NLJ 250 - Employment Data by School Forum

[BruceWayne]

The CCN tier probably has some basis, but the MVPB - DNCG tiers never had any. As far as I can tell it's an law school message board constructed idea only. Even CCN is overhyped. HYS are clearly elite, and firms clearly agree. Outside of elite NYC firms I don't think CCN is a thing.

I've been saying this for years. And the truth is that isn't some big secret unless you live life through online message boards. HYS are incredible schools that have a cache that can't be matched. Outside of that various schools have varying strengths in different areas of the country. I'm not sure why that's so hard to believe for so many people.

[Betharl]

A couple things...

First, I thought it was agreed upon by most people on this site that the MVPB and DNCG distinctions were arbitrary, so I am not sure why people are saying that now and passing it off as news. If there is any news in regard to these schools, it is that Penn does appear to be a step ahead in terms of placing its students in Big Law jobs.

Second, I do not agree that the t14 outside of HYS is relatively interchangeable, as has been suggested a few times in this thread. As I mention above, I do think MVPB and DNCG are relatively interchangeable (with a caveat for Penn possibly being considered a little better and G a little worse), but it seems like people are dragging down the CCN tier because N has been underperforming. Again, I did not think N underperforming in Big Law was really news, and had been typically attributed to a PI bias, whether or not that is really true.

Regardless, take N out of the equation, and look at just CC for a second. In the chart in the OP, CC rank 1 and 3 respectively in Big Law placement, with Penn being slightly ahead of Chicago (C=53.8%, P= 53.7%, C= 52.5%). 4th place is NU with 50.8%. I have heard it said on this site that NU's Big Law placement should be subject to greater scrutiny, as they likely receive a boost due to having perhaps the most employable/qualified student body (due to the work experience requirement). 5th and 6th place in the chart from the OP are H and S, and we can skip over them since we agree they are on the highest tier with Y. Seventh place is B with 47.2%, a not insignificant difference of 5.3% from Chicago and 6.6% from Columbia. On down the list from B, the gap obviously widens.

Take into account other benefits of CC compared to lesser ranked schools.
-Better placement with the top Vault firms (as mentioned previously in the thread)
-I have also heard it said on TLS CC have better placement in academia, and also place a greater proportion of students in “random” prestigious jobs in government/industry/PI etc.

In summation/TLDR: I feel like although the tiers might be off a little bit, the t14 outside of HYS are not interchangeable as some people have suggested. I don’t think quantifiable data or anecdotal evidence backs that up.

Forgetting about where you want to put NYU and P for a second, because they seem to complicate things, at the least we should be able to tier out the t14 a little bit, and it should look something like….
YHS>>CC> MVBDNC>G
And not simply YHS>> the rest…

[ahnhub]

IIRC from the threads last spring, Career Services at CLS and NYU reported that almost precisely the same percentage of 2Ls who participated in EIW/EIP (in the fall of 2010) got at least one offer. Dunno how to reconcile that with the NLJ data (reflects different years; NYU people summer but don't go back to firms; NYU people get no-offered), but there it is.

I think it would be very silly to choose Penn over NYU specifically to get a NYC biglaw job, but I also think that they're close enough that if you have a legitimate preference for Penn you're certainly not wrong to go there. But I also continue to believe that's basically the same as with all of the T10 or so.

Chicago also reported something similar to NYU/Columbia in terms of OCI success (around 70%), and yet they reported later on that 69% of their class did a summer SA, and NYU reported just 55%. That really puzzled me. For 70% of NYU EIW participants to get an offer but only 55% to do an SA, only 80% of the class would have had to participate in OCI. There's no way that can be right, can it? NYU students have repeatedly said the vast majority of the class ends up doing OCI (even if halfheartedly).

It's so frustrating because looking at any metric over the past three years would indicate that you should definitely go to Penn (esp. with $$, which I think I might get) over NYU for job prospects, but that just doesn't seem right at all. Penn grads themselves have stated after doing OCI they think NYU does get a slight edge for NYC Biglaw.

[kaiser]

IIRC from the threads last spring, Career Services at CLS and NYU reported that almost precisely the same percentage of 2Ls who participated in EIW/EIP (in the fall of 2010) got at least one offer. Dunno how to reconcile that with the NLJ data (reflects different years; NYU people summer but don't go back to firms; NYU people get no-offered), but there it is.

