Georgetown's surprisingly high acceptance standard (FT)! Forum

[violinst]

NLJ and Article III Clerkships
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=108528

1. Stanford - 77.1%
2. Yale - 72.1%
3. Harvard - 65.7%
4. Virginia - 65.2%
5. Michigan - 64.9%
6. Columbia - 64.0%
7. Chicago - 63.1%
8. Northwestern - 62.7%
9. Penn - 61.7%
10. Duke - 61.5%
11. Berkeley - 58.1%
12. NYU - 57.4%
13. Vanderbilt - 55.0%
14. Cornell - 52.4%
15. Georgetown - 48.4%
16. Texas - 47.5%
17. USC - 47.2%
18. UCLA - 41.9%
19. Boston College - 38.0%
20. Notre Dame - 37.8%

This is actually kind of shocking. There's a ~10% spread between Dook and Yale (#2-#10), and a ~13% spread between Duke and GULC (#10-#15)

Also, as with any data that relies on NLJ250 placement as a proxy for biglaw, UT, USC and UCLA are underrated due to their geographic locations (but I'm an idiot 0L, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

See this as well and notice how well state schools do in federal clerkship placement:
--LinkRemoved--
As I checked, the ranking was based on GULC's FT+PT number. I doubt that PT students will take many (any) clerkships.

[fortissimo]

You tried to defeat my point that the SCOTUS clerkship placement is more telling than your Article III clerkship placement. And I disagreed.

It's more telling because most, if not all, Article III clerkships are harder to get than biglaw and require higher GPAs. This is why it makes sense to include Art. III placement with biglaw placement when looking at employment prospects. It's not about looking at "clerkship placement" on its own for the sake of it, it's about estimating what the GPA cut-offs are for landing a clerkship or biglaw and in doing so you can estimate to see how far biglaw firms dig into schools GPA-percentile-wise.

[los blancos]

This is actually kind of shocking. There's a ~10% spread between Dook and Yale (#2-#10), and a ~13% spread between Duke and GULC (#10-#15)

Also, as with any data that relies on NLJ250 placement as a proxy for biglaw, UT, USC and UCLA are underrated due to their geographic locations (but I'm an idiot 0L, someone correct me if I'm wrong).

It's hard to tell, because it seems most people don't get biglaw outside of OCI right now. So if NYC firms don't go to USC, UCLA, or UT's OCIs, they probably won't land NYC biglaw anyway because mass mailing typically does not work. (And I don't think we consider non NLJ 250 firms as biglaw.)

Ok, my fault. I probably should have said "market or near market-paying" instead of biglaw. From what I keep hearing, there are a lot of firms in TX and the West Coast that pay biglaw $$$, and that NLJ250 placement thus underrates the ability of people from schools in those geographic areas to secure high-paying jobs after graduation.

[los blancos]

You tried to defeat my point that the SCOTUS clerkship placement is more telling than your Article III clerkship placement. And I disagreed.

I'm a clueless 0L, but don't you typically have to clerk for an Article III judge before you can even be considered for SCOTUS?

Also, isn't the sample size for SCOTUS just too small to rely on?

[fortissimo]

See this as well and notice how well state schools do in federal clerkship placement:
--LinkRemoved--
As I checked, the ranking was based on GULC's FT+PT number. I doubt that PT students will many clerkships.

I don't think it matters how well other schools (non top 14) place in federal clerkships for the purposes of this discussion. First, they are probably in the top of their class.
Second, it doesn't devalue the fact that you still need to graduate in the top of your class of a top 14 to place well into federal clerkships. This means that, at a top 14, you probably have to do much better GPA-wise to land a federal clerkship than to land biglaw.

[fortissimo]

You tried to defeat my point that the SCOTUS clerkship placement is more telling than your Article III clerkship placement. And I disagreed.

I'm a clueless 0L, but don't you typically have to clerk for an Article III judge before you can even be considered for SCOTUS?

Also, isn't the sample size for SCOTUS just too small to rely on?

Yes. You typically have to clerk for COA.

People clerk for COA and district cts right out of law school, so those stats are really the only pertinent ones for "post-grad" employment analysis.

[violinst]

You tried to defeat my point that the SCOTUS clerkship placement is more telling than your Article III clerkship placement. And I disagreed.

