Attending CCN: A raw deal for some? Forum

[d34d9823]

So, while this might put me in the minority here, I don't think it's unreasonable to think you'd end up with a slightly better class rank at Georgetown. However, I don't think the difference will be anywhere near large enough to outweigh the placement advantage CCN has over Georgetown.

I actually agree with this. I'd expect someone to possibly do slightly better at Georgetown, not exactly the same as they would at CCN. But I agree it's a difference so small that it doesn't outweigh the placement advantage. The gap is not so large that someone who would do poorly at CCN would be likely to do well at GULC.

I think that it would balance out pretty even in terms of placement (i.e. if 30th percentile is the cutoff for Columbia and 70th is for Georgetown, you would expect the 30th percentile guy at Columbia to be 70th percentile at Georgetown). Why? Think about where placement stats come from. It's from the firms deciding how deep they can go and still get what they want. Given that they have 20+years of experience doing this, I would expect the cutoffs to result in similar students at each school. If Wachtell considers top 30% from Harvard, top 10% from Columbia, and top 3% from GULC, I would expect that 97th percentile guy at GULC = 90th percentile guy at Columbia = 70th percentile guy at Harvard.

[rundoxierun]

yea, its hard to get into stanford and yale. but really, overall its not very hard to get into a top10 law school and you really do not have to be very hard working or brilliant to go to CCN or even HYS. Getting over a 170 on the lsat really shouldn't require much effort if you're not an idiot and getting a 3.7+ gpa doesn't require you to be very smart in the humanities and social sciences, it just requires that you show up and do most of your work. I know plenty of mediocre people with 3.8 gpas who just were responsible and relatively bright. I also know plenty of mediocre people with 174+ lsats who just happen to be kinda bright. Sure most kids at yale law are pretty extraordinary. But the students at Columbia or Harvard I know are mostly just responsible students and pretty bright. Sure there are some really smart people at those schools but most are just your run of the mill kinda smart and kinda successful people. Getting into law school, even a top 5 one, is not much of an accomplishment (trust me, the kids doing phds and mds work way harder and often are much smarter) so lets not act as if students at top5 law schools are really competing against the best of the best. Columbia, for example, (where I will be matriculating) is filled with 174/3.65ish types... thats really nothing special. The kid who gets a 3.65 at, say, tufts or williams in english or history is probably not particularly hard working and the 174 lsat is, well, pretty damn easy to get. Sure some people mess up on the test day but really anyone moderately smart can break a 170 on practice tests. After that its just luck (mostly). I don't know anyone who got below a 165 on the lsat (I also don't know anyone going to a school ranked lower than fordham...) and know plenty of totally normal t-shirt wearing bland sportfans who did decently at decent UGs and took a dozen practice tests and now go to top 10 schools. none of these people are very smart; most never read books. really most are just normal bright upper-middle class kids from professional families. the kids i know at yale law are mostly really smart but otherwise let's stop acting like columbia or nyu or even harvard are filled with elite super-brainiacs.

First, this is a really silly post. Second, the same thing can be said for any kind of program. Most of the people in phd programs and md programs arent any kind of geniuses.. just hard working, responsible people. The pre-med path isnt really hard in terms of concepts you have to master, its hard in terms of hours you have to put in. Most of the time you just spend hours pounding crap into your head until you remember it[Bio minor so I know from experience]. There are very few geniuses in the world. Most people are lazy, irresponsible, and short sighted so to be a success all you have to do is be better than most.

[miamiman]

So, while this might put me in the minority here, I don't think it's unreasonable to think you'd end up with a slightly better class rank at Georgetown. However, I don't think the difference will be anywhere near large enough to outweigh the placement advantage CCN has over Georgetown.

I actually agree with this. I'd expect someone to possibly do slightly better at Georgetown, not exactly the same as they would at CCN. But I agree it's a difference so small that it doesn't outweigh the placement advantage. The gap is not so large that someone who would do poorly at CCN would be likely to do well at GULC.