I think it would be very silly to choose Penn over NYU specifically to get a NYC biglaw job, but I also think that they're close enough that if you have a legitimate preference for Penn you're certainly not wrong to go there. But I also continue to believe that's basically the same as with all of the T10 or so.

Chicago also reported something similar to NYU/Columbia in terms of OCI success (around 70%), and yet they reported later on that 69% of their class did a summer SA, and NYU reported just 55%. That really puzzled me. For 70% of NYU EIW participants to get an offer but only 55% to do an SA, only 80% of the class would have had to participate in OCI. There's no way that can be right, can it? NYU students have repeatedly said the vast majority of the class ends up doing OCI (even if halfheartedly).

It's so frustrating because looking at any metric over the past three years would indicate that you should definitely go to Penn (esp. with $$, which I think I might get) over NYU for job prospects, but that just doesn't seem right at all. Penn grads themselves have stated after doing OCI they think NYU does get a slight edge for NYC Biglaw.

There obviously is something to it, as there were a number of Penn transfers into NYU this past year, since they wanted to be in NYC, and felt that being in the city, with the huge NYU alumni network in NYC, would give them the best chance to do so.

[AntipodeanPhil]

-I have also heard it said on TLS CC have better placement in academia, and also place a greater proportion of students in “random” prestigious jobs in government/industry/PI etc.

Chicago's placement into academia is similar to H&S, in percentage terms. Columbia's is significantly worse - although it's better than almost all other schools below HYS + Chicago.

http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml

I'm thinking this is some some support for the YHS >> CC > Other T14s > G groupings.

[Bronck]

-I have also heard it said on TLS CC have better placement in academia, and also place a greater proportion of students in “random” prestigious jobs in government/industry/PI etc.

Chicago's placement into academia is similar to H&S, in percentage terms. Columbia's is significantly worse - although it's better than almost all other schools below HYS + Chicago.

http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml

I'm thinking this is some some support for the YHS >> CC > Other T14s > G groupings.

Try again

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... a#p4188514

[hung jury]

-I have also heard it said on TLS CC have better placement in academia, and also place a greater proportion of students in “random” prestigious jobs in government/industry/PI etc.

Chicago's placement into academia is similar to H&S, in percentage terms. Columbia's is significantly worse - although it's better than almost all other schools below HYS + Chicago.

http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml

I'm thinking this is some some support for the YHS >> CC > Other T14s > G groupings.

Try again

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... a#p4188514

And this year's early data:

--LinkRemoved--

(11 for H, 7 for S, 2 for Chi). The "Chicago is as good as HS for academia" idea needs to die. That era is gone.

[skers]

-I have also heard it said on TLS CC have better placement in academia, and also place a greater proportion of students in “random” prestigious jobs in government/industry/PI etc.

Chicago's placement into academia is similar to H&S, in percentage terms. Columbia's is significantly worse - although it's better than almost all other schools below HYS + Chicago.

http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml

I'm thinking this is some some support for the YHS >> CC > Other T14s > G groupings.

Try again

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... a#p4188514

Someone (don't have the link, but it's somewhere on this forum) did do some research regarding the per capita placement of schools depending on how many people from each school were applying from academic positions. It does support some truth to an advantage to Chicago in legal hiring, but not Chicago=hs.

ETA: Here's the link Probably the best conclusion to make is that it's really fucking hard to break into academia.

[AntipodeanPhil]

-I have also heard it said on TLS CC have better placement in academia, and also place a greater proportion of students in “random” prestigious jobs in government/industry/PI etc.

Chicago's placement into academia is similar to H&S, in percentage terms. Columbia's is significantly worse - although it's better than almost all other schools below HYS + Chicago.

http://leiterrankings.com/new/2011_LawTeachers.shtml

I'm thinking this is some some support for the YHS >> CC > Other T14s > G groupings.

Try again

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... a#p4188514

LOL - fair enough. So, this newer data refutes the view that Chicago places in academia as well as Y + H, but it further supports the HYS >> CC > Other T14s > G groupings, since Columbia seems to have improved to around Chicago's level, and both are distinctly above the other schools.

[JusticeHarlan]

IIRC from the threads last spring, Career Services at CLS and NYU reported that almost precisely the same percentage of 2Ls who participated in EIW/EIP (in the fall of 2010) got at least one offer. Dunno how to reconcile that with the NLJ data (reflects different years; NYU people summer but don't go back to firms; NYU people get no-offered), but there it is.

