WUSTL Recent Grad (and others) Taking Questions Forum

[JCougar]

This may be more for JCougar than the rest of you, but what's up with this talk of foreign language classes? Is it possible/practical to audit undergrad language classes while in law school? And I'm guessing this would cost quite a bit of money, right? I'm just asking because I've studied quite a bit of French and Spanish and would love to keep improving while in law school!

You can audit basically any foreign language undergrad class, and it's free (as in, it won't cost you additional money on top of your normal gigantic tuition bill).

[OmarLittle]

This may be more for JCougar than the rest of you, but what's up with this talk of foreign language classes? Is it possible/practical to audit undergrad language classes while in law school? And I'm guessing this would cost quite a bit of money, right? I'm just asking because I've studied quite a bit of French and Spanish and would love to keep improving while in law school!

You can audit basically any foreign language undergrad class, and it's free (as in, it won't cost you additional money on top of your normal gigantic tuition bill).

Is this practical to do, i.e. would there be major scheduling issues?

[Ioannis]

Why'd you pick washington? What other schools were you considering?

Besides Wash U, I got into Cornell, Illinois, Vanderbilt, and BU. I also applied to Duke (rejection), GULC (priority waitlist), and Michigan (ED application, then WL, then rejection).

I had what most people (including most TLSers) would consider to be objectively better offers on the table with great scholarships to Vanderbilt and Illinois, but in the end, I chose Washington University because 1) I want to be in St. Louis when I graduate, 2) I lived in central Illinois for 22 years and was tired of the cornfields, and 3) I loved Wash U and got a really great vibe from the school when I visited.

what was your gpa/lsat?

[Dr. Filth]

I'm a 0L looking at applying for 2013 fall from Perryville area, so for you STL people ties-ish but not really ties.. I grew up with STL being the city I went to and the city where I want to end up. So I guess that = Bryan Cave I'm a splitter with a ~3.0 and a 170+. Would I better off with a t14 @ sticker or Wash U with whatever scholly they would give me.

Second everything Romo said. Mostly just posting to appreciate the Dylan reference in your name. Oh and also to call you out on that blatant "playing for a point" display at Anfield.

/Liverpool fan sick of home draws

im not sure who you are. but <3 for being the only person that got my name, and <3 for being a soccer fan


ok so im on spring break next week. and im poor, so im going to be home. would it be better/would it matter whether i visit the law school on monday or friday

[JCougar]

This may be more for JCougar than the rest of you, but what's up with this talk of foreign language classes? Is it possible/practical to audit undergrad language classes while in law school? And I'm guessing this would cost quite a bit of money, right? I'm just asking because I've studied quite a bit of French and Spanish and would love to keep improving while in law school!

You can audit basically any foreign language undergrad class, and it's free (as in, it won't cost you additional money on top of your normal gigantic tuition bill).

Is this practical to do, i.e. would there be major scheduling issues?

It really depends on your schedule, and the specific schedule of the language courses. You can't do this during 1L I'm pretty sure, but the language programs here are large enough that there's a lot of different times they are offered.

I have to warn you, however, that law school is enough work as it is already. Learning a new language on top of it while you are a 2L and probably on a journal or moot court is a major commitment. 0Ls have next to zero idea how much work a law journal is.

[Kabuo]

I'm a 0L looking at applying for 2013 fall from Perryville area, so for you STL people ties-ish but not really ties.. I grew up with STL being the city I went to and the city where I want to end up. So I guess that = Bryan Cave I'm a splitter with a ~3.0 and a 170+. Would I better off with a t14 @ sticker or Wash U with whatever scholly they would give me.

Second everything Romo said. Mostly just posting to appreciate the Dylan reference in your name. Oh and also to call you out on that blatant "playing for a point" display at Anfield.

/Liverpool fan sick of home draws

im not sure who you are. but <3 for being the only person that got my name, and <3 for being a soccer fan


ok so im on spring break next week. and im poor, so im going to be home. would it be better/would it matter whether i visit the law school on monday or friday

If you want to sit in on a class, it'll have to be Friday. We go on break next week.