It's more telling because most, if not all, Article III clerkships are harder to get than biglaw and require higher GPAs. This is why it makes sense to include Art. III placement with biglaw placement when looking at employment prospects. It's not about looking at "clerkship placement" on its own for the sake of it, it's about estimating what the GPA cut-offs are for landing a clerkship or biglaw and in doing so you can estimate to see how far biglaw firms dig into schools GPA-percentile-wise.

If you looked at the table:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =1&t=75513
you will see that Article III clerkship placement is more regional-biased than merit-based: state schools like New Mexico, Alabama, and Ohio State all have very high rankings. SCOTUS clerkship placement, on the other hand, is almost purely merit based. So combining the NLJ250 placement with the SCOTUS placement is a better way of estimating a school's job placement competitiveness. If one only uses GULC's FT stats to calculate the rankings, I would say that GULC will do much better in most of the rankings.

[fortissimo]

You tried to defeat my point that the SCOTUS clerkship placement is more telling than your Article III clerkship placement. And I disagreed.

It's more telling because most, if not all, Article III clerkships are harder to get than biglaw and require higher GPAs. This is why it makes sense to include Art. III placement with biglaw placement when looking at employment prospects. It's not about looking at "clerkship placement" on its own for the sake of it, it's about estimating what the GPA cut-offs are for landing a clerkship or biglaw and in doing so you can estimate to see how far biglaw firms dig into schools GPA-percentile-wise.

If you looked at the table:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =1&t=75513
you will see that Article III clerkship placement is more regional-biased than merit-based: state schools like New Mexico, Alabama, and Ohio State all have very high rankings. SCOTUS clerkship placement, on the other hand, is almost purely merit based. So combining the NLJ250 placement with the SCOTUS placement is a better way of estimating a school's job placement competitiveness. If one only uses GULC's FT stats to calculate the rankings, I would say that GULC will do much better in most of the rankings.

Your argument doesn't make any sense considering the following...

I'm a clueless 0L, but don't you typically have to clerk for an Article III judge before you can even be considered for SCOTUS?

Also, isn't the sample size for SCOTUS just too small to rely on?

Yes. You typically have to clerk for COA.

People clerk for COA and district cts right out of law school, so those stats are really the only pertinent ones for "post-grad" employment analysis.

I don't think it matters how well other schools (non top 14) place in federal clerkships for the purposes of this discussion. First, they are probably in the top of their class.
Second, it doesn't devalue the fact that you still need to graduate in the top of your class of a top 14 to place well into federal clerkships. This means that, at a top 14, you probably have to do much better GPA-wise to land a federal clerkship than to land biglaw.

[Ragged]

GULC's stats are really high for their rank, but according to that go-to list their rank is about right.

What's interesting is how close the percentages are: pretty much top ten is within 55-50%. And kudos to NU for sneaking into the first place.


Is there a go-to law schools list for NLJ100/50/20? That would be even more revealing.

[violinst]

See this as well and notice how well state schools do in federal clerkship placement:
--LinkRemoved--
As I checked, the ranking was based on GULC's FT+PT number. I doubt that PT students will many clerkships.

I don't think it matters how well other schools (non top 14) place in federal clerkships for the purposes of this discussion. First, they are probably in the top of their class.
Second, it doesn't devalue the fact that you still need to graduate in the top of your class of a top 14 to place well into federal clerkships. This means that, at a top 14, you probably have to do much better GPA-wise to land a federal clerkship than to land biglaw.

Your analysis mirrors mine: Article III clerkship placement is regional-biased not merit based (on school's reputation that is). If one is a top student at a lower-ranked local school, one may have the same opportunity to be a clerk in a lower court in the region as a top student from highly-ranked but out-of-region school does. The SCOTUS clerkship placement on the other hand is much different.

[los blancos]

Is there a go-to law schools list for NLJ100/50/20? That would be even more revealing.

TBH I think it would just bias schools in bigger [East Coast] markets. Imagine the kind of hit Duke and Michigan would take (since they spread their students all over the country).

[violinst]

GULC's stats are really high for their rank, but according to that go-to list their rank is about right.

What's interesting is how close the percentages are: pretty much top ten is within 55-50%. And kudos to NU for sneaking into the first place.


Is there a go-to law schools list for NLJ100/50/20? That would be even more revealing.

Only if you put the PT students into the mix as well. 289 students, out of 458 FT students + some PT students, getting NLJ250 jobs is quite impressive.

