<p>But the real question is - what’s the alternative? In 2009, law school may have been a bad choice…but so was everything else. Let’s face it, it’s not as if there were many great jobs in any field during the teeth of the crash. </p>
<p>Which is why I return to the basic point: during a recession, law school (at a top program) may well be the least bad option available. For many people, it’s either that or stocking shelves at the mall. {Literally - I know people who had high GPA’s, but in unmarketable humanities majors, and hence whose choices in 2009 truly were to attend a top law school or to be stuck working in the mall.} </p>
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<p>Well, let’s face it, very few people have a 3.9 GPA and 173 LSAT. I agree that if you happen to be one of them, then perhaps you don’t need to reserve your seat. The vast majority of people who apply to HLS will have GPA’s and LSAT scores at or below the median score of HLS, and for them, admissions is very much a crapshoot. If they do manage to get in, they ought to reserve that seat, even at the cost of few thousand dollars, because there is no guarantee that they’ll be admitted again. </p>
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<p>If you can transfer in, and could afford it, that is. Like I said, not everybody lives in a state with a strong flagship state university - the northeast United States being notably bereft of such schools. You would therefore be applying as a transfer student to Michigan or UIUC as an out-of-state applicant, which is clearly far more difficult than as an instate applicant. </p>
<p>And even if they were able to transfer, that doesn’t solve the problem that finance (and consulting) recruiting are highly stochastic in nature. As I’m sure we all remember, plenty of students at target schools with strong GPA’s will nevertheless still not get a single finance or consulting offer, especially in a poor economy as now. What are those people supposed to do now? </p>
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<p>Well, actually, those people have something tremendous to lose. The (sad) fact is that plenty of freshman-admits at Berkeley, as with any school, perform poorly in their first two years, either due to a lack of motivation, or because of overconfidence, or homesickness, or whatnot. But as long as you can keep your GPA above the 2.0 minimal academic standing threshold (which is trivial in the creampuff majors), you’re allowed to stay and obtain a degree from Berkeley. But community college students hoping to transfer have no margin of error. If they have adjustment problems in their first 2 years of community college, too bad, that’s the end of the ball game. </p>
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<p>If you can get in, that is. I have to imagine that any such respectable program would require that you demonstrate some capacity to perform accounting work, even if not any formal accounting coursework. I suspect plenty of humanities graduates would be unable to demonstrate such capacity. </p>
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<p>I’m not sure why it would be such a terrible ‘investment’, because the fact is, you’re not really investing anything except your time. PhD programs are not only free, but usually *pay you money<a href=“in%20return%20for%20teaching”>/i</a>. Nor are you required to stay and finish, as you’re free to quit at any time. I therefore see a PhD program as an entirely rational way to wait out a bad economy. </p>
<p>That seems to be a lot better than being stuck working at the mall or serving coffee. Heck, I know a girl who freely admits that she’s now making more money as a PhD humanities student than she was in her previous job, which was indeed nothing more than manning a cash register at the local mall. </p>
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<p>There is no dispute that it is unwise to take on large-scale debt to attend a low-ranked law school.<br>
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<p>Well, that’s quite the big ‘if’ there. Let’s face it - most people who majored in the humanities or certain social sciences did so precisely because they lacked drive and talent with natural sciences.</p>
<p>I think it will get better within next 4-5 years, but I can’t tell for sure. Some people say that BigLaw hiring model is crushed forever and will never return to the pre-crash days of glory. What I can say is that when economy does pick up and law firms seem to pick up their hiring level in noticeable amounts, you should take advantage of that and time your law school attendance to increase your shot at a BigLaw gig. The reason for that is your interviews with law firms will be only a year after your first day of law school. What that means is that if law firms are doing well and hiring lots of students now, they will likely to do the same a year or two after. (when you do interviews with law firms) By same logic, if law firms don’t hire many law students now and economic outlooks are poor now, things will likely to be similar a year after.</p>
<p>The point here is the predictability of law school admissions overall, especially compared to admissions at top colleges or top MBA programs. (which are significantly more unpredictable)</p>
<p>With certain credentials, you can rest assured that you will get into a X,Y,Z law school at a very high success rate with certainty. Say, your GPA is 3.6 and LSAT is 172. You can immediately cross off Harvard and Yale Law, know that you have a 60-70% chance with one of top 6 law schools, and almost a 100% chance that you will get into a couple of top 10 law schools, etc. Law school admissions are very predictable and numbers-driven. As a result, it would be foolish for someone to apply one year when attendance is not desired, just for the sake of trying his luck and keeping his spot at a law school.</p>
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<p>Some of the alternatives with much lesser risk than law school: accounting, teaching, nursing, pharmacy, dental school, and med school.</p>
<p>Well, I actually think the opposite is true from your proposition that attending a top law school is a good bet in a good economy, and a dicey one at best during a poor economy. Even if you are stuck with some terrible jobs after college, surely that is better than winding up in an equally bad spot with six figure law school debt, which is much more likely to happen if you attend a law school (even a top ranked one) during a recession compared to if you go to law school in the midst of a robust legal market.</p>