[thexfactor]

My thoughts on all of this -

It's a different situation from the examples you listed IMO. Closest non-Vandy law school to Nashville is UTK (like 3 hours away, which doesn't seem like much until you remember that Vandy's been developing a rep in the city with no local competition since its law school opened), and Michigan's basically the only decent law school (quiet, MSU) in its state in the first place.

SLU's right in town, has a rep in STL that equates to that of a decent regional school, and has a head start because pretty much the entire class stays in the area so it turns into a nepotism-type deal. Don't people say that ~75% of practicing attorneys in STL are SLU grads? We aren't going to squeeze SLU out completely, they're too big and entrenched. The NLJ numbers for STL are so tiny that even halving their numbers at the likes of BC/TC/HBS probably only gives us 10-15 more spots - that's less than 5% of the class.

Unfortunately, taking 50% of grads from MO weakens entering stats, drops us in the rankings, and takes the legs out of what appears to be our long term goal - building a rep equal to that of the Vandy/UT/USC tier and getting placement numbers to match. While ordinarily the rankings don't matter, I think they can if you stick around and get your brand out there long enough. WUSTL's in the middle of that process now, from what I can see, and I think the results are beginning to follow that. We got hammered in the NLJ this past year as expected, but we were still ahead of the non-major market T25s (Emory etc.) except for ND by a slim margin, even though we have a pretty large class and then put transfers on top of it. Shame we can't shrink the class size more, it's a disadvantage b/c a lot of firms aren't going to give WUSTL people spots that go to other schools so we can only expand so much. We aren't there yet, but I doubt we'd be competing with ND and other solid T25s in terms of placement %s if we were still #45 or whatever we were 15-20 years ago given WUSTL's geographic disadvantage.

IMO I don't think shrinking the class will do anything. Most biglaw firms hire by a gpa cutoff when it comes to WUSTL. Regardless of how large ( within reason) the class is, generally the same percentage of people will get hired each year. I think we are weak because we don't have a lot of partners at these biglaw firms. most of the people there are associates. Partners are the ones that make the hiring decisions. So if we have huge classes and place people into these biglaw firms, it may pay dividends later on.

What about getting the big4 to come to law school recruit? IE for tax or consulting. As of now, only 1 of the 4 big4 actually come and recruit at the law school.

[stratocophic]

My thoughts on all of this -

It's a different situation from the examples you listed IMO. Closest non-Vandy law school to Nashville is UTK (like 3 hours away, which doesn't seem like much until you remember that Vandy's been developing a rep in the city with no local competition since its law school opened), and Michigan's basically the only decent law school (quiet, MSU) in its state in the first place.

SLU's right in town, has a rep in STL that equates to that of a decent regional school, and has a head start because pretty much the entire class stays in the area so it turns into a nepotism-type deal. Don't people say that ~75% of practicing attorneys in STL are SLU grads? We aren't going to squeeze SLU out completely, they're too big and entrenched. The NLJ numbers for STL are so tiny that even halving their numbers at the likes of BC/TC/HBS probably only gives us 10-15 more spots - that's less than 5% of the class.

Unfortunately, taking 50% of grads from MO weakens entering stats, drops us in the rankings, and takes the legs out of what appears to be our long term goal - building a rep equal to that of the Vandy/UT/USC tier and getting placement numbers to match. While ordinarily the rankings don't matter, I think they can if you stick around and get your brand out there long enough. WUSTL's in the middle of that process now, from what I can see, and I think the results are beginning to follow that. We got hammered in the NLJ this past year as expected, but we were still ahead of the non-major market T25s (Emory etc.) except for ND by a slim margin, even though we have a pretty large class and then put transfers on top of it. Shame we can't shrink the class size more, it's a disadvantage b/c a lot of firms aren't going to give WUSTL people spots that go to other schools so we can only expand so much. We aren't there yet, but I doubt we'd be competing with ND and other solid T25s in terms of placement %s if we were still #45 or whatever we were 15-20 years ago given WUSTL's geographic disadvantage.

