Love Potion Number ___
The WE RANK STUFF! magazine US News and World Report rankings are out. Talk amongst yourselves.
posted by Dan at 9:06 PM
Monday, March 14, 2011
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67 Comments:
FUCK.
Let's ridicule the rankings rather than acknowledge we are a law school in decline! As our schools tuition continues to become more absurd, less talented students decide to go to Boalt, and our ranking continues to plummet. It's time for DE to admit his strategy of Harvardization has failed, with the unique cheap tuition now gone, there's no reason to pick a progressively more generic law school.
Question: would you rather have new class rooms, or be back at #6. Personally I'd take #6 and top public law school. I'll take my pride/ego and be surrounded by dirty walls thank you very much.
But Dean Edley is so good for our rankings!
Revolution No. 9
@ 9:54 too perfect. Kudos sir/madam.
Damn, should've gone with that. Any more Nine references? Only other things I could think of were those two crappy movies.
Pretty and shiny classrooms are easily worth the reduced employment prospects, higher tuition, and loss of our public school identity.
You guys, I'm not going to pretend we shouldn't care about the rankings. They matter to people, so clearly they have to matter to us.
That said, we slipped from 6 to 9. That is nothing. Seriously, anytime you tell anyone where Boalt is ranked, do you say "top 6" or "top 10?" If you say Top 6, guess what: no one likes you. Otherwise, you can just keep right on saying Top 10. Beyond that, no one cares anyway. I admit that slipping is perhaps an unsettling trend, if it continues, but the Top 14 schools have remained stable forlikeever. I don't expect that to change.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNEWuqY6xzg
Uh the Top 14 are not stable, read the rankings again...
Say it with me folks "SHOULDA GONE TO NYU!"
This comment has been removed by the author.
Here's the fabled T14 along with the total "score" assigned to each school by USNWR. The score is scaled to the top school (Yale). The number in brackets is the score difference between this year and last. Only Harvard declined relative to Yale. Berkeley, Northwestern, and Georgetown stayed the same, and everyone else gained a point or two.
#1 100 Yale
#2 96 [-1] Harvard
#3 94 [+1] Stanford
#4 92 [+1] Columbia
#5 90 [+2] Chicago
#6 89 [+2] NYU
#7 86 [+2] Michigan
#7 86 [+1] UPenn
#9 85 [0] Berkeley
#9 85 [+2] Virginia
#11 83 [+1] Duke
#12 82 [0] Northwestern
#13 80 [+2] Cornell
#14 77 [0] Georgetown DC
It's hard to see this as anything other than statistical noise.
Can't believe I turned down Columbia and Chicago for THIS...
ZOMG! NEVER GOING TO GET A JOB NOW!
11:00, who dropped out of the T14? Did I miss something?
Dan - Texas is now 14.
Also here's this: http://www.freeimagehosting.net/uploads/26fc8afe97.jpg
Zero improvement over the last year.
11:21's comment is spot on. A few other points to consider.
1. The largest component of the USNWR rank are LSAT and uGPA. Has that changed? Based on my informal following of the numbers, Boalt's admission numbers have been on the steady incline on LSAT, but holding steady on uGPA, which was already one of the highest. Did other schools increase relative to Boalt?
2. Has our selectivity decreased? Doubt it. We've consistently been around 4th, behind Yale, HLS, and Stanford.
3. Is there any merit to the comments equating improved law school facilities with lower rankings? No of course not. They're the type of comments one finds on law school discussion boards that have been the subject of subpoenas of late. I'm still puzzled how those comments even make remote sense when a) expenditures by the law school are a factor in the rankings; b) faculty-student ratio is a factor in the rankings; c) the school was ranked 13th the year DE was hired.
