UVA Law Students Taking Questions Forum

[RVP11]

The UVA criminal law professors are trying to make it up to us because we had to read that casebook.

[Cavalier]

The UVA criminal law professors are trying to make it up to us because we had to read Peter Low's hornbook.

Fixed.

[YCrevolution]

..

[RVP11]

Peter Low's "Trick question - there is nothing wrong this this statement." vs. incomprehensible quibbles about criminal law policy followed by a 4 page block quote by Jeremy Bentham or James Fitzjames Stephen.

Hmmmm. Hard to say which was the greater crime for UVA 1Ls.

[vanwinkle]

The UVA criminal law professors are trying to make it up to us because we had to read Peter Low's hornbook.

Fixed.

Maybe Low graded them all.

It seems like the kind of thing he'd do for entertainment.

"Which one of you wants to be wrong next?"

[rodandgun]

Just a heads up, Nelson's course evaluations have been posted. Anyone know how long it has generally taken for the grades to follow evals?

[YCrevolution]

..

[Kohinoor]

Just a heads up, Nelson's course evaluations have been posted. Anyone know how long it has generally taken for the grades to follow evals?

Tonight or tomorrow morning.

I'm worried but I like how 100% of the people who filled out the evaluation give Nelson a 5/5 for displaying mastery of the subject material.

I shook his hand and somehow understood the Erie doctrine.

[Wahoo1L]

Just a heads up, Nelson's course evaluations have been posted. Anyone know how long it has generally taken for the grades to follow evals?

Tonight or tomorrow morning.

I'm worried but I like how 100% of the people who filled out the evaluation give Nelson a 5/5 for displaying mastery of the subject material.

Since 2003, Nelson only has 1 review that gave less than a 5 for mastery of the subject.

[ogman05]

So, from what I can see from browsing TLS, there seems to be an emerging consensus that UVA is on the rise, at least from a rankings perspective.

What's the basis for this line of thinking? Is it just because the entire 1L class of UVA Law is on the board (and I certainly do appreciate your insight) and is passionately cheerleading for the school, or are there substantive facts behind this assumption?

UVA has trouble with the bullshit portions of USNews ranking such as faculty:student ratio and expenditures per student. If you look at UVA's peer assessment scores, and admissions statistics they're equal or better than most of their peer schools. Here is a quick comparison for you of the entering statistics

Entering Statistics Comparison
Michigan & Virginia: UVA has a better 25th GPA & 75th GPA, better 75th LSAT, and equal 25th LSAT.
Penn & Virginia: UVA has a better 25th GPA & 75th GPA, equal LSAT range.
Duke & Virginia: UVA has better 25th GPA & 75th GPA, and better 25th & 75th LSAT scores.
Northwestern & Virginia: UVA has better 25th GPA & 75th GPA, equal LSAT 25th and Northwestern has a better 75th LSAT.

Peer Assessment & Legal Field Assessment Score Comparison
Michigan & Virginia: UVA has 0.1 better lawyer/judge score, Michigan has a 0.1 better peer assessment score.
Penn & Virginia: UVA has 0.2 better lawyer/judge score, UVA & Penn have equal peer assessment scores.
Duke & Virginia: UVA has 0.2 better lawyer/judge score, UVA has a 0.1 better peer assessment score.
Northwestern & Virginia: UVA has a 0.3 better lawyer/judge score, UVA has a 0.3 better peer assessment score.

There are three things that are holding Virginia back in USNews. First, UVA has over enrolled for the past two years which means that more people chose to attend than the admissions office anticipated. Although logically having a bunch of students with excellent numbers choose your school over other peer schools ought to increase your ranking, USNews punishes this because it dilutes expenditures per student and student:faculty ratio.

Second, UVA has the lowest tuition out of any T14 school (Berkeley might temporarily be cheaper until their tuition hikes kick in) which also adversely impacts its rankings. Ironically, Berkeley's tuition hikes will actually help their USNews ratings because USNews views this as spending more per student. Just from glancing at other schools tuition, UVA is 2k cheaper than Michigan, 3k cheaper than Northwestern, and 5k cheaper than Cornell. Because students pay less to attend UVA than peer institutions, USNews punishes the schools ranking.

Finally, although the biggest factors in a school's ranking is its peer assessment scores & entering admission statistics, USNews magnifies the other portions of the ratings by scaling each factor. For example, although UVA has probably the 7th or 8th best entering admissions statistics (it's better in LSAT than Berkeley, but Berkeley has higher GPAs), its peer schools are only a small bit behind out of the 170 or so other law schools. However, UVA might be in the 100's for highest faculty:student ratio in comparison to schools such as Duke are probably in the low 10's or 20's. This disproportionately hurts a school that does poorly in these categories.

This is especially true in areas such as employment statistics where 1 or 2 students might be the difference between being the top ranked school in employed at graduation, and the 20th ranked school in employed at graduation. The employed at graduation statistic is particularly troublesome given that schools can easily game this ranking by hiring students to work in the library or some other temporary job. Further, differences between a 97.5% and 98% employed at graduation number come down to single students in most cases which, in mind, is not particularly relevant to a schools ability to place students. To highlight just how absurd employment statistics are you should look at how University of Kentucky and University of Utah score better than twelve out of the top fourteen schools in Employed 9 Months after Graduation.

