Top Law Schools

Is W & M considered to be a good regional school that is worth attending with a good scholarship offer? What I learnt from this forum is that you should attend T 14 with some scholarship, or a good regional school with a very good scholarship, like 75% off. Is W & M this good regional school for Virginia? with ATL ranking dropping from 34 to 39?

With ATL ranking dropping, LSAT median dropping to 163, applications dropping, what moved W&M from 33 to 24 in USN ranking?
If you have to choose between W&M and ND (USN 26, ATL 17), isn't ND a much better choice?

Thank you.

who cares about their ranking
w&m may be a "good regional school"
but with a 22.1% school-funded rate, they're playing hide the ball
that's the reason w&m does alright ranking-wise
no one actually believes w&m is a top school that has 75.6% LT/FT JD-required
the true employment figures show you have about a coinflip chance at LT/FT JD-required graduating from there

also to speak the w&m vs nd thing
it would come down to where you want to practice, there's no reason to compare two regional schools in different areas unless you want to practice in both areas
if you really did want to practice in both areas and had equal costs, nd would be a no-brainer

Brut,

Thank you so much. You prompted me to look at employment rank. Wow

Brut is right... You shouldn't worry about rankings at all. Rankings only matter insofar as they help you get a job, so you may as well just cut out the middle man and look at jobs. W&M is reasonable if you have a) full tuition or damn close b) history in Virginia and c) willingness to do something other than biglaw. If you don't have those things, then don't do it. I suppose rich parents are always a complication if relevant.

The same is true for ND, tho relaxed a little bc ND is better. Brut is also right that it's strange to be considering both schools. ND places better, but it's not a legit national school.

I think you're fetishizing rankings here. Don't worry about them. Extremely large differences in rank are a good proxy for jobs (ie, Tier 1 vs Tier 3-4), but within pretty large bands the rankings are essentially meaningless, except for bragging rights. Bragging rights are cool, but not worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.

I agree with what has been said so far, but would like to add my two cents.

When you analyze employment numbers and emphasize Biglaw and clerkship placement, you notice that there are several tiers of schools. You have the T13, which has excellent employment. Outside of the elite schools, you have a group comprised of Georgetown, UCLA, Vandy, UT and USC, which place between 30 and 50 percent of its students in the aforementioned categories, depending on the year.

Outside of that tier, there is yet another tier comprised of strong regional schools that have decent employment numbers. ND is in this tier, whereas I don't think WM is. Generally, ND has better employment numbers than WM, and it's really not that close. So while you shouldn't move across the country and pay sticker to go to a school like ND, I do not believe it makes that much sense to lump ND and WM in the same category. I'm sure some will argue that 30% Biglaw placement is not a game-changer, but I think that it should be noted that schools like BU, BC, ND, USC, etc. at least give you a fighting chance for Biglaw/clerkships. WM is a good school but Biglaw is very unlikely.

Hello everybody. Again, I am looking at W&M employment numbers for 2013 and comparing it to other schools. Is my understanding correct that you are positioned well to have a good job if you are in top 25% as 25% are employed in 51 + attorneys firms, half of this top 25% are employed at 501 + firms? So, Biglaw is still possible out of W&M. I appreciate your thoughts.

If it's anything like most schools, prolly more like top 10% positioned and 10% with connections and 5% very likeable, good interviewer Firm goes out on a limb for etc

don't go to any school not in t-14

Post removed.

MistakenGenius wrote:

NYCFAN1 wrote:don't go to any school not in t-14

This is just stupid. There are plenty of regions to go to strong regionals.

lol. retake op

a lower-credentialed entering class means it may be easier to be the top 25%, 10%, 1% whatever of your class

and from what I have gathered from lurking OCI threads, class rank means a more than school rank when it comes to job placement

Thank you for all the replies. Gatesome, this is what I am trying to determine: the balance between the class rank and the school rank. The higher school rank means the lower class rank. The lower school rank means the higher class rank. What is more important for employment? NYCFAN, I did retake this September.

If you are in the top 25%, sure, you'll have a pretty good shot at getting either Biglaw or a clerkship. But being in the 25% is not easy no matter which school you attend. I think W&M is only worth it if you get a sizable scholarship and want to live in Virginia.

gatesome wrote:a lower-credentialed entering class means it may be easier to be the top 25%, 10%, 1% whatever of your class

and from what I have gathered from lurking OCI threads, class rank means a more than school rank when it comes to job placement

This is so wrong. There is a much greater gap in terms of job prospers out of schools than there is between the quality of students you're competing against. Is it easier to get top 25% at a T1 than it is at a T14? Probably (though there's a lot of luck and randomness involved in exams). But the quality of opportunities between T14 and everything else (for most jobs) is very significant. There are very solid regional schools that you can justify attending at a very low cost, but don't try to gauge the quality of your competition in law school as a factor in your decision making.

