Date: December 22nd, 2008 8:58 PM Author: Beta Crawly Stage
i used to think uchi because of it's "seriousness and legal philosophy" but now that i know that's all bukllshit and boalr is ranked higher, there's no reason not to go to cali.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:20 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
BoalTTT is a joke, even within Cali.
BoalTTT students are not taken seriously unless they are at the very top of the class - when you add in that the middle 80% of BoalTTT's class gets lumped together and screwed over by their TTT grading system, and no one even knows enough about Chicago's arcane ass grading system to really interpret class ranking there (and so they just assume that you did alright and give you the benefit of the doubt because it's "rigorous"), I think that UofC is clearly the winner here.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:26 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Would you rather be median at Boalt or median at UofC aiming for BIGLAW outside of Cali?
Even within Cali, at median I think Chicago is probably the safer bet because Chicago grads are harder to come by (especially on the West Coast) and therefore more in demand. Not to mention that the difference between the judge and peer reputation between the two institutions is considerable.
I agree that if you're not looking to clerkships or academia and you have a crystal ball that tells you you will graduate top 10%, Boalt>UofC. In all other circumstances, however, reverse that.
"Even within Cali, at median I think Chicago is probably the safer bet because Chicago grads are harder to come by (especially on the West Coast) and therefore more in demand."
Rarity is not valued in biglaw.
They largely dont care but to the extent they do, they want someone who is likely to stick around and has ties to the area
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:34 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
That's not correct. Top firms definitely seem to care about being able to say that they have all of the top schools (esp. T6) represented, and the fact that UofC has a small class and that they tend not to head West would definitely qualify as a benefit for placement in LA/SF coming from UofC IMO.
You're right that firms want someone who is likely to stick around. However, SF/LA (which are the only real legal markets in Cali worth shooting for as far as I'm concerned) don't exactly require strong ties - they know they're primary markets, and they know they're damn desirable. They're not as worried about "close ties" as Milwaukee.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:31 PM Author: Beta Crawly Stage
based on the lsat scores boalt lets in coupled with their high minority/unusual student body, i think top 15=20% is achievable. plus moot court and i'd be golden for omm or quinn in la.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 10:00 PM Author: Yellow Bipolar Meetinghouse Personal Credit Line
LOL you have no idea what you're talking about brah. Boalt has an excellent reputation both in and outside of California. Boalties in the bottom 1/4 can fairly easily get BIGLAW (at least they could 2 years ago) as long as they were decent interviewers. Granted, UChi pwns Boalt on clerkships and academia, but I think that gap is narrowing.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 10:07 PM Author: Yellow Bipolar Meetinghouse Personal Credit Line
Boalt students tend to be far less square/douchebag-y than students/alums from other T14 schools. And despite the stereotypes, there are a lot of good looking chicks there (at least my year there was).
Date: December 22nd, 2008 10:21 PM Author: Comical indigo incel site
I don't doubt it. A decent school (say, HYSCCNMVBP) means that people know they'll get a decent job, which means people are generally laid back. People w/o friends at other T14 schools think that theirs must be the only laid back place.
That said, if you want to compare uptightness among good schools, GPA:LSAT ratio would probably be the most obvious measure. Boalt is likely one of the more uptight schools of the T14.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 10:17 PM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
Because anyone who went to a top engineering/science program doesn't have a 3.8. Only one person person in my graduating class in my major had above a 3.5
Edit: I'm defining top broadly. Like literally any research school I've heard of that actually teaches science as if everyone is going to grad school in the discipline.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:54 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Like I said: UofC is a quickly sinking deathpit of antisocial faggotry and baseless pretension to long past glory.
And with all that said, when you compare the clerkship/academia placement and the peer/judge reputations of BoalTTT and UofC, it's STILL painfully clear that your generalization is bullshit.
These schools are not even close to being on the same level. There's no argument here.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:03 PM Author: transparent field
How can you even compare the two!? I attend a T2 school and my school's 75th percentile is higher than Boalt's 25th percentile! Sorry, but I can't classify a school where 25% of the student body could very well be at my school, a T2, (and whose LSAT numbers are within the same range as the numbers at my school) elite or prestigious. Chicago is the obvious choice.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:23 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Yeah, going to a school with dumbs is great in the short term.