<p>Just to illustrate the weight of what I am saying, I know that at Columbia Law School (where I will be attending), nearly 80-85% of students in 2006 got NLJ250 law firm offers. In 2009 and 2010, that figure was close to 50-55%. These stats may look just like another numbers to some, who don’t attend law school or are planning on attending. But, for someone like me, these numbers come very real and imminent, and merit serious consideration. Had these Columbia Law kids waited out 3-4 years and attend law school later, maybe they would have gotten a lucrative firm job. Who knows? </p>
<p>At T-14 law schools outside top 6, it gets much worse. At my graduation ceremony from college, I hung out at law school at my college because I was friends with some of law school kids. When I asked random people I met at the law school of my college what they were doing after graduation (my undergrad has also a T-14 law school, but not top 6), so many people didn’t have a job lined up that I felt sorry that I had asked these questions. What was troubling was that in a good economy, over 60% of people from this law school would wind up with a six figure law firm job. Literally, some of the students I spoke with that day were suicidal, with intense fears for their futures: no job lined up, terrible legal job market, and tons of debt to pay back. I still vividly remember a girl who broke down into tears when the topic of employment came up. I also remember an unemployed guy who straight-up told me with anger that he would literally sell his law degree to someone on ebay for 500 bucks. And, his law degree is T-14 that cost him 200k to finish. Imagine how terrible things are for these folks.</p>
<p>After this, I became convinced that attending law school right now is not good idea and I postponed my law school attendance, probably for next 2-3 years. Also, I am fairly debt-averse; I am right now working and saving money so that I won’t have to take out as large sum of loans when I go to law school later. (that 8% interest on loans scares me)</p>
<p>As you might or might not know, a law degree is pretty useless if you can’t get a lucrative law firm job with it in first try. Law schools don’t teach you anything marketable related to specific job, it just teaches you ‘how to think like a lawyer’. Only employers that place much value on these law students with no marketable skills/experience, yet just with a fancy law degree, are BigLaw employers. Essentially, if you miss your boat on BigLaw, you are screwed. To many ‘business’ employers or employers outside law, a JD is a stain on resume and a red flag, more than a plus. </p>
<p>Call me crazy, I would rather work as a waiter/ bartender/ or even a plumber after college for a couple of years, save up some money, wait out a terrible economy, then attend law school in better economy in future rather than jumping straight into law school when the legal market is just terrible. That is just too much of a gamble on my long-term career. When I go to law school, I want to rest assured that I have a high chance of getting a lucrative firm job that would give me the paycheck and high-end career that I want.</p>
<p>Well, BigLaw is highly stochastic in nature, much like consulting and fiance. Actually, the health of BigLaw is highly correlated with the health of Wall Street, since much of corporate law is driven by deals done by I-banks. If someone misses a boat on finance due to a poor economy, yet ends up going to a law school during same economic climate, that guy is taking a big gamble twice. Maybe that guys is better trying his luck somewhere else, or waiting out the bad economy before attending a law school.</p>
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<p>Life is competitive, and you need to adjust yourself for that. Imagine going to a law school vs going to a community college, just because we’re talking about law schools. When you go to law school, all that matters is your grades the first year of law school because law firms only care about your first year grades, and won’t even consider your second and third year grades. So, in case you suck at law school first year, too bad - your law career may be over even before it started. </p>
<p>At least with a community college, it is much, MUCH easier compared to law school in terms of grading. My friend told me with humor that the courses he’d taken at community college were many times easier than 8th grade courses at our school district. If someone has no motivation to succeed whatsoever and screws up his opportunity at community college or whatnot, I don’t have much sympathy. </p>
<p>At least, even if you screw up community college, downward risk is minimal. All you wasted is just 1-2 years and very little tuition money that community colleges demand of its students.</p>
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<p>Ironically, USC’s masters of accounting program - the number one ranked program in accounting, doesn’t require that applicants had taken any accounting courses before applying. All they require are GMAT scores, transcript, and letters of recommendation.</p>
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<p>Investment as in - opportunity cost, all that pain, energy, and work invested in completing the degree, all that time invested, etc. Here, the opportunity cost factors in other possible graduate programs that a person may have pursued, instead of a PhD in humanities. And, what is worse than waiting tables or working at GAP after college? Ending up at the same spot with a PhD. What are the vast majority of people with a PhD in humanities going to do, after they don’t get a job in academia? I think it doesn’t really differ all that much from a college grad who ends up working at Starbucks or Old Navy, unfortunately.</p>
<p>Actually, no you can’t, for interestingly enough, I know some people who were admitted to HLS with those stats (or, actually, slightly worse). Such a student is probably only at the 25th percentile of all applicants, as the 172 LSAT is about the median for HLS and the 3.6 GPA probably puts him at the 5th-10th percentile, for an overall percentile rating of around 25th percentile. Some of these people are admitted. Nor are they all URM’s (as the people in question are white or Asian). </p>
