T10, T14, T15, or T20? Forum

[rpupkin]

Robert Jackson went to Albany Law School, didn't finish his law degree, and then later became a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that going to Harvard or Yale gives you a better chance for making it on SCOTUS. If you want to be on the Supreme Court, YLS Grad = TTT Dropout.

[20141023]

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[guano]

Robert Jackson went to Albany Law School, didn't finish his law degree, and then later became a U.S. Supreme Court justice. Therefore, it makes no sense to say that going to Harvard or Yale gives you a better chance for making it on SCOTUS. If you want to be on the Supreme Court, YLS Grad = TTT Dropout.

Chief Justice Marshall went to William and Mary

[californiauser]

T14 is generally filled with the best and brightest, and also provides the best likelyhood for desireable employment. That's it. You can be successful from other other schools, but it's an uphill battle.

[Zeeguy91]

Whoah... you know one person who graduated from a non-T14 and got a 140k job upon graduation? Wow... that totally makes the thousands of points of employment data we have meaningless. And the other guy who became governor?! Man, why would anyone even consider Harvard?

Actually, I double-checked, and her starting salary was actually around 150-160k. She's making much more than her husband does......and her husband graduated from Yale Law.

Anyway, I'm not turning my nose up at the T14. I would love to go to a T14 school, and applied to several. However, my point is this: T14 are not the only schools that place a majority of their alumni nationally or who have good employment possibilities.

If we are looking at just overall employment scores, for example, then a lot of the schools from the lower part of the top 20 have numbers that compete with or in some cases are even better than the T14.

Texas: 75.3% (higher than Georgetown's 73.2%)

Vanderbilt: 70.9% (and it places a higher percentage of its grads in federal clerkship jobs than Berkeley does)

GW: 80.9% (higher than both Georgetown and Northwestern)

UCLA: 72.1%

Anyway, at the end of the day, its more so about the skills given to you by the law school you attended and your ability to turn that into a career than it is about the name of the law school you attended. Obviously, going to Georgetown or Yale or Stanford gives you an edge over graduating from UDC, Pepperdine, or Syracuse. However, I don't think it makes much of a difference if you tell an employer that you graduated from Vanderbilt, UCLA, or UT Austin as opposed to Georgetown or even Cornell, given that those schools are so close to each other in ranking.

[twenty]

GW: 80.9% (higher than both Georgetown and Northwestern)

You hear that sound?

That's the sound of Paul Campos crying.

[runner7654]

it's definitely better to finish in the top of your class at a non t14 than in the bottom on a t14. i know two people who work at the same big firm, graduated the same year, and make the same 150k salary - one of them went to a T14 and one went to a T60.....you can find success anywhere if you want it badly enough

[californiauser]

However, my point is this: T14 are not the only schools that place a majority of their alumni nationally or who have good employment possibilities.

9 months after graduation they are. Are you really citing GW? The school who hires 20% of its recent graduates to game US News for its ranking?

Besides Georegetown, no non-t14 places better than a t14 at anything.

[rickgrimes69]

Didn't read anything in the thread bc this is a fucking stupid topic that has been beaten to death so often and so badly it's like some ancient creature that was beaten to death then reanimated like in some fucking H.P. Lovecraft novel before being beaten to death again just to prove a point

TL;DR the only distinction that makes any sense is T14, and arguably T13. T10 has no bearing in reality and I don't even know how to fucking evaluate whatever a "T15" or a "T20" is

[Zeeguy91]

However, my point is this: T14 are not the only schools that place a majority of their alumni nationally or who have good employment possibilities.

9 months after graduation they are. Are you really citing GW? The school who hires 20% of its recent graduates to game US News for its ranking?

Besides Georegetown, no non-t14 places better than a t14 at anything.

Uh, the scores I cited are all from 9 months after graduation, for the class of 2012. They're from Law School Transparency.

[cron1834]

HYS
T13
Cheaper is better
Local is better

These are only distinctions I can convince myself of, considering outcomes.

[Jan 14]

Forget T this or that. Pick an area where you want to live and go to school there. Especially a good idea if there is a school in your home town, or state.
I doubt there are many people wanting to move up to the frozen tundra so they can return home. If you have a fabulous gpa/lst, it’s likely your local school will award you with a nice discount.
As far as risk. Check the threads from some of the high T schools, not everyone is happy. Is moving far from home, racking up a big figure debt and finding yourself jobless not the worst case scenario?
As far as stats. There was a time when Fla school outcomes were solid, then the economy tanked. Then students headed north only to find that the Fla legal community is back strong. The problem with stats is that they reside in the past.