Until you graduate and realize that no matter what USNWR thinks, the judges/partners who will actually control your career path think that your school is a fucking joke because your dumbass classmates have embarrassed themselves and the institution once too many times. And they take you, as a BoalTTT grad, less seriously as a result.
Regardless of whether UofC is on the decline or not, Chicago grads will never face that problem, which makes Chicago the de facto winner here.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:28 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Given that I'm probably one of the biggest Chicago haters on this entire board, I think my points here are actually pretty solid. Chicago is a shithole on the decline, but it still solidly beats Boalt.
i just wonder your connection to chicago. i imagine you're either affiliated in some way or were a ug reject and ended up @ st. john's pursuing teh life of teh mind.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:37 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
I have no reason to troll for Chicago. I just honestly think Boalt is a POS school and I LOL IRL when I hear BoalTTTies bragging about their USNWR spot like they're finally "made it". And I say all that as someone who was accepted there and turned them down.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:42 PM Author: Adventurous spot black woman
dude give it a break. how many boalties do you know? the ones i know are very successful. one is a figure in antitrust, one teaches at one of yhs. i know - *gasp* - how could someone from boalttt pull that off???
the xoxo boalt isn't the real boalt. cry anecdotal all you want, but if you want to go that route you have to explain its acceptance rate.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:45 PM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
There are successful people from any school. What do you need explained about the acceptance rate? Lots of high gpa/low lsat people apply there because it is their only hope.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:55 PM Author: Adventurous spot black woman
give me links to data supporting the claim that boalt's average gpa is statistically more common than average LSAT's at boalt's peers, and i'll consider your claim a lesson learned.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:01 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
140,000 people took the LSAT last year. A 170 is something around 98.5 percentile I think. That means about 2000 students in the world got above a 170 (ignoring retakes).
I'm sure far more students who applied to law school had above a 3.7 or 3.8 GPA.
Edit: I realize this doesn't prove anything about the people who apply to boalt. But it shows how few 170+s are out there. Add to this the fact that lots of 170 scorers don't apply to boalt because they don't want to go to berkeley and they have better options.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:05 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
this is just a common sense proof too. if we define 'high gpa' as anything above 3.7, then it's easy: consider the ratio of 3.7+ GPAs to 170+ LSAT scores at every single school in the country - ridiculously higher number of high GPAs. Even the best schools are going to only have a couple of dozen really high LSAT scores; every school produces large numbers of high GPA students, especially in the currently hilarious era of grade inflation.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:25 AM Author: Adventurous spot black woman
why would 3.7 be a "pretty fucking accurate" approximation of the average if 3.7 is 25th percentile?
anyway, if we say 3.8 is roughly the average GPA, what's the national percentile of a 3.8 GPA? if it's above the national percentile of a 170 i'll concede your point. christ, i don't even give a fuck to begin with. lol
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:30 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
Because we were talking about the number of people with a certain GPA that APPLY to Boalt because they might have a chance. We don't care what the actual class is. Lots of people with a 3.7 will apply and not get in.
Enjoy Golden Gate.
If you really think there are more 170+ Lsats then 3.7 or 3.8 or whatever GPA, then enjoy People's.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:46 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
REED ALERT
but seriously, don't assume that this is the case everywhere. i went to a highly ranked large private, and we had multiple 4.0s in every major, including a shitload in my TTT department. there are a ton of high GPAs walking around. only 2000 kids a year score above a 170 in the LSAT. it's not hard to surmise that the ratio is tipped to LSAT scores.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:48 AM Author: Adventurous spot black woman
somewhere like that
edit: fair enough, as regards average LSAT vs. average GPA's. no one's given me a link yet but i agree, having thought about it now, it stands to reason.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:05 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
i tried googling some different criteria dude, but as you can imagine i got like 1.2 million weird results.
but let's put it like this. say the UC system spits out 10,000 grads a year - it's probably more, but i just picked an easy number. say a 3.8+ GPA makes you top 5% of the class - again, i bet it would be closer to top 15%, but it's easy. that's 500 3.8+ GPAs just from the UC system alone that year, or 25% of the total number of 170+ LSAT scores.
but honestly, we're not just speculating here. talk to any law school admissions person, they'll be happy to answer your questions. GPA is not as valuable as LSAT at most any school, and high GPA/low LSAT splitters are substantially more common than the reverse.