<p>Which speaks precisely to my point: if you happen to be one of those people with such stats who does get into HLS, it behooves you to reserve your spot, as there is clearly no assurance that you will get it again in a different app cycle. </p>
<p>Now, like I said, I agree with you that somebody with a 3.9 GPA and a 180 LSAT can indeed wait to apply to apply anytime he would like and be assured of admission. But how many people have those types of stats? Even most students at HLS or YLS can only dream of stats that strong. If you happen to be one of those students, then by all means, you can wait for as long as you would like. But most people have no such luxury. </p>
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<p>I wouldn’t consider any of the latter health-oriented careers to be viable options for many (probably most) budding lawyers, as, let’s face it, many of them are not strong in science/math, which is what you need to be admitted to a health-oriented professional school. Now, if you are strong in science/math, then perhaps those careers are available, but then again, if you were strong in science/math, then perhaps you should have majored in engineering, CS, or IT. </p>
<p>I would now regard teaching to be a relatively higher-risk profession nowadays because of the widespread cutbacks in school funding and resultant teacher layoffs from budgetary travails of local governments. Plenty of people, especially those who did not major in science/math (and hence cannot satisfy the shortage for math/science teachers) run the risk of obtaining a teacher certificate or MEd, and then not garnering a teaching job. </p>
<p>Regarding accounting, see below. </p>
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<p>Actually, I believe that you have ironically only managed to bolster my position. Those 2009-2010 Columbia Law graduates that you cited entered law school (assuming no delays) in 2006-2007, during the very heart of a robust job market. In stark contrast, somebody applying to law school now would graduate in 2015, when I have to imagine that the law school job market will be far better than it is today. </p>
<p>That only seems to illustrate my point, which is that a hot job market may be precisely the worst time to enter law school, as by the time you graduate, the economy may have crashed. On the other hand, those who entered law school in 2001 during a difficult job market graduated in 2004 when the market was healthy again.</p>
<p>Then consider this scenario. Somebody in 2002 would have noted the unpromising legal job market and then, as you recommended, elected to wait for a few years. So he waits until 2006 when the job market is clearly burgeoning so that he finally does enter law school… only to then graduate in 2009 in the teeth of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. Is he better off? I would argue that he would have been far better off going to law school in 2002 in the midst of a downtown so as to graduate in 2005 when the economy was cooking. </p>
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<p>Actually, you risked far more than that, for what you risked is your academic record. You are obligated to report any and all college courses you have ever taken to any program to which you might transfer. If you racked up a bunch of failing grades at a community college, you are supposed to report that. {Granted, you could choose not to report those failing grades, but on pain of having your admissions revoked or even your degree posthumously canceled if you are later caught.} </p>
<p>The better strategy is to simply not go to college at all until such time as you are mature enough to handle the workload. For the purposes of future transfer admissions, apparently it is better not to try a community college class at all, than to try it and receive a poor grade. </p>
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<p>Actually, I doubt there is anything ironic in the least, for I have to imagine that the USC admissions process would carefully scrutinize an applicant’s potential to perform accounting work as evidenced by prior coursework or LOR’s. Somebody who exhibits not even an iota of ability to perform accounting work would not be admitted to USC regardless of how well he performed in other coursework. {Either that, or my respect for the USC accounting program has just plummeted.} Heck,even the GMAT has a dedicated quant section, where if you perform poorly, you’re not going to be admitted to USC, regardless of how well you may have performed on the English and writing sections. </p>
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<p>Actually, I would disagree. Remember that the pursuit of a Phd is supposed to be passionately intellectually interesting to you (and if it isn’t, then you’re not going to finish the PhD anyway.} So even if you do manage to complete a PhD and then be relegated to working at the Gap, hey, at least you had the opportunity to pursue a passionate intellectual interest of yours, if only for a few years. The vast majority of people in the world never have any such opportunity. They’re just stuck working boring jobs for their entire lives. </p>
<p>I’ll give you an analogy. I know a bunch of guys who wanted to be professional baseball players, but never made it beyond the low-level minors. Now they’re retired and working regular jobs. But so what? At least for a few years, they had the chance to be paid (albeit at low wages) for playing a game that they loved. And they have endless cool and unique stories and memories regarding their playing days. That’s not a bad life.</p>
<p>The upshot is that spending some years of your life obtaining a PhD - which you’re not supposed to pay for - is not the worst thing that can happen to you. Granted, if you pursue that PhD with the singular overarching goal of obtaining a tenure-track academic position, then you’re risking your psychological health. But if you enter such a program with the attitude that you’re merely pursuing an interesting endeavor that may or may not lead to something later, then you’re not really risking much.</p>
