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American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:10 pm
by BVest
Thought this was interesting. It will also be interesting to see what happen's with American's numbers. Their employment outcomes have been downright atrocious. If GW's poaching leads to a significantly smaller class size, that could result in somewhat better numbers. Alternately, employers might feel like the entire top 20-25% of AU's 1L class is gone, so why bother.
From the Tax Prof Blog:
Facebook post by Anthony E. Varona (Prof and Associate Dean for Faculty and Academic Affairs at American):
I am glad that some in the media -- even if just the legal blogosphere -- are finally paying attention to what GW Law has been doing with transfers. The school shrank its 1L class some years ago, deciding instead to transfer in large numbers of students after the first year. 97 transfers just last year alone. Well over HALF of those from my law school; which -- to say the least -- causes us quite a bit of disruption. Speaking only for myself and not in my official law school capacity, I view this practice as downright predatory. No other law school is similarly raided anywhere else in the United States. No other law school engages in this sort of practice to this degree. More troubling still for GW Law students especially is the "bait and switch" nature of this backdoor transfer trick. The "student quality" numbers (collegiate GPA and LSAT) GW submits to the accrediting and, ultimately, the ranking authorities -- like US News -- are solely those of their artificially small 1L class. GW is not required to disclose the true, overall student quality numbers -- so, it doesn't. With nearly 100 (!!) new classmates at the start of their second years, are GW students attending the same "quality" of school (myopically defined by GPA and LSAT) as advertised in the rankings? Um, don't think so. I wrote about this problem in [Diversity and Disgrace – How the U.S. News Law School Rankings Hurt Everyone, N.Y.U. Rev. L. & Soc. Change Blog (Apr. 3, 2014).] GW Law is an excellent and honorable law school. This practice is far beneath its illustrious history and reputation. Thank goodness it has an outstanding, and ethical, new dean in Blake Morant.
The GW Student Newspaper article quoted in Paul Caron's blog is also interesting and has some good quotes by Prof. Campos.
H/T:
ABA Journal
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:27 pm
by FSK
We broke the numbers down in another thread here based on the 509 data. GW was accepting kids from American who had median grades. What a joke.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:29 pm
by fats provolone
someone's gotta subsidize those scholarships
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:33 pm
by FSK
fats provolone wrote:someone's gotta subsidize those scholarships
I mean, I'm one of those subsidized people. But its still terrible to see for so many reasons.
Edit: My opinion is that American should just shut down - with about 3 other law schools from the DMV area.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:37 pm
by kcdc1
American's argument:
(1) All of our students want to transfer out, and (2) the top half of are students are able to do so because GW will accept them. Thus, we lose our best students, and GW is to blame. Kindly ignore the fact that our students don't want to be here.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:45 pm
by Hutz_and_Goodman
Wow, how shitty is American's placement that this number of students are transferring to GW?
I looked out of curiosity and GW has more than double the big firm placement and nearly double the % of employed 9 months out, which is really surprising to me
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:46 pm
by fats provolone
i wonder if they do any better at gw
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 12:50 pm
by FSK
fats provolone wrote:i wonder if they do any better at gw
My observation from OCI is no. Most I've met got 0 screening interviews.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 1:09 pm
by lhanvt13
LOL @ American SJWing about predatory admissions practices
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 2:45 pm
by TheNextAmendment
Shame on American for complaining about kids leaving for "better chances" of actually repaying their loans.
Shame on GW for being GW.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 3:00 pm
by TheodoreKGB
.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Fri Jan 16, 2015 9:24 pm
by chuckbass
Also lol at admitting that his own students aren't of good quality
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:00 pm
by mephistopheles
scottidsntknow wrote:Also lol at admitting that his own students aren't of good quality
yeah this is great
though if they're at american, they just may miss it
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:19 pm
by TatteredDignity
scottidsntknow wrote:Also lol at admitting that his own students aren't of good quality
But even that he tries to have both ways, because quality is "myopically defined by GPA and LSAT."
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:27 pm
by runinthefront
TheNextAmendment wrote:Shame on American for complaining about kids leaving for "better chances" of actually repaying their loans.
Shame on GW for being GW.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 8:59 pm
by butlerraider1
Is it possible that one of the reasons why Americans employment score is so atrocious is because most of the top students leave? Could be totally off base. Just a thought
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:14 pm
by prezidentv8
butlerraider1 wrote:Is it possible that one of the reasons why Americans employment score is so atrocious is because most of the top students leave? Could be totally off base. Just a thought
I knew American was bad, but I didn't know quite how bad. Just looked. Holy crap.
http://www.lstscorereports.com/schools/ ... yers/2013/
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:26 pm
by rondemarino
Another reason so many AU grads leave the Factory of Sadness is that the Factory doesn't offer much by way of scholarships. So there's very little money anchoring AU students to the Factory of Sadness.
The prof needs to quit his bitching, take a 50% salary cut and let the Factory use the savings to retain their top 1Ls with scholarship money. But something tells me that is not happening.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:32 pm
by haus
flawschoolkid wrote:3 other law schools from the DMV area.
Please do not refer to this area as DMV, I already have enough mental scar tissue to deal with without dredging up horrific department of motor vehical memories as well.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:44 pm
by chuckbass
haus wrote:flawschoolkid wrote:3 other law schools from the DMV area.
Please do not refer to this area as DMV, I already have enough mental scar tissue to deal with without dredging up horrific department of motor vehical memories as well.
DMV is a normal name for the area doe
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:50 pm
by haus
scottidsntknow wrote:haus wrote:flawschoolkid wrote:3 other law schools from the DMV area.
Please do not refer to this area as DMV, I already have enough mental scar tissue to deal with without dredging up horrific department of motor vehical memories as well.
DMV is a normal name for the area doe
I have working here since '97, I do not think I have heard this usage.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:52 pm
by qlinault
district maryland virginia
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:55 pm
by chuckbass
haus wrote:scottidsntknow wrote:haus wrote:flawschoolkid wrote:3 other law schools from the DMV area.
Please do not refer to this area as DMV, I already have enough mental scar tissue to deal with without dredging up horrific department of motor vehical memories as well.
DMV is a normal name for the area doe
I have working here since '97, I do not think I have heard this usage.
Um, watch the news sometime? If we're whipping it out and measuring up, I was born there in '92.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 9:56 pm
by haus
scottidsntknow wrote:
Um, watch the news sometime? If we're whipping it out and measuring up, I was born there in '92.
Local TV news has just slightly more useful content than a test pattern.
Re: American prof slams GW for "predatory" transfer practices
Posted: Sat Jan 17, 2015 10:33 pm
by hypebeast
haus wrote:scottidsntknow wrote:
Um, watch the news sometime? If we're whipping it out and measuring up, I was born there in '92.
Local TV news has just slightly more useful content than a test pattern.
I was born here in the '80s and have lived in the area my entire life. I remember hearing the term "DMV" as far back as middle school. It has become a lot more popular lately, though, mostly because Wale uses it in his songs and radio stations use the term a lot now. Anyways, the term DMV has been around for a while and has become very common since the mid-2000s.