So the extra space (item (b) above)? Helped rankings by allowing DE to hire more faculty (as opposed to how the school used to be run...hiring practitioners from the area to teach critical courses on the cheap). As for the additional expenditures (item (a) above), I'm not sure if capital improvements are a factor, but at the very least, the pretty classrooms with chairs that don't break bones, with electrical outlets that allow the use of laptops in classrooms, etc. probably affected the perception of the law school by the likes of 5:42. At one point, you'd be burned at the stake as a heretic if you chose Berkeley over those other schools. The fact that you considered Berkeley in the same breath is a huge improvement. Buyer's remorse is another issue. But the extra expenditure has definitely helped improve recruiting in terms of raw numbers--I'll reserve judgment as to change in quality in other terms. More importantly, (still keeping with item (a) above), the increased fees have shielded students from the violent budget cuts affecting the rest of the state. Again, bear in mind that in 2004, when DE was hired, the school dropped to 13 almost exclusively due to state budget cuts. I shudder to even think where the school would rank if it were still dependent on the whims and follies of Sacramento.
I guess at the risk of being blunt, I think it's mindnumbing that people can fret DE's efforts to bring Berkeley in line with Michigan and Virginia by pointing to a predictable reshuffling of the USNWR rankings to sell issues. I just don't get it.
I'm 8:30. You make a lot of good points Armen, but check out the link I posted right before you. Basically GPA went down a little, LSAT went down (25% is a 162, a 3 point drop), employment went down (but that was true for the vast majority so whatev), admission rate stayed the same (ahead of Harvard this year), and lawyers/judges score stayed the same.
I don't think people equating Edley's efforts with a fall in the rankings, Armen. I think it's just (like you said) buyer's remorse. These people (I'm probably among them) probably justified the extra expenditures & increase in tuition with the thought that we'd be ranked 4th by now, not falling from 6th to 7th, and then again to 9th. But as the data posted by 11:21 suggests, we didn't take a step backwards. Everyone else just took a step forwards. I think Edley's efforts with faculty & recruiting will start to bear fruit in the next few years, and I also think that once our facilities are finished, it will be a draw for students, furthering our selectivity. I can see many students coming on admit day and seeing the gigantic mud pit from hell and being all "Dayamn I'm not going here shit".
Anyway, I didn't realize this, but tuition next year at Berkeley for in-staters will be $44k? WTF. That's a full $23k more than when I started in '07. Are people even going to be able to afford to go to law school anymore? With living expenses, you're looking at an easy $200k+ in loans. And all our peer schools are charging the same. So your choices become: 1) T14 + $220k debt, 2) South Wichita Community Law School/Dance Academy + $40k debt, 3) burger flipper.
I'll go ahead and add 8:30's link as a hyperlink. I'm not sure how the movement of one school proves anything, but reasonable minds can differ. I suspect the 3 point drop in our 25th percentile LSAT and a 3% drop in employment are the biggest contributors, both of which can vary from class to class.
Let me ask any alumni out there, do you work anywhere that pays close attention to USNWR rankings year over year? Or is your employer's recruiting decisions based largely on previous experience with candidates from a particular school, e.g., partners in corner offices pulling for the school, associates hired at an IP conference from a school end up doing really well, resulting in OCIP recruiting in subsequent years, etc. My impression of the profession is that it fairly consistently neglects the annual reshuffling, but looks at the development and caliber of prior recruits. Curious if others have the same impression.
If it helps answer that question you posted in (1), I forgot to mention that the graph will also show that the only other school where both the 25th and 75th percentile of GPA dropped was Stanford. As for LSAT, Chicago saw a drop for both 25/75, and Northwestern's 75% dropped a point. Our 75% stayed the same at 170. Everyone else stayed the same or improved.
Toney, tucked away in your comment is one of my legitimate gripes with DE. For whatever reason, whether it's federal law or something else, all schools calculate cost of living expenses uniformly. If you go to Wash U. in St. Louis, cost of living is $20k. If you live in the Bay Area where $20k will buy you a nice Prius to live in, your cost of living is $20k. This is an outrage. Even a clerk at a podunk government agency gets cost of living adjustments. Yet students in California are expected to live on the same amount as those in Michigan, where $400 a month can get you into a mansion. DE has enough political connections to make a stink about this. I'm not sure if that would get any results, but there should be a stink about it.
I really enjoyed those three years living in a Prius.
where would i find the data to look at Boalt's LSATs and its rank over the last 10-12 years?
Anyone who thinks this reflects any real change in the quality of the education or the student body of any of the schools in the top 14 is an idiot.
Let's all keep positive about this: Boalt has risen to number one for most expensive tuition of any T14 school, this is an accomplishment we can all be proud of BOALT #1!