Date: December 25th, 2008 10:22 AM Author: motley chestnut resort
I agree with your main point, but you are comparing total number of people with high GPAs/LSATs here when you should be comparing the number of high GPAs/LSATs that apply to law school. Virtually everyone with a high LSAT does, but not nearly everyone with a high GPA does. With that said, people applying to law school with high GPAs is still far more prevalent than people applying with high LSAT scores.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:14 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
edit: also, not every school produces high numbers of high gpa's.
Yes they do. Just think about a state school like PSU with 40,000 undergrads. I'd have to bet at least 2,000 people have above a 3.7 if not many more. That equals the amount of 170+ lsat scores in the whole country for a year.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:21 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
"also, not every school produces high numbers of high gpa's."
dude, you're really flailing now. even if, say, only 50% of all major colleges produced their current numbers of high GPAs, then high GPAs would still outnumber really high LSATs at roughly, oh, a bajillion to one.
there's a reason a high LSAT score is valued at a premium in admissions - it's significantly more rare.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:28 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Unless you went to HYP for undergrad, it pretty much doesn't matter whether you want to Bumfuck State College of Haberdashery or UVA. You seem to consistently not know what you are talking about.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:30 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
no, they really do. that's pretty much a great myth of admissions. they might make some distinction between swarthmore and north carolina central state, but generally it won't come into play. if anything you're weighed against any other applicants from your school.
even then, school quality hardly matters as most of the best schools have the highest grade inflation. the ivies are the most notorious of all.
but that's all still irrelevant - fact remains that high GPAs are abundant every year while high LSATs are not. that is why the LSAT is weighed more heavily in admissions in just about every law school, with boalt being a notable exception.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:43 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
"even then, school quality hardly matters as MOST of the best schools have the highest grade inflation." (emphasis added)
How does your post even begin to refute this? You list six schools - two of which are technology specialty schools and three of which are tiny ass liberal arts schools - that are notorious precisely because they buck this otherwise solid trend and prove what? He's right.
"the ivies are the most notorious of all."
"princeton arguably has far less than the other ivies."
Not only was that not responsive to the point being made, but he's talking about the ivies compared to other good schools while you're making an intra-ivy comparison.
It's quickly becoming apparent that you would be lucky to even get into BoalTTT, friend.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:45 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
This is just reinforcing our point. I think most people would rather have a 3.3 engineer from MIT with a 172 LSAT than a 3.9 influences of german porn on basketweaving major from Oklahoma State with a 162.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:01 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
I never post here so they don't even know who I am. Since we were all arguing the same side of the issue, I think "our" was appropriate. It's not like we had a meeting in my mom's basement yesterday to plan our strategy of attack on Mystic Hippy.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:02 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Dude you left your trapper keeper at my house. Can you get it tomorrow sometime before 7? Mom says we're eating early (you can stay if you want tho, she's making tacos)
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:06 AM Author: Adventurous spot black woman
that's even better, it's like one of those rare crossings of the stars. you know led zeppelin 1 was recorded in 36 hours, after jimi page and robert plant had just met?
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:17 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
I went to a couple shows in high school. I stopped listening to them early college. Went to Langerado and Bonnaroo. Now I have no time to go see these bands and listening to studio albums sucks, so I've drifted away from the jam bands.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:10 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
yeah, but that should tell you something. based on what they've said, i'm assuming the other two dudes are law students or grads, so we're speaking from experience. and, the fact that we're basically echoing each others points should indicate that what we're saying isn't some anti-boalt special line of reasoning - it's pretty much commonly understood by people who have really looked at admissions and law school quality.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:46 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
uh, yeah, a couple exceptions to the rule, which like i said, they may take into account. but the chances are pretty high that if you go to fucking mit or caltech, then you're not going to top out at a 163 on the LSAT like 90% of the other 4.0 students out there.
you're doing something right now that will get you pwned pretty hard in law school, which is selecting special cases as points of proof for an argument that you're trying to put forth as the general trend. it doesn't stack up. a 3.5 from oberlin really isn't viewed differently than a 3.5 from texas A&M in 95% of all admissions scenarios. it's not worth their time or interest to break down some itemized difficulty score for each schools carious departments - it's a raw numbers game and law schools are taking care of their margins, not making sure they perform a good faith effort to see if you had to work just a little harder to get that 3.6 in philosophy at lewis and clark.
