I put UVA above Duke because of the gov numbers as well, which you did not address. Their Gov contingent alone is bigger than Duke's PI + Gov contingent combined (9% vs. 8%). Given such huge Gov and PI contingents (whether or not the PI is desirable) the fact that they place so well in Biglaw + Clerkships is really impressive. Duke, on the other hand, has tiny Gov and PI placement which reflects the fact that it excels in the business realm but has a more biglaw minded student body.BigZuck wrote:If M is clearly lower than V how is it not clearly lower than D? Virginia and Duke place very similarly, the only big difference I can see is PI. But if all of UVAs school employment gets grouped as PI then how do we know students actually want those jobs and aren't just taking them because they struck out everywhere else and UVA is the only entity actually giving them a chance to be a lawyer?megagnarley wrote:Interesting. A lot of anti-Mich sentiment raining down here.
ASW was great for me but I can see how Mich would be polarizing to some. At the end of the day, whatever. Everyone I spoke to loved it and I guess those who didn't went elsewhere. No wrong or right here.
Those sneezing at the idea of self-selection are just willfully dismissing data though. The PI and Gov contingent is much larger at Mich than a school like Duke. Period. And while the impact on emplyment can't be measure precisely, to say it has no impact when it account for 9% more of the class is just silly.
Fully agree it is more of a peer with N/D/C than VP though.
The other point that always seems to get overlooked is the LRAP. Mich smokes the lower t14's with it's LRAP program and it's not even close. To me this is a non-negligible factor.
For full disclosure, I'm honestly 50/50 between Duke and Mich at this point, but I just don't think Duke is that far ahead of Mich as people make it out to be on TLS.
Until "self selection" can be quantified and we can move beyond the anecdotes I'm going to have to rely on concrete data like big law and clerkship placement and percentage of people reporting salary. And when looking at those things, to me Michigan is clearly below every other T14 save Georgetown. No doubt it's a really good school. But it's just not as good as those others and it seems to be slipping. And in saying all that all I'm really getting at is that to me, it's not worth paying more to attend than D, N, or C. For them to think that they are on another tier above those schools (the vaunted MVP) and worth paying more to attend- that's just plain silly.
In sum: Duke is more representative of self-selecting into biglaw.
That being said, Duke is a great school and I may well end up there. I just don't follow the logic of Mich being that much worse.
And no one has even attempted to refute the huge disparity in LRAP, because it in indisputable.
tl;dr - Mich is a good school. Other schools are good schools.