I think that it would balance out pretty even in terms of placement (i.e. if 30th percentile is the cutoff for Columbia and 70th is for Georgetown, you would expect the 30th percentile guy at Columbia to be 70th percentile at Georgetown). Why? Think about where placement stats come from. It's from the firms deciding how deep they can go and still get what they want. Given that they have 20+years of experience doing this, I would expect the cutoffs to result in similar students at each school. If Wachtell considers top 30% from Harvard, top 10% from Columbia, and top 3% from GULC, I would expect that 97th percentile guy at GULC = 90th percentile guy at Columbia = 70th percentile guy at Harvard.

nope. biglaw hiring is not nearly as scientific as your suspicions suggest you believe. (actually, id think they'd be flattered if they knew you just wrote this.) it's just prestige driven; the quality of a median student at GULC is likely to be virtually identical to a median student at CLS or HLS. at least this is the conventional wisdom of TLS

[DOS]

yea, its hard to get into stanford and yale. but really, overall its not very hard to get into a top10 law school and you really do not have to be very hard working or brilliant to go to CCN or even HYS. Getting over a 170 on the lsat really shouldn't require much effort if you're not an idiot and getting a 3.7+ gpa doesn't require you to be very smart in the humanities and social sciences, it just requires that you show up and do most of your work. I know plenty of mediocre people with 3.8 gpas who just were responsible and relatively bright. I also know plenty of mediocre people with 174+ lsats who just happen to be kinda bright. Sure most kids at yale law are pretty extraordinary. But the students at Columbia or Harvard I know are mostly just responsible students and pretty bright. Sure there are some really smart people at those schools but most are just your run of the mill kinda smart and kinda successful people. Getting into law school, even a top 5 one, is not much of an accomplishment (trust me, the kids doing phds and mds work way harder and often are much smarter) so lets not act as if students at top5 law schools are really competing against the best of the best. Columbia, for example, (where I will be matriculating) is filled with 174/3.65ish types... thats really nothing special. The kid who gets a 3.65 at, say, tufts or williams in english or history is probably not particularly hard working and the 174 lsat is, well, pretty damn easy to get. Sure some people mess up on the test day but really anyone moderately smart can break a 170 on practice tests. After that its just luck (mostly). I don't know anyone who got below a 165 on the lsat (I also don't know anyone going to a school ranked lower than fordham...) and know plenty of totally normal t-shirt wearing bland sportfans who did decently at decent UGs and took a dozen practice tests and now go to top 10 schools. none of these people are very smart; most never read books. really most are just normal bright upper-middle class kids from professional families. the kids i know at yale law are mostly really smart but otherwise let's stop acting like columbia or nyu or even harvard are filled with elite super-brainiacs.

Dude is this a flame? The median LSAT out of Harvard is 166, Yale 165, and I think 163 out of MIT. Even at the grade inflated Ivies getting a 3.8 marks you out as a strong student. Which is why that only somewhere around a quarter of people at HYPS UG can even get into a T6.

Other programs have more specialized requirements which are a lot of work, but what difference does that make.

Like many posters here I know people who got into top 10 med schools and top 5 law/grad schools or went straight to consulting or I-banking. While each program has different requirements and different outliers it is not exactly a mystery that they all draw upon the same pool of people. People who did very well at roughly 25 top schools. You my think most of these people are idiots or douches but then by that measures be glad you haven't spent anytime around med students.

[vanwinkle]

nope. biglaw hiring is not nearly as scientific as your suspicions suggest you believe. (actually, id think they'd be flattered if they knew you just wrote this.) it's just prestige driven; the quality of a median student at GULC is likely to be virtually identical to a median student at CLS or HLS. at least this is the conventional wisdom of TLS

This is pretty close to correct. Median student at GULC is likely nearly as capable as the kid who's median at CLS or HLS, but because of the prestige-based hiring model, the CLS or HLS kids will get jobs the GULC kid won't even be given an interview for.

