C/O 2016 median lsat/gpa/class size Forum

[BigZuck]

Randy: if all I wanted was big law I wouldn't have chosen the school that I did. It's not elitist to say a law school sucks if it doesn't give its students a good chance at being a lawyer. Flipping a coin for that chance sucks and therefore Colorado and schools like it suck. Also I do genuinely feel bad for people who attend schools like that with intentions of becoming a lawyer but then end up never getting that opportunity. The school needs to do something to fix that. Layoff Campos and slash the class size so that the lost revenue doesn't hurt them. Do something. As the state flagship it should be a good option but its clearly not. I don't think it needs to be taken out back and put down like the Cooleys or NYLS of the world. There is a place for state flagships. But the Colorados and Hastings of the world need to pull their shit together and stop looking like the TTTs they have become.

Also how much of this is pure homerism? Be honest. Look at things objectively. The school just isn't good enough.

[sinfiery]

My gf goes to school at NYU; I was down there several days last week. We're both glad we're living in Morningside; the village is awesome, truly, but its claustrophobic and insane. I would be pretty overwhelmed in that environment.. I suppose its a personality thing, but the relative quiet and seclusion of the Columbia campus and the upper west location is actually a positive for a lot of students

I suppose it definitely is a personality thing but I've been wanting that claustrophobic and busy city experience so I guess I am quite biased. I may be mourning being away from morningside (yes, yes I did) in the last 4-5 weeks leading up to finals though but as of now, I'm very satisfied even as a student


We'll have to meet up sometime bro Bring along Patrick too

[jingosaur]

I've come across several of your posts on this site. Typical arrogance: you think you are great, so you think everyone is trying to be exactly like you. Truth is very few people on earth share your goals, and you come across to many others as immature. As expected, you see it a lot of this dynamic on TLS. Instead of just leaving it with "you enjoy your quality of life, I'll enjoy my 160k salary," you assume that everyone outside of some TLS creation - Fed Clerk + 500+ law firm - is SOL, completely miserable, and some pawn in a conspiracy involving higher education. You pretend to be concerned for these supposed "TTT losers" who go to schools like CU, but your posts only serve to make yourself feel better about your own life. It's all pretty sad.

One of your professors disagrees with you.

[Yukos]

My gf goes to school at NYU; I was down there several days last week. We're both glad we're living in Morningside; the village is awesome, truly, but its claustrophobic and insane. I would be pretty overwhelmed in that environment.. I suppose its a personality thing, but the relative quiet and seclusion of the Columbia campus and the upper west location is actually a positive for a lot of students

I suppose it definitely is a personality thing but I've been wanting that claustrophobic and busy city experience so I guess I am quite biased. I may be mourning being away from morningside (yes, yes I did) in the last 4-5 weeks leading up to finals though but as of now, I'm very satisfied even as a student


We'll have to meet up sometime bro Bring along Patrick too

The biggest advantage NYU has over Columbia is that you can commute from BK

[20141023]

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[isuperserial]

Assuming everyone wants full-time JD required work and applies themselves for that end, I'd agree with you.

I don't think that any of us - BigZuck included - are assuming that everyone who goes to law school wants to end up in a JD-required position. However, I think it would be naive to assume the opposite: that the majority of people who attend law school don't want to end up in JD-required positions. We're not even talking about the so-called "good" JD-required positions that TLS commonly touts (like biglaw, AIII clerkships, prestigious PI jobs, etc.); we're simply talking about any sort of full-time, long-term JD-required position in general. CU placed a little over half (93/175=53%) of its graduates into such positions last year. Even if we were to expand the definition to include any sort of full-time, long-term position, the number still ends up at just two-thirds of the graduating class (116/175=66%). With tuition alone being anywhere from $31,000 (resident) to $38,000 (nonresident), this is indeed a gamble for many students.

As expected, you see it a lot of this dynamic on TLS. Instead of just leaving it with "you enjoy your quality of life, I'll enjoy my 160k salary," you assume that everyone outside of some TLS creation - Fed Clerk + 500+ law firm - is SOL, completely miserable, and some pawn in a conspiracy involving higher education. You pretend to be concerned for these supposed "TTT losers" who go to schools like CU, but your posts only serve to make yourself feel better about your own life. It's all pretty sad.

