Cornell Law School Ranking & Employment Stats Forum

[earthabides]

I'm sitting with a 172 and a 3.84 and although I'm retaking in June I'm thinking about my options for next cycle if I don't do better on my retake.

Cornell is only a few hours from home (i'm canadian) and has excellent employment stats + a great reputation in Canada if I ever decide to go back. It has similar weather to where I live and I would enjoy going to University in a smaller city. I would hopefully get substantial money from them even without increasing my LSAT. I'm just wondering why Cornell's ranking is so low? It seems to me that it has better employment stats than quite a few higher ranked schools yet it's entrance requirements and ranking are so low..

Anyone care to shed some light on why this wouldn't be a better outcome then going to say UVA, NYU, or Duke? Or why their ranking is so low? I know rank doesn't matter but just curious

[jbagelboy]

us news and world report is a media company that publishes a commercial magazine: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._News_%26_World_Report. It is not a non-profit academic publication seeking to incentivize an educated discourse on the quality of American higher education or any other more facially valid/noble goal of that nature. It creates "rankings" to make money. Brian Kelly, its lead editor, is a shitty journalist with a bachelors degree in economics. That's basically all you need to know to gauge its value.

So the real answer is that the rankings to which you refer are irrelevant. They vary from year to year with the vicissitudes of fools. Just rely on the employment and cost data for your decision.

[Clemenceau]

First of all, #13 in the country is not "so low"

Second, most rankings are determined by median LSAT scores and gpas, as well as a few other things that also have little to do with employment.

My suspicion is that cornells numbers are a little lower than its peers because its hard to convince 170+ test takers to agree to spend the next three years of their lives in Ithaca. This seems especially likely since many of those high scorers will have acceptances at schools like columbia nyu penn chi nw that are all in more desirable locations for a 20-something.

If I remember correctly, like 8 cornell students transferred to nyu this year. Suffice to say those decisions weren't made purely to improve employment prospects. You do the math.

This post wasn't meant to be anti-cornell in any way. The way they've been giving out money, in conjunction with their biglaw placement, makes them a damn good choice for people are willing to wait a few years to live in nyc (the horror).

[Gray]

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[runinthefront]

First of all, #13 in the country is not "so low"

Second, most rankings are determined by median LSAT scores and gpas, as well
My suspicion is that cornells numbers are a little lower than its peers because its hard to convince 170+ test takers to agree to spend the next three years of their lives in Ithaca. This seems especially likely since many of those high scorers will have acceptances at schools like columbia nyu penn chi nw that are all in more desirable locations for a 20-something.

Cornell's actually closed the gap considerably between both GULC and NU in terms of LSAT/GPA combo this past year (their numbers are arguably stronger than both peers this year), so it seems like they're being a bit more generous with scholarship money/ students are less reluctant to spend time in brutal winters in exchange for good biglaw odds.

GULC 2014: 163,167,168 | 3.48,3.75, 3.84

Cornell 2014: 166, 167, 169 | 3.55, 3.68, 3.76

Northwestern 2014: 162/168/170 | 3.53, 3.75, 3.83

Anyway, I think the above opinion is 100% correct and is probably the biggest reason for their #13 ranking

[kingpin101]

First of all, #13 in the country is not "so low"

Second, most rankings are determined by median LSAT scores and gpas, as well
My suspicion is that cornells numbers are a little lower than its peers because its hard to convince 170+ test takers to agree to spend the next three years of their lives in Ithaca. This seems especially likely since many of those high scorers will have acceptances at schools like columbia nyu penn chi nw that are all in more desirable locations for a 20-something.

Cornell's actually closed the gap considerably between both GULC and NU in terms of LSAT/GPA combo this past year (their numbers are arguably stronger than both peers this year), so it seems like they're being a bit more generous with scholarship money/ students are less reluctant to spend time in brutal winters in exchange for good biglaw odds.

GULC 2014: 163,167,168 | 3.48,3.75, 3.84

Cornell 2014: 166, 167, 169 | 3.55, 3.68, 3.76

Northwestern 2014: 162/168/170 | 3.53, 3.75, 3.83

Anyway, I think the above opinion is 100% correct and is probably the biggest reason for their #13 ranking

And to think that just a couple of years ago GULC absolutely crushed Cornell in stats.

[Pragmatic Gun]

Winters in upstate NY suck ass. They suck in NYC enough as it is, and being inland in the Northeast sucks because one is away from the Gulf Stream, which warms the air a little along the coast. Ithaca gets the full frost from the Arctic. If one is capable of withstanding that, then perhaps they have the tenacity to withstand a stint in NYC Big Law.