Your timeline is off. This chart is not the group of students who went through OCI in 2010. This is class of 2011, who did OCI in 2009. The 2Ls who did OCI in 2010 are now 3Ls (class of 2012), so there's no NLJ250 data out for them for another year.

If it's screwy in the next chart, then ask how to reconcile, but we're not there yet.

[dixiecupdrinking]

IIRC from the threads last spring, Career Services at CLS and NYU reported that almost precisely the same percentage of 2Ls who participated in EIW/EIP (in the fall of 2010) got at least one offer. Dunno how to reconcile that with the NLJ data (reflects different years; NYU people summer but don't go back to firms; NYU people get no-offered), but there it is.

Your timeline is off. This chart is not the group of students who went through OCI in 2010. This is class of 2011, who did OCI in 2009. The 2Ls who did OCI in 2010 are now 3Ls (class of 2012), so there's no NLJ250 data out for them for another year.

If it's screwy in the next chart, then ask how to reconcile, but we're not there yet.

Yeah, I get that, that's why I said "reflects different years." I still think it's unlikely that their placement was precisely equal last year but a couple years back was off by something like a factor of 1/4. Just saying, I think there is something going on here behind the scenes, but maybe it's just defensive NYU trolling on my part, who knows.

[071816]

I though this was interesting. Not generally applicable (as it uses only class of 2009 data), but interesting nonetheless.

[stillwater]

I though this was interesting. Not generally applicable (as it uses only class of 2009 data), but interesting nonetheless.

BYU: No bang for no bucks?

[skers]

I though this was interesting. Not generally applicable (as it uses only class of 2009 data), but interesting nonetheless.

BYU: No bang for no bucks?

If I was practicing lds I would absolutely go to BYU.

[kaiser]

I though this was interesting. Not generally applicable (as it uses only class of 2009 data), but interesting nonetheless.

BYU: No bang for no bucks?

Its BYU. When you bang for your bucks, you get suspended from the basketball team.

[IAFG]

A couple things...

First, I thought it was agreed upon by most people on this site that the MVPB and DNCG distinctions were arbitrary, so I am not sure why people are saying that now and passing it off as news. If there is any news in regard to these schools, it is that Penn does appear to be a step ahead in terms of placing its students in Big Law jobs.

Second, I do not agree that the t14 outside of HYS is relatively interchangeable, as has been suggested a few times in this thread. As I mention above, I do think MVPB and DNCG are relatively interchangeable (with a caveat for Penn possibly being considered a little better and G a little worse), but it seems like people are dragging down the CCN tier because N has been underperforming. Again, I did not think N underperforming in Big Law was really news, and had been typically attributed to a PI bias, whether or not that is really true.

Regardless, take N out of the equation, and look at just CC for a second. In the chart in the OP, CC rank 1 and 3 respectively in Big Law placement, with Penn being slightly ahead of Chicago (C=53.8%, P= 53.7%, C= 52.5%). 4th place is NU with 50.8%. I have heard it said on this site that NU's Big Law placement should be subject to greater scrutiny, as they likely receive a boost due to having perhaps the most employable/qualified student body (due to the work experience requirement). 5th and 6th place in the chart from the OP are H and S, and we can skip over them since we agree they are on the highest tier with Y. Seventh place is B with 47.2%, a not insignificant difference of 5.3% from Chicago and 6.6% from Columbia. On down the list from B, the gap obviously widens.

Take into account other benefits of CC compared to lesser ranked schools.
-Better placement with the top Vault firms (as mentioned previously in the thread)
-I have also heard it said on TLS CC have better placement in academia, and also place a greater proportion of students in “random” prestigious jobs in government/industry/PI etc.

In summation/TLDR: I feel like although the tiers might be off a little bit, the t14 outside of HYS are not interchangeable as some people have suggested. I don’t think quantifiable data or anecdotal evidence backs that up.

Forgetting about where you want to put NYU and P for a second, because they seem to complicate things, at the least we should be able to tier out the t14 a little bit, and it should look something like….
YHS>>CC> MVBDNC>G
And not simply YHS>> the rest…

As to your first point, you have a shorter memory than some of us.

