How many people in 2013 still clueless about law school? Forum

[lutcf2021]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 5&t=203180

[OliveBC]

I have a friend who is probably going to a school that no one in their right mind should attend. Tried to tell him BEFORE he applied when he was studying to retake the LSAT. He didn't listen to me and ended up doing even worse on it the second time around. Now he just got accepted to two schools, both of which are horrible financial decisions. I tried to talk to him again...still not interested in listening to me. I asked why he is going to law school..and here is the sad part

He wants to own his own business, so he's going to get his JD and save up money from his fancy job as a lawyer until he has enough funds to start up his business.

WHYYYYYYYY

At this point I fear it is a lost cause. He hasn't wanted to listen to anything I've said. Like I said, he is a good friend, but there is only so much you can do.

[LRGhost]

I have a friend who is probably going to a school that no one in their right mind should attend. Tried to tell him BEFORE he applied when he was studying to retake the LSAT. He didn't listen to me and ended up doing even worse on it the second time around. Now he just got accepted to two schools, both of which are horrible financial decisions. I tried to talk to him again...still not interested in listening to me. I asked why he is going to law school..and here is the sad part

He wants to own his own business, so he's going to get his JD and save up money from his fancy job as a lawyer until he has enough funds to start up his business.

WHYYYYYYYY

At this point I fear it is a lost cause. He hasn't wanted to listen to anything I've said. Like I said, he is a good friend, but there is only so much you can do.

How are you talking to him? Is the school he's going to in state with low tuition? Honestly dude, it's not hard to just link him to the NYTimes article, the LST stats for his school, and be like "Dude, I support you 100% and I want nothing but the best for you but please just take 15 minutes to look this over. If you're gonna spend three years in LS, it's the least you can do."

[Xs20]

A girl I'm friends with has taken the LSAT the last three administrations in a row and gotten a 141, 145, 146. She just got into John Marshall at sticker and has been been flaunting it around like "I TOLD you all I could do it!!!" I've showed her LST, talked to her about how terrible the job market is and how bad of a financial decision JM is, but it got to the point where she started calling me an elitist asshole since she knows that I've gotten into better schools, so I gave up (stuff like "sorry not ALL of us can go to XXX", etc.). She's convinced that it's not about where you go to school, it's about how much you hustle and "want it". I honestly feel bad for her because she actually does just really want to be a lawyer, but she's made up her mind and there's no changing it, so I hope it works out for her.

[LRGhost]

just link everyone to jdungerground then

[CFprez]

I just stumbled upon TLS when I first really starting researching law schools last fall 2012

Before that i had no idea, and Minnesota was my dream school. I had just casually looked at rankings, my PT numbers and thought "oh wow" I can probably get into a top20 law school! While I would still consider Minnesota with a scholarship for sure, my dream of going there was really deflated when I read Campos's book and I found out the Minnesota has the same employment numbers as Southern Methodist at #51. Thanks US News.....

Additionally my undergrad pre law adviser was not helpful at all. I first went to her office and I accidentally showed up on the wrong day at which she rudely told me to come back another day, even though I was very polite. When I finally met with her she didn't ask me any questions about my motivation to be a lawyer, give me any overall advice. Pretty much the only question she asked me was "what region do you want to practice law school in" and showed me the data for LSAT and GPA, told me to look at LSAC. She handed me an info sheet and quickly dismissed me. She seemed like she didn't care about her job very much.

Nothing about the law school market at all. Of course I have to wonder about her job now, with 38% less people applying than at the high of applications.

Thank goodness for TLS.

[suralin]

You guys raise good points about this widespread ignorance. I've noticed it too. My friend is writing the Feb LSAT. He was talking proudly about how he was PTing in the high 150s. He's a capable guy with a super high GPA. I told him with a better LSAT he has a serious shot at T6 and he nearly slapped me as if I was talking blasphemy.

I cant help but feel like this ignorance is not just limited to law school. It seems like its something structural, something that cuts right across the way society operates in general. We may be just seeing one manifestation of it up close.