[fortissimo]

See this as well and notice how well state schools do in federal clerkship placement:
--LinkRemoved--
As I checked, the ranking was based on GULC's FT+PT number. I doubt that PT students will many clerkships.

I don't think it matters how well other schools (non top 14) place in federal clerkships for the purposes of this discussion. First, they are probably in the top of their class.
Second, it doesn't devalue the fact that you still need to graduate in the top of your class of a top 14 to place well into federal clerkships. This means that, at a top 14, you probably have to do much better GPA-wise to land a federal clerkship than to land biglaw.

Your analysis mirrors mine: Article III clerkship placement is regional-biased not merit based (on school's reputation that is). If one is a top student at a lower-ranked local school, one may have the same opportunity to be a clerk in a lower court in the region as a top student from highly-ranked but out-of-region school does. The SCOTUS clerkship placement on the other hand is much different.

My analysis doesn't mirror yours at all, since I think we're talking mainly about how deep firms dig into each school. SCOTUS clerks have COA clerkships before they become SCOTUS clerks. COA clerks have higher GPAs than people in biglaw from their school. Adding together ALL ARTICLE III clerkships and biglaw tells us how, roughly, how deep firms dig GPA-wise into each school. And by this analysis, firms dig much deeper into other top 14 than Georgetown.

[violinst]

You tried to defeat my point that the SCOTUS clerkship placement is more telling than your Article III clerkship placement. And I disagreed.

It's more telling because most, if not all, Article III clerkships are harder to get than biglaw and require higher GPAs. This is why it makes sense to include Art. III placement with biglaw placement when looking at employment prospects. It's not about looking at "clerkship placement" on its own for the sake of it, it's about estimating what the GPA cut-offs are for landing a clerkship or biglaw and in doing so you can estimate to see how far biglaw firms dig into schools GPA-percentile-wise.

If you looked at the table:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =1&t=75513
you will see that Article III clerkship placement is more regional-biased than merit-based: state schools like New Mexico, Alabama, and Ohio State all have very high rankings. SCOTUS clerkship placement, on the other hand, is almost purely merit based. So combining the NLJ250 placement with the SCOTUS placement is a better way of estimating a school's job placement competitiveness. If one only uses GULC's FT stats to calculate the rankings, I would say that GULC will do much better in most of the rankings.

Your argument doesn't make any sense considering the following...

I'm a clueless 0L, but don't you typically have to clerk for an Article III judge before you can even be considered for SCOTUS?

Also, isn't the sample size for SCOTUS just too small to rely on?

Yes. You typically have to clerk for COA.

People clerk for COA and district cts right out of law school, so those stats are really the only pertinent ones for "post-grad" employment analysis.

I don't think it matters how well other schools (non top 14) place in federal clerkships for the purposes of this discussion. First, they are probably in the top of their class.
Second, it doesn't devalue the fact that you still need to graduate in the top of your class of a top 14 to place well into federal clerkships. This means that, at a top 14, you probably have to do much better GPA-wise to land a federal clerkship than to land biglaw.

Then I have to conclude, based on the Article III raking and Leiter's SCOTUS raking (using GULC's FT number only), that those GULC graduates have quite a high success rate in climbing the ladder in clerkships.

[violinst]

See this as well and notice how well state schools do in federal clerkship placement:
--LinkRemoved--
As I checked, the ranking was based on GULC's FT+PT number. I doubt that PT students will many clerkships.

I don't think it matters how well other schools (non top 14) place in federal clerkships for the purposes of this discussion. First, they are probably in the top of their class.
Second, it doesn't devalue the fact that you still need to graduate in the top of your class of a top 14 to place well into federal clerkships. This means that, at a top 14, you probably have to do much better GPA-wise to land a federal clerkship than to land biglaw.

Your analysis mirrors mine: Article III clerkship placement is regional-biased not merit based (on school's reputation that is). If one is a top student at a lower-ranked local school, one may have the same opportunity to be a clerk in a lower court in the region as a top student from highly-ranked but out-of-region school does. The SCOTUS clerkship placement on the other hand is much different.