IMO I don't think shrinking the class will do anything. Most biglaw firms hire by a gpa cutoff when it comes to WUSTL. Regardless of how large ( within reason) the class is, generally the same percentage of people will get hired each year. I think we are weak because we don't have a lot of partners at these biglaw firms. most of the people there are associates. Partners are the ones that make the hiring decisions. So if we have huge classes and place people into these biglaw firms, it may pay dividends later on.

What about getting the big4 to come to law school recruit? IE for tax or consulting. As of now, only 1 of the 4 big4 actually come and recruit at the law school.

Oh shrinking the class size is probably more of a down the road kind of thing, we'd likely have to get the rep up first. Your point is the other side of the coin of what I was saying; we only get so many hired in any given firm so shrinking the class would make that number a larger percentage of the class. It's the same kind of thing with fed clerkships too, the ones that do pull from us take a certain number of WUSTL students and no more so we have a lower output percentage-wise than other schools. Probably wouldn't be that effective right now, though I suspect it could yield at least slightly better results immediately because more people down into the top 1/3 would get a look from firms. Not every firm will go down to top 1/3 at WashU, but some might and don't because of the interview limitations, i.e. they never even see them because they *can* draw from people with better grades. Sure Skadden isn't going to take someone at top 1/3, but I don't know that others like Locke Lord or Husch that interview here necessarily wouldn't if they like someone. I know of at least 1 Vault firm who did just that at OCI and went below their usual cutoff this year and I'm sure it happened with others. Just about everyone at the top of the class bids on almost every slot and then it ends up that not many people below top 20-25% get interviews. If firms have to interview someone in the slots that are opened up by contracting the class size, they'll take the next best candidates. It benefits us if those people are ones that might not have gotten a look before but now have a chance to at least state their case to firms. The people who were still going to be shoe-ins with the bigger class size for SA positions still get them, and now there's more of a wildcard added for people who at least have a shot at interviewing with the smaller class size.

That said, I like the idea of trying to go for more partners by throwing a lot of people out there each year. I don't know how much it helps us with biglaw hiring since they take as many as they take from us (at least for now) no matter how many we throw out there, but with a lot of people making their way in other types of employment it gives us a good base for people who don't go into biglaw. Definitely agree with trying to make a push into consulting, it's not like our entire class is bound and determined to be lawyers in the first place. A lot of people just want a decent paycheck, and consulting would fit the bill if we could worm our way in. Probably a lot of competition for spots at the Big4, Deloitte, pretty much anywhere you look, but no reason why we shouldn't be trying to get a hat in the ring.

Edit: TL;DR version is basically what seatown wrote below

[seatown12]

IMO I don't think shrinking the class will do anything. Most biglaw firms hire by a gpa cutoff when it comes to WUSTL. Regardless of how large ( within reason) the class is, generally the same percentage of people will get hired each year.

Firms will only hire from our top quarter or top third, but not everyone in that range gets hired. Last year we were at 13% right? It seems more likely the number hired would stay the same and the percentage would go up.

Also, if every school reduced its class size the flood of new lawyers would slow down and there would be less grads with no hope for a legal career. I think Wash U is just trying to take the lead in doing the responsible thing.

[romothesavior]

If you cut the class in half, would we double our NLJ percentages? No. But it would improve job prospects overall. I don't think that's too controversial.

Schools with smaller classes generally place better than those that have bigger classes. Sure it's hard to compare, but it really does make sense as to why it works that way. If a firm currently takes 5 WUSTL grads a year, they're not gonna change it much based on our class size. Sure, our raw placement goes down a bit because of the percentile cutoff thing thexfactor mentioned. But they will adjust (to some degree) accordingly.

I also think it helps the median students a LOT. If there is less space between them and topics third or top quarter, that's less competition for them.

[thexfactor]

If you cut the class in half, would we double our NLJ percentages? No. But it would improve job prospects overall. I don't think that's too controversial.

