Arizona State 2011 Forum

[barklm]

Anyone know when seat deposits are due?

I'm almost positive it's April 15th, but I'll have to double check when I get home.

I concur! $250 on 4/15.

[brandini]

163 / 2.8 gpa...in-state, URM. I haven’t heard back from ASU yet but I’ve been wait-listed at U of A, UNLV & USD. I’ve been accepted into Chicago-Kent but I really really want to stay in Phoenix. ASU was my undergrad and I live here with my fiancee. The thought of having to go to PSOL just to stay in AZ is killing me!!! I’m kicking myself for screwing around in undergrad...oh well, we shall see how bad it bites me in the butt.

[cjw2222]

Anyone attending either the Dean's Dinner on Thursday or PAS day on Friday??

[Capitol A]

Anyone attending either the Dean's Dinner on Thursday or PAS day on Friday??

Yes. Both.

[UA7789]

Anyone attending either the Dean's Dinner on Thursday or PAS day on Friday??

Just the PAS on Friday.

[fragged]

Looks like I'm going to have to stretch the seat deposit at my #2 choice all the way to the 15th...

[samaside]

Yeah, I am asking for an extension and withdrawing from one. C'mon ASU...

[cjw2222]

Anyone attending either the Dean's Dinner on Thursday or PAS day on Friday??

Yes. Both.

I will be there at both as well.

[AngelAuthor]

Anyone attending either the Dean's Dinner on Thursday or PAS day on Friday??

Yes. Both.

I will be there at both as well.

Will be at both as well. See y'all there.

[haoledugan]

Quick poll:

So ASU Law is getting away from public funding. The change guarantees new admits increasing tuition over their stay, as well as increased class size. However, it is my understanding that moving away from private funding allows the school to escape certain financial (and possibly other) limitations. My question is in terms of net benefit/cost to students over our 3 year stay at ASU. Will the increases in tuition and class size be justified by higher rankings and better educational opportunities and job placement?

I personally see the move away from public funding as being advantageous but am very curious to hear what others think.... comment away.

[ColomboHeat]

This has been the single most influential factor that has made me question attending ASU. I am skeptical that privatization will have any benefits for current students or those about to start in the fall of 2011.

http://www.statepress.com/2011/04/03/fi ... e-funding/

Law school Dean Paul Schiff Berman said the college currently has the fourth lowest tuition of the country’s top 40 law schools, and as the school moves into the top 30, will have the lowest tuition among its peers... “ Once we attain self-sufficiency, it should make it easier for the law school to plan without having to make as many adjustments based on year-to-year legislative decisions,” he said. “That will benefit students because it will allow the law school to put into motion multi-year … plans.”

It seems like a nice way of asking current students to take on increasing debt (and competition for summer employment with higher enrollment) in exchange for hoping that ASU goes up some spots in the rankings. How are multi-year plans of any sort going to benefit current students? If he can't make improvements happen by the time we graduate, how much is this worth to us?

IMO, Dean Berman is being extremely optimistic by insinuating that ASU is on the verge of the top 30, especially considering that this program was ranked 55th only two years ago. ASU just entered the top 40 last year and fell two spots this year, yet already they are justifying raising the price based upon their new-found prestige? Not to mention that, although I was very impressed by the recent strides this program has made in the rankings, the more we talk about rankings on this site the more arbitrary they seem to be.

“It has been shown at other universities that there are certain very popular graduate and professional programs that can do well, even thrive, charging higher rates,” [Vice President of Public Affairs Virgil] Renzulli said. “The idea is to move to a tuition level that would be more market-driven than state-subsidized.”

...The current tuition proposal for the college of law for next year would increase tuition for continuing law students by $2,700 — $1,200 of which would come from an increase for all graduate students, and $1,500 from differential tuition for law students.

This part I find upsetting because they are just coming right out in the open and admitting that they are gouging students because they can. At least they are being honest about it

Part of me feels like the only positive outcome would be that in 10 years when somebody sees we went to ASU on a résumé, they will be able to comment on how big our school has gotten much our school has improved since we went there. I really have not seen or read anything convincing about better educational opportunities or job placement coming as a result of adding more students and charging all of them more money. Moving the Law campus Downtown would be nice, but will it happen by the Fall of 2013? Probably not.

[Veyron]

Quick poll:

So ASU Law is getting away from public funding. The change guarantees new admits increasing tuition over their stay, as well as increased class size. However, it is my understanding that moving away from private funding allows the school to escape certain financial (and possibly other) limitations. My question is in terms of net benefit/cost to students over our 3 year stay at ASU. Will the increases in tuition and class size be justified by higher rankings and better educational opportunities and job placement?