It's basic behavioral psychology. This does cut across the idea of the "rational actor" that is so central to a lot of our policies (see, the "reasonable man" in torts). When you realize people are irrational a lot of what we do starts to make no sense.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veblen_good

But in this case, it doesn't sound like Mr. 150's thinks he is a special snowflake, at least not yet. Sounds more like he has little faith in his own intelligence, and doesn't honestly believe he can score highly enough to get into a top school. He probably also assumes admissions to top law schools are like admissions to other programs and numbers make up only a small portion of the total admit/deny decision, so even if he does well on the LSAT it's just crazy to think he'd get into a Top 6 school. Neither of those things is irrational on its face. What would be irrational is if he ultimately goes forward with his plan to attend and doesn't do the necessary research before investing 6 figures into a scam.

See "value of information" in decision analysis: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_of_information and http://lesswrong.com/lw/85x/value_of_in ... _examples/.

Very relevant to making the choice to go to law school. What hangs in the balance (of that decision) is so significantly life-altering--3 of the best years of your life plus $250,000+ plus opportunity costs--that it's straightforwardly irrational to not do the necessary research to be as informed as possible.

[OliveBC]

I have a friend who is probably going to a school that no one in their right mind should attend. Tried to tell him BEFORE he applied when he was studying to retake the LSAT. He didn't listen to me and ended up doing even worse on it the second time around. Now he just got accepted to two schools, both of which are horrible financial decisions. I tried to talk to him again...still not interested in listening to me. I asked why he is going to law school..and here is the sad part

He wants to own his own business, so he's going to get his JD and save up money from his fancy job as a lawyer until he has enough funds to start up his business.

WHYYYYYYYY

At this point I fear it is a lost cause. He hasn't wanted to listen to anything I've said. Like I said, he is a good friend, but there is only so much you can do.

How are you talking to him? Is the school he's going to in state with low tuition? Honestly dude, it's not hard to just link him to the NYTimes article, the LST stats for his school, and be like "Dude, I support you 100% and I want nothing but the best for you but please just take 15 minutes to look this over. If you're gonna spend three years in LS, it's the least you can do."

We work together and have literally been on TLS on our shared computer in the lab we work in reading this stuff. Also looking at schools on law school transparency, etc. The schools he is looking at aren't in state. Whenever I bring this stuff up he says that people online are just trying to scare other applicants so that they won't have to compete with them and that the data is skewed to make it seem worse than it is.

I totally agree there is a right way to go about things, but I'm just saying that in some cases nothing you do is going to work, as sad as that is.

[CFprez]

We work together and have literally been on TLS on our shared computer in the lab we work in reading this stuff. Also looking at schools on law school transparency, etc. The schools he is looking at aren't in state. Whenever I bring this stuff up he says that people online are just trying to scare other applicants so that they won't have to compete with them and that the data is skewed to make it seem worse than it is.

I actually heard this when I went to a law school fair at my bigstate U. After the general fair part was over they had an admissions panel, and one of the panelists (an admissions committee member) said "stay away from top law schools.com. People there don't have your best interests in mind and are trying to compete with you". at which point the other three nodded in agreement.

[OliveBC]

We work together and have literally been on TLS on our shared computer in the lab we work in reading this stuff. Also looking at schools on law school transparency, etc. The schools he is looking at aren't in state. Whenever I bring this stuff up he says that people online are just trying to scare other applicants so that they won't have to compete with them and that the data is skewed to make it seem worse than it is.

I actually heard this when I went to a law school fair at my bigstate U. After the general fair part was over they had an admissions panel, and one of the panelists (an admissions committee member) said "stay away from top law schools.com. People there don't have your best interests in mind and are trying to compete with you". at which point the other three nodded in agreement.

I'm from a bigstate U as well and heard a similar story, which ironically is actually why I came to TLS in the first place! So in a round about way it worked out for me. I just can't believe they are still getting away with giving such bad info.

[nickb285]

.

[LRGhost]

I have a friend who is probably going to a school that no one in their right mind should attend. Tried to tell him BEFORE he applied when he was studying to retake the LSAT. He didn't listen to me and ended up doing even worse on it the second time around. Now he just got accepted to two schools, both of which are horrible financial decisions. I tried to talk to him again...still not interested in listening to me. I asked why he is going to law school..and here is the sad part

He wants to own his own business, so he's going to get his JD and save up money from his fancy job as a lawyer until he has enough funds to start up his business.

WHYYYYYYYY

At this point I fear it is a lost cause. He hasn't wanted to listen to anything I've said. Like I said, he is a good friend, but there is only so much you can do.