My analysis doesn't mirror yours at all, since I think we're talking mainly about how deep firms dig into each school. SCOTUS clerks have COA clerkships before they become SCOTUS clerks. COA clerks have higher GPAs than people in biglaw from their school. Adding together ALL ARTICLE III clerkships and biglaw tells us how, roughly, how deep firms dig GPA-wise into each school. And by this analysis, firms dig much deeper into other top 14 than Georgetown.

I was not talking about students with high GPAs. I was talking about differences among schools. According to your Article III clerkship placement ranking, schools like New Mexico, Alabama, and Ohio State do better than many of the T14 schools, which only indicates that, as far as Article III clerkship placement goes, GPAs and regional-bias matter more than the reputations of individual schools. I don't think that this ranking would be very telling of a specific school's strength.

If one looks at the the NLJ ranking and assumes that most of jobs went to FT students, then again GULC does very well in BigLaw placement.

[fortissimo]

My analysis doesn't mirror yours at all, since I think we're talking mainly about how deep firms dig into each school. SCOTUS clerks have COA clerkships before they become SCOTUS clerks. COA clerks have higher GPAs than people in biglaw from their school. Adding together ALL ARTICLE III clerkships and biglaw tells us how, roughly, how deep firms dig GPA-wise into each school. And by this analysis, firms dig much deeper into other top 14 than Georgetown.

I was not talking about students with high GPAs. I was talking about differences among schools. According to your Article III clerkship placement ranking, schools like New Mexico, Alabama, and Ohio State do better than many of the T14 schools, which only indicates that, as far as Article III clerkship placement goes, GPAs and regional-bias matter more than the reputations of individual schools. I don't think that this ranking would be very telling of a specific school's strength.

If one looks at the the NLJ ranking and assumes that most of jobs went to FT students, then again GULC does very well in BigLaw placement.

Let's try this one last time:

How deep firms dig into each school is a measure of a "school's strength." If you want to gauge this, you have to take into account of COA clerkships and fed district clerkships into your analysis along with biglaw placement because the first two require higher GPA percentiles. After doing so, you see that firms dig deeper into other top 14s than Georgetown. (In other words, it is easier landing a biglaw job at other top 14s than it is at Georgetown because you don't have to graduate as high in your class.) You can see this just by looking at biglaw placement alone, but if you take into account Article III clerkships, which you should since they require you to graduate in the top of your class, the difference becomes more drastic.

[violinst]

My analysis doesn't mirror yours at all, since I think we're talking mainly about how deep firms dig into each school. SCOTUS clerks have COA clerkships before they become SCOTUS clerks. COA clerks have higher GPAs than people in biglaw from their school. Adding together ALL ARTICLE III clerkships and biglaw tells us how, roughly, how deep firms dig GPA-wise into each school. And by this analysis, firms dig much deeper into other top 14 than Georgetown.

I was not talking about students with high GPAs. I was talking about differences among schools. According to your Article III clerkship placement ranking, schools like New Mexico, Alabama, and Ohio State do better than many of the T14 schools, which only indicates that, as far as Article III clerkship placement goes, GPAs and regional-bias matter more than the reputations of individual schools. I don't think that this ranking would be very telling of a specific school's strength.

If one looks at the the NLJ ranking and assumes that most of jobs went to FT students, then again GULC does very well in BigLaw placement.

Let's try this one last time:

How deep firms dig into each school is a measure of a "school's strength." If you want to gauge this, you have to take into account of COA clerkships and fed district clerkships into your analysis along with biglaw placement because the first two require higher GPA percentiles. After doing so, you see that firms dig deeper into other top 14s than Georgetown. (In other words, it is easier landing a biglaw job at other top 14s than it is at Georgetown because you don't have to graduate as high in your class.) You can see this just by looking at biglaw placement alone, but if you take into account Article III clerkships, which you should since they require you to graduate in the top of your class, the difference becomes more drastic.

This is exactly the reason that the Article III ranking is not suitable for the purpose of gauging a school's national reputation, because for a COA clerkship in Ohio, lets say, a 4.0 from Ohio State may very well equal a 4.0 from Berkeley. So the COA clerkship ranking is regional-biased and therefore NOT very indicative of a school's strength on the national scale.

[fortissimo]

My analysis doesn't mirror yours at all, since I think we're talking mainly about how deep firms dig into each school. SCOTUS clerks have COA clerkships before they become SCOTUS clerks. COA clerks have higher GPAs than people in biglaw from their school. Adding together ALL ARTICLE III clerkships and biglaw tells us how, roughly, how deep firms dig GPA-wise into each school. And by this analysis, firms dig much deeper into other top 14 than Georgetown.