and lol at reed - you really are a west coaster. it's cool, i am too.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:40 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
And that's precisely why Boalt's student body is fucking retarded compared to the rest of the T10 in spite of their superficially elite acceptance rate. It doesn't get simpler than that.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:52 PM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
it's pretty easy to explain - high app volume from otherwise TTT students who think it's more attainable because of the lower LSAT average, plus the fact the student body self-selects pretty hard. ad comms are formula based entities, and they have a very clear idea of who will and won't yield pwn them. most of the people getting into boalttt, especially all the retarded AA and high GPA splitter students, know they don't have a prayer anywhere else below Duke, so they're much more likely to attend boalttt than, say, your average Penn or Chicago admit, who probably have other options of similar quality. boalt purposefully creates this dynamic with their admissions process, by the way.
acceptance rate means shit - maryland and penn have roughly the same acceptance rate, do they have comparable student bodies? boalt is the dream school for the average dumb striver who can't really get a grip on the lsat but feels their 4.0 in multicultural studies properly makes them a top law school applicant.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:57 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
pwned.
If this is how easy it is to shut down a BoalTTTie on an internet message board, I can see why they don't get much respect in the courtroom or the boardroom.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:05 AM Author: Adventurous spot black woman
re: " high app volume from otherwise TTT students who think it's more attainable because of the lower LSAT average" -
see my comment above. if you can provide that data, i'll recognize your point.
re: "the student body self-selects pretty hard. ad comms are formula based entities, and they have a very clear idea of who will and won't yield pwn them. most of the people getting into boalttt, especially all the retarded AA and high GPA splitter students, know they don't have a prayer anywhere else below Duke, so they're much more likely to attend boalttt than, say, your average Penn or Chicago admit, who probably have other options of similar quality. boalt purposefully creates this dynamic with their admissions process, by the way" -
i personally have the same opinion. but it's just an opinion. i dunno, i have no reason to troll for boalt, other than that i know some very cool and impressive people who went there. it's just tiresome to see it bashed all the time here in what seems to me like, when it comes down to it, a pretty retarded fashion.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:11 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
"i dunno, i have no reason to troll for boalt, other than that i know some very cool and impressive people who went there. it's just tiresome to see it bashed all the time here in what seems to me like, when it comes down to it, a pretty retarded fashion."
I don't think people are claiming that Boalt is a shit school in the grand scheme of all law schools. Most are just claiming it really isn't a top 6 and not even a top 10 school. Some professor did a study showing that small increases in GPA among the T14 matters more in rankings then lsat points, but I forget who.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:16 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
look dude, you seem nice, so let me put it this way - your impression of the school isn't based on rationality. you seem to think it's cool based on the anecdotal experience of a couple of people and general hearsay around people you know in it's home area.
secondly, you cite the acceptance rate - as i already pointed out, that doesn't mean anything. Georgia State has a 2% higher acceptance rate than Columbia - what does that tell you? it's a feature of the admissions process as a particular school, not the quality of the school. Duke has a higher acceptance rate than WUSTL, but obviously Duke is a better school with a more qualified student body. got the idea yet?
the thread is concerned with whether boalt is better than chicago for post-grad purposes. chicago crushes boalt in firm placement, clerkships, and basically any other criteria you can think of. the usnwr isn't 100% reflective of total quality, it's just a good approximate. remember, this is the same publication that has ranked iowa in the lows 20s.
so, while there may be some boalt bashing going in here, nobody is actually making any arguments that can't hold water. its ranking is not reflective of its quality - it has the weakest student body in the T14 and it likely has one of the weakest job placement levels in the T14.
it's a quirky place and i'm sure it's just fine for many people who want that, but understand that you're not making any objective evaluations of the place when you state that it's a 'great school.' by the metrics of the kind of person who would prefer harvard, columbia, chicago, etc, boalt is dogshit and much lower ranked schools are preferable.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:31 AM Author: Adventurous spot black woman
hmmm. thanks for taking the time to elaborate. i really have no horse in this race, and i also kind of despise US News for all sorts of reasons. i've just never understood why people look down on boalt here. this makes more sense of it.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:37 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
no problem.
