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applesoranges123 wrote:Georgetown seems to get a lot of flak on this forum, mainly for its large class size. Since this has a negative impact on the students' job prospects and the school's ranking, why doesn't the school just cut down the entering size more substantially? Obviously I realize that they would get less tuition money, but this could probably be offset somewhat by the fact that they would need less teachers (so paying for less salaries), etc. I mean other schools are able to do it, so why not they? I had heard that they will be cutting down the class size for the coming fall (not sure if this is true or how substantial the difference would be). Since the size affects employment prospects I feel like this is the main reason it is ranked below schools like Cornell. As a potential entering student there in the fall, was just wondering about all this!

I'm thinking about the same issue. I'm still considering Gtown but am leaning towards Cornell because it seems like the job prospects for biglaw, especially in nyc, are much better. 50%+ of the class gets biglaw out of 190-200 students whereas a third of Gtown get biglaw. I know that the numbers are different due to class size but surely this means that you'd have to place higher at Gtown to get more job prospects.

True the size probably does lower Gtowns ranking but then they also use this to their advantage, for instance saying that you can meet a lot more people, networking, etc. Problem is I think that most people, especially aspiring lawyers, would be prepared to give up meeting people in order to have more of a chance of securing a better job. Also Gtown is cut off from the main campus, which may be attractive, but also means that you are literally around the law all the time. At a place like Cornell, for example, there are other grad schools and a lot more people who are not concerned with the law to get away from it all for a bit.

Regardless, Gtown is a great school with a great rep and the class size is just part of its charm and I don't think they are going to change it any time soon. Obviously if you want public interest work, Gtown has great programs. This is a little off topic but it is something to consider, and class size thus becomes less of an issue.

Yeah I have heard that Cornell places better for NYC big law specifically. When comparing the percentages though, to be fair, I think some of the difference might be from self-selection. Compared to some other schools, more Gtown students seem to be inclined towards taking work other than big law like government/public interest, etc, so that could affect the percentage that end up going in to big law upon graduation. I was just wondering why the school wouldn't just cut down on the size, since it seems to be an obvious remedy for the unemployment stats and help with their rankings and stuff. I guess on this forum it just seems like people are constantly bashing the job prospects the school offers.

Until people stop coming to the schools, they won't make any changes. At the moment people are still tripping over themselves to pay $45,000 per year to these schools. The job prospects are very unclear. Does that stop anyone? Nope. Why would class size?

applesoranges123 wrote:Georgetown seems to get a lot of flak on this forum, mainly for its large class size. Since this has a negative impact on the students' job prospects and the school's ranking, why doesn't the school just cut down the entering size more substantially? Obviously I realize that they would get less tuition money, but this could probably be offset somewhat by the fact that they would need less teachers (so paying for less salaries), etc. I mean other schools are able to do it, so why not they? I had heard that they will be cutting down the class size for the coming fall (not sure if this is true or how substantial the difference would be). Since the size affects employment prospects I feel like this is the main reason it is ranked below schools like Cornell. As a potential entering student there in the fall, was just wondering about all this!

They can't simply cut teachers or salaries. This would mean a huge hit to their USNWR reputation rankings among academics- fully 25% of the ranking. Maybe this could be made up by a huge jump in LSAT/GPA through culling the lower performing applicants, but I doubt it- they'd have to make large investments in scholarships and that might not be possible with decreased revenue.

They could cut 100 students easily, raise medians slightly, and keep all their staff... Look at the student/teacher ratio. Big classes at GULC

Many of their faculty are tenured and couldn't be fired anyway.

Yeah but they have a lot of visiting faculty, so they wouldn't need to fire anyone, I guess just stop hiring and stuff. Anyways, my point was not about the teachers' salaries, but that it seems like they could cut down a lot on class size, improve in rankings/prestige/employment prospects, by cutting down on other things. I guess I was just wondering why they don't do this since it would make them seem like a better school.

