impression that most of the top schools gave their scholarships without stipulations....is this not the case?