<p>I admit that I don’t know too many PhD students to draw any reasonable conclusion, but I suspect rather high percentage of them are going that path with the specific intent of having a career in academia. Actually, my uncle is just like that - he got a PhD in political science from a top 10 university with the specific intent and his dream of getting a tenure track job as a professor. His passion not only liked in the knowledge that he would gain from PhD, but also from research opportunities down the road, as well as teaching duties, both of which would be only granted if he actually got the job in academia. After not being able to get a job with his PhD, my uncle started his business in insurance and he does very well now. Actually, right now he is the wealthiest of my family and makes over 700k a year. But, he freely admits that PhD was a big mistake and too much of waste of his time.</p>
<p>Just going by your example, suppose someone is indeed pursuing a PhD in humanities out of his intrinsic intellectual passion for that subject. Then, by that process, he would naturally want to extend that PhD coursework into a life-time career: doing research in his chosen field, publishing articles, lecturing, and teaching. I can’t help but think that people would be content with just calling it quits after PhD stint and come out satisfied after not getting a job in academia. Just like many unemployed law grads, I suspect they go through feelings of bitterness, anger, depression, and regret, among other emotions.</p>
<p>Also, I am not sure if your example with baseball players is appropriate here. Baseball players can still play baseball in their leisure, with their friends, or play for some amateur leagues - something they love doing - even if they don’t make Major League. Academics on the other hand - the opportunities for teaching, publishing, or researching within their academic fields - are not possibilities unless you actually get a job in academia.</p>
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<p>I agree. However this was never something I argued against. My point was that it is a good idea to consider going to community college route if the cost of college education is a big concern - and if an applicant isn’t academically good enough to get into a good program from which large sum of financial aid is a realistic possibility. </p>
<p>Also, in this country, there are so many no-name state schools that as long as someone does decent at a community college, that person can reasonably transfer into a decent state school program. Then, that person would have saved a large sum of tuition money to go along with it. It is true that a good school such as Berkeley, UCLA, or UVA - top state schools - are much easier to get in via community college route compared to freshmen admissions. Then, imagine how easy it would be to get into just a regular state university. And, I truly believe that someone that has an IQ in triple digits is capable of getting decent grades in community college, even with minimal effort. My friend is certainly no genius - he got a 1700 on SAT. Yet, he told me that ‘you have to really try to get anything lower than a B in a community college - like miss out on 90% of all classes and study less than 1 hour a week’, and I don’t doubt him a bit. </p>
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<p>Well, USC’s master’s of accounting program’s admit rate is around 35-40% - not too bad of odds. Also, their accepted students’ average GMAT score last year was 650, and average GPA was 3.5, which don’t exactly appear to be most selective. Yet - USC is one of the most selective accounting programs to get into. The good news is that there are dozens of other less selective accounting schools than USC, and unlike law, accounting firms don’t really care too much about what school you go to. (prestige matters very little)</p>
<p>GMAT has quant section, but it is no rocket science and it is a test that you can prep for. I took GMAT too, and I thought the math portions did not cover anything beyond Algebra II. It was just a bunch of applications that you can practice before taking the exam. </p>
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<p>You are citing an extreme case. Recessions like the current one doesn’t happen much regularly at all. Since you will be going through law firm interviews as a law student less than a year after your first day of law school, the economy just one year out is certainly reasonably predictable. </p>
<p>I mean - what is more likely to happen? Consider: in 2015 economy is very robust and IB and BigLaw hire levels are very strong. Is that trend likely to continue at similar levels in 2016, or is a recession with the same magnitude as Great Depression likely to happen in 2016?</p>
<p>Where I do agree with you is that pre-recession, those law students who entered law school in 2008 didn’t have much clue about what will happen with the economy. However, recessions like the one we just experienced don’t happen too frequently, so it is more of an extreme case.</p>
<p>Then, after that recession broke out, and knowing that IB and BigLaw hiring level got crushed, what about those law students who still attended law school in 2009 or 2010? Some of them still got BigLaw - great, but many more didn’t get BigLaw and they could have increased their shot at a firm job by attending law school later.</p>
<p>Again, law firm hiring is somewhat different from other types of jobs, in the sense that you do all the interviews just one year after the first day of your law school. Hence, law firms will likely to hire new law students at the amount that will correspond with the health of economy one year after a law student enters law school. </p>
<p>Certainly, it is much easier to forecast where the economy will likely to be one year out, rather than 3 to 4 years out. As a result, it is much easier to take advantage of timing with law jobs than other types of jobs.</p>
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<p>Well, those people you know who got into HLS - worst comes worst, even if they don’t get into HLS, they could have certainly got into a top 6 school such as CLS or NYU - both of which boost almost an equally strong BigLaw placement as HLS.</p>
<p>Only advantage that HLS has over Columbia or NYU is that it places slightly higher percentage of its grads into selective clerkships (think SCOTUS) or academia. For BigLaw placement, there is very little difference between HLS and rest of T6. </p>
<p>In long-term grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter if someone with 3.6 GPA and 172 LSAT did or didn’t get into HLS in one application cycle. That person would be fine regardless, since with those ‘borderline stats for HLS’, he would still end up at a strong school anyway for certain.</p>
