New US News Rankings Now Up

<p>Hanna: Again, completely agree.</p>

<p>Can you get an excellent salary in NY by attending an atrocious law school like NYLS? Do people out of that place even make 120 + a year?</p>

<p>Judge Judy does.</p>

<p>^Well yeah but I meant for the majority of students, there are exceptions to almost everything, but I’m talking about majority of them. I only mentioned NYLS since I knew she went there, lol.</p>

<p>When you look at the bimodal salary distribution graph, and then try to guess–roughly–how many 140,000$+ jobs are out there along with how many T1 graduates, it’s easy to realize there isn’t much left for graduates from NYLS.</p>

<p>I walk by there sometimes and really feel sorry for the students. Not in some patronizing way, and most definitely not for students who knew what they were getting into (though, honestly, if you knew what you were getting into, you wouldn’t go there). I feel sorry for the people who went there under the illusion that they’d make big bucks. It’s just not happening. And the administration perpetuates this problem by posting misleading employment statistics. </p>

<p>At a certain point, law school is just a bad proposition.</p>

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<p>I agree that taking a full scholarship in that case probably makes more sense, though I would strongly caution anyone against assuming that they’re going to be in the very top of their class based on their GPA and LSAT, which are undoubtedly the largest components of whatever model the schools might be using. This is much more of a concern if the school is ranked a lot lower than Duke, especially because some schools reallocate money each year depending on class rank and/or require you to maintain a pretty high GPA to keep it. The scholarship money is probably distributed more to ensure the right GPA/LSAT and demographic mix the school is looking for.</p>

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<p>Misleading and possibly outright fake. Look at the stats they give for the class of '08:</p>

<p>[New</a> York Law School :: Employment Stats](<a href=“http://a.nyls.edu/prospective_students/student_life/employment_stats]New”>http://a.nyls.edu/prospective_students/student_life/employment_stats)</p>

<p>They at least have the decency to disclose that only 25% of the class reported salary information, which makes the stats pretty meaningless anyway, but I don’t see any way that the $160K private practice median could possibly be correct. In the breakdown by firm size, they say that 56% of the private practice grads reporting salary were at firms of under 50, where the maximum salary was only $70K. Either my math skills are even worse than I thought, or they’re publishing numbers that are very far from the truth.</p>

<p>is it typical to get a full ride at a marginally lower ranked school if you got into a higher school. e.g, #7 penn offers a full ride, if u got into a #4 columbia?</p>

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<p>Good question. I don’t think it’s typical for such a narrow spread. However, most admits at HYS probably snagged a Darrow from Michigan or Levy from Penn. One of my friends, who is a Darrow recipient at Michigan, did not get into HYS. I think he/she is the exception, though.</p>

<p>I mean, the classic example would be a choice between SLS (#3) and a Hamilton (#4).</p>

<p>But FH is definitely right: not typical.</p>

<p>oh yeah i forgot about that haha.</p>

<p>LOL 160k as the median salary in Private Practice? UCLA’s was only 125 in the median, lol.</p>

<p>Looks like NYLS is the best in the country!</p>

<p>All,</p>

<p>Good information! Please help with the following questions.</p>

<p>1) The ranking lists schools as tier 1 down to 98th rank. Then, it jumps to tier 3. I did not see tier 2. Did I miss something?</p>

<p>2) In Hanna’s post 40, the example of a full ride scholarship is from Duke. What would be your opinion if the full ride is from a school ranked around 25 considering the student also gets in a school ranked around 10 w/o scholarship?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>1.) The idea is that each Tier is about 50 schools. You’ll notice that USN doesn’t refer to it as Tier 1; it refers to it as “Top Law Schools.”</p>

<p>2.) If 25 is in the market where the student eventually wants to work, then I’d say it might be a dilemma. If not, then I think the kid needs to take #10.</p>

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<p>Judge Judy aside, there are NYLS (and Cardozo, Fordham and Brooklyn Law) students at many of the top NYC law firms. However, there are only a few of them. Back in the years when top NYC law firms were hiring 100 law students for their summer associate classes, about 85-90 were from T14 law schools (the composition largely depended upon the firm – firms absolutely play favorites in their hiring practices), the remainder were from a few pet law schools (where a couple of influential partners went), some local law schools like NYLS and from minority hiring fairs (which typically include students from law schools where these law firms do not usually conduct on campus interviews). Never were there more than one or two students from the local law schools/pet law schools hired, and these were typically not just top 5%, but actually top 5 students. In addition, these students often had a tippy top undergrad school or outstanding pre-law school work experience on their resumes.</p>

<p>If you are really curious, I would recommend taking a look at the websites of some of the top law firms in NYC (or whatever city interests you). It’s not at all scientific, but try cravath.com, sullcrom.com (<a href=“http://www.sullcrom.com/ataglance/?view=schools[/url]”>http://www.sullcrom.com/ataglance/?view=schools&lt;/a&gt;), davispolk.com, wachtell.com and stblaw.com. Each of these websites allow you to search through their attorneys by law school attended. You can also try skadden.com to view a law firm with a bit more breadth in its hiring practices. </p>

<p>Today, with smaller classes being hired at most law firms (though sizes are once again increasing), law firms are being even more selective with their hires. Of course, finding a summer associate position today is no longer a guarantee of future full-time, post-graduation employment.</p>

<p>Though to be fair to NYLS, a lot of their top students transfer to higher-ranked schools, so NYLS wouldn’t be listed on their firm bios.</p>