Schools with smaller classes generally place better than those that have bigger classes. Sure it's hard to compare, but it really does make sense as to why it works that way. If a firm currently takes 5 WUSTL grads a year, they're not gonna change it much based on our class size. Sure, our raw placement goes down a bit because of the percentile cutoff thing thexfactor mentioned. But they will adjust (to some degree) accordingly.

I also think it helps the median students a LOT. If there is less space between them and topics third or top quarter, that's less competition for them.

Yes but there are a ton of firms that don't have any WUSTL grads... especially the regional markets. They might be willing to take a WUSTL cat in the top 15-20%. If the the students in the top 20% go out and "network" in their home secondary cities, they should be able to pull something out. In the end, with a big class, our placement might be lower in terms of a percentage of hte class, however our overall number of students in biglaw will be a lot higher. Later on when more WUSTL grads become partners we can cut back the number of students.

So how many spots do you think we will drop tomorrow? ( not that it really matters) I say we will be somewhere between 23-27.

[thexfactor]

My thoughts on all of this -

It's a different situation from the examples you listed IMO. Closest non-Vandy law school to Nashville is UTK (like 3 hours away, which doesn't seem like much until you remember that Vandy's been developing a rep in the city with no local competition since its law school opened), and Michigan's basically the only decent law school (quiet, MSU) in its state in the first place.

SLU's right in town, has a rep in STL that equates to that of a decent regional school, and has a head start because pretty much the entire class stays in the area so it turns into a nepotism-type deal. Don't people say that ~75% of practicing attorneys in STL are SLU grads? We aren't going to squeeze SLU out completely, they're too big and entrenched. The NLJ numbers for STL are so tiny that even halving their numbers at the likes of BC/TC/HBS probably only gives us 10-15 more spots - that's less than 5% of the class.

Unfortunately, taking 50% of grads from MO weakens entering stats, drops us in the rankings, and takes the legs out of what appears to be our long term goal - building a rep equal to that of the Vandy/UT/USC tier and getting placement numbers to match. While ordinarily the rankings don't matter, I think they can if you stick around and get your brand out there long enough. WUSTL's in the middle of that process now, from what I can see, and I think the results are beginning to follow that. We got hammered in the NLJ this past year as expected, but we were still ahead of the non-major market T25s (Emory etc.) except for ND by a slim margin, even though we have a pretty large class and then put transfers on top of it. Shame we can't shrink the class size more, it's a disadvantage b/c a lot of firms aren't going to give WUSTL people spots that go to other schools so we can only expand so much. We aren't there yet, but I doubt we'd be competing with ND and other solid T25s in terms of placement %s if we were still #45 or whatever we were 15-20 years ago given WUSTL's geographic disadvantage.

IMO I don't think shrinking the class will do anything. Most biglaw firms hire by a gpa cutoff when it comes to WUSTL. Regardless of how large ( within reason) the class is, generally the same percentage of people will get hired each year. I think we are weak because we don't have a lot of partners at these biglaw firms. most of the people there are associates. Partners are the ones that make the hiring decisions. So if we have huge classes and place people into these biglaw firms, it may pay dividends later on.

What about getting the big4 to come to law school recruit? IE for tax or consulting. As of now, only 1 of the 4 big4 actually come and recruit at the law school.

Oh shrinking the class size is probably more of a down the road kind of thing, we'd likely have to get the rep up first. Your point is the other side of the coin of what I was saying; we only get so many hired in any given firm so shrinking the class would make that number a larger percentage of the class. It's the same kind of thing with fed clerkships too, the ones that do pull from us take a certain number of WUSTL students and no more so we have a lower output percentage-wise than other schools. Probably wouldn't be that effective right now, though I suspect it could yield at least slightly better results immediately because more people down into the top 1/3 would get a look from firms. Not every firm will go down to top 1/3 at WashU, but some might and don't because of the interview limitations, i.e. they never even see them because they *can* draw from people with better grades. Sure Skadden isn't going to take someone at top 1/3, but I don't know that others like Locke Lord or Husch that interview here necessarily wouldn't if they like someone. I know of at least 1 Vault firm who did just that at OCI and went below their usual cutoff this year and I'm sure it happened with others. Just about everyone at the top of the class bids on almost every slot and then it ends up that not many people below top 20-25% get interviews. If firms have to interview someone in the slots that are opened up by contracting the class size, they'll take the next best candidates. It benefits us if those people are ones that might not have gotten a look before but now have a chance to at least state their case to firms. The people who were still going to be shoe-ins with the bigger class size for SA positions still get them, and now there's more of a wildcard added for people who at least have a shot at interviewing with the smaller class size.