[Gooner91]

Does the top 15 include Texax, Vandy or UCLA? If we add these plus USC we can do T18, that is kinda neat.
Also I saw someone post T4? Is that with Chicago or Columbia?
The T20 does not include GWU but includes Minnesota? I see people referencing GWU but it is not even in the T20, same with ND.
And the T10 cuts out Duke, NU, Cornell, and GULC? But doesn't Duke place better than Berkeley or Mich? I may be mistaken.

I just want to make sure I understand the new cutoffs, I think we may need to re-rank some schools to make them work.

[guano]

However, my point is this: T14 are not the only schools that place a majority of their alumni nationally or who have good employment possibilities.

9 months after graduation they are. Are you really citing GW? The school who hires 20% of its recent graduates to game US News for its ranking?

Besides Georegetown, no non-t14 places better than a t14 at anything.

Uh, the scores I cited are all from 9 months after graduation, for the class of 2012. They're from Law School Transparency.

Maybe you don't understand the LST rankings - they don't take quality of job into account.
That doesn't make them useless, but be very careful taking them at face value. That way you won't make a fool of yourself (too late). Or do you really believe UCI is better than Yale?

[yossarian]

Of those three schools, Notre Dame is the best. After taking out PI/Gov people, 37% of the remainder get biglaw/A3 jobs. So around 1/3 of the people in their classes who are aiming for biglaw get it. That's a lot of grads with very successful outcomes. However, that means that 2/3 of those that want it don't get it.

Definitely of the majority TLS opinion in this thread in that OP has flawed question, false premises, and flawed logic.

But... I'm not sure that saying 37% of people who gun for biglaw get it is an accurate statement.

At T14, it probably is true that if you take out Gov/PI, essentially everyone is gunning BigLaw/AIII.

However, I think with all the work of TLS, LST, & just the presence of the internet, people are approaching law schools, especially T15-30, more realistically. I have no idea about numbers because the premise itself is anecdotal, but I imagine many of those 2/3 wanted midlaw, small law, in house, and state clerkships. Were there ALOT of disappointments? Yes. Were there way too many unemployed? Also yes. But, of those gunning for biglaw/AIII at ND, I bet the % is actually substantially higher than 37% if we could know the actual intentions of those attending.

0L though, and I have not attended, so I'm definitely open to other thoughts.

EDIT: By substantially, I do not mean to assume it is approaching anywhere near even 60%. And obviously, intentions are weird. Many enter with biglaw as a "yeah, that'd be nice if I get the grades but realistically I'll take something else." Disappointment is subjective. % getting biglaw/AIII who gun for it is definitely a murky statistic.

[John Everyman]

However, my point is this: T14 are not the only schools that place a majority of their alumni nationally or who have good employment possibilities.

9 months after graduation they are. Are you really citing GW? The school who hires 20% of its recent graduates to game US News for its ranking?

Besides Georegetown, no non-t14 places better than a t14 at anything.

Uh, the scores I cited are all from 9 months after graduation, for the class of 2012. They're from Law School Transparency.

You, my friend, are boring. At least lurk for a significant period of time and read the 30 other of these threads before ranting against well-established statistical evidence with anecdotal nonsense.

[guano]

Of those three schools, Notre Dame is the best. After taking out PI/Gov people, 37% of the remainder get biglaw/A3 jobs. So around 1/3 of the people in their classes who are aiming for biglaw get it. That's a lot of grads with very successful outcomes. However, that means that 2/3 of those that want it don't get it.

Definitely of the majority TLS opinion in this thread in that OP has flawed question, false premises, and flawed logic.

But... I'm not sure that saying 37% of people who gun for biglaw get it is an accurate statement.

At T14, it probably is true that if you take out Gov/PI, essentially everyone is gunning BigLaw/AIII.

However, I think with all the work of TLS, LST, & just the presence of the internet, people are approaching law schools, especially T15-30, more realistically. I have no idea about numbers because the premise itself is anecdotal, but I imagine many of those 2/3 wanted midlaw, small law, in house, and state clerkships. Were there ALOT of disappointments? Yes. Were there way too many unemployed? Also yes. But, of those gunning for biglaw/AIII at ND, I bet the % is actually substantially higher than 37% if we could know the actual intentions of those attending.

0L though, and I have not attended, so I'm definitely open to other thoughts.

...
A lot of people want it but don't get it. A lot if people have no idea what they want. No one guns for small law

[yossarian]

...
A lot of people want it but don't get it. A lot if people have no idea what they want. No one guns for small law

Definitely found the lack of direction piece to be true in talking to students at these schools.

