Syracuse Law Forum

[bmathers]

How is their placement in the NYC/NJ/Philly region? I was just offered basically a full-ride to them. I am going to withdraw my app and do next cycle again, but am just seeing if applying to them again next cycle is worth it. Aka, should I consider their option or have it for leverage if my goal is probably to practice within a 5-6 hr radius of central PA, or academia (probably at a small school - my BS is in sec edu).

Thanks.

[grades??]

How is their placement in the NYC/NJ/Philly region? I was just offered basically a full-ride to them. I am going to withdraw my app and do next cycle again, but am just seeing if applying to them again next cycle is worth it. Aka, should I consider their option or have it for leverage if my goal is probably to practice within a 5-6 hr radius of central PA, or academia (probably at a small school - my BS is in sec edu).

Thanks.

Here's a sobering statistic for you. Over 50% of all law professors in the USA either graduated from Yale or Harvard. The next 30% or so all graduated from Columbia/Chicago. The last 20% is a mixture, generally of Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, Duke, and occasionally Georgetown. Literally in no possible world will you get a teaching job from Syracuse unless its at local boondock community college.

With that said, I can't speak about PA.

[Pomeranian]

You will most likely end up practicing in dreary and cold upstate NY *IF* you get a job. According to LST, only around 50% secure legal jobs 10 months after graduation from Syracuse Law.

[bmathers]

You will most likely end up practicing in dreary and cold upstate NY *IF* you get a job. According to LST, only around 50% secure legal jobs 10 months after graduation from Syracuse Law.

Thank you. I can read statistics, I'm looking specifically for its placement in the regions that I mentioned, though.

[CoGar]

How is their placement in the NYC/NJ/Philly region? I was just offered basically a full-ride to them. I am going to withdraw my app and do next cycle again, but am just seeing if applying to them again next cycle is worth it. Aka, should I consider their option or have it for leverage if my goal is probably to practice within a 5-6 hr radius of central PA, or academia (probably at a small school - my BS is in sec edu).

Thanks.

Here's a sobering statistic for you. Over 50% of all law professors in the USA either graduated from Yale or Harvard. The next 30% or so all graduated from Columbia/Chicago. The last 20% is a mixture, generally of Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, Duke, and occasionally Georgetown. Literally in no possible world will you get a teaching job from Syracuse unless its at local boondock community college.

With that said, I can't speak about PA.

I know for certain at least 2 profs at my undergrad institution's law school who have degrees from T50's outside of the T25

[grades??]

How is their placement in the NYC/NJ/Philly region? I was just offered basically a full-ride to them. I am going to withdraw my app and do next cycle again, but am just seeing if applying to them again next cycle is worth it. Aka, should I consider their option or have it for leverage if my goal is probably to practice within a 5-6 hr radius of central PA, or academia (probably at a small school - my BS is in sec edu).

Thanks.

Here's a sobering statistic for you. Over 50% of all law professors in the USA either graduated from Yale or Harvard. The next 30% or so all graduated from Columbia/Chicago. The last 20% is a mixture, generally of Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, Duke, and occasionally Georgetown. Literally in no possible world will you get a teaching job from Syracuse unless its at local boondock community college.

With that said, I can't speak about PA.

I know for certain at least 2 profs at my undergrad institution's law school who have degrees from T50's outside of the T25

Sure miracles do happen or there wouldn't be any saints- right? Literally the law professors who went to law school outside of the t14 make up <2%. I have all these statistics cited from an academic article, however it is at home. I will cite later tonight/tomorrow.

[Traynor Brah]

Don't let some notion of "academia" play any factor into a decision like this. It's simply not going to happen, especially today, and especially from a school like syracuse.

[A. Nony Mouse]

How is their placement in the NYC/NJ/Philly region? I was just offered basically a full-ride to them. I am going to withdraw my app and do next cycle again, but am just seeing if applying to them again next cycle is worth it. Aka, should I consider their option or have it for leverage if my goal is probably to practice within a 5-6 hr radius of central PA, or academia (probably at a small school - my BS is in sec edu).

Thanks.

Here's a sobering statistic for you. Over 50% of all law professors in the USA either graduated from Yale or Harvard. The next 30% or so all graduated from Columbia/Chicago. The last 20% is a mixture, generally of Michigan, Berkeley, UVA, Duke, and occasionally Georgetown. Literally in no possible world will you get a teaching job from Syracuse unless its at local boondock community college.

With that said, I can't speak about PA.

I know for certain at least 2 profs at my undergrad institution's law school who have degrees from T50's outside of the T25

Assuming that they're tenured and not adjuncts,
1) when were they hired? The prof hiring market has gotten incredibly bad in the last, say, 10 years. People hired long ago are not good models of what you can do today.

2) do they teach doctrinal classes or clinics/LRW? The latter types of courses are usually taught by practitioners who don't produce research in their field and are not on the tenure track. The hiring criteria are completely different, as is the position (in terms of pay/prestige).

(And Syracuse isn't in the top 50.)

It's not absolutely impossible to become an academic outside the very top schools, but it's EXTREMELY hard. It depends on producing highly-regarded research, which is easier to do out of top schools geared to create those kinds of opportunities for their students. Also, it has nothing at all to do with a secondary ed background (unless you want to teach at the secondary school level). Academics would not consider secondary ed experience as particularly relevant. As for teaching at an undergrad college (not law school), very few schools will hire a JD because they're all flooded with applications from PhDs.

Also keep in mind that the decline in LS applications has hurt the law school hiring market quite a bit.

I'm not telling you you can never be an academic, OP, but legal academia is extremely pedigree-conscious and you might want to look more into what getting one of those jobs entails. Google entry level law prof or tenure track law job or the like (there's a blog called The Faculty Lounge that posts a lot of legal academia hiring stuff and should get you links to more). There's also a fairly obnoxious prof named Brian Leiter who posts a lot about this stuff, too.

As for Syracuse, it is going to place best in upstate NY. If you check out law school transparency, you'll see that none of last year's grads were working in NJ or Philly. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... tion/2015/

[favabeansoup]

As for Syracuse, it is going to place best in upstate NY. If you check out law school transparency, you'll see that none of last year's grads were working in NJ or Philly. http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... tion/2015/

Well granted there is 26% "unknown state," which gets you maybe a handful people into NJ /Philly. Point is a little moot though since this wouldn't be "placing well" anyway in those areas.

[A. Nony Mouse]

You're right - I should have said "not enough people were placed in Philly or NJ to get their own listing on the map of locations."

[bmathers]

Thanks everyone. I think that I'll resubmit there next cycle, bc it's only $30 - why not? I can afford upwards of $30k/yr for COL out-of-pocket, so I'm thinking that in Cuse that could translate to little-to-no debt... that's something to consider

I placed 50th percentile GPA (6 years old), and a few points above their 75tb-percentile LSAT. Wondering if I could negotiate a stipend from them?