Again, I don't think that we make fun of the students themselves as often as you suggest (with the exception of people like this or this); it is the institutions themselves that most of us are criticizing for continuing to raise the cost of a product that is clearly losing its value.

Everyone I know got the type of job they were looking for, so employment outcomes are not horrible.

And everyone that I know who graduated with an architecture degree has a decent-paying job, so that must mean that the actual employment rates of architecture programs as a whole are good.

I concur. Just like criticizing the work conditions of Walmart or McDonalds speaks nothing to the quality of the employees themselves. I think that it demonstrates a failure of the institution rather than the person who works there when we present facts about the terrible work conditions. Just like the employees are generally good and hardworking, the people who attend many of the institutions that fail to produce adequate opportunities are perfectly fine people. We're not criticizing them, and we don't blame them. For law schools in particular, many of them misrepresent the probable outcomes that one can expect. Because they misrepresent themselves, it would be ludicrous to blame the people who they have lied to.

[Monochromatic Oeuvre]

Here at Columbia you can try some of our world-famous coffee. The beans are picked in fields right outside the school and they brew the cup right there, then they deliver it your apartment by hand. I even saw the guy bring him a little baggie of sugar to put in his coffee. It must have cost extra, that's probably why he had his credit card out.

...just doin' my part.

I went to CLS one day and thought I left NYC. The village is the best place ever. If the schools were in opposite areas, I'm pretty sure it would be like a 174/165 median LSAT distribution in favor of CLS.

Don't worry though, you can come join me in 3 years

also I hope NYLS dies.

My gf goes to school at NYU; I was down there several days last week. We're both glad we're living in Morningside; the village is awesome, truly, but its claustrophobic and insane. I would be pretty overwhelmed in that environment.. I suppose its a personality thing, but the relative quiet and seclusion of the Columbia campus and the upper west location is actually a positive for a lot of students

I'm with bagelboy (but of course I would be, because we're both uptown). Morningside is meh for me, but the Village was a big minus. Part of why I turned down $25k there and jumped at lolsticker here (along with the fact that I'm a shameless preftige whore). Below Central Park it gets uncomfortably busy for me--it's the only place in the world I feel claustrophobic outdoors. Morningside feels a little more suburban, but I sort of like that. I mean, people didn't get shot two blocks away from my house in the suburbs, but whatever.

We had Bar Review in Midtown last week and even that's a little disconcerting. Although it is kind of neat to be on your way to the bar talking about the relative merits of working at Cravath, look to your right and...there's Cravath right there.

[Buck Strickland]

Again, I don't think that we make fun of the students themselves as often as you suggest (with the exception of people like this or this); it is the institutions themselves that most of us are criticizing for continuing to raise the cost of a product that is clearly losing its value.

Dude... those letters... oh my god...

"I am smart enough to an attorney."

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Randy: if all I wanted was big law I wouldn't have chosen the school that I did. It's not elitist to say a law school sucks if it doesn't give its students a good chance at being a lawyer. Flipping a coin for that chance sucks and therefore Colorado and schools like it suck. Also I do genuinely feel bad for people who attend schools like that with intentions of becoming a lawyer but then end up never getting that opportunity. The school needs to do something to fix that. Layoff Campos and slash the class size so that the lost revenue doesn't hurt them. Do something. As the state flagship it should be a good option but its clearly not. I don't think it needs to be taken out back and put down like the Cooleys or NYLS of the world. There is a place for state flagships. But the Colorados and Hastings of the world need to pull their shit together and stop looking like the TTTs they have become.

Also how much of this is pure homerism? Be honest. Look at things objectively. The school just isn't good enough.

Just gonna repost this cuz the thread is getting derailed.

The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%

Got to disagree here, and this logic is repeated over and over again on TLS. It's basic: 50% of people got X, so chances of obtaining X equals 50%. This logic is completely false. It assumes 100% of people are striving for X.