the real dislike of boalt stems from the fact that it does admit less qualified students due to the gpa scheme, which most certainly was employed for the dual purposes of making it the 'diversity' law school, and secondly to help set them apart in the rankings, which has worked very well. recently their administration has been trumping for just eliminating the lsat altogether, which is probably just more posturing than serious intention, but all the same the fact that they don't just build their reputation on solid teaching and resources like most schools and instead rely on the 'we're different' antics is fairly offputting to most. they pretend to be indifferent, but the school plays the rankings game harder than anybody.
also, there's a whiff of hypocrisy about their assertion of being the most diverse law school, as their students are probably the most ideologically clustered in the T14.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:40 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
I have to agree with this. I also think a lot of the dislike comes from Boalt students trumpeting that their school is equal or better than the rest of the T10, when it is behind in everything (faculty, placement, student body, etc) except GPA, which with the difference between majors and ugs doesn't say much.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:59 AM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
people there did seem to have sort of a superior attitude as well, which i thought was hilarious considering the numbers. people at my school, which is ranked lower, always joke that we're a bunch of TTTs and bitter hys rejects - the cool people don't take it seriously at all. all i heard from the boalties was that boalt was 'the only law school they would have considered going to' and apparently every single one of them happily shat on stanford and yale so they could attend a really unique place like boalt. totally self-serious bunch of people.
also, typically, not a single person i met there over a period of six days - with the exception of some IP tech dudes - would admit they were going to just go work at a law firm. it was hilarious how averse they were to being labeled as a future l'awyer' that would have anything to do with business or the regular practice of law. one girl swore to god that her only goal was to return to her hometown in buttfuck kansas and do juvi defense, and that boalt was the only law school she applied to because her friend recommended it and she knew nothing of rankings, the legal profession, etc. weird kids, highly pretentious.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:06 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
Yeah, I like the fact that a large majority of my school admit they are in law school for the money. Generally, no one cares if our ranking changes as long as biglaw hiring at the school doesn't.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:49 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
I can point to several Cooley grads who are objectively incredibly successful.
What do you think your anecdotal evidence proves? How about you pull up some real statistical evidence of national placement in BIGLAW between UofC and Boalt (we won't even get into academia/clerkships, where there is not even a pretense to these schools being peers) and then we can have this disucssion.
UofC may be the fucking Titanic, but Boalt never had the glory and the prestige to begin with among people who really know, and it still doesn't. That's what we're talking about.
"but if you want to go that route you have to explain its acceptance rate."
I can rebut that in one sentence: they have a highly idiosyncratic selection process that, incidentally, is precisely why they have such a shitty student body - they take a bunch of dumbfuck kids with 3.9s in sociology who literally wouldn't be accepted to any other T14 school because their LSAT score is T2 level while dinging 90% of the "normal" T14 candidates. If you think that's some brilliant strategy, I can see why you fit in well at BoalTTT.
FWIW, I was accepted to the school (with matched scholarship offer), visited, and turned it down. I also personally know multiple people who are either alumni or current students. I'm not completely operating on shallow, unfounded stereotypes here.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 10:16 PM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
Relative to the rest of the T10 it is. Why is a 3.8 in sociology impressive? Most people could get a high GPA in plenty of majors by working hard to memorize shit.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 10:25 PM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
Dude, there is nothing to memorize after intro chem or physics. I assume you've never taken organic chem or quantum mechanics. My upperlevel polisci, history, philosophy classes were a joke. Everyone can get a damn A. My science classes were curved to a C+.
Edit: I'll agree that grad level liberal arts classes are about research/writing. But ug classes in psychology, sociology, education, poli sci etc are not.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:38 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
TCR x1000. Exactly.
Rebutting my assertions about the TTTness of Boalt by pointing out that objectively, BoalTTTies are not actually dumb compared to average Americans is kind of like arguing that Detroit Lions are actually good because they could soundly trounce every single college team in the nation. Great argument...did you attend Boalt by any chance?
Date: December 22nd, 2008 9:29 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Well I guess if you know that you want to be in SF for the rest of your life and don't care about the portability of your degree or the potential for entering academia, then Boalt is probably the winner here.
Funny that I didn't see those stipulations in the OP. My reading skills must be TTT.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 10:25 PM Author: vibrant foreskin associate
chicago is a better school but I'd take boalt just because i'd finish higher in the class with less work, or worst case scenario just blend in with the middle of the class if i decided i didn't want to study for three years.
but boalt is really stuffed full of idiots, hilarious AA admits, and outright nerds who are even worse than other T6 schools. the student body is the worst of the worst. i visited for a week when a relative was a 3L and their 'parties' were the sorriest shit i've ever seen.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:41 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
This is so TCR it hurts. Anyone who has ever visited the campus (as I have, unfortunately) knows how hideous and horrifically nerdy/weird 95% of the student body is.