[miamiman]

nope. biglaw hiring is not nearly as scientific as your suspicions suggest you believe. (actually, id think they'd be flattered if they knew you just wrote this.) it's just prestige driven; the quality of a median student at GULC is likely to be virtually identical to a median student at CLS or HLS. at least this is the conventional wisdom of TLS

This is pretty close to correct. Median student at GULC is likely nearly as capable as the kid who's median at CLS or HLS, but because of the prestige-based hiring model, the CLS or HLS kids will get jobs the GULC kid won't even be given an interview for.

upon greater reflection, wouldn't it be really awesome (and wouldn't it restore your faith in the system) if BigLaw had created an algorithm to compare (with some degree of scientific precision) the quality of 71st percentile CLS student a 97th percentile BU student? I mean that would just be baller.

[Tautology]

upon greater reflection, wouldn't it be really awesome (and wouldn't it restore your faith in the system) if BigLaw had created an algorithm to compare (with some degree of scientific precision) the quality of 71st percentile CLS student a 97th percentile BU student? I mean that would just be baller.

Assuming that there is meaningful correlation between law school success and BigLaw utility.

[d34d9823]

nope. biglaw hiring is not nearly as scientific as your suspicions suggest you believe. (actually, id think they'd be flattered if they knew you just wrote this.) it's just prestige driven; the quality of a median student at GULC is likely to be virtually identical to a median student at CLS or HLS. at least this is the conventional wisdom of TLS

This is pretty close to correct. Median student at GULC is likely nearly as capable as the kid who's median at CLS or HLS, but because of the prestige-based hiring model, the CLS or HLS kids will get jobs the GULC kid won't even be given an interview for.

I'm not super convinced of this myself. I've noticed that people in general like to complain about how people from HYSCCN get jobs based on higher prestige rather than higher talent. If you look at BigLaw's business model though, it depends on talent. Do you think these guys really care about school prestige? My guess is that they only care about $$$ and the talent that will get them there. Given that, their recruiting at top schools is indicative that they believe the talent is better there. Now, they could be wrong, but you would think that they are the most qualified people to make that decision on talent, since they're the people at the top of the profession.

[vanwinkle]

I'm not super convinced of this myself. I've noticed that people in general like to complain about how people from HYSCCN get jobs based on higher prestige rather than higher talent. If you look at BigLaw's business model though, it depends on talent. Do you think these guys really care about school prestige? My guess is that they only care about $$$ and the talent that will get them there. Given that, their recruiting at top schools is indicative that they believe the talent is better there. Now, they could be wrong, but you would think that they are the most qualified people to make that decision on talent, since they're the people at the top of the profession.

If a law firm hires a few kids from CCN and a whole bunch of people who're top 20% at their lower-ranked schools they get the best of both worlds. They can assemble a team to work for a client, tell the client "I've got Columbia and NYU grads working on this for you" to impress him, and know that if they don't pull through the kid who was top at Fordham will take care of it.

[Tautology]

Also, 45 is a HUGE jump in appellate clerkships! I can't believe you guys went from 4.2% in 2007 to 10% in 2009! What changed? We'll see how C and C did for the class of 2009.

I don't think the jump is actually that big. NYU says that 45 alumni will be clerking for CoA during fall 2010, not that 45 2009 graduates will. I suspect some are in their second year of clerking and moving up a level, but have no way of knowing how many that is. It may be a big jump for NYU, but I don't know how big.

It's possible that Sotomayor may increase NYU's S.C. prospects if she takes alot from the Second Circuit and if NYU places well there, but that's all speculation.

[d34d9823]

I'm not super convinced of this myself. I've noticed that people in general like to complain about how people from HYSCCN get jobs based on higher prestige rather than higher talent. If you look at BigLaw's business model though, it depends on talent. Do you think these guys really care about school prestige? My guess is that they only care about $$$ and the talent that will get them there. Given that, their recruiting at top schools is indicative that they believe the talent is better there. Now, they could be wrong, but you would think that they are the most qualified people to make that decision on talent, since they're the people at the top of the profession.

