What Do the Rankings Really Mean? Part 2

Last week we talked about rankings and how US News and World Report comes up with them. This week, I want to explore what these rankings could mean to you and to your law school search. Before I do, I want you to know that in no way do I claim to know all about these things. I’m just your friendly Oyez! blogger, sifting through all the information on the internet so you don’t have to!

With that said, how important are the rankings? According to a new study by Kaplan, most of us think that they are VERY important. A full 86% of 1,383 students preparing to take the LSATs said that rankings were “very important” or “somewhat important.” Only 8% said that job placement was the most important factor. In this economy, isn’t that a little crazy? Elie Mystal sure thought so. In her Above the Law post (a fabulous blog that should be on every pre-law student’s reading list, btw!), she laments the obvious oversight of ignoring professional prospects when choosing a school to earn a professional degree.

And she may be on the right track. Yes, rankings are important. No, rankings aren’t going away. Of course, it would be silly to ignore them altogether, but at some point after landing your first job, you will be judged on your skills and your accomplishments at least in addition to rank. And my last post explained how the rankings are easily manipulated and are perpetuating a law school culture that hurts you, me, and the hundreds of law school grads who are floundering in debt that they simply cannot find the work to repay.

In short, this is serious stuff, simply too serious to let a number be the compass for your decision-making. We both want to get into a great law school, and many of us will, but when it comes down to it, if we don’t make it into the T-14 (and let’s face it, there’s not enough room at Yale for the both of us) the US News and World Report rankings become less and less important.

How, then, do we make this unyielding decision that will determine the course of the rest of our very lives?!? Consider other factors:

• Check out the other law school rankings out there. Wikipedia has a surprisingly good list.
• Ask yourself where you want to practice law. There are some kinds of law that you can only practice in New York, and then there are the kinds of law that you can practice anywhere. Also, the further you get from the T-14, the more important the regional influence of your law school becomes. If you want to practice on the West Coast, you should probably go to school on the West Coast, if for nothing else than for name-recognition and to tap into alumni networks.
• Determine what specialty interests you. Here is a comprehensive list of which law schools offer what, and there are tons of specialty rankings available by quick Google search.
• Ask yourself what you want your law school experience to be like. The Princeton Review offers 11 separate lists of rankings that assess competitiveness, quality of life, liberal vs. conservative, and more! You can also glean this information from law school visits, chats with students/alumni, and careful readings of law school websites.
• Be realistic. Where are you likely to be accepted? How far away do you want to be from home? What can you afford? If this last question resonates with you, check out The National Jurist’s Best Value Law Schools rankings. They assess cost, placement rates, and reported income to give you a sense of what you’re really getting.

In conclusion, if you want to go to the best law school that you get into, you are certainly not alone. And hey, maybe that really is the best thing for a CMU alum like you… but maybe it’s not. This is a big decision, too big to blindly follow the rankings. And getting the whole picture before putting down that deposit is #1 in my book.

What Do the Rankings Really Mean? Part 1

You and I, we’re Carnegie Mellon students, and that means we know rankings. We love rankings almost as much as we hate rankings. We particularly like our ranking, and we’d be very sad to settle for anything less than something US News and World Report approved. But when it comes to law school, should a school’s ranking be the primary factor in determining whether it’s right for a wonderful and talented CMU alum like you?

I would be lying if I said that rankings didn’t matter, because they do matter. To me. To you. To law schools. To the guy or gal who will decide whether or not to give you a job. However, it is important to understand that rankings are not the ONLY thing that matter to your law school search. And it’s important to understand them.

Have you ever taken the time to read US News and World Reports’ Methodology for law school rankings? Here’s are some Cliffnotes: 40% of any ranking is a “Quality Assessment by law school officials (specifically: “law school deans, deans of academic affairs, chairs of faculty appointments, and the most recently tenured faculty members”) and prominent legal professionals. They rate peer institutions on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being “outstanding,” and they are given a “don’t know” option. 25% is made up of a school’s “Selectivity,” or computations of a school’s median LSAT, median undergrad GPA, and acceptance rate. Yet another 20% is based on a school’s “Placement Rate,” which factors in Employment Rates for Graduates (taken at graduation and again 9 months later) and Bar Passage. Finally, there are other smaller factors like Faculty Resources, Expenditures per Student, Library Resources, and Student/Faculty Ratio.

Many of these factors make sense as far as statistical analysis goes, but since we are all aspiring lawyers here, it’s important to point out some logical flaws. Perhaps number one of these is: Where’s the student’s opinion? Without it, we cannot know the quality of professors or student satisfaction with job prospects. And not only are students not directly involved in the methodology, but they are actively hurt by the system it creates. For example, the rankings are designed such that a school can improve its own ranking by admitting only students with the best GPAs and the best LSAT scores. This makes law school more competitive for you and me (sigh…) and leaves less room for schools to admit well-rounded students with a low score but high potential.

Some other less-than-honest ways the system can be worked include the ability of law school officials to vote down other schools in order to increase their own standing and the potential for law schools to offer stipends to students still searching for jobs to increase their employment rates (which we mentioned in a previous blog post). You can find a circa 1998 legitimate analysis of the US News and World Report methodology here.

Despite these possible pitfalls to the US News and World Report system, the value that law firms place on these rankings is not going to go away by the time we receive our acceptance offers. Currently, there is no better alternative (despite what many slighted applicants may write on their blogs), and it’s hard to dismiss US News and World Report’s methodology when it is the best on the block. So what should we do? What percent of our decision should be made up by the rankings? Tune in next week to find out…

The Pros and Cons of a Joint Degree

When it comes to joint degrees, let’s start at the beginning. In legal studies, a joint degree program is a program that offers students the opportunity to work toward their JD and a degree in some other field at the same time, usually in less time than it would take to earn the two degrees separately. This could mean a JD/MBA, a JD/MSW, or even a JD/LLM.