<p>Since law school admissions is highly predictable, one can reasonably project the range of law schools from which acceptances are likely. (But, if you are a HLS or bust type of person for whatever reason, sure, it may make sense to apply to HLS multiple times just to see if you can get in…)</p>
<p>What about them? In 2009 - an entire year after the largest crash since the Depression - IB’s actually paid record bonuses. Yes, that’s right - record bonuses: higher than even the monster year of 2007. </p>
<p>Even in 2010, while IB bonuses did decline, they nevertheless remained at eye-popping levels. Furthermore, most prognosticators were predicting a strong financial recovery during 2010-2011, as nobody predicted how anemic the economy would remain in 2011. </p>
<p>Hence, I would argue that it was still economically rational for people to attend law school during 2009 or 2010, especially given their shrunken options in the rest of the economy. </p>
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<p>Which therefore seems to point to another strategy - attend law school for the first year, and then interview. If you don’t find something to your liking because of the poor economy, then withdraw from law school, and return when the economy is better. Granted, you will be carrying a year’s worth of law school debt, but hey, that’s better than carrying 3 years of debt. And your seat in the law school will be secured. </p>
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<p>The same analysis applies in the comparison of T6 vs. non-T6 or T14 vs. non-T14 law school (or wherever the ‘discontinuity’ lies). Let’s face it - the vast majority of people don’t have the admissions statistics to be assured of admission to a “top” law school, whether defined as T3, T6, or T14. For them, if they can be admitted during a certain admissions cycle, they should lock up their seat.</p>
<p>Now, again, I agree with you that those people who do have such strong statistics to guarantee admission have little to worry about. But they’re only a tiny percentage of people out there.</p>
<p>Actually, you seem to be citing the extreme case, for recessions do not need to be as extreme as the one we are currently facing. US recessions/downturns generally happen every 8-12 years. Before the current one, the last downturn occurred in 2001; before that, one occurred in 1990-1991; before that, in 1981-1982. The goal is not just to avoid graduating from law school during a recession as extreme as this one, but to avoid graduating during any recession. Given the history of the business cycle, it is quite likely that another recession will hit somewhere around 2016-2020. Sure, perhaps it won’t be as harsh as the current recession. But it will still be a recession, meaning hiring will still be tight. </p>
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<p>I continue to dispute how helpful that is. Fine, so let’s say that you are able to predict that the economy will be healthy in another year, so you enter law school for that first year, then you obtain a summer biglaw internship. That’s still no guarantee that you will actually have a biglaw offer once you graduate, even if you perform well in that internship. During this downturn, law firms have rescinded offers to 3L’s, or simply not provide offers in the first place, even to former interns, perhaps through the devious tactic of the [cold</a> offer](<a href=“Biglaw Blind Item: An Ice-Cold Offer - Above the Law”>Biglaw Blind Item: An Ice-Cold Offer - Above the Law). Or, heck, let’s say that you are able to land a biglaw job after graduation…only to quickly be laid off because of a bad economy. Frankly, that’s not that much better than simply never obtaining the biglaw offer at all. </p>
<p>What you really want is time yourself to start biglaw internship recruiting right when the economy is recovering, thereby leaving yourself ample headroom of many years with which to build your career as an associate without fear of the next recession. Of course that sort of timing is next-to-impossible, and I would suggest that if you were truly that skillful, then you should become a stock prognosticator instead.</p>
<p>Well, you want to talk about people who are really going through feelings of bitterness, anger, depression, and regret? You want to talk about what’s really a waste of time? How about all of the liberal arts college graduates today who can’t find work at all, or if they can, are relegated to menial labor jobs that they could have obtained right after high school (or heck, even if they had dropped out of high school)? I can think of plenty such people who went to top schools, earned decent grades, but are now stuck waiting tables, delivering pizzas, manning cash registers, or stocking shelves at the mall. Believe me, many of them are quite depressed and bitter, particularly because they had been told their entire lives that the reason they should study hard and attend top schools is precisely to avoid jobs like those. We specifically indoctrinated the youth of the country to be ashamed of those jobs as a threat to force them to study hard, and now many of them are sadly relegated to taking those jobs.</p>
<p>Which is why so many of them are considering PhD programs, for which I can’t fault them. After all, as one girl who I know is attending a PhD humanities program said: “It’s better than stocking shelves at the mall (which is what she had been doing)”. If nothing else, at least she can enjoy a stimulating and paid intellectual adventure, if only for a few years of her life. That’s better than never doing it at all. More importantly, she will probably be able to use the program to wait out the recession. By the time she graduates, the economy will likely be far better, thereby allowing her to find a decent job that can actually use her humanities skills. And she can fill her resume with a reasonable explanation - that she had spent years pursuing a PhD - rather than having to say that she spent all that time stocking shelves at the mall. Let’s face it - that sort of experience is not going to impress anybody. </p>
<p>Granted, perhaps you could argue that she shouldn’t have majored in humanities at all. Perhaps that was her root mistake. Fair enough. But what’s done is done. Like it or not, she did major in humanities, she didn’t develop marketable skills in college, and so the only relevant question for her is what should she do now? </p>