If a law firm hires a few kids from CCN and a whole bunch of people who're top 20% at their lower-ranked schools they get the best of both worlds. They can assemble a team to work for a client, tell the client "I've got Columbia and NYU grads working on this for you" to impress him, and know that if they don't pull through the kid who was top at Fordham will take care of it.

I guess name-dropping and prestige is probably of some value, but I think it would pale in comparison to, you know, actually getting quality employees. I think a better explanation is that they think top 20% at Fordham is a similar talent level to median at Columbia.

[Unemployed]

Also, 45 is a HUGE jump in appellate clerkships! I can't believe you guys went from 4.2% in 2007 to 10% in 2009! What changed? We'll see how C and C did for the class of 2009.

I don't think the jump is actually that big. NYU says that 45 alumni will be clerking for CoA during fall 2010, not that 45 2009 graduates will. I suspect some are in their second year of clerking and moving up a level, but have no way of knowing how many that is. It may be a big jump for NYU, but I don't know how big.

It's possible that Sotomayor may increase NYU's S.C. prospects if she takes alot from the Second Circuit and if NYU places well there, but that's all speculation.

Thank you for the clarification. I got the 4.2% figure from this link: http://lawclerkaddict2008.blogspot.com/ ... chool.html, which tracked the 2008-2009 term federal appellate clerkships excluding second year clerks. So NYU may have increased this number, but definitely not up to 10%.

Everyone already answered OP's question, but just to reiterate - if you haven't figured out how to do law school at CCN, you probably wouldn't have figured it out at Georgetown either.

[JollyGreenGiant]

Even in CCN, there are gonna be those people who think "Oh, I go to (insert CCN) it doesn't matter what my rank is cuz I have this degree" and they likely won't attend class regularly or do necessary things to do well in school.

holy sh*t, how'd you know?

Then why are people so confused that there are 20% of people are not being able to get into a clerkship/biglaw that they wanted? A lazy person is a lazy person whether in school or working. And I'm (quite possibly wrongfully) assuming that the bottom of classes are those banking on just a degree without care of grades.

[of Benito Cereno]

another issue in this thread is the idea that hls is placing around 100% of its class into biglaw, federal clerkships, and top PI work while CLS is only placing 70%. that's just not true.
let's say "placing successfully" for a t10 school means biglaw, clerkship, academia, or top PI (national organization, federal government, nyc DA etc).
Maybe YLS and SLS, as very tiny schools, may place close to 100% of their classes "sucessfully" but never has harvard done so. Even in a great economy the bottom 10% at hls probably was running into some trouble as well. I've not seen any satistics showing hls placing 30% or even 10% better into biglaw than cls. HLS is clearly better than cls for federal clerkships, academia, and small elite washington firms. but I don't think hls has historically placed a noticeably larger percentage of its class "successfully" than cls.

[JollyGreenGiant]

And you're also considering that roughly 5%-ish of every class has people who aren't going to use their legal degrees for anything currently. Some people get degrees for the hell of it. It explains why HYS never has 100% employed for statistics.

[of Benito Cereno]

another thing to remember is that the NLJ numbers only cover the largest 250 firms. Many elite firms are not among the 250 largest firms. If around 65-75% of CLS grads are in NLJ250 firms and federal clerkships that doesn't mean 25% are working shit law. In addition to 5 - 10% working PI, government, academia, and business jobs there's likely another 10% working in excellent non NLJ firms.
to be exact, for the class of 2008:
CLS placed 70.5% into NLJ250 firms out of 82% total working in firms (19% in clerkships, business, academia, government, and PI). so around 11% working firm jobs not in the NLJ250. So for that year I'm guessing probably only like 10-5% of the class really struck out.
Class of 2009 placed 15% less into NLJ250 firms so for that year more like 20% struck out.

The one weird thing about CLJ is how damn few go into the Chicago market.