And that's compared to UofC Law, which is hardly a beacon of social grace and good times.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:59 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
Hard to say, depends what you are like, if you want to live in a city or your fine with a place like Charlottesville or AA, if you want to hang-out with non-law school people you know etc. Student bodies definitely vary to some extent, but I think other factors are more important. At any school there will be kids you chill with and kids you don't.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:43 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
I have infinite love for the state of California, but making the argument that ALL of the BoalTTTies self select *themselves* out of the East Coast markets (as opposed to getting pwned by their noTTTorious reputation there) because they just can't bear to leave California for any amount of money or prestige is hilarious.
Date: December 22nd, 2008 11:53 PM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Please continue to brilliantly rebut all of the stereotypes of BoalTTT's notoriously liberal, wishy-washy approach to life, "Mystic Hippy". You seem like an objective and clear minded fellow, "Mystic Hippy".
Date: December 23rd, 2008 12:06 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
And that's TCR in spite of the double dose of TTTness that is the 6 month long Chicago winter and the horror of living in Hyde Park.
Considering that Boalt is located in a unique and quirkily cool city in the best state in the nation, I think the fact that it still gets objectively pwned this hard by a school that is otherwise hampered by two serious disadvantages is pretty fucking damning.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:18 AM Author: Metal Striped Hyena
Berkeley is easily one of the worst cities in the country. It's dirty and full of hippie townies, crazy homeless, ugly undergrads, pseudo intellectual douchebags, and other genetically disadvantaged shitheads.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:49 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
I sure as shit wouldn't live there for a long time or think about raising a family there, but I can think of about a million worse college towns/cities to go to school to for three years.
I guess you should probably go to Boalt if you want to get into BIGPUBLICINTERESTLAW or go back to Grad School afterwards. Otherwise, I think it's safe to say
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:00 AM Author: Vigorous startled library doctorate
I skimmed the thread. I can't believe people are even debating this. Yeah it's cute that Boalt made the US News top 6 for one year, but it's kind of fucked up for people in this thread to imply Boalt and Chicago are even in the same league.
In terms of job placement, the only schools you should consider in the same breath as Chicago are HYSC.
These battles talking about Penn v Chicago, NYU v Chicago, Boalt v Chicago are a joke unless you're a 0L looking at US News.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 3:10 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
Your horrible anti-Chicago/pro-NYU trolling in the other thread invalidates any opinion you might have here. Not surprising, because an NYU v. Chicago thread would look very much like this one. And once again, the fact that Chicago is literally a shadow of its former glory and still handily pwns sTTTriver schools like Boalt/NYU says everything that needs to be said about these institutions.
You are well named, for you clearly lack any pretense to prestige.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 3:40 AM Author: Vigorous startled library doctorate
I'm not one of those people, but you're not really arguing that US News should be relevant here are you? Isn't the fact that a school's rank can change several spots in a year enough evidence for you that these rankings are pretty fucking stupid, one way or the other.
Agree or disagree:
Job prospects at Chicago are significantly better than Boalt.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 3:48 AM Author: Kink-friendly aromatic station
Fair, but what yarstick do you use to measure law schools then? What is your basis that job prospects at Chicago are significantly better than Boalt? If you come back with the NLJ's law firm placement ranking or douche Leiter's ranking, I want to ask you why are thoese rankings more credible than US News?
Date: December 23rd, 2008 4:05 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
The NLJ study isn't perfect, but it cuts to the heart of the issue. People go to law school to get legal jobs. Using it to see firm placement + clerkship gives you a transparent method of judging. Granted it has flaws - more Yale kids do PI, less Penn kids are interested in clerkships, doesn't distinguish between traffic court and COA - but it gives you a general sense especially if you know the quirks of some schools.
OTOH, USNews is not transparent, nor do a lot of the factors actually have any real influence on hiring -- acceptance rate, falsified employment rates, expenditures per student, student/faculty raio,library resources. Plus all these can be and are gamed heavily. People always used USNews for a rough estimation of employment prospects.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 4:11 AM Author: Kink-friendly aromatic station
I am glad you saw the flaws of the NLJ study.
