Top Law Schools

Seems like their info is based on previous years (obvz) and I was wondering when they typically update their information. I'm hoping it's in time for me to make a decision based on any changes

pleasesendhelp wrote:Seems like their info is based on previous years (ones) and I was wondering when they typically update their information. I'm hoping it's in time for me to make a decision based on any changes

Well new employment data isn't released until April so you're gonna have to wait

Nebby wrote:

pleasesendhelp wrote:Seems like their info is based on previous years (ones) and I was wondering when they typically update their information. I'm hoping it's in time for me to make a decision based on any changes

Well new employment data isn't released until April so you're gonna have to wait

lol I knew id have to wait, but figured it'd be soon after the USNEWS rankings came out, especially since they were leaked like a week or so early.

Thanks for the time frame, that's really what I was looking. Even end of April would give me plenty of time to make a decision.

Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect. Schools' employment numbers fluctuate from year to year, so you need to look at the general trend, not whether the class of 2016 had more clerks than the class of 2015.

cavalier1138 wrote:Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect. Schools' employment numbers fluctuate from year to year, so you need to look at the general trend, not whether the class of 2016 had more clerks than the class of 2015.

Well, you need data to observe trends. If 2013-2015 shows each years class had more clerks than the previous year, than 2016 reports that also show more clerks than previous years would show a trend.

pleasesendhelp wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect. Schools' employment numbers fluctuate from year to year, so you need to look at the general trend, not whether the class of 2016 had more clerks than the class of 2015.

Well, you need data to observe trends. If 2013-2015 shows each years class had more clerks than the previous year, than 2016 reports that also show more clerks than previous years would show a trend.

And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? I think that's cavalier's point.

rpupkin wrote:

pleasesendhelp wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect. Schools' employment numbers fluctuate from year to year, so you need to look at the general trend, not whether the class of 2016 had more clerks than the class of 2015.

Well, you need data to observe trends. If 2013-2015 shows each years class had more clerks than the previous year, than 2016 reports that also show more clerks than previous years would show a trend.

And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? I think that's cavalier's point.

I get that. But aren't we all obsessed with data here? I swear, people were trying to predict admissions based an a 1-2% difference in male students compared to female students. I'm probably wrong, as I always seem to be on this forum, but lower/higher clerkship by like 1-2% for a class of, say, 250, seems pretty significant.

pleasesendhelp wrote:I'm probably wrong, as I always seem to be on this forum, but lower/higher clerkship by like 1-2% for a class of, say, 250, seems pretty significant.

That's literally 2-5 people in the class. Could be 2 less people interested in clerking that year. Could be that more people got clerkships starting one year out rather than right after graduation. Could be a normal fluctuation given how idiosyncratic clerk hiring is. So no, that's not significant at all.

pleasesendhelp wrote: I get that. But aren't we all obsessed with data here?

Yes, many are irrationally obsessed with meaningless data here. Don't be one of those people.

Gee, so many TLSers here are just stubborn and argue for the sake of arguing.
The replies to OP so far are pretty jerkish

chicagoburger wrote:Gee, so many TLSers here are just stubborn and argue for the sake of arguing.
The replies to OP so far are pretty jerkish

You're just gonna love being a lawyer.

pleasesendhelp wrote:I swear, people were trying to predict admissions based an a 1-2% difference in male students compared to female students.

Where and when did that happen?

Most (non-0L) posters on this board focus on statistics that broadly matter when picking a school: declining class sizes, consistent biglaw/FC placement, etc. No one actually places importance on the minute changes from year to year.

P.S. @chicagoburger, just stop.

You're using the data to try to forecast your own outcome a few years from now. Whether a change is part of a trend or just random noise is very significant.

cavalier1138 wrote:

pleasesendhelp wrote:I swear, people were trying to predict admissions based an a 1-2% difference in male students compared to female students.

Where and when did that happen?

Most (non-0L) posters on this board focus on statistics that broadly matter when picking a school: declining class sizes, consistent biglaw/FC placement, etc. No one actually places importance on the minute changes from year to year.

P.S. @chicagoburger, just stop.

With so many big slides/jumps in the new ranking, it's stupid to not read into the data. Especially when you are deciding on Berkeley, W&L or even Penn State, you want to see those numbers in detail. That's not about the big picture but to find out what happened.

chicagoburger wrote:With so many big slides/jumps in the new ranking, it's stupid to not read into the data. Especially when you are deciding on Berkeley, W&L or even Penn State, you want to see those numbers in detail. That's not about the big picture but to find out what happened.

I'm not sure where to start with addressing how dumb that line of reasoning is...

cavalier1138 wrote:

chicagoburger wrote:With so many big slides/jumps in the new ranking, it's stupid to not read into the data. Especially when you are deciding on Berkeley, W&L or even Penn State, you want to see those numbers in detail. That's not about the big picture but to find out what happened.

I'm not sure where to start with addressing how dumb that line of reasoning is...

I'll give it a shot. I'll go assertion by assertion in order.

Rarely are there "big slides/jumps" in the actual data. Illinois had a big rankings drop a few years back due to scandal, and you know what happened to their employment numbers over the next few years? They hardly changed and were in line with the limited hiring that was endemic of those years. In fact, find me a school that has experienced a big slide/jump that wasn't more than a statistical blip and wasn't in line with the general hiring trends of that year (let's say >10% slide/jump to be statistically significant).