That said, I like the idea of trying to go for more partners by throwing a lot of people out there each year. I don't know how much it helps us with biglaw hiring since they take as many as they take from us (at least for now) no matter how many we throw out there, but with a lot of people making their way in other types of employment it gives us a good base for people who don't go into biglaw. Definitely agree with trying to make a push into consulting, it's not like our entire class is bound and determined to be lawyers in the first place. A lot of people just want a decent paycheck, and consulting would fit the bill if we could worm our way in. Probably a lot of competition for spots at the Big4, Deloitte, pretty much anywhere you look, but no reason why we shouldn't be trying to get a hat in the ring.

Edit: TL;DR version is basically what seatown wrote below

I think there is a huge advantage of a JD degree in big 4 tax. Career services should really try to bring them on campus.

[Kabuo]

So how many spots do you think we will drop tomorrow? ( not that it really matters) I say we will be somewhere between 23-27.

Is that tomorrow? I don't think we drop much at all. I think the higher LSAT median makes up for it and we stay T-20, for all the good it does us.

[romothesavior]

So how many spots do you think we will drop tomorrow? ( not that it really matters) I say we will be somewhere between 23-27.

Is that tomorrow? I don't think we drop much at all. I think the higher LSAT median makes up for it and we stay T-20, for all the good it does us.

I want to agree with you, but Syverud seems to think it is gonna happen. I talked to him in his office and it sounded like a sure thing, so I imagine he's privy to some sort of info. I'll guess 22.

[stratocophic]

So how many spots do you think we will drop tomorrow? ( not that it really matters) I say we will be somewhere between 23-27.

Is that tomorrow? I don't think we drop much at all. I think the higher LSAT median makes up for it and we stay T-20, for all the good it does us.

I want to agree with you, but Syverud seems to think it is gonna happen. I talked to him in his office and it sounded like a sure thing, so I imagine he's privy to some sort of info. I'll guess 22.

I'll guess the usual mass hysteria over slight fluctuations, along with a bad case of borderline retard TLS trolls crowing "WOW WUSTL finally got what was coming to them they were never a T20 school, glad the rankings finally reflect that"

[thexfactor]

So how many spots do you think we will drop tomorrow? ( not that it really matters) I say we will be somewhere between 23-27.

Is that tomorrow? I don't think we drop much at all. I think the higher LSAT median makes up for it and we stay T-20, for all the good it does us.

I want to agree with you, but Syverud seems to think it is gonna happen. I talked to him in his office and it sounded like a sure thing, so I imagine he's privy to some sort of info. I'll guess 22.

I'll guess the usual mass hysteria over slight fluctuations, along with a bad case of borderline retard TLS trolls crowing "WOW WUSTL finally got what was coming to them they were never a T20 school, glad the rankings finally reflect that"

As long as it doesn't drop below 25 I don't think it there will be mass hysteria.

haters going to hate...
wustl law= linsanity

[dietcoke0]

23, /shrugs

[josh43299]

23, /shrugs

The data I have seen suggests that WUSTL should be comfortably around 17-19 compared to other schools, but for the employment data which was around 80%. Many of the numbers posted by peer schools regarding employment seem utterly ridiculous. Can anyone verify that WUSTL sought to be honest (likely knowing the effect it would have) in attempting to conform to the shifting standards on employment reporting? (It also seems like UNC may be one who reported according to such standards and was hurt for doing so)