Unfortunately, these flaws are fatal. Any study that suggested Upenn had better biglaw prospects than Yale is a fucking joke and should be ignored. If anything, NLJ is even more TTT than USNews. HTH.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 4:22 AM Author: Vigorous startled library doctorate
You don't actually disagree that Chicago places better than Boalt. Why are you arguing about whether these studies can conclusively prove what you know is true anyway?
Have you ever worked at a firm or been involved in the hiring at all? My DC firm would go significantly deeper into Chicago's class than Boalt's.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 4:24 AM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
How can you not infer something? A larger percent of Yale either went to a NLJ250 firm or Clerked than those at Penn. Further, about 8% of Penn's class took a firm job outside the NLJ250. Maybe a couple people went back to their small hometowns, but for Yale, 0 people went to a firm outside the 250. That leads me to conclude that some people at Penn (~10% when including unemployment, maybe some people who are doing PI and don't want, minus a handful of people who went to small firms in small towns) couldn't get biglaw, while everyone at Yale got what they wanted. That description of Penn is pretty accurate from my knowledge.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 7:41 AM Author: disrespectful goyim stock car
fuckprestige, you are a duplicitous faggot. Are you really trying assert that the the numbers obscure Yale's superiority?
You're making the argument that the numbers don't portray a 100% illustrative picture of a school's quality and thus aren't really useful and should be dismissed. This only makes sense if we, the evaluators, have absolutely no knowledge of law schools or hiring within which we can place the NLJ numbers for context. Everybody knows Yale is the best school, even law school neophytes, and thus nobody who looks at the stats is going to say, "Hey! Yale isn't so hot after all!" This would be the natural conclusion of the ridiculous argument you're putting forth, which you know to be false.
The NLJ placement is good approximation of quality, and when combined with an understanding of a particular school's strengths and supplementary data like clerkship numbers and elite firm placement, it's damn near comprehensive.
You're a fucking idiot and I hope you drown in vat of simmering piss.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 4:17 AM Author: Vigorous startled library doctorate
All I care about is placement. Do we really have to argue whether you're better off for firms at Chicago over Boalt? And obviously there's no comparison with clerkships and academia. Yeah, it's partly based on studies like those, and even based on the part of US News that should matter most to us (the reputation scores), but also based on the common wisdom I've gained working at a firm.
I guess my point is if you want to say this thread bashes Boalt too much, fine. But Boalt v Chicago is not a serious debate.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:35 PM Author: Kink-friendly aromatic station
I am fine with the claim that you might be better off for firms at Chicago, other things equal. However, the naked truth is other things are rarely equal. Law school grades, interview skills, and personality are all important factors as well. It is silly to suggest that you will be "significantly better off" at chicago, absent any credible evidence to substantiate this claim.
So Boalt v. Chicago is a serious debate. The difference in prestige in minor. The cost of attendance, school culture, and the weather are very different.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 1:59 PM Author: Kink-friendly aromatic station
Perhaps no, but your law school grades can be very different. My point is that the prestige of the law school is not a dispositive factor, not to mention chicago and boalt are comparable schools. Is there a difference in prestige between these schools? Yes. However, you guys are blowing it out of the proportion. You are most likely to do well at a place you feel comfortable. Additionally, the difference in the cost of attendance,location, and the culture are greater than that in prestige. HTH.
Date: December 23rd, 2008 3:40 AM Author: thirsty judgmental point dingle berry
To be fair,
LOL at you thinking I have a Chicago degree.
LOL at you thinking I work or would even want to work in "the law".
LOL at your terrible shtick - and this coming from one of the most controversial and widely criticized shticks in XO history.
I hope your children have hemophilia and die from hemorrhagic hemorrhoids at a tragically young age. Alternately, I hope you stop posting and never start again.
Date: December 25th, 2008 2:06 PM Author: walnut stead hissy fit
Isn't that the definition of lay prestige? Anyone who considers lay prestige instead of prestige among hiring partners doesn't belong in law school. Cornell>NYU.
Date: December 6th, 2009 1:01 PM Author: floppy gunner house
these are probably the two most different schools in the top 14 going by atmosphere and focus. chicago's almost certainly a better school, but not by nearly a wide enough margin to choose it if you're a boalt type person.