And lol at the phrase "gunning for small law." Agreed but that's due to the word gun. There are people who genuinely want to work small practice (not many, maybe a negligible #), just gunning isn't the correct word.

[sublime]

..

[cotiger]

Of those three schools, Notre Dame is the best. After taking out PI/Gov people, 37% of the remainder get biglaw/A3 jobs. So around 1/3 of the people in their classes who are aiming for biglaw get it. That's a lot of grads with very successful outcomes. However, that means that 2/3 of those that want it don't get it.

Definitely of the majority TLS opinion in this thread in that OP has flawed question, false premises, and flawed logic.

But... I'm not sure that saying 37% of people who gun for biglaw get it is an accurate statement.

At T14, it probably is true that if you take out Gov/PI, essentially everyone is gunning BigLaw/AIII.

However, I think with all the work of TLS, LST, & just the presence of the internet, people are approaching law schools, especially T15-30, more realistically. I have no idea about numbers because the premise itself is anecdotal, but I imagine many of those 2/3 wanted midlaw, small law, in house, and state clerkships. Were there ALOT of disappointments? Yes. Were there way too many unemployed? Also yes. But, of those gunning for biglaw/AIII at ND, I bet the % is actually substantially higher than 37% if we could know the actual intentions of those attending.

0L though, and I have not attended, so I'm definitely open to other thoughts.

EDIT: By substantially, I do not mean to assume it is approaching anywhere near even 60%. And obviously, intentions are weird. Many enter with biglaw as a "yeah, that'd be nice if I get the grades but realistically I'll take something else." Disappointment is subjective. % getting biglaw/AIII who gun for it is definitely a murky statistic.

Are there a significant number of people at ND who, if they got top 5% grades during 1L, would turn up their noses at OCI and say, "Nope. I want small law"? If not, then those people are not aiming for small law. They're aiming for biglaw but are just aware of the relative unlikeliness of that outcome and are cool with it.

[BigZuck]

Whoah... you know one person who graduated from a non-T14 and got a 140k job upon graduation? Wow... that totally makes the thousands of points of employment data we have meaningless. And the other guy who became governor?! Man, why would anyone even consider Harvard?

Actually, I double-checked, and her starting salary was actually around 150-160k. She's making much more than her husband does......and her husband graduated from Yale Law.

Anyway, I'm not turning my nose up at the T14. I would love to go to a T14 school, and applied to several. However, my point is this: T14 are not the only schools that place a majority of their alumni nationally or who have good employment possibilities.

If we are looking at just overall employment scores, for example, then a lot of the schools from the lower part of the top 20 have numbers that compete with or in some cases are even better than the T14.

Texas: 75.3% (higher than Georgetown's 73.2%)

Vanderbilt: 70.9% (and it places a higher percentage of its grads in federal clerkship jobs than Berkeley does)

GW: 80.9% (higher than both Georgetown and Northwestern)

UCLA: 72.1%

Anyway, at the end of the day, its more so about the skills given to you by the law school you attended and your ability to turn that into a career than it is about the name of the law school you attended. Obviously, going to Georgetown or Yale or Stanford gives you an edge over graduating from UDC, Pepperdine, or Syracuse. However, I don't think it makes much of a difference if you tell an employer that you graduated from Vanderbilt, UCLA, or UT Austin as opposed to Georgetown or even Cornell, given that those schools are so close to each other in ranking.

Please tell me what skills law school gives you.

Also, where are these employers that don't think Cornell is better than Vanderbilt? Be specific.

[rickgrimes69]

Obviously, going to Georgetown or Yale or Stanford gives you an edge over graduating from UDC, Pepperdine, or Syracuse. However, I don't think it makes much of a difference if you tell an employer that you graduated from Vanderbilt, UCLA, or UT Austin as opposed to Georgetown or even Cornell, given that those schools are so close to each other in ranking.

Really surprised nobody has pointed out this gem. Zeeguy, you don't have a clue what you're talking about. Go look at the LST employment data at Cornell and at Vandy/UCLA/UT. Then come back here and try to argue that there's not "much of a difference."

e: preempted by BZ as usual

[brotherdarkness]

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[cotiger]

No one guns for small law

What makes you so sure that everyone aspires to biglaw? The hours and lifestyle aren't for everyone, and you're deluding yourself if you think that anyone who wants to be an attorney automatically wants to be a biglaw associate.

So are there people at Berkeley who turn down biglaw offers in order to work a 60k small law job? Or people with good grades who don't do OCI because they really just want that 60k small law job?

Honestly curious.

[brotherdarkness]

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