Most universities have pre-established joint degree programs at the graduate and professional levels, but others will allow students to negotiate “JD/(subject of choice)” joint study with any graduate or professional degree offered by the university as long as the student is qualified for both.

A joint degree can be a great choice if you want to distinguish yourself in a particular legal specialty or for opening doors to non-traditional legal positions. For example, a JD/MSW can provide a great background for anything from family to health law, but it can also allow for a smooth transition to a career in government, human services, or non-profit leadership. And a JD/LLM, of course, cuts down on the time one might have to spend specializing if they have a strong sense of an area of law they want to work in.

On the surface, this joint degree business sounds like a good idea – how could some extra specialization hurt? There is no doubt that a joint degree can save you some time (and in legal profession, time matters!), but it doesn’t save you any money (and money also matters…).

It is also important to not use the law degree to simply boost your competitiveness in another field. For starters, not everyone agrees that it boosts your competitiveness in the first place. In the story “Is the Versatility of a Law Degree Just a Myth” on lawjobs.com, individuals with joint degrees found that some employers are not only not impressed, but are convinced that the applicants are unfocused or confused. Conversely, applicants are sometimes viewed as overqualified and are priced out of nontraditional positions. Many individuals are left asking whether the law school price tag (and, consequently, the burden of law school debt) was worth it.

All is not gloom and doom for the joint-degree hopeful, however. After all, can you be an effective corporate lawyer without an MBA (or at least some business experience)? And if you want to practice law, purely and simply, a legal degree with some extra somethin’ somethin’ might not be a bad idea.

You’re just going to want to be sure. Really sure.

And on that note, are you sure about pursuing a joint legal degree? Are you not so sure? Leave a comment and let us know what Carnegie Mellon students are thinking!

NAPLA Law School Locator

It’s the final countdown. You’ve taken the LSAT and you’re satisfied with your score. You’ve worked hard to keep your GPA high. You’ve contacted your references and your third draft of your personal statement will be your last. It’s time to apply to law school. There’s just one problem…

Where the heck are you going to apply?!?

The Northeast Association of Pre-Law Advisors has a tool that can help. It’s called the NAPLA Law School Locator. Each year, it categorizes law schools based on indexes of the average GPAs and LSAT scores of admitted students. Based on your own numbers, you can find your “competitive range,” or the list of schools where you have at least a 50% chance of admission based on numbers alone.

You’re more than just a number, of course, so it’s important to remember that this list is not the end-all, be-all of your law school search. For example, if you know that you want to study a certain specialty or practice in a certain area, you may already have a school in mind. And even if you apply to all of your Law School Locator prescribed law schools, it’s a good idea to apply to schools above and below your suggested range – you just never know!

The NAPLA Law School Locator is not for everyone, but if you are new to this whole law school thing and your time is running out, it can be a great place to start!

A Visit to the Law School Next Door

On Friday, October 15, while many Carnegie Mellon students were headed home for Midsemester Break, six law school hopefuls braved the Pittsburgh morning to attend an exclusive CMU Pre-Law Society visit to the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. The visit was an opportunity to get candid answers to all of our questions about applying to and attending law school (and not just Pitt’s law school!) from those who know it best.

Our day started out with a meeting with Director of Admissions Alexandra Linsenmeyer who described the law school admissions process step-by-step, giving us a sense of what happens to our applications once we mail them off with our fingers-crossed. Because of the intimate size of our group, our conversation was informal, and she was quick to mention her love of Carnegie Mellon students! Alexandra was unintimidating and happy to answer all of our questions – ranging from our deep fears about the competitiveness of our resumes to the details of UPitt-specific features (like legal specialties). If you have any burning questions of your own, I encourage you to contact her directly at alinsenm@pitt.edu.

The Barco Law Building at UPitt houses all of the School of Law

Next, we were sent on a tour of the Barco Law Building with Alexandra’s “favorite law student,” 2L Rachel Morris. Her tour introduced us to some of the coolest features about law at UPitt including the Jurist, a legal news and research service run by students at the law school. The Jurist has gained so much authority in the legal world that it has even been cited by the Supreme Court! You can check it out for yourself at http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/.

Rachel was also a valuable resource in answering our questions about the ins-and-outs of law school – and we spent much of the hour-long tour asking away! She was candid about her own experience applying to law school, attending UPitt, and her future career plans. Plus, she could relate to our own intense undergraduate experiences because of her time at William and Mary, so for CMU students looking for the inside-scoop, she was the girl to see!

Finally, Rachel dropped us off at Legal Process, a 1L course taught by Professor Herring. We had the opportunity to sit in on the entire class session, and this was an awesome chance to get a feel for law school. Professor Herring was intimidating, but we got the sense that he loved to interact with (and challenge!) his students. Overall, the course was a great introduction to the life of a law student, one that you couldn’t get without a special visit like this.

The University of Pittsburgh School of Law visit was organized for the Pre-Law Society by Secretary Jennifer Tharp (a big thanks to her for working so hard to make this visit happen!).  She would love to organize a similar trip to either Pitt or Duquesne law schools for the spring depending on your interest, so be sure to send her an email at jtharp@andrew.cmu.edu if you’d like to see this happen. Remember, even if you aren’t interested in Duquesne or Pitt specifically, the visits are a great opportunity to speak with experienced admissions representatives (or Deans!), connect with current law students, and get a feel for whether or not law school might be right for you – and that’s totally worth waking up at 9am on a Friday, no matter what you say.