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<p>But none of that is relevant to the discussion here, for, lets face it, attending a ‘regular’ state university is probably not going to open the doors to the elite, high-paying consulting or finance firms so coveted by most college graduates. For example, UCRiverside is surely no worse than a ‘regular’ state university. Indeed, its status as a UC indicates that it is a member of arguably the most selective public university system in the nation, which would indicate that UCR is far better than just a ‘regular’ state university. But honestly, you’re probably not going to get an offer from Goldman or McKinsey coming out of UCR, regardless of how strong your performance may be. Heck, you won’t even get an interview. Yet the fact remains that UCR graduates thousands of people every year, many from low-paying humanities majors. What are all these people supposed to do? </p>
<p>For those who achieved high grades (and can also attain a high LSAT), the next logical step is indeed to attend law school. After all, that’s better than waiting tables or stocking shelves at the mall, which is indeed what many of them will be otherwise consigned to do. </p>
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<p>Hey, I’m sure that many of those former players were disappointed and bitter that they never made it to MLB. But they got over it. Similarly, somebody with a PhD who can’t find an academic job can get over it. </p>
<p>Besides, where is it written that you can teach/publish/research only within academia? You can always teach something, perhaps at some low-level night school, or even on a volunteer basis. And you can always conduct humanities research and publish in your spare time. Granted, maybe you won’t have an academic infrastructure to support you, but that should hardly stop you from conducting research anyway. True, perhaps you’ll need to self-publish, or only publish in open-access Internet forums such as SSRN or arXiv. But, hey, that’s still publishing. You’re still disseminating your ideas to the world. </p>
<p>You can even still publish in academic journals on a part-time basis. As a case in point, consider Reginald Smith. Holding an MBA from the MIT Sloan School, he has a full-time job as a supply chain/operations manager. But he also publishes research in his spare time about an eclectic range of topics, including publications in academic journals. For example, he has an official journal publication on plasma physics, one on quantitative biology, two on Internet networking, one on the social network of rappers (he finds that 2Pac and Wu-Tang Clan occupy central positions in the rapping community), and not one but two papers on the linguistics of the Meriotic language (the ancient language of Kush). </p>
<p>Now surely if Reginald Smith - who doesn’t hold a PhD in at all, let alone one in the humanities - can nevertheless in his spare time publish 2 linguistics papers in academic journals, then surely somebody with a PhD in humanities can continue to pursue research in his spare time. </p>
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<p>So let’s talk about that. According to the website, 80% of the students in the program majored in accouting or highly related topics (business, finance, economics). Only a tiny minority majored in other social sciences or humanities. Furthermore, and far more importantly, the program also directly stipulates that all applicants must have already completed or be taking at the time of application a total of seven accounting courses, none of which seems trivial. Furthermore, the program specifically states that such coursework should not be completed at a community college </p>
<p>Now, let’s be frank. The vast majority of humanities graduates, even those with top grades, will not meet those course requirements. At least, not by the time that they graduate. And I would argue that that if they could have completed all 7 of those courses, they probably should have completed a full accounting bachelor’s. </p>
<p>Granted, you could return to your point that all these people should not have majored in the humanities at all. I agree, and in fact, I would double-down and argue that many of them should never have gone to college at all, but instead should have learned a trade skill such as plumbing or auto repair. But that’s neither here nor there. The problem is that we now have thousands of un/under-employed humanities graduates, and the relevant question is what should they do?</p>
<p>FWIW, my cousin actually went to a lower ranked UC, (UC San Diego) and he now works as a consultant at an IT Consulting firm. Granted, he isn’t working at a Management Consulting shop doing a corporate strategy role like it would be the case if he were to work at MBB, Booz, Mercer, Monitor, or other high-end strategy consulting boutique firm, but he still makes over 80k a year at his IT Consulting gig just 4 years into the job. What he told me is that elite strategy-consulting firms do care deeply about the rank of colleges when they recruit, but other types of consulting firms that also do IT or Operational-side of consulting (Think Deloitte, PwC, Accenture, IBM, etc) cast a wider net on the range of undergrad colleges that they recruit from.</p>
<p>Also, most people at top schools won’t get an offer from McK or Bulge Bracket I-banking anyway…</p>
<p>More importantly, it should be mentioned that the legal market right now is brutal. Take a look at:</p>
<p>Right now, state governments of NJ, PA, among many others hire attorneys for some of their government agency jobs such as DOJ, etc, for free. And, they still end up getting a ton of applications. Essentially, lawyer job market is so screwed up right now that people are competing to work for free. And, this isn’t just a temporary problem, since there has been a vast over-supply of lawyers in this country and this trend will not stop anytime soon.</p>
<p>Where I would agree with you is when a college graduate without decent job options happens to have both high enough of GPA and LSAT to get into a top law school, then yeah, going to a law school may be worth the gamble. However, we need to remember that median LSAT tends to be around 150-155 at most large state schools. Obviously, the vast majority of people from large state schools can’t score high enough to get into top law schools, and they would be better off not bothering with law school in that case.</p>