[RoseVI]

23, /shrugs

The data I have seen suggests that WUSTL should be comfortably around 17-19 compared to other schools, but for the employment data which was around 80%. Many of the numbers posted by peer schools regarding employment seem utterly ridiculous. Can anyone verify that WUSTL sought to be honest (likely knowing the effect it would have) in attempting to conform to the shifting standards on employment reporting? (It also seems like UNC may be one who reported according to such standards and was hurt for doing so)

Check a few pages earlier in this thread to see the conversation surrounding this:

[/quote]

So any bets on how many spots we will drop in the rankings this year, as per the Dean's statement?

?

Because of the new ABA reporting standards, we may drop slightly in the rankings. I would imagine it would be a slight drop and nothing to worry about. Our dean shared with us that hiring is up for the school, but because of the new reporting guidelines, we may go down a bit. We're still a great school and any drop wouldn't change that.

[romothesavior]

This drop in USNWR is pretty meaningless and kind of crap actually. For some thoughts on it, see:

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1#p5309711

[TatteredDignity]

I know this will probably happen because most 0Ls are clueless, but I'll be sad if we get a less talented crop of 1Ls next year because of this.

ETA: TBF, I shouldn't restrict that to 0Ls: I overheard a pretty ignorant conversation at school last week about how many more people were going to transfer if we dropped in the rankings.

[romothesavior]

I know this will probably happen because most 0Ls are clueless, but I'll be sad if we get a less talented crop of 1Ls next year because of this.

Also my concern. Would be a silly and misinformed reason for it, but I imagine some will go elsewhere because of it.

[josh43299]

I know this will probably happen because most 0Ls are clueless, but I'll be sad if we get a less talented crop of 1Ls next year because of this.

Also my concern. Would be a silly and misinformed reason for it, but I imagine some will go elsewhere because of it.

I hope not. WUSTL was my top choice already because of the scholarship they gave me, but this reaffirms my decision to attend. Someone earlier said, "I'd rather be part of an honest and forthright institution than gain a couple of ranking points by bending the truth." Will be sending in my first deposit tomorrow. EDIT: Not that I am necessarily going to add much talent though.

[TatteredDignity]

I know this will probably happen because most 0Ls are clueless, but I'll be sad if we get a less talented crop of 1Ls next year because of this.

Also my concern. Would be a silly and misinformed reason for it, but I imagine some will go elsewhere because of it.

I hope not. WUSTL was my top choice already because of the scholarship they gave me, but this reaffirms my decision to attend. Someone earlier said, "I'd rather be part of an honest and forthright institution than gain a couple of ranking points by bending the truth." Will be sending in my first deposit tomorrow. EDIT: Not that I am necessarily going to add much talent though.

Are you trying to say that, this fall, you'll be taking your talents to st louis?

[josh43299]

I know this will probably happen because most 0Ls are clueless, but I'll be sad if we get a less talented crop of 1Ls next year because of this.

Also my concern. Would be a silly and misinformed reason for it, but I imagine some will go elsewhere because of it.

I hope not. WUSTL was my top choice already because of the scholarship they gave me, but this reaffirms my decision to attend. Someone earlier said, "I'd rather be part of an honest and forthright institution than gain a couple of ranking points by bending the truth." Will be sending in my first deposit tomorrow. EDIT: Not that I am necessarily going to add much talent though.

Are you trying to say that, this fall, you'll be taking your talents to st louis?

I will be attending WUSTL in the fall. I hope that those with more talent and/or better numbers do not see this single year drop as significant. The significance to be found in this is relative honesty on the part of WUSTL it seems, which is a positive thing and the current ranking will likely be corrected (hoping the ABA will take a more proactive approach in the future). I just worry that many of those who were looking at say a 45k scholarship at michigan/uva vs. full tuition at WUSTL will not base their decisions on the new ranking, but the other factors they were previously considering. That is where I think WUSTL may lose out as a result of all this.