CLASS OF 2018 MEDIANS! (LSAT/GPA/Class Size) Forum

[Dcc617]

http://abovethelaw.com/careers/2015-law ... -rankings/

Ya, I just don't like the SCOTUS clerks and active judge components. I think they added that in to fix the system. Neither of those metrics have any bearing to 99% of law students.

[Dcc617]

Making employment outcomes determine rank doesn't make sense, since in the law school world, ranking determines employment outcomes. (generally) Look at Boalt v UCLA. Their medians are practically identical. They both have awesome professors. On what basis should an employer choose a Boalt median over a UCLA median? Rankings and nepotism.

The question isn't "how should we better rank schools," it's "how can we gradually do away with the significance for rankings." If rankings weren't tied to employment outcomes, then their only purpose is ~~prestige~~, which is worth shit.

In an ideal world, ranking wouldn't matter. There'd be no more than 100 law schools, with class sizes of around 100, where the median across all law students is like a 167 or something. Basically, the medical school model. Then, you need not concern yourself with ranking or employment prospects; you just pick the school that best caters to your needs outside of "need a job."

The only purpose medians would serve then is to give applicants a general idea of their chances of admission, which is the only purpose medians should serve.

And for the last time, the ATL rankings are even more shitty than the US News rankings.

Also agree with this.

[PeanutsNJam]

I did all of this, and I still don't have a real job, two years later. And there's a ton of people from my class with the same problem, so it's not just me. In fact, I did more networking than anyone I can think of, from any school. Attended almost a dozen conferences. Applied to hundreds of jobs and have only had maybe 5 total interviews since graduation, and my resume has been done over by numerous professional recruiters, so it can't be the format of my resume. I didn't do poorly in school, either. Wrote onto a journal, got published, etc. Grades were about median. Good prior work experience. No one cares.

Only 5 people from my class of 300 got Chicago Biglaw initially. I know of one that has lateraled in since. Three of these were URMs in the top 10%. Another was close to top 10% and IP secure, and also on Law Review. People in the Top 25% with no ties to St. Louis were never seriously considered for employment. A lot of people who graduated with honors are still volunteering two years later, have given up and moved back in with their parents, or are doing insurance/worker's comp defense.

It's pointless to network with people who don't have any positions open. It turns into having lunch with someone who basically feels sorry for you and tells you "I don't know what to do."

WUSTL may have a T14 median at this point, but for whatever reason, a lot of employers still treat it as if it's a TTT. Resume goes straight into the trash.

I'm obviously not saying that if you didn't have a job, then you didn't do a good enough job (pun?). My point was that WUSTL needs to do a better job of teaching us the nuance of how to effectively network. "Just do networking" is like saying "just study hard" or "just practice more".

[JCougar]

I'm obviously not saying that if you didn't have a job, then you didn't do a good enough job (pun?). My point was that WUSTL needs to do a better job of teaching us the nuance of how to effectively network. "Just do networking" is like saying "just study hard" or "just practice more".

I didn't take it that way.

My point is basically that "network" is just another way to pass the buck regarding a somewhat untenable situation. Decent legal employers don't hire people who network. They hire all new associates through OCIs they have already set up with schools, and mostly all laterals through legal recruiters, and laterals they hire need mostly at least 3-4 years of prior Biglaw experience.

Cold e-mailing only works if your GPA/school rank makes you already eligible to work at said firm, but for whatever reason, they just happened to not do OCI at your school. It's not going to get someone below the GPA cutoffs an interview. Same thing with networking.

Anyhow, I don't want to hijack this thready any more than I already have.

[scone]

The question isn't "how should we better rank schools," it's "how can we gradually do away with the significance for rankings." If rankings weren't tied to employment outcomes, then their only purpose is ~~prestige~~, which is worth shit.

Well, 'prestige' is a useful arbitrary, floating metric to pre-filter future lawyers, from an employer perspective. The brightest future law students are motivated to do their utmost to end up at the 'best' school, whatever hurdles that involves jumping through (thankfully, LSAT and GPA are at least fairly relevant). People therefore broadly end up at the 'best' school they're capable of getting into - and, circularly, each school then ends up as good as the class that enrols.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with rankings: their arbitrariness is pretty essential to their utility from an employer perspective.

(Sorry if I'm talking nonsense - it's very late in my timezone)

[JCougar]

The question isn't "how should we better rank schools," it's "how can we gradually do away with the significance for rankings." If rankings weren't tied to employment outcomes, then their only purpose is ~~prestige~~, which is worth shit.