<p>This ultimately leads to the point that: majoring in humanities in college is risky and you risk being completely screwed job-wise. And, going to law school isn’t the solution to change this fate, unless you manage to crack top 10-14 law school. (even then, no guarantee of success…)</p>
<p>That would be an ideal proposition for many law students, if it can work like that. Basically, law firm recruiting is very structured and rigid, and there is no second shot at the firm job interviews… If you miss the boat on 2L on-campus interviews, your law school won’t allow you to participate in that 2L on campus interview second-time, no matter what. and, just because you take leave of absence from law school at that point and come back later, you can’t get those interview schedules back again, nor will law firms try to interview you. Basically, you are screwed if you miss your boat on a firm job as a second year law student…if you are intent on working for a large law firm.</p>
<p>Granted, smaller-law firms that do personal injury, divorce settlement, insurance defense - type of work that pay 35-40k a year hire law students after they graduate from law school and pass the bar. Regardless, most of selective, lucrative law firm jobs are essentially one-shot deal for law students.</p>
<p>Perhaps they should learn those trade skills, such as plumbing or auto repair… yes, it sucks that someone who graduated from college ends up becoming a plumber or janitor, but that sure is better than being unemployed. </p>
<p>Or, perhaps pursue second bachelors in engineering, math, accounting, or nursing. As my uncle said: “If you do something that anyone else out there can do, you won’t get far.” I do believe this statement is very applicable to life and you must be willing to take certain risk and make certain sacrifices to better your life. </p>
<p>Interestingly, one guy from my high school graduated from a T-25 law school two years ago - Emory University School of Law. For one full year after law school, he was unemployed. Now, he works at a temporary agency doing document review, as a ‘temporary’ attorney. One time, he got drunk and told me with a humor: “I may be a lawyer, but I think I am worse off than a plumber. I make $hit money with no future.” Luckily for him, his parents helped pay for his law school and he had some savings to fall back on. Now, imagine people who attend a law school after taking out full loans and miss their boat on Biglaw. That prospect is truly disturbing, and I would agree with this guy that many lawyers out there are indeed worse-off than plumbers and janitors.</p>
<p>My bad. It seems USC does require some courses for admission. I do know for fact that UNC, Notre Dame, among some others don’t require any courses for admission for masters of accounting program. Also, let’s not forget that USC is arguably the toughest program to get into. There are many other no-name programs that are considerably easier and more lax than USC.</p>
<p>Great thing about accounting is that the school rank doesn’t matter much at all for job placement. I do think that master of accounting could indeed be the ONLY legitimate ‘Plan-B’ option for those unemployed college grads to fall back on, outside of medical/dental/pharmacy school and top 10 law school.</p>
<p>Then let me tell you this. I know plenty of people who graduated from Berkeley - clearly the top UC - who have nevertheless been relegated to working in menial wage-slave jobs such as waitressing and stocking shelves at the mall. {Granted, they did major in the humanities or psychology.} Perhaps your cousin should tell them about the wonderful opportunities in IT consulting that they evidently missed out on. </p>
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<p>On this point, there has never been a dispute. I have never disagreed that those who have to pay hefty fees to attend a non-top law school should probably decline. </p>
<p>Those students with 150-155 LSAT scores are not going to be admitted to top law schools anyway, so for them, the point is moot. I was specifically talking about those students who are able to be admitted to such schools. </p>
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<p>Majoring in humanities is indeed a high-risk strategy. And certainly most of those students should have chosen more marketable majors (or perhaps not gone to college at all).</p>
<p>But I was taking it as a given that they had graduated from those majors, and so the only relevant question is, what should they do now going forward? </p>
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<p>Then just dial back the strategy by 6 months. Instead of withdrawing after 1L, withdraw during 1L, and specifically, over the winter break. By then, you haven’t participated in first-year recruiting. You should know if the economy will be strong in the upcoming summer or not, as that summer will be only 6 months away. </p>
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<p>Frankly, that sounds like an even riskier strategy than attending law school. Even if you’re granted some transfer credits from your first bachelor’s degree, you’re likely still looking at an extra 2-3 years of schooling. Nor are you guaranteed a top job after graduation. For example, one guy (out of 6 reporting) who graduated in 2010 in math from Berkeley - one of the world’s premier math schools - ended up working as a Starbucks barista. </p>
<p>Hey, plenty of people take out full loans for 4 years of undergrad, only to be stuck in menial jobs. And plenty of new college graduates are surely worse off than plumbers or even janitors. </p>
<p>Like I said, the root problem is that too many college students do not develop marketable skills. But that’s not going to change. Given that, attending a top law school may indeed be the best hope for them. Sad but true.</p>
<p>UNC, I will grant you, does not seem to have prereqs</p>
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<p>Actually, I’ll offer one: Learn Information Technology skills. It’s not that hard for somebody of reasonable intelligence and dedication typical of a college graduate to earn IT vendor certifications such as a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer (MCSE), a Cisco Certified Internetworking Expert (CCIE), or SAP certification. Heck, a reasonably dedicated person could probably complete all 3 certifications in just 6 months. Nor do you need much technical education. I can think of people with multiple CCIE’s (of which there are 7 flavors) who never even graduated from high school; surely a college graduate can complete at least one. </p>