No one is saying you shouldn't read the data. Read it and glean from it what you can, but that's limited by understanding the data within its entirety. Seeing that a school places ~40% in BL/Art. III generally tells you one thing. The same school places 50% of graduates into a region/market tells you another. But can you equate that a certain percentage of those BL/Art. III are in that 50% or outside it? There's no way as the current reporting exists to that level of granularity. And that's just one example of the lacking ability to fully conceptualize/understand the data.

Seeing the data is important, arguably most important in considering Berkeley, W&L, or even Penn State and whether to attend, but myopically considering a single data set gives you only one point of understanding the situation at those schools. Look back 3 years, 5 years, or whatever data set you want, and that data becomes more than a single data point. And that's always more indicative of not only trends, but also the reliability of each individual data point. You don't want to make that data set too big because market trends become unworkable when the data set goes too far back, but it would be irresponsible to say X school gives you 37% chance of a desired outcome. What that means in reality is you more likely have 35-45% chance of that outcome (and even this falls short because hiring isn't strictly based on grades and is never truly linear like that).

You're bad at this, and I don't expect that will ever change.

UVA2B wrote:
No one is saying you shouldn't read the data.
Seeing the data is important, arguably most important in considering Berkeley, W&L, or even Penn State and whether to attend.

OP was told the following:
1. "Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect."
2. "And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? "
3. "Yes, many are irrationally obsessed with meaningless data here. Don't be one of those people."

Nobody has seen the data for 2017 yet so many have concluded the above assertions.
Making such conclusions without actually seeing the data is to imply that you shouldn't read the data.
You should lecture your friends more I think.

chicagoburger wrote:

UVA2B wrote:
No one is saying you shouldn't read the data.
Seeing the data is important, arguably most important in considering Berkeley, W&L, or even Penn State and whether to attend.

OP was told the following:
1. "Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect."
2. "And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? "
3. "Yes, many are irrationally obsessed with meaningless data here. Don't be one of those people."

Nobody has seen the data for 2017 yet so many have concluded the above assertions.
Making such conclusions without actually seeing the data is to imply that you shouldn't read the data.
You should lecture your friends more I think.

Wow, your logic is truly transcendentally idiotic. They aren't saying the data doesn't have value. They're saying this year's data isn't likely to change the way you should view a given school. Did you not read the entire part about these stats never changing more than a few percentage points, usually tracking with market conditions?

Seriously, be better at this. How is it any fun being categorically wrong ALL. THE. TIME? Your ego must be absolutely impenetrable.

chicagoburger wrote:

UVA2B wrote:
No one is saying you shouldn't read the data.
Seeing the data is important, arguably most important in considering Berkeley, W&L, or even Penn State and whether to attend.

OP was told the following:
1. "Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect."
2. "And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? "
3. "Yes, many are irrationally obsessed with meaningless data here. Don't be one of those people."

Nobody has seen the data for 2017 yet so many have concluded the above assertions.
Making such conclusions without actually seeing the data is to imply that you shouldn't read the data.
You should lecture your friends more I think.

What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Just. Read?

cavalier1138 wrote:

chicagoburger wrote:

UVA2B wrote:
No one is saying you shouldn't read the data.
Seeing the data is important, arguably most important in considering Berkeley, W&L, or even Penn State and whether to attend.

OP was told the following:
1. "Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect."
2. "And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? "
3. "Yes, many are irrationally obsessed with meaningless data here. Don't be one of those people."

Nobody has seen the data for 2017 yet so many have concluded the above assertions.
Making such conclusions without actually seeing the data is to imply that you shouldn't read the data.
You should lecture your friends more I think.

What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Just. Read?

I'm sorry. I just wanted to know when the LST would be updated...

God, what have I done?!

pleasesendhelp wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:

chicagoburger wrote:

UVA2B wrote:
No one is saying you shouldn't read the data.
Seeing the data is important, arguably most important in considering Berkeley, W&L, or even Penn State and whether to attend.

OP was told the following:
1. "Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect."
2. "And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? "
3. "Yes, many are irrationally obsessed with meaningless data here. Don't be one of those people."

Nobody has seen the data for 2017 yet so many have concluded the above assertions.
Making such conclusions without actually seeing the data is to imply that you shouldn't read the data.
You should lecture your friends more I think.

What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Just. Read?

I'm sorry. I just wanted to know when the LST would be updated...

God, what have I done?!

Maybe you should take a break from TLS and look into some PhD programs instead.

mjb447 wrote:

pleasesendhelp wrote:

cavalier1138 wrote:

chicagoburger wrote:

UVA2B wrote:
No one is saying you shouldn't read the data.
Seeing the data is important, arguably most important in considering Berkeley, W&L, or even Penn State and whether to attend.

OP was told the following:
1. "Nothing about this year's reports should have a decision-altering effect."
2. "And if the 2016 report showed slightly less clerks than 2015, then so what? "
3. "Yes, many are irrationally obsessed with meaningless data here. Don't be one of those people."

Nobody has seen the data for 2017 yet so many have concluded the above assertions.
Making such conclusions without actually seeing the data is to imply that you shouldn't read the data.
You should lecture your friends more I think.

What. The. Fuck. Did. I. Just. Read?

I'm sorry. I just wanted to know when the LST would be updated...

God, what have I done?!

Maybe you should take a break from TLS and look into some PhD programs instead.

LMAO don't get that convo started again. I can't handle it!