Well, 'prestige' is a useful arbitrary, floating metric to pre-filter future lawyers, from an employer perspective. The brightest future law students are motivated to do their utmost to end up at the 'best' school, whatever hurdles that involves jumping through (thankfully, LSAT and GPA are at least fairly relevant). People therefore broadly end up at the 'best' school they're capable of getting into - and, circularly, each school then ends up as good as the class that enrols.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with rankings: their arbitrariness is pretty essential to their utility from an employer perspective.

(Sorry if I'm talking nonsense - it's very late in my timezone)

Rankings would be fine if they actually measured something useful, but undergrad GPA, US News rank, and law school GPA don't really tell you too much about whether you'll be a decent lawyer or not. Law is pretty much the only profession where you're supposed to put your GPA on your resume. Businesses don't care. They care about what your degree was in, what kind of training you have, specialized training/skills/abilities that match the position, what kind of interpersonal skills you have, they do care about your intellectual ability (for which the LSAT is an okay proxy), etc.

Businesses don't care about your degree GPA because it almost never correlates to being a successful worker. The only reason Biglaw cares about it is that they have to constantly justify their inflated billing rates to clients, and so far, raw prestige serves as the best excuse out there.

As they're currently situated, this obsession with raw, empty prestige creates a dilemma for law students: do I go to this somewhat lower ranked school with a full scholarship and graduate with reasonable debt, or do I pay through the nose to get the "prestige" of a better-ranked school that gives me exactly the same education and makes me into exactly the same young lawyer as the lower-ranked school would.

In the end, if you focus on the prestige of the school and not the actual student, you're obsessing over criteria that are ultimately meaningless from a skills-based perspective. That's why the US News rankings are so toxic and stupid.

Thing is, Biglaw doesn't care too much about who they hire beyond this, because most of them are gone after a few years, and for the first few years anyway, you're doing mostly busywork that almost any Tier 1 law grad could do.

[jbagelboy]

The question isn't "how should we better rank schools," it's "how can we gradually do away with the significance for rankings." If rankings weren't tied to employment outcomes, then their only purpose is ~~prestige~~, which is worth shit.

Well, 'prestige' is a useful arbitrary, floating metric to pre-filter future lawyers, from an employer perspective. The brightest future law students are motivated to do their utmost to end up at the 'best' school, whatever hurdles that involves jumping through (thankfully, LSAT and GPA are at least fairly relevant). People therefore broadly end up at the 'best' school they're capable of getting into - and, circularly, each school then ends up as good as the class that enrols.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with rankings: their arbitrariness is pretty essential to their utility from an employer perspective.

(Sorry if I'm talking nonsense - it's very late in my timezone)

Rankings would be fine if they actually measured something useful, but undergrad GPA, US News rank, and law school GPA don't really tell you too much about whether you'll be a decent lawyer or not. Law is pretty much the only profession where you're supposed to put your GPA on your resume. Businesses don't care. They care about what your degree was in, what kind of training you have, specialized training/skills/abilities that match the position, what kind of interpersonal skills you have, they do care about your intellectual ability (for which the LSAT is an okay proxy), etc.

Businesses don't care about your degree GPA because it almost never correlates to being a successful worker. The only reason Biglaw cares about it is that they have to constantly justify their inflated billing rates to clients, and so far, raw prestige serves as the best excuse out there.

As they're currently situated, this obsession with raw, empty prestige creates a dilemma for law students: do I go to this somewhat lower ranked school with a full scholarship and graduate with reasonable debt, or do I pay through the nose to get the "prestige" of a better-ranked school that gives me exactly the same education and makes me into exactly the same young lawyer as the lower-ranked school would.

In the end, if you focus on the prestige of the school and not the actual student, you're obsessing over criteria that are ultimately meaningless from a skills-based perspective. That's why the US News rankings are so toxic and stupid.

Thing is, Biglaw doesn't care too much about who they hire beyond this, because most of them are gone after a few years, and for the first few years anyway, you're doing mostly busywork that almost any Tier 1 law grad could do.

I agree with you 100%, except to the extent that this obsession is unique to law/large firms. You're expected to highlight your grades, pedigree and test scores when applying to management consulting and finance internships and entry positions as well. It's common to all high brow service industries. While not quite as prominently displayed, it's equally if not more important for funded fellowships and graduate schools that feed into academic positions, policy research, and federal departments.
Of course, all these other positions require both the pedigree and other skills, whether they be technical, interpersonal, artistic/creative, ect.

[JCougar]

I agree with you 100%, except to the extent that this obsession is unique to law/large firms. You're expected to highlight your grades, pedigree and test scores when applying to management consulting and finance internships and entry positions as well. It's common to all high brow service industries. While not quite as prominently displayed, it's equally if not more important for funded fellowships and graduate schools that feed into academic positions, policy research, and federal departments.
Of course, all these other positions require both the pedigree and other skills, whether they be technical, interpersonal, artistic/creative, ect.