I personally see the move away from public funding as being advantageous but am very curious to hear what others think.... comment away.

Lol, lets throw away a perfectly good law school and throw millions of dollars away so that we can build a shiny new one 10 miles away. Weeeeeeeeee (p.s., we're raising tuition).

[gaud]

Quick poll:

So ASU Law is getting away from public funding. The change guarantees new admits increasing tuition over their stay, as well as increased class size. However, it is my understanding that moving away from private funding allows the school to escape certain financial (and possibly other) limitations. My question is in terms of net benefit/cost to students over our 3 year stay at ASU. Will the increases in tuition and class size be justified by higher rankings and better educational opportunities and job placement?

I personally see the move away from public funding as being advantageous but am very curious to hear what others think.... comment away.

Lol, lets throw away a perfectly good law school and throw millions of dollars away so that we can build a shiny new one 10 miles away. Weeeeeeeeee (p.s., we're raising tuition).

Lol

[2014JD1]

Anyone that attended today's event mind sharing details?

[cjw2222]

Anyone that attended today's event mind sharing details?

Catering was top notch. More of a meet and great rather than "dinner." Dean Berman gave a nice speech midway through but other than that everyone just roamed around. I met three current students and they gave me honest answers that just happened to be exactly what I was looking for. I asked everything from level of competitiveness to the Law Journal and they were more than happy to discuss it all with me and then put their seal of approval at the conclusion of the conversation. The faculty seemed genuinely happy to be meeting us. The admissions personnel knew every person and their application. They called on parts of my application in a way that really led me to believe they cared. Overall I was impressed with the evening and it definitely has my mind racing. Looking forward to tomorrows PAS day.

See you all there.

-Cory

[hector311]

Quick poll:

So ASU Law is getting away from public funding. The change guarantees new admits increasing tuition over their stay, as well as increased class size. However, it is my understanding that moving away from private funding allows the school to escape certain financial (and possibly other) limitations. My question is in terms of net benefit/cost to students over our 3 year stay at ASU. Will the increases in tuition and class size be justified by higher rankings and better educational opportunities and job placement?

I personally see the move away from public funding as being advantageous but am very curious to hear what others think.... comment away.

Lol, lets throw away a perfectly good law school and throw millions of dollars away so that we can build a shiny new one 10 miles away. Weeeeeeeeee (p.s., we're raising tuition).

Lol

I had a sit down conversation with one of the faculty members (was the Dean at ASU Law several times). Expect sharp inclines in tuition (about 5% a year). But a large paradigm shift in fund management is very unlikely at both the Law Schools and Business Schools. While public funds for other grad programs are quickly being redistributed (or disappearing entirely) the Law and Business schools are too big to fail but not self sustainable enough to make the jump to privatization. Basically, President Crow would like to see Sandra Day O'Conner Law School self sustainable like Michigan or UVA...but that isn't going to happen in our time (all this is coming from my convo with the faculty/ old Dean). We may hear more talk of the location moving to Phoenix in the next couple years but the faculty seems pretty opposed to it.

[Capitol A]

I had a sit down conversation with one of the faculty members (was the Dean at ASU Law several times). Expect sharp inclines in tuition (about 5% a year). But a large paradigm shift in fund management is very unlikely at both the Law Schools and Business Schools. While public funds for other grad programs are quickly being redistributed (or disappearing entirely) the Law and Business schools are too big to fail but not self sustainable enough to make the jump to privatization. Basically, President Crow would like to see Sandra Day O'Conner Law School self sustainable like Michigan or UVA...but that isn't going to happen in our time (all this is coming from my convo with the faculty/ old Dean). We may hear more talk of the location moving to Phoenix in the next couple years but the faculty seems pretty opposed to it.