<p>Nor are such vendor certifications necessary; you can learn IT skills without it. It’s not that hard to learn the LAMP skillset bundle(Linux+Apache+MySql+PHP/Perl/Python) that allowed you to build and manage a complete web-server. It’s not that hard to learn sendmail/postfix/exim (which together comprise the most widely used email servers in the world) or BIND (the most widely used DNS server in the world). It’s not that hard to learn R (one of the most widely used statistical packages in the world). To be clear, I’m not talking about learning how to develop software such as Apache or BIND. I am simply talking learning how to use it, which basically involves just reading the (admittedly long and tedious) manuals. </p>
<p>What makes the suggestions in the preceding paragraph so appealing is that every one of those cited technologies is open-source freeware. All you need is to build a practice homelab consisting of a bunch of servers. Hardware is cheap and becomes cheaper every day - you can build an excellent lab for just a few thousand dollars. That’s surely far cheaper than spending 5-figures of tuition for a MAcc.</p>
<p>Yes, but the reason why this issue is significant is that the vast majority of people who fall into the scenario in which you are discussing (humanities grad from state schools who are unemployed) will not crack sufficient LSAT scores for a top law school. (170 or above)</p>
<p>Below are the stats of median LSAT scores of students from some of undergrad colleges with the highest LSAT scores: (this means that all other colleges that are not on this list had lower LSAT scores from their students applying to law schools)</p>
<p>University of Connecticut 152
University of Denver 152
University of Miami 152
University of Oklahoma 152
University of Tennessee 152
Baylor 153
Fordham 153
Indiana Bloomington 153
Syracuse University 153
Texas Christian University (TCU) 153
Touro 153
University of Maryland - Baltimore County 153
Ursinus College 153
Virginia Tech 153
American 154
Arizona 154
Ithaca College 154
Ohio State 154
University of California- Santa Cruz 154
University of Florida 154
University of Iowa 154
University of Mary Washington 154
University of Nebraska - Lincoln 154
University of Oregon 154
Colorado University- Boulder 155
Gustavus Adolphus College (is this college real?) 155
Rensselaer Polytech Institute 155
Texas A&M 155
The College of New Jersey 155
University of California- Davis 155
University of California- Santa Barbara 155
University of Georgia 155
University of Illinois 155
University of Minnesota 155
University of Washington 155
Boston University 156
Calvin College 156
Holy Cross 156
Lafayette College 156
Lawrence University 156
Rutgers College 156
University of California- San Diego 156
Wisconsin Madison 156
Texas 156
Calvin College 157
George Washington 157
Tulane 157
University of North Carolina- Chapel Hill 157
University of Southern California 157
Wake Forest 157
Boston College 158
Brandeis 158
Georgia Tech 158
Queen’s University (Canada) 158
Saint John’s College 158
University of California- Los Angeles 158
University of Dallas 158
University of Michigan 158
University of Virginia 158
Washington University in Saint Louis 158
Brigham Young University 159
Byrn Mawr College 159
Colby College 159
Emory 159
John Hopkins 159
McGill 159
New York University 159
University of California- Berkeley 159
Vanderbilt 159
William and Mary 160
Cornell 161
Georgetown 161
Haverford College 161
Northwestern 161
Notre Dame 161
Reed College 161
Washington and Lee 161
Wesleyan 161
Carleton College 162
Claremont McKenna 162
Rice 162
University of Chicago 162
Brown 163
Columbia 163
Dartmouth 163
Duke 163
MIT 163
University of Pennsylvania 163
Stanford 164
Williams 164
Pomona College 165
Princeton 165
Swarthmore 165
Yale 165</p>
<p>Now, we see that even the most selective undergrad programs such as Yale or Stanford had median LSAT scores of 164-165, from their undergrad population who applied to law school, and even the most selective state school, UC Berkeley, had 159 as median LSAT score from their undergrads. Big state schools such as Florida or Ohio State had 154-155 LSAT as median.</p>
<p>This just means that the VAST majority of people from large non-elite state universities do not score 170+ on LSAT, the score necessary to merit a top 10 law school acceptance. As a result, it would be safe to assume that it is rarity that anyone who goes to law school benefits from the choice to attend law school, since the people who go to top law school are very few out of all law school attendees. </p>
<p>Lastly, if one has the brain power to get into a top 10 law school, I truly believe that the individual in question had what it takes to get into a top college or get a decent job after college to begin with. LSAT is no joke, and it is significantly more difficult than other exams such as SAT or even GMAT. </p>
<p>I just think that there is a very low correlation between the two following samples: 1) unemployed college grad from a large run of the mill flagship university, and 2) a person who has the numbers and intellect to get into a top law school. Instead, I think there is a higher correlation between the following two samples: 1) a college grad who is smart and hard working, and as a result has some decent career options outside of law school, 2) a person who has the numbers to get into a top ten law school.</p>
<p>Where I am getting at is I believe it is dangerous to regard law school as a plan-B fallback option for those masses of unemployed college grads to fall back on. The reason being is that the vast majority of people in that specific sample won’t be beneficiary of their choice to pursue law school, because chances are, they won’t be attending a top ten or T14 law school.</p>
<p>I think pursuing a second bachelor’s is not very risky if that undergrad institution is affordable to attend. Yes, that is a big if, and I would not recommend anyone to attend an expensive private school when pursuing this path. </p>
<p>It is just much easier to get a job if you have a technical, not ‘theoretical’, degree that teaches skill-sets in demand by work force. Fine, then let’s omit math from this equation, and let’s just restrict the choice set to accounting, engineering, nursing, and computer science. I would be surprised if someone who majors in such fields in college and makes decent effort in keeping up GPA and landing a job doesn’t end up with a decent job after completing the degree.</p>