As to your second, I don't think your "widening gap" is nearly so significant as some people on these boards would suggest. A 5% gap between Northwestern and Duke could be accounted for by admitting a few more people with connections to secondaries, who would rather make $125k in a midsize city than take their V100 offer. I think that difference erodes somewhat at CCN's imagined improved placement power, because CCN students are very likely to take the "best" Vault firm they get. I know at NU that's often not what people do, and I would bet that it's often not what happens at other schools with more students who aren't aiming at NYC.

As to your third point about some vague ideas about prestigious PI placement, I don't know how those numbers really shake out, and neither do you, but for the data sets in question, gov't and pub interest hiring was so dramatically curtailed that it's probably irrelevant.

[Tiago Splitter]

As to your second, I don't think your "widening gap" is nearly so significant as some people on these boards would suggest. A 5% gap between Northwestern and Duke could be accounted for by admitting a few more people with connections to secondaries, who would rather make $125k in a midsize city than take their V100 offer. I think that difference erodes somewhat at CCN's imagined improved placement power, because CCN students are very likely to take the "best" Vault firm they get. I know at NU that's often not what people do, and I would bet that it's often not what happens at other schools with more students who aren't aiming at NYC.

As to your third point about some vague ideas about prestigious PI placement, I don't know how those numbers really shake out, and neither do you, but for the data sets in question, gov't and pub interest hiring was so dramatically curtailed that it's probably irrelevant.

Northwestern beat NYU pretty badly in NLJ250 placement. Are you saying that 12 point gap in 2011, and 6 point gap over 2009-2011, understates the difference?

[bk1]

Northwestern beat NYU pretty badly in NLJ250 placement. Are you saying that 12 point gap in 2011, and 6 point gap over 2009-2011, understates the difference?

NYU seems to beat NU for A3 clerkships. Though it is hard to tell since NU is lacking more recent data on them and does the infuriating practice of lumping fresh grads with alums.

[IAFG]

Northwestern beat NYU pretty badly in NLJ250 placement. Are you saying that 12 point gap in 2011, and 6 point gap over 2009-2011, understates the difference?

NYU seems to beat NU for A3 clerkships. Though it is hard to tell since NU is lacking more recent data on them and does the infuriating practice of lumping fresh grads with alums.

I honestly can't explain NYU. They dominate in top Vault jobs, but their numbers sucked, and there weren't enough clerkship/prestigious PI/fellowship/gov't gigs to sop up the difference. But it seems like an outlier year, so maybe it was just a question of a confluence of unlucky circumstances.

[09042014]

Northwestern beat NYU pretty badly in NLJ250 placement. Are you saying that 12 point gap in 2011, and 6 point gap over 2009-2011, understates the difference?

NYU seems to beat NU for A3 clerkships. Though it is hard to tell since NU is lacking more recent data on them and does the infuriating practice of lumping fresh grads with alums.

I honestly can't explain NYU. They dominate in top Vault jobs, but their numbers sucked, and there weren't enough clerkship/prestigious PI/fellowship/gov't gigs to sop up the difference. But it seems like an outlier year, so maybe it was just a question of a confluence of unlucky circumstances.

Well, just because there weren't PI jobs doesn't meant their students weren't dumb enough to try anyway. It's not like you can choose biglaw when PI/gov doesn't work. But their PI self selection is like 5% bigger AT most. And at least some probably could get big law. Also being in NYC should make their NLJ250 numbers even higher, because even shitty NYC firms are NLJ250, while that might not be true in Michigan or California.

I just don't think this data is good enough to make bold predictions and trends. There is too much variance year to year.

If you give them a boost for PI at 5% they are tied with UChicago. And only 5% from CLS. That's clearly within the margin of error of NLJ250.

I think the TL;DR; to this thread is T14 or bust.

[ahnhub]

Northwestern beat NYU pretty badly in NLJ250 placement. Are you saying that 12 point gap in 2011, and 6 point gap over 2009-2011, understates the difference?

NYU seems to beat NU for A3 clerkships. Though it is hard to tell since NU is lacking more recent data on them and does the infuriating practice of lumping fresh grads with alums.

I honestly can't explain NYU. They dominate in top Vault jobs, but their numbers sucked, and there weren't enough clerkship/prestigious PI/fellowship/gov't gigs to sop up the difference. But it seems like an outlier year, so maybe it was just a question of a confluence of unlucky circumstances.

And multiple NYU/CLS people leaked that success rates at 2009 OCI were almost identical. Flash-forward two years later, and NYU gets pummeled again in the NLJ 250 rankings. Either NYU students are awesome at trolling for their school, or something else is going on.