Yeah, that is true...I was kind of thinking about McKinsey-style consulting, but I've been through those interview processes, and your given a far more broad array of assessments, and the case interviews at the end mean a lot, and they have nothing to do with GPA/rank of your school. And a very small minority of people who go into business in general go into these types of jobs. This process isn't even typical of a lot of business consulting firms. Firms like Deloitte will hire from middling schools as long as you have the right specialized experience and can present yourself well.

But the McKinsey-style firms are pretty selective with the schools they recruit from and some do have GPA cutoffs, etc.

Anyhow, if legal hiring was actually about the individual and whether they had the appropriate skill set or not, you wouldn't see tuition being jacked up to insane rates because people wouldn't feel compelled to pay for empty prestige that doesn't actually make them a better worker. But reasonable tuition rates would interfere with the regulatory capture and rent seeking gig that the ABA Section on Legal Education/Legal Education Industrial Complex has going on, so don't expect any real change, unless Biglaw for whatever reason decides they're not going to play along--which I don't see happening either.

[melmoththewanderer]

I think it's pretty clear that it's time for Georgetown to fire Dean Cornblatt. Get rid of him, he's gotta go. Bye!

[TirantMartorell]

Boston University

LSAT: 160 / 163 / 164 (-1)
GPA: 3.67 (+0.01)
Enrolled: 236 (+18)

[TirantMartorell]

Boston College

LSAT: 158 (-1) / 162 / 163 (-1)
GPA: 3.38 (+0.06) / 3.56 (+0.04) / 3.65 (+0.01)
Enrolled: 238 (+8)

[TirantMartorell]

Tulane

LSAT: 155 (-2) / 159 (-2) / 161 (-2)
GPA: 3.15 (-0.03) / 3.42 (+0.01) / 3.59 (-0.02)
Enrolled: 192 (+7)

[rpupkin]

Making employment outcomes determine rank doesn't make sense, since in the law school world, ranking determines employment outcomes. (generally) Look at Boalt v UCLA. Their medians are practically identical. They both have awesome professors. On what basis should an employer choose a Boalt median over a UCLA median? Rankings and nepotism.

Not exactly. It's harder to get into Boalt than UCLA. That's been true for the last 40 years, and it will probably be true for the next 40 years.

Almost everyone who gets into Boalt gets into UCLA, but the reverse isn't true. That's because Boalt, like SLS and YLS, actually takes softs into account. And those softs contribute to employability.

A few years ago, GULG had a higher LSAT median than SLS. No one cared (or at least no one in legal hiring cared). Why? Because SLS was harder to get into and, overall, attracted more desirable students.

[Lawdork]

Tulane

LSAT: 155 (-2) / 159 (-2) / 161 (-2)
GPA: 3.15 (-0.03) / 3.42 (+0.01) / 3.59 (-0.02)
Enrolled: 192 (+7)

DAMN this class has gotten dumber lol. And they didn't even add that many students. Can you imagine what their class size would look like if they held medians? prob like 100

[sec5_gulc65]

Is the Google spreadsheet inaccessible for you guys too? I keep getting an address not found error.

[basedvulpes]

Post removed.

[comet_halley]

Tulane

LSAT: 155 (-2) / 159 (-2) / 161 (-2)
GPA: 3.15 (-0.03) / 3.42 (+0.01) / 3.59 (-0.02)
Enrolled: 192 (+7)

DAMN this class has gotten dumber lol. And they didn't even add that many students. Can you imagine what their class size would look like if they held medians? prob like 100

100 maybe able do the trick, for its 25% is 161.

[benwyatt]

Post removed.

[comet_halley]

You have to attend conventions, establish ties, email senior attorneys and develop relationships, etc. in order to get interviews. It's not going to increase the number of firms coming for OCI without a substantive US News rank increase, so the only way to get more grads in jobs is to teach us how to network.

I did all of this, and I still don't have a real job, two years later. And there's a ton of people from my class with the same problem, so it's not just me. In fact, I did more networking than anyone I can think of, from any school. Attended almost a dozen conferences. Applied to hundreds of jobs and have only had maybe 5 total interviews since graduation, and my resume has been done over by numerous professional recruiters, so it can't be the format of my resume. I didn't do poorly in school, either. Wrote onto a journal, got published, etc. Grades were about median. Good prior work experience. No one cares.

Only 5 people from my class of 300 got Chicago Biglaw initially. I know of one that has lateraled in since. Three of these were URMs in the top 10%. Another was close to top 10% and IP secure, and also on Law Review. People in the Top 25% with no ties to St. Louis were never seriously considered for employment. A lot of people who graduated with honors are still volunteering two years later, have given up and moved back in with their parents, or are doing insurance/worker's comp defense.