1/4 people at your law school (and mine) came here to study environmental puppy law. Others came here to kill time and would rather get married/join Peace Corps/become a farmer than work full-time in a JD required role. A few came here and got depressed because they never got over their old boyfriend, never forgave their dad, or never found their true calling. For lack of a better way of putting it, I am not really competing with these people. Then you have all the other people who have the maturity and drive to become a successful professional, but you can't assume they are all working towards "X." Point is, the "56% of Oregon grads obtain full-time JD required work, so Oregon students have a coins flip chance of becoming a real lawyer" thing is mindless and silly. Maybe at U of Chicago 90% of students want X, but the difference between U of Chicago and whatever the fuck "T30" signifies is huge. There is a difference in intelligence between top schools and average schools, especially at the bottom of the class, but the real difference is culture, work ethic, goals, etc. That's why OP (who was clearly being a dick and attempting to start a fight) is finding some support. TLS over-states the problems of the legal market. The truth is the legal market sucks, but TLS tries so hard to avoid blaming students that it presents ridiculous alternatives-- that legal hiring is completely different than non-legal hiring, that (outside of Biglaw and Fed clerks) grades trump actual skills, that everyone wants the same thing out of law school, etc.

I just came in here to share medians and I got CU is TTT. Cool. Look if you want to go on with your pre-concicved notions, fine. I'm only providing you with a first hand account from someone who actually attends one of these toilets. I blame students to a larger extent than most on this site. I see people coming to law school with only vague notions of what they will do when they leave, some never intending to practice law. I know people who have decided halfway through that law wasn't for them, and now they will be drag down the employment score constantly referenced on TLS. Problem is they have never heard of any employment score and are quite happy on their non-law track.

Of course this isn't to suggest its all puppies and roses-- the economy is poor. It's just to suggest that, go figure, comparing Harvard to CU will never create an apples to apples comparison, and that employment scores or online forums that make assumptions about the kinds of jobs people want will never be perfect. All this is to really say that life is complicated and people are different, but whatever. CU is a toilet and all law schools beyond the "T30" should be shut down. Right? Also all the grownups are scamming us..

[BigZuck]

Randy- your ad homs and unwillingness to address (or inability to comprehend) the ideas expressed by other people ITT indicates you're just speaking from an overly defensive, homerific place. I'm not sure what we can do for you if you can't (or refuse) to look at things objectively.

But agreed, it's too much of a derailment. Lets make fun of some different TTTs and focus our righteous indignation someplace else.

[ThinkNegative]

I concur. Just like criticizing the work conditions of Walmart or McDonalds speaks nothing to the quality of the employees themselves. I think that it demonstrates a failure of the institution rather than the person who works there when we present facts about the terrible work conditions. Just like the employees are generally good and hardworking, the people who attend many of the institutions that fail to produce adequate opportunities are perfectly fine people. We're not criticizing them, and we don't blame them. For law schools in particular, many of them misrepresent the probable outcomes that one can expect. Because they misrepresent themselves, it would be ludicrous to blame the people who they have lied to.

<— likes this analysis... Even when people make bad decisions, institutions are often bigger malefactors

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Randy- your ad homs and unwillingness to address (or inability to comprehend) the ideas expressed by other people ITT indicates you're just speaking from an overly defensive, homerific place. I'm not sure what we can do for you if you can't (or refuse) to look at things objectively.

Ironic because I addressed your point head on -- 50% employment score = coin flip chance of practicing law. You, on the other hand, have remained silent on my point. Too busy calling me a homer and scolding me for using "ad homs."

[ericsmith249]

Someone went to Nova with a 174...

http://www.nsulaw.nova.edu/prospective/classprofile.cfm

[North]

Ironic because I addressed your point head on -- 50% employment score = coin flip chance of practicing law. You, on the other hand, have remained silent on my point. Too busy calling me a homer and scolding me for using "ad homs."

Dude, you assume that more people at bad schools decide half way through that they don't want to be a lawyer than do people at good schools. That's dumb and still doesn't explain away the huge placement drops.

[20141023]

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[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Ironic because I addressed your point head on -- 50% employment score = coin flip chance of practicing law. You, on the other hand, have remained silent on my point. Too busy calling me a homer and scolding me for using "ad homs."

Dude, you assume that more people at bad schools decide half way through that they don't want to be a lawyer than do people at good schools. That's dumb and still doesn't explain away the huge placement drops.