Plus, at this point, I think a lot of it comes down to people's willingness to retake the LSAT, not their inherent intelligence. Assume you'll be median at any school you attend, and see if that will open up the kinds of doors you want.

You can't just say "Oh, 50% of the people at this school get big law, I just need to finish in the top 50% of the class and I'll get big law." It doesn't really work like that. Firms obviously have cut offs, etc. but in this example there will be people who are in the bottom 50% of the class that get big law (whether because nepotism, good work experience, great interviewer, breath-taking hotness, diversity bump, etc.) and people at the top of the class could very well strike out (whether because horrible interviewer, obnoxious, really socially awkward, etc.)

BigZuck wrote:You can't just say "Oh, 50% of the people at this school get big law, I just need to finish in the top 50% of the class and I'll get big law." It doesn't really work like that. Firms obviously have cut offs, etc. but in this example there will be people who are in the bottom 50% of the class that get big law (whether because nepotism, good work experience, great interviewer, breath-taking hotness, diversity bump, etc.) and people at the top of the class could very well strike out (whether because horrible interviewer, obnoxious, really socially awkward, etc.)

Can't argue with that. If 25% of people get Biglaw at a given school, being in the top 25% is usually necessary but not sufficient.

Moneytrees wrote:

BigZuck wrote:You can't just say "Oh, 50% of the people at this school get big law, I just need to finish in the top 50% of the class and I'll get big law." It doesn't really work like that. Firms obviously have cut offs, etc. but in this example there will be people who are in the bottom 50% of the class that get big law (whether because nepotism, good work experience, great interviewer, breath-taking hotness, diversity bump, etc.) and people at the top of the class could very well strike out (whether because horrible interviewer, obnoxious, really socially awkward, etc.)

Can't argue with that. If 25% of people get Biglaw at a given school, being in the top 25% is usually necessary but not sufficient.

good thing you're applying to study law and not math

NYCFAN1 wrote:

MistakenGenius wrote:

NYCFAN1 wrote:don't go to any school not in t-14

This is just stupid. There are plenty of regions to go to strong regionals.

lol. retake op

So, for example, you'd tell a Texas native who wants to stay in the state that UT with a full ride is a bad decision? Okay.

Brut wrote:

Moneytrees wrote:

BigZuck wrote:You can't just say "Oh, 50% of the people at this school get big law, I just need to finish in the top 50% of the class and I'll get big law." It doesn't really work like that. Firms obviously have cut offs, etc. but in this example there will be people who are in the bottom 50% of the class that get big law (whether because nepotism, good work experience, great interviewer, breath-taking hotness, diversity bump, etc.) and people at the top of the class could very well strike out (whether because horrible interviewer, obnoxious, really socially awkward, etc.)

Can't argue with that. If 25% of people get Biglaw at a given school, being in the top 25% is usually necessary but not sufficient.

good thing you're applying to study law and not math

?

Moneytrees wrote:?

Moneytrees wrote:If 25% of people get Biglaw at a given school, being in the top 25% is usually necessary but not sufficient.

think about it

I fail to see your point. As Big Zuck said, there are always some students that are able to get Biglaw through connections/preferential
treatment. Hypothetically, if W&M has a 100 person class and about 25 go into Biglaw every year, it's essential to be one of the top 25 students in your class, but it's not sufficient (this is all assuming that you are an average student with no connections). I'm guessing you would probably need to be in the top 10 percent to be sure of getting one of those jobs.

imagine 100 people in front of you
imagine that 25 of them get biglaw

you cannot both hold that being one of the top 25 students is necessary to get biglaw AND hold that it's not sufficient

But that's not what I'm saying.

100 people in a class.
25 get Biglaw.

What I'm saying is that if you are a typical student with no connections, you need to be one of the top 25 students in your graduating class to have a shot at being one of the 25 chosen for Biglaw. Because if you aren't, you not only are going up against least 25 students that have better grades than you, but you also have to deal with the handful of students that have connections to firms. So I would argue that it's pretty much necessary to be in top 25, but that it's not sufficient, cause that student ranked n.60 with a connection to a big firm might nab your spot.

For God's sake moneytrees: If it's necessary to be in the top 25 people can't get it unless they are in the top 25.