This isn't meant as a snarky reply to 11:02.
How many Boalt students pay out of state tuition? Does anybody after the first year?
Maybe two or three people who failed to pursue the documentation. But I'm usually the bottom of the barrel in terms of having my shit together, and I got in-state, so I have to assume most everyone else did.
In state is all of $200 less than Harvard, so getting to in state tuition doesn't really become much of a panacea.
Comments: TL;DR - White Whining.
OH SHIT EVERYBODY PANIC
I don't understand 2:36's comment, but I inexplicably still find myself feeling offended. And aroused.
11:41:
Transfer in, summer in another state, say goodbye to instate tuition for third year.
3:08,
What 2:36 did was use the common internet slang for "Too long; Didn't read." He or she then summarized the comments with the term "white whining," which has become popular and is meant to indicate that the complaint of a relatively well off person is really only a complaint because of how well off that person is compared to the gross majority of the people in that person's society and the world in general.
I assume "white whining" is a self-reference to 2:36's own complaint about the previous posts.
Every time someone criticizes the way Dean Edley has been leading this school, and certain set of usual suspects always chimes in, "Yes, but the rankings..."
I find it amusing that some of those same individuals are now saying, "Oh come one, let's focus on the quality of the education..."
Do you honestly find it "amusing?" Do you sniff your own farts, too?
Sorry. I meant, "I find it hypocritical and self-serving."
3:18, that's not true. You're scaring the children.
the "drop" was incredibly small in terms of the formula, and even if the drop in rankings seems enormous we're bouncing around the same slots we've occupied for many years. DE, it seems to me, has for the most part taken the steps to keep our position strong now and for the future. there was a little stumble a few years back when we decided to drop our incoming LSATs and our rankings fell, but we reversed course on that. the economy is bad, but boalt's rankings stay strong.
All these neurotic commenters make me embarrassed to be a Boaltie.
The reason I came to Boalt is because it's student body (mostly) doesn't whine like like the three-year-olds that make up the student bodies at our "peer" schools. Frankly, the types of people who give a shit about rankings are the types of people that I don't give a shit about.
We're in California. Shut the fuck up and go smoke some pot. Enjoy your last few years/months as a student before you enslave yourself to your future employer. (And yes, you can still get a job, even with our new rank.)
11:25 is soooooooo cooooooooooooooool.
Hey, 11:25: if you were REALLY cool, then you wouldn't "give a shit" about people who give a shit about shit you don't give a shit about. Comprende?
11:25: I take pride in our school, and I pay tens of thousands of dollars to go here. So I'm going to ask questions and be concerned when the school isn't the best it can be.
@12:59: I don't think 11:25 wants to be cool. As a fellow law student, by definition, none of us are "cool." And 11:25 doesn't need to give a shit about you to be annoyed at you. Maybe he's just embarrassed that so many of his fellow students care so much about a stupid little magazine's ploy to sell more issues.
11:25 is correct.
And the responses proved her point :)
To raise an issue previously mentioned, as a current 0L seriously considering boalt, I am curious, how good and cheap is the pot there?
On the bright side, once you little kiddies leave boalt's sweet embrace and get jobs, you won't care anymore about the rankings more than a simple "oh, thats interesting" and a swift return back to real life.
Unless you become one of the people with jobs that actually do care. We call those people Above the Law commenters.
The pot is amazing and everflowing. Cheapest in the country. We are ranked number 1 in amazing drug hookups.
For those of you who say things like, "I SHOULD HAVE GONE TO NYU OR COLUMBIA!!!!!" I totally agree. You should have.
2:29, I've got a guy who will deliver generous $40 eighths of medical grade within 15 minutes of my call/text. And you can smoke it on the street without anyone looking sideways. Oh, and its 72 degrees and sunny 250+ days a year. Also, you can eat the most amazing meals you've ever.had.in.your.life all sourced from within 100 miles. 3 hours to Tahoe, a few more to Yosemite, beautiful hikes 5 minutes from campus. But yeah, we're 9th now according to USNWR, so you may want to consider other places like Hyde Park or Ann Arbor to spend the next 3 years.
worth repeating. learn math, you petulant little freaks:
Here's the fabled T14 along with the total "score" assigned to each school by USNWR. The score is scaled to the top school (Yale). The number in brackets is the score difference between this year and last. Only Harvard declined relative to Yale. Berkeley, Northwestern, and Georgetown stayed the same, and everyone else gained a point or two.