I'm pretty much at the point of dismissing stuff like NLJ 250 entirely. But assuming job prospects are roughly similar, what justifies going to NYU/CLS/Chi at sticker, and turning down $$$ (and possibly upwards of 100K+) at other T-14 schools? Plenty of people do it. Are they just being foolish?

[IAFG]

And multiple NYU/CLS people leaked that success rates at 2009 OCI were almost identical. Flash-forward two years later, and NYU gets pummeled again in the NLJ 250 rankings. Either NYU students are awesome at trolling for their school, or something else is going on.

I'm pretty much at the point of dismissing stuff like NLJ 250 entirely. But assuming job prospects are roughly similar, what justifies going to NYU/CLS/Chi at sticker, and turning down $$$ (and possibly upwards of 100K+) at other T-14 schools? Plenty of people do it. Are they just being foolish?

I don't think you need to dismiss NLJ250, you just have to put it in context and make some judgment calls about its limited predictive power.

[skers]

And multiple NYU/CLS people leaked that success rates at 2009 OCI were almost identical. Flash-forward two years later, and NYU gets pummeled again in the NLJ 250 rankings. Either NYU students are awesome at trolling for their school, or something else is going on.

I'm pretty much at the point of dismissing stuff like NLJ 250 entirely. But assuming job prospects are roughly similar, what justifies going to NYU/CLS/Chi at sticker, and turning down $$$ (and possibly upwards of 100K+) at other T-14 schools? Plenty of people do it. Are they just being foolish?

I don't think you need to dismiss NLJ250, you just have to put it in context and make some judgment calls about its limited predictive power.

This. Nlj250 is useful, but doesn't tell the whole story.

[WhiteGuy5]

I think the way to explain NYU is to say that they have a slight PI bias but that there class size is just WAY too big for their rank/NLJ placement. I think only HYS can pull off having a huge class like that, and only Harvard tries to.

I think there comes a point where firms go "ok, we're willing to dig deep close to your median, but jesus fucking christ, that's already 200+ people, you're not Hahvad sweety."

Class size/transfer size is way too big at NYU and is seriously undermining it's performance. Only Columbia and Harvard have more graduates in that OCI class than NYU in the T10. It seems like only a few schools can pull off having a big class size like that and they are...not surprisingly, Harvard and Columbia.

I think this is a rational explanation to their placement record, and it allows for the fact that they place BETTER in the V100 or V5 than the other, non-T6 schools.

Edit: NYU's undergraduate has the same problem, I think. A bit of a cash-cowish ethos at NYU all around, IMO.

[kaiser]

I think the way to explain NYU is to say that they have a slight PI bias but that there class size is just WAY too big for their rank/NLJ placement. I think only HYS can pull off having a huge class like that, and only Harvard tries to.

I think there comes a point where firms go "ok, we're willing to dig deep close to your median, but jesus fucking christ, that's already 200+ people, you're not Hahvad sweety."

Class size/transfer size is way too big at NYU and is seriously undermining it's performance. Only Columbia and Harvard have more graduates in that OCI class than NYU in the T10. It seems like only a few schools can pull off having a big class size like that and they are...not surprisingly, Harvard and Columbia.

I think this is a rational explanation to their placement record, and it allows for the fact that they place BETTER in the V100 or V5 than the other, non-T6 schools.

Edit: NYU's undergraduate has the same problem, I think. A bit of a cash-cowish ethos at NYU all around, IMO.

I wouldn't say transfer class size undermines job placement performance. Transfers almost universally do very well and get great positions. The question is who these transfers are displacing? Is it the people at the top of the class? No of course not. The upper half of the class will likely do fine based on their performance alone. The transfers merely change where the margin is, since firms might have their quota for NYU students filled by the time they reach median, whereas they may have dug a bit deeper if you take the 45 transfers out of the equation. So if we are to assume that the top half of the class would have gotten pretty much the same positions anyway, the only ones who get screwed by a large transfers class are those in the bottom half of the class who get pushed down by the addition of students who will almost all be taking big firm jobs ahead of them. And no one knows whether these kids on the margin would have been able to secure a position otherwise anyway, so in all likelihood, the additino of the transfers likely helps, rather than hurts overall school placement since you add in 45 nearly surefire placement data points in good firms.