Note: I'm not trying to say that Virginia is better than it's peer schools [although subjectively I would choose it over any of them], I'm simply trying to show how absurd US News is. In my mind, a school that has better entering numbers, better peer and judge assessment scores, and an excellent bar passage rate should be ranked ahead of another school with worse numbers even if it spends less per student and has a higher faculty:student ratio.

Maybe this is the year that UVA games the stats and breaks the USNWR system. 100% Yield on an entering class of 200 & offering unemployed grads RA jobs = UVa in the T6.

HYSCCV FTMFW

[LSlobbyist]

You guys have been incredibly helpful. Great post, Wahoo1L.

[Cavalier]

Nothing new on SIS or LawWeb... Thankfully I have football for tomorrow and Sunday to keep me away from the computer. This is a lot like last year, where I was constantly checking the status checkers to all the schools I applied to for updates.

[kareenak888]

does uva give a lot in need based aid? Say if a person has an EC=0-250... would they get some grants or is it just based only upon merit. I'm confused....

[vanwinkle]

does uva give a lot in need based aid? Say if a person has an EC=0-250... would they get some grants or is it just based only upon merit. I'm confused....

Almost all "need-based aid" is loans. The assumption is that you don't have money now, so they give you money now, but you can pay it back later once you have the shiny new degree and can make money.

This is almost universal with regard to law schools and aid.

[kurama20]

does uva give a lot in need based aid? Say if a person has an EC=0-250... would they get some grants or is it just based only upon merit. I'm confused....

Almost all "need-based aid" is loans. The assumption is that you don't have money now, so they give you money now, but you can pay it back later once you have the shiny new degree and can make money.

This is almost universal with regard to law schools and aid.

LAME, and ite not quite true like it once was. That said I was told that they do give some need based grants.

[ze2151]

my limited understanding of law school aid is that you should count on your #'s to do the heavy lifting. it makes sense. peer schools are going to offer big number people $ because other schools will do the same thing. vicious cycle. that's how it was explained to me by a very honest fin. aid. assoc. dean (not uva).

[kurama20]

my limited understanding of law school aid is that you should count on your #'s to do the heavy lifting. it makes sense. peer schools are going to offer big number people $ because other schools will do the same thing. vicious cycle. that's how it was explained to me by a very honest fin. aid. assoc. dean (not uva).

In a way, when you're talking about applicants who come from backgrounds of poverty or extreme need, there is something ethically wrong with that. I remember reading in Anna Ivey's book how a lot of academics actually don't like the shift that has occurred from need based aid over to numbers based.

[thesealocust]

edit: n/m

[dgouzoul]

my limited understanding of law school aid is that you should count on your #'s to do the heavy lifting. it makes sense. peer schools are going to offer big number people $ because other schools will do the same thing. vicious cycle. that's how it was explained to me by a very honest fin. aid. assoc. dean (not uva).

In a way, when you're talking about applicants who come from backgrounds of poverty or extreme need, there is something ethically wrong with that. I remember reading in Anna Ivey's book how a lot of academics actually don't like the shift that has occurred from need based aid over to numbers based.

How could there be something ethically wrong about it? Economy is booming, everyone at UVA is going to get a good (6 figure, AT LEAST) job... seriously, what's the problem with some loans?

projected median salary class of 2010 - $240,000

[Kohinoor]

projected median salary class of 2010 - $240,000

There is warlock math afoot.

[PDaddy]

I applied ED to UVA on 12/9, went complete just before the 12/15 deadline. On 12/16, Dean Tru advised me that UVA could not meet the two week decision promise. Is this common at UVA for ED apps right now, or am I unofficially being held over into the regular pool because I applied late in the ED cycle? If so, why don't they tell me?

[avacado111]

I applied ED to UVA on 12/9, went complete just before the 12/15 deadline. On 12/16, Dean Tru advised me that UVA could not meet the two week decision promise. Is this common at UVA for ED apps right now, or am I unofficially being held over into the regular pool because I applied late in the ED cycle? If so, why don't they tell me?

they must have an influx of apps this year (ED apps=limited number of spaces). It seems like they are holding you on the ED pool side to see how the competition fares up.

[ze2151]

does anyone know how easy it is to apply to multiple schools (waivers, lsdas interface, etc...) as compared to previous years? that has to figure into the reason there are so many apps out there, right? that and people nervously applying absolutely everywhere.

[vamedic03]

I applied ED to UVA on 12/9, went complete just before the 12/15 deadline. On 12/16, Dean Tru advised me that UVA could not meet the two week decision promise. Is this common at UVA for ED apps right now, or am I unofficially being held over into the regular pool because I applied late in the ED cycle? If so, why don't they tell me?

This might also have occurred because your 2 week window encompasses Christmas and New Years . . . I'd chalk it up to the holidays rather than anything else . . .

[jbriggs]

I applied ED to UVA on 12/9, went complete just before the 12/15 deadline. On 12/16, Dean Tru advised me that UVA could not meet the two week decision promise. Is this common at UVA for ED apps right now, or am I unofficially being held over into the regular pool because I applied late in the ED cycle? If so, why don't they tell me?

This might also have occurred because your 2 week window encompasses Christmas and New Years . . . I'd chalk it up to the holidays rather than anything else . . .

PDaddy, I submitted ED on 12/15 and heard back on 12/17, so they did process at least some ED apps, but I was a waitlist/reject from previous cycle so that may have made my app different from others, good luck and i hope you get in