#1 100 Yale
#2 96 [-1] Harvard
#3 94 [+1] Stanford
#4 92 [+1] Columbia
#5 90 [+2] Chicago
#6 89 [+2] NYU
#7 86 [+2] Michigan
#7 86 [+1] UPenn
#9 85 [0] Berkeley
#9 85 [+2] Virginia
#11 83 [+1] Duke
#12 82 [0] Northwestern
#13 80 [+2] Cornell
#14 77 [0] Georgetown DC
It's hard to see this as anything other than statistical noise.
6:40 wins for best comment ever.
(and, I agree -- anyone who would rather go somewhere that's higher ranked because it's higher ranked: please go somewhere else.)
2:29, for even more perspective on the state of the weed market in ca: you can buy $100 ounces of perfectly decent trees off of craigslist. yes, i know someone who's done this, recently, with success.
I'm only posting anonymously to not be a douche:
I DID get into higher ranked schools. Some as high as number two! But chose not to go, and I don't regret it. It's great here. The culture, some of the people, the internet commenters. It's great. So what if our relationship to the other schools in the T14 has changed (our raw score hasn't), at least I'm at a place that allows me a little perspective, a lot of sun, and the feeling I can be a human with interests outside of law school.
1:12, would you feel the same way if you were going to be unemployed and had to move back in with your parents? Who says you can't "feel human" at other schools?
I doubt magical U.S. News juju would have planted you in the perfect job if you didn't get one from Boalt.
The grass is always greener on the other side, despite the discussion of the quality of the green grass at Berkeley.
From an alum: How did the class of 2012 do at their OCIP this year (any percentages/guesses at percentages of those with firm jobs)?
While I know many people who will be at firms, I also know many who didn't even get a callback.
Someone asks if employers pay attention to these things. I work at an NGO and the rankings were sent out to the office over email last week. The person who sent them (Stanford grad) wrote in the subject line: "sorry Boalties."
6:52, that's pretty tacky of the Stanford alum.
I'm an associate at a large firm that generally only hires from the T14. I have never once heard anyone mention the rankings, ever. We recruit at the schools where we recruit, and we look for top candidates at those schools. Period. I'm sure someone somewhere is aware of the rankings, but we aren't suddenly going to be looking for extra Penn and Michigan students because Boalt "dropped."
the rankings are the framework for evaluating the schools and for making the basic decisions about where to recruit. notice how 8:01 says that her/his firm recruits from the t14 but doesn't use the rankings. (but t14 is an artifact of US News rankings.)
most firms also hire from local schools and from whatever schools the partners came from. when firms decide what schools to add or drop, the school's rank is very important.
I think you misunderstand 8:01's point pretty thoroughly. First, the concept of T14 is a creation of online discussion boards (again, the kind that have been hit with subpoenas of late). Are there certain schools that have very strong reputations across the nation? Yes. Do large national/international firms emphasize their recruiting on those schools? Yes. No one is quarreling with that. That's been standard practice for decades, once firms decided to follow the Cravath model. But accepting point A does not take you to point B, which is where schools huddle around a leaked copy of the US News rankings like a GM huddling with his head scout over potential draft picks. That's just not how it works.
Err...law firms huddling around a leaked copy...not schools. I'm sure schools do that.
Also, this is more relevant to Dan's post regarding post-grad employment, but some changes on reporting may be afoot. Story here.
Which school will be most affected by the changes? My fantasy draft pick for law school that fudges the numbers most is Penn.
Armen,
Thanks for responding but I'm not sure you're responding to what I wrote. I didn't say that "firms huddle around a leaked copy of the US News rankings like a GM huddling with his head scout over potential draft picks." I'm claiming that those rankings have so set the framework that every firm is using them if the firm doesn't think it's using them expressly.
And, btw, the "top 14" terms was well entrenched years before teh internet tubes and crazy sites had been invented.
I think his point is that the T14 have always been the same schools, so movement within that group hasn't really affected firms. Although this year Texas made its may in tied at 14, so maybe that will make it a top 15 rather than 14?
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