Yeah I do assume that. Also the huge placement gaps could be do to the fact that top schools have better employment. I never said they didn't.

[DrStudMuffin]

Ironic because I addressed your point head on -- 50% employment score = coin flip chance of practicing law. You, on the other hand, have remained silent on my point. Too busy calling me a homer and scolding me for using "ad homs."

Dude, you assume that more people at bad schools decide half way through that they don't want to be a lawyer than do people at good schools. That's dumb and still doesn't explain away the huge placement drops.

North makes a valid point. However, I do agree with Randy's subpoint that there is a significant difference in intelligence and work ethic between top schools and CU level schools, so telling someone who is top school caliber that they have a 50-50 shot at being a lawyer if they go to one of these schools is wrong.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

The OP no doubt understands that if half the graduates of a law school don't get jobs as lawyers that means the chances of not getting a legal job for graduates of that school is 50%

Got to disagree here, and this logic is repeated over and over again on TLS. It's basic: 50% of people got X, so chances of obtaining X equals 50%. This logic is completely false. It assumes 100% of people are striving for X.

Again, nobody is saying that 100% of people who are attending law school are doing so in order to use their JD. We all realize that there are kids who kind of "drift" into law school with no real direction of what they want to do, or people who go in with a specific goal in mind that doesn't require (or even prefer) a JD. Still, it should be safe to assume that most of the people who are attending graduate school to obtain a professional degree (in this case, a JD) are doing so in order to use that degree. It may not be 100%, but I doubt it is less than 80%.

Although the LSAT may not be a reliable indicator of how one will perform as a lawyer, it can be a good indicator of how serious someone is about law school in general. By admitting students who haven't spent much time studying for the LSAT, schools are essentially admitting applicants who likely haven't thought much about what lawyering entails / applicants who know what they want to do but aren't willing to put forth much effort to achieve that goal. Yes, the consumers (students) are somewhat at fault here, but the sellers (law schools) are more at fault in my opinion for admitting these kids and loading them with federal debt while spinning their prospects at "lawyer" jobs. If law schools really cared about their students, they'd work on lowering tuition, lowering enrollment, and publicizing their real employment rates. However, because law schools are just like any other business, they simply see their students as a way to profit, and thus they are willing to milk as much out of every single person they can while doing the bare minimum to inform them of their actual chances of becoming a lawyer. Unlike a normal business, they can get away with this because they have the federal government backing them.

Schools like CU are definitely fulfilling a necessary role in society, are are most state flagship schools. However, that doesn't change the fact that there are too many students paying too much in tuition to support an unsupportable business model.

Agree with 100% of what you just said. You're actually pretty refreshing.

[altoid99]

Can people move their discussions about the merits of a particular school/comparisons of schools, etc to other threads? This is getting annoying.

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Ironic because I addressed your point head on -- 50% employment score = coin flip chance of practicing law. You, on the other hand, have remained silent on my point. Too busy calling me a homer and scolding me for using "ad homs."

Dude, you assume that more people at bad schools decide half way through that they don't want to be a lawyer than do people at good schools. That's dumb and still doesn't explain away the huge placement drops.

North makes a valid point. However, I do agree with Randy's subpoint that there is a significant difference in intelligence and work ethic between top schools and CU level schools, so telling someone who is top school caliber that they have a 50-50 shot at being a lawyer if they go to one of these schools is wrong.

Unsure how I feel about Randy..

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

Can people move their discussions about the merits of a particular school/comparisons of schools, etc to other threads? This is getting annoying.

I actually agree with you too and I'm kinda hating myself right now.

[DrStudMuffin]

Can people move their discussions about the merits of a particular school/comparisons of schools, etc to other threads? This is getting annoying.

Another valid point. Sorry bro - really appreciate you keeping up with the updating.

[Happy Gilmore]

Can people move their discussions about the merits of a particular school/comparisons of schools, etc to other threads? This is getting annoying.

[ManoftheHour]

Can people move their discussions about the merits of a particular school/comparisons of schools, etc to other threads? This is getting annoying.

[Dmini7]

Anyone from the schools who haven't posted their numbers been told their medians/class size. Maybe during orientation or convocation? Particularly interested in NU, Texas Minn and GWU