I realize that this runs counter to conventional wisdom, but GULC's size actually appeals to me. Indeed, I will be in a much larger pool of applicants, in an already oversaturated and competitive market. At the same time, however, I will be among a more diverse (by virtue of its size) student body, with a wider array of courses, people, and perspectives available to me. From what I can tell, with students broken down by section and interest (e.g., in student orgs), I should have no trouble forming communities and peer groups.

If you want the "benefits" of a big school, go to Harvard. If you can't get in to Harvard, then choose the school with the best employment prospects. GULC has the worst employment outcomes of all of the schools in the T14.

applesoranges123 wrote:Yeah but they have a lot of visiting faculty, so they wouldn't need to fire anyone, I guess just stop hiring and stuff. Anyways, my point was not about the teachers' salaries, but that it seems like they could cut down a lot on class size, improve in rankings/prestige/employment prospects, by cutting down on other things. I guess I was just wondering why they don't do this since it would make them seem like a better school.

I see. There is probably a lot of institutional inertia behind having CULC huge - besides the number of tenured faculty, this includes support staff, the physical plant and classroom space, financial structure, the money the school gives to the university, subsidizing less profitable departments, the intangible value of having lots of alumni to burnish popular views of the school's quality, etc. Maybe they think that whatever benefits they would get from cutting size (higher per student spending, better student : faculty ratio) is outweighed by the benefits of the status quo ($). Note that they have been 14 for a long time, when the rest of the lower T14 seems pretty fluid. Maybe they are making a calculated decision to just stay in the T14 while maximizing revenue.

bdubs wrote:GULC has the worst employment outcomes of all of the schools in the T14.

This makes me so unhappy

I did hear from someone that in the school newspaper this year the dean had stated that they were planning on cutting down on the class size for next year. Assuming that this is true, I'm not sure by how drastic of a reduction they are planning though (I mean if its by like a total of 20 students, its not really going to make much of a difference, although I guess ITE everything helps). Does anyone have more information about this? It seems dumb to me not do it. On their website they talk a lot about helping their students in this economy through expanding programs, etc, yet they are not addressing the main problem. I feel like now that Texas is tied at 14, though, this might make them wake up a bit though!

AS33 wrote:

bdubs wrote:GULC has the worst employment outcomes of all of the schools in the T14.

This makes me so unhappy

Agreed. As someone who will nevertheless likely be going there next year, this definitely is a bit disappointing for me/why I hope they start addressing these obvious issues.

abstract wrote:I realize that this runs counter to conventional wisdom, but GULC's size actually appeals to me. Indeed, I will be in a much larger pool of applicants, in an already oversaturated and competitive market. At the same time, however, I will be among a more diverse (by virtue of its size) student body, with a wider array of courses, people, and perspectives available to me. From what I can tell, with students broken down by section and interest (e.g., in student orgs), I should have no trouble forming communities and peer groups.

Problem is none of that helps in finding a job.

abstract wrote:I realize that this runs counter to conventional wisdom, but GULC's size actually appeals to me. Indeed, I will be in a much larger pool of applicants, in an already oversaturated and competitive market. At the same time, however, I will be among a more diverse (by virtue of its size) student body, with a wider array of courses, people, and perspectives available to me. From what I can tell, with students broken down by section and interest (e.g., in student orgs), I should have no trouble forming communities and peer groups.

Its hard to know if any of this is actually true of GULC. The only definitive true statement is that it has a much larger pool of applicants. The rest is just speculation.

At first glance, it seems unreasonable to expect Georgetown to reduce class size when it is still in high demand & highly profitable (whether operating as a "non-profit" or not). The only impetus for Georgetown to reduce class size, in my opinion, would be to protect their T-14 ranking & status. The pressure is on with the new kid (Texas) in town. Loss of T-14 status might mean fewer applicants & lower yield which would result in lower "profits".

as much hate as GULC gets on TLS, I have to believe there are significant advantages to being the best law school in DC. I mean if it takes top 1/3 at Harvard to break into the DC market, and G-town sends 45% of its grads there, I'm thinking it does help to be a Hoya if you wanna work in the capital.