I was not talking about students with high GPAs. I was talking about differences among schools. According to your Article III clerkship placement ranking, schools like New Mexico, Alabama, and Ohio State do better than many of the T14 schools, which only indicates that, as far as Article III clerkship placement goes, GPAs and regional-bias matter more than the reputations of individual schools. I don't think that this ranking would be very telling of a specific school's strength.

If one looks at the the NLJ ranking and assumes that most of jobs went to FT students, then again GULC does very well in BigLaw placement.

Let's try this one last time:

How deep firms dig into each school is a measure of a "school's strength." If you want to gauge this, you have to take into account of COA clerkships and fed district clerkships into your analysis along with biglaw placement because the first two require higher GPA percentiles. After doing so, you see that firms dig deeper into other top 14s than Georgetown. (In other words, it is easier landing a biglaw job at other top 14s than it is at Georgetown because you don't have to graduate as high in your class.) You can see this just by looking at biglaw placement alone, but if you take into account Article III clerkships, which you should since they require you to graduate in the top of your class, the difference becomes more drastic.

This is the exactly the reason that the Article III ranking is not suitable for the purpose of gauging a school's national reputation, because for a COA clerkship in Ohio, lets say, a 4.0 from Ohio State may very well equal a 4.0 from Berkeley. So the COA clerkship ranking is regional-biased and therefore NOT very indicative of a school's strength on the national scale.

Firms digging far deeper into other top 14s is indicative of Georgetown's strength (or lack thereof).

[PDaddy]

GULC and Cornell are the ugly stepsisters of the T14. UCLA and Vandy are the Cinderellas who deserve to go to the T14 Ball.

[violinst]

This is the exactly the reason that the Article III ranking is not suitable for the purpose of gauging a school's national reputation, because for a COA clerkship in Ohio, lets say, a 4.0 from Ohio State may very well equal a 4.0 from Berkeley. So the COA clerkship ranking is regional-biased and therefore NOT very indicative of a school's strength on the national scale.

Firms digging far deeper into other top 14s is indicative of Georgetown's strength (or lack thereof).

If 289 students out of 458 FT students plus a few PT students at GULC got NLJ250 jobs, then I would say that the dig is quite deep. Deeper than many T14 schools'.

I may very well just take the money at Michigan. But if my assumption that most of the 289 BigLaw jobs went to FT students at GULC is right, then GULC is quite impressive (more so than Michigan perhaps).

[violinst]

GULC are the ugly stepsisters of the T14. UCLA and Vandy are the Cinderellas who deserve to go to the T14 Ball.

I would go to Vandy if it's in D.C..

I also wish that Cornell is in D.C.: An Ivy League law school with a small class in D.C. would be ideal! (But I probably won't get in then).

[rayiner]

You're making two errors:

1) Assuming FT folks get most of the jobs. This is not true. I've heard from GULC students that firms don't care at OCI, and PT is full of people with WE and connections that help them get jobs. Eg: lots of patent folks go PT while working as an agent for a firm that they'll have an offer at at graduation.

2) Not talking into account the large transfer class in computing your FT/PT breakdown.

[PDaddy]

GULC and Cornell are the ugly stepsisters of the T14. UCLA and Vandy are the Cinderellas who deserve to go to the T14 Ball.

Fixed.

[violinst]

You're making two errors:

1) Assuming FT folks get most of the jobs. This is not true. I've heard from GULC students that firms don't care at OCI, and PT is full of people with WE and connections that help them get jobs. Eg: lots of patent folks go PT while working as an agent for a firm that they'll have an offer at at graduation.

2) Not talking into account the large transfer class in computing your FT/PT breakdown.

1) I was indeed waiting (vainly) for someone with real knowledge to debunk my assumption (the reason I emphasized the word "assume" so many times).
2) Where can I find out the FT/PT breakdown for 2L and 3L? Will the transfer be evident on the final transcript? Just out of curiosity, since you stated that the firms don't care.

I do believe that a fair amount of PT students are there simply because they couldn't get into the FT program in the first place. They mostly likely do not have meaningful connections that would significantly enhance their future job searching. Am I right?

[09042014]

Georgetown is the best non t13 in the north.