It's pointless to network with people who don't have any positions open. It turns into having lunch with someone who basically feels sorry for you and tells you "I don't know what to do."

WUSTL may have a T14 median at this point, but for whatever reason, a lot of employers still treat it as if it's a TTT. Resume goes straight into the trash.

The problem WUSTL has is that it was a TTT 10 years ago. It only has a TTT alumni network. Most hiring managers still regard WUSTTTL as a TTT as it was 10 years ago when they were law students. It takes time to change anyone's' impression of a school. Unfortunately, this may take another 10 years or so.

[kartelite]

The question isn't "how should we better rank schools," it's "how can we gradually do away with the significance for rankings." If rankings weren't tied to employment outcomes, then their only purpose is ~~prestige~~, which is worth shit.

Well, 'prestige' is a useful arbitrary, floating metric to pre-filter future lawyers, from an employer perspective. The brightest future law students are motivated to do their utmost to end up at the 'best' school, whatever hurdles that involves jumping through (thankfully, LSAT and GPA are at least fairly relevant). People therefore broadly end up at the 'best' school they're capable of getting into - and, circularly, each school then ends up as good as the class that enrols.

So I don't think there's anything wrong with rankings: their arbitrariness is pretty essential to their utility from an employer perspective.

(Sorry if I'm talking nonsense - it's very late in my timezone)

Rankings would be fine if they actually measured something useful, but undergrad GPA, US News rank, and law school GPA don't really tell you too much about whether you'll be a decent lawyer or not. Law is pretty much the only profession where you're supposed to put your GPA on your resume. Businesses don't care. They care about what your degree was in, what kind of training you have, specialized training/skills/abilities that match the position, what kind of interpersonal skills you have, they do care about your intellectual ability (for which the LSAT is an okay proxy), etc.

Businesses don't care about your degree GPA because it almost never correlates to being a successful worker. The only reason Biglaw cares about it is that they have to constantly justify their inflated billing rates to clients, and so far, raw prestige serves as the best excuse out there.

As they're currently situated, this obsession with raw, empty prestige creates a dilemma for law students: do I go to this somewhat lower ranked school with a full scholarship and graduate with reasonable debt, or do I pay through the nose to get the "prestige" of a better-ranked school that gives me exactly the same education and makes me into exactly the same young lawyer as the lower-ranked school would.

In the end, if you focus on the prestige of the school and not the actual student, you're obsessing over criteria that are ultimately meaningless from a skills-based perspective. That's why the US News rankings are so toxic and stupid.

Thing is, Biglaw doesn't care too much about who they hire beyond this, because most of them are gone after a few years, and for the first few years anyway, you're doing mostly busywork that almost any Tier 1 law grad could do.

I agree with you 100%, except to the extent that this obsession is unique to law/large firms. You're expected to highlight your grades, pedigree and test scores when applying to management consulting and finance internships and entry positions as well. It's common to all high brow service industries. While not quite as prominently displayed, it's equally if not more important for funded fellowships and graduate schools that feed into academic positions, policy research, and federal departments.
Of course, all these other positions require both the pedigree and other skills, whether they be technical, interpersonal, artistic/creative, ect.

I think for IB and MC, firms care about test scores and UG grades because they (along with school attended) actually do function as a non-negligible proxy for ability, at least to do that sort of work. The same goes for admissions to rigorous graduate school programs, but your grades in PhD programs are also virtually meaningless when it comes time for fellowships or the academic job search (research record is #1 here).

By the time you're out in the workforce or in an MBA program, grades are largely irrelevant (and most top MBA programs don't even let students disclose their grades to prospective employers). I honestly don't have a good explanation for why top law firms care so much about 1L grades, unless they truly believe it is a strong predictor of a "good associate" or it would somehow reflect poorly upon them if clients knew they were taking students with lower grades than their peers did? At least law schools know GPA/LSAT influences their ranking. I think it's just a reflection of the legal industry's general lack of creativity, follow-the-herd mentality...our peer firms are only taking students from a certain region of the school rank/law school GPA scatter diagram, and so we should do the same.

[proctor_right_in_the]

Post removed.

[eagle2a]

What's up with most TTTT's not reporting numbers? Are they just going to let them come out through ABA? Hoping for some big drops in class size

[w7ldcard]

Isnt the deadline the 15th?

[RareExports]

The WUSTL numbers are official now. http://apply.law.wustl.edu/class-profile

[Rigo]

Isnt the deadline the 15th?

They were published in December last year.