Mr. Somebody wrote:

abstract wrote:I realize that this runs counter to conventional wisdom, but GULC's size actually appeals to me. Indeed, I will be in a much larger pool of applicants, in an already oversaturated and competitive market. At the same time, however, I will be among a more diverse (by virtue of its size) student body, with a wider array of courses, people, and perspectives available to me. From what I can tell, with students broken down by section and interest (e.g., in student orgs), I should have no trouble forming communities and peer groups.

Problem is none of that helps in finding a job.

I might disagree with that. I am an older student (11+ years working in the art museum field, which is notorious for its difficult employment prospects). I have never had trouble finding a job that I wanted, and that has almost entirely been a factor of whom I've met along the way, i.e., a lot of different people with different outlooks/experiences/opportunities to share. And I don't think it's so speculative to say that GULC is diverse in this way--I have heard it from a number of current and former students, and I see it represented in their course offerings and extracurriculars. In other words, for me, it's more about how I will be able to construct my network and experiences than how the school fares in Biglaw placement. That said, to be fair, I am not aiming for Biglaw.

ahnhub wrote:as much hate as GULC gets on TLS, I have to believe there are significant advantages to being the best law school in DC. I mean if it takes top 1/3 at Harvard to break into the DC market, and G-town sends 45% of its grads there, I'm thinking it does help to be a Hoya if you wanna work in the capital.

+1

abstract wrote:

Mr. Somebody wrote:

abstract wrote:I realize that this runs counter to conventional wisdom, but GULC's size actually appeals to me. Indeed, I will be in a much larger pool of applicants, in an already oversaturated and competitive market. At the same time, however, I will be among a more diverse (by virtue of its size) student body, with a wider array of courses, people, and perspectives available to me. From what I can tell, with students broken down by section and interest (e.g., in student orgs), I should have no trouble forming communities and peer groups.

Problem is none of that helps in finding a job.

I might disagree with that. I am an older student (11+ years working in the art museum field, which is notorious for its difficult employment prospects). I have never had trouble finding a job that I wanted, and that has almost entirely been a factor of whom I've met along the way, i.e., a lot of different people with different outlooks/experiences/opportunities to share. And I don't think it's so speculative to say that GULC is diverse in this way--I have heard it from a number of current and former students, and I see it represented in their course offerings and extracurriculars. In other words, for me, it's more about how I will be able to construct my network and experiences than how the school fares in Biglaw placement. That said, to be fair, I am not aiming for Biglaw.

Yeah but I don't see how a bigger class size helps you network. You're not going to be networking with other students who are competing for the same jobs. If anything it makes it more difficult to network because there are 600 other people trying to make connections in DC. The prospect of finishing below median with 300 other students is very scary as that is bigger than the entire classes of Duke and Cornell.

ahnhub wrote:as much hate as GULC gets on TLS, I have to believe there are significant advantages to being the best law school in DC. I mean if it takes top 1/3 at Harvard to break into the DC market, and G-town sends 45% of its grads there, I'm thinking it does help to be a Hoya if you wanna work in the capital.

GTown might send 45% of it's grads to DC but that doesn't mean that those jobs are any good.

Gtown biglaw placement in DC is TTT, especially considering that it's their home market.

Mr. Somebody wrote:
Yeah but I don't see how a bigger class size helps you network. You're not going to be networking with other students who are competing for the same jobs. If anything it makes it more difficult to network because there are 600 other people trying to make connections in DC. The prospect of finishing below median with 300 other students is very scary as that is bigger than the entire classes of Duke and Cornell.

I only mean to say that because there are so many people, I would be more likely to find a community of people who share my interests than if I were working with a more intimate class size. I went to a tiny private institution for undergrad, and a huge state school for my master's, and there was just more going on at the latter.

Don't get me wrong--I do understand the concern about competition. I just don't see it as much as an obstacle as some others do. But then, I am a lot older. Maybe if I were in my 20s, I would feel differently.