In order to discuss this business of "privatization" it is important to understand a few things, which I think you have alluded to here...
1: There is a significant difference between private and self sufficient (UPS and FedEx are private, USPS is a self sufficient government agency). ASU intends to make the law school self sufficient.
2: This should be viewed as a necessary evil, in that there is an extremely good reason for this. ASU has been facing substantial budget cuts already, and the new AZ budget includes many more necessary cuts to education in order to meet a massive budget deficit. In order to avoid being a victim of these cuts Dean Berman made a deal with Michael Crow: don't cut my budget and I will do the work to become self sufficient.
3: As far as consequences of these changes that have been thrown around ITT, such as tuition hikes, larger class sizes, and decreasing rank...Tuition has been on the rise and continues to rise, ASU is pretty open about that; but guess what? Tuition is on the rise for essentially no reason at many other schools (W&M comes to mind, just because it's another public school I was considering. W&M openly claims that they raise tuition approx 3%/yr, when in actuality you can look back and see that in fact tuition had been going up by close to 5%/yr). Class sizes at ASU have remained steady over recent years despite the fact that we are close to 3 years into this plan, and class sizes are relatively small at that. Rankings suffering? Clearly not the case. Dean Berman is aggressively pursuing at top30 spot. Not that being t30 is any different than being #40, but he is more worried about rankings than you or I am, and all of his other plans have been working out pretty well so far.
-Now in regard to moving downtown. As far as I can tell, that is just a waste of money. The claim is that it will give better access to downtown firms and courts, but all the current students that I have talked to either live in Central Phoenix anyway, live half way in between the 2 campuses, or take the light rail from Tempe to Phoenix and are perfectly happy with the location of the law school.
Anyway...I felt the need to give my $0.02, and share some information that perhaps not everyone has. I was concerned about this matter of 'privatizing' as well, but the truth is that it will have minimal impact on the class of 2014, and there are undeniable reasons for the changes associated with becoming self sustaining.

[athenian]

I'm curious what everyone thought of the Admitted Students Day. Anyone want to share their thoughts for those of us that didn't get to go?

[Capitol A]

I'm curious what everyone thought of the Admitted Students Day. Anyone want to share their thoughts for those of us that didn't get to go?

It was nice. The current students all seemed really happy and were eager to help/share information. While they admitted that the job market is tough, they all seemed to have something lined up for the summer/after graduation. The faculty that were there were plenty friendly. It was nice to meet a few of the other prospectives. Other than that, there wasn't too much that you couldn't find on the internet.

[fragged]

4/11 and no answer yet - maybe I should just show up on the first day of classes with some muffins and croissants and see if they let me stay.

[Capitol A]

4/11 and no answer yet - maybe I should just show up on the first day of classes with some muffins and croissants and see if they let me stay.

i have a friend who landed his dream job that way. Not sure if it would work for law school though.

[gaud]

4/11 and no answer yet - maybe I should just show up on the first day of classes with some muffins and croissants and see if they let me stay.

i have a friend who landed his dream job that way. Not sure if it would work for law school though.

What was your friends' dream job? Lol

[Capitol A]

4/11 and no answer yet - maybe I should just show up on the first day of classes with some muffins and croissants and see if they let me stay.

i have a friend who landed his dream job that way. Not sure if it would work for law school though.

What was your friends' dream job? Lol

International sales manager for a bike company. He had sent them his resume twice, but they never called him for an interview. He thought he would be good for the job, and through a guy he knew that was working for the same company, he knew that they had not offered the job to anyone yet. So he started showing up at the office every friday morning with donuts and coffee. He basically told them, 'if this was an unpaid internship I would be here on time everyday ready to work. If you aren't sure about me, hire me on a probationary basis.' Ultimately they realized how serious he was (or got tired of being annoyed once a week) and offered him the job. He loves it and they love him, and now he travels all over riding and talking about bikes for a living.

[gaud]

4/11 and no answer yet - maybe I should just show up on the first day of classes with some muffins and croissants and see if they let me stay.

i have a friend who landed his dream job that way. Not sure if it would work for law school though.

What was your friends' dream job? Lol

International sales manager for a bike company. He had sent them his resume twice, but they never called him for an interview. He thought he would be good for the job, and through a guy he knew that was working for the same company, he knew that they had not offered the job to anyone yet. So he started showing up at the office every friday morning with donuts and coffee. He basically told them, 'if this was an unpaid internship I would be here on time everyday ready to work. If you aren't sure about me, hire me on a probationary basis.' Ultimately they realized how serious he was (or got tired of being annoyed once a week) and offered him the job. He loves it and they love him, and now he travels all over riding and talking about bikes for a living.

I will have to say that that is pretty bad ass

[Capitol A]

I will have to say that that is pretty bad ass

i can only agree because it worked. If it hadn't worked out it would have been embarrassing, but the guy had been unemployed for 2months and he knew he wanted that job and that he was qualified so he just decided that he was going to force them to either hire him or have him arrested.
or did you mean that the job is pretty bad ass? in that case, yes. It's awesome. The company is based in Spain, but has their international office in the US, and they make some amazing products that he gets to test during prototyping, which basically means that part of his job is to go mountain biking a couple times a week and tell them how the product could be improved, and to race his road bike on the weekends and let them know how it goes.