How are you talking to him? Is the school he's going to in state with low tuition? Honestly dude, it's not hard to just link him to the NYTimes article, the LST stats for his school, and be like "Dude, I support you 100% and I want nothing but the best for you but please just take 15 minutes to look this over. If you're gonna spend three years in LS, it's the least you can do."

We work together and have literally been on TLS on our shared computer in the lab we work in reading this stuff. Also looking at schools on law school transparency, etc. The schools he is looking at aren't in state. Whenever I bring this stuff up he says that people online are just trying to scare other applicants so that they won't have to compete with them and that the data is skewed to make it seem worse than it is.

I totally agree there is a right way to go about things, but I'm just saying that in some cases nothing you do is going to work, as sad as that is.

:/

[Gunnar Stahl]

.

[Rahviveh]

It's true, you people trying to convince strangers to retake and go to better schools with better job prospects and lower debt are such dicks.

Even talking to strangers can raise awareness. At the end of the day, the reason we have access to more detailed employment stats is because of word of mouth and the changing conventional wisdom. Sure, if you don't know someone that well then 7-8 times out of 10 you'll be ignored. But some will listen - and the story spreading makes us all better off. After all, its the applicants who are still early in the process that have all the leverage to induce changes.

[scifiguy]

I have a friend who is probably going to a school that no one in their right mind should attend. Tried to tell him BEFORE he applied when he was studying to retake the LSAT. He didn't listen to me and ended up doing even worse on it the second time around. Now he just got accepted to two schools, both of which are horrible financial decisions. I tried to talk to him again...still not interested in listening to me. I asked why he is going to law school..and here is the sad part

He wants to own his own business, so he's going to get his JD and save up money from his fancy job as a lawyer until he has enough funds to start up his business.

WHYYYYYYYY

At this point I fear it is a lost cause. He hasn't wanted to listen to anything I've said. Like I said, he is a good friend, but there is only so much you can do.

If he's a good friend, then I would definitely make the time and devise a strategy to effectively "deal with" him.

It stinks that the process of educating people can be painful (emotionally frustrating and time consuming)!

But, if it's a good friend, then I think you'll feel greater motivation to help him avert a potentail life disaster! He'll thank you for it later many times over!

[Xs20]

[goldeneye]

DO you know this person? I guess Valpo is at least better than Cooley

[Xs20]

DO you know this person? I guess Valpo is at least better than Cooley

Yeah that's the person I was talking about in my last post.

[star fox]

A girl I'm friends with has taken the LSAT the last three administrations in a row and gotten a 141, 145, 146. She just got into John Marshall at sticker and has been been flaunting it around like "I TOLD you all I could do it!!!" I've showed her LST, talked to her about how terrible the job market is and how bad of a financial decision JM is, but it got to the point where she started calling me an elitist asshole since she knows that I've gotten into better schools, so I gave up (stuff like "sorry not ALL of us can go to XXX", etc.). She's convinced that it's not about where you go to school, it's about how much you hustle and "want it". I honestly feel bad for her because she actually does just really want to be a lawyer, but she's made up her mind and there's no changing it, so I hope it works out for her.

I feel bad for her too. The fact that her score barely improved through 3 different tests suggests she wasn't studying in the right way at all and was just re-taking to see if she could naturally do better.

[Merylian]

I have a facebook friend who has announced she got in to a school that has something like a 35% employment score on LST...800 miles away from home. It had upward of 50 likes and a ton of ecstatic comments I wish I knew her well enough to have a conversation with her about it. I tried to connect a couple of times during LSAT prep, just to say hi and commiserate, but got ingored, so I don't think she would appreciate me telling her to run very fast in the other direction.

[goldeneye]

I think maybe a few less exclamation points would have served you well. she would have caught on maybe. just maybe.

[Rahviveh]

Lol valpo the school that emails me every day and has a webinar every week? At least they're getting through to somebody

[moonman157]

To get directly to the question in the OP, this thread is currently directly below the "New York Law School c/o 2016" thread on the TLS homepage

[Xs20]

I think maybe a few less exclamation points would have served you well. she would have caught on maybe. just maybe.

Lol, probably, but I've already tried talking her out of it and she's not budging

[Xs20]

[quote="Xs20"]