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August 04, 2014

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Former Editor

I look forward to the new perspective. The view from the prospective new applicant perspective on a number of the perennial issues should be very informative. In particular, I hope you will talk in some of your later posts about what overlap, if any, there is between the two broad areas you identified. e.g., does more granular information, like the ABA employment disclosures, affect how/where you advise students to apply? If so, how? If not, why not?

JM

"But the arguments envision a prospective applicant so generalized as to be mythical (always a naïve college senior aspiring to BigLaw riches)"

That's no mythical creature. Those people are legion. http://lawlemmings.tumblr.com/

The real mythical creature to me is the straight-laced nice young man, eagle scout, Lions/Rotary club member, 3.5 GPA in Government, 156 LSAT and neatly organized law school appliction folder.

Do you actually come into contact with anyone like this? What are their options? How do you advise them?

BoredJD

I also look forward to this series.

One question is whether you deal with specific students who have goals that are, if not unattainable, highly unlikely, in the sense that they may be making a very large investment without a very good understanding of the career path. I often hear prospective students express interests in being a "constitutional lawyer" "sports lawyer" "international lawyer" or "entertainment lawyer."

"The million-dollar premium assertion, for example, whatever its merit in the aggregate, is mostly meaningless to the aspiring local prosecutor trying to decide when/whether to go to law school, or between Regional School A at a substantial discount and More Prominent School B at full fare – none of her hoped-for paths will likely lead to a million-dollar premium, so now what?"

Related to this, I was wondering to what extent you've found that students tend to associate price with quality, reflexively attending the higher priced school on the assumption that the job prospects justify the costs.

PaulB

I'm curious to see how this plays out, but to be honest, I'm skeptical where you're going. In your final paragraph, you tell us how concerned you are for first generation college students and underrepresented minorities, but nowhere in that paragraph of laundry list subjects do you get around to mentioning the question of the cost of law school versus expected salaries for law school students, the two groups of whom you mention who are most at risk from the lack of honesty by law schools.

Looking forward to see where this discussion leads, but you're not off to a good start.

antiro

I went to a lower-tier law school that has been amping up its enrollment of URM's the last few cycles. Due to the law school's below average bar passage rate and URM's traditional problems with bar passage, I would guess that less than half of the URM's at my school passed the bar on the first try. Due to the way merit aid is distributed at such schools, few of them were likely to receive any discounts, thus would leave law school with probably around $150,000 in law school debt alone.

I can't help but think that this segment of the law school's population would have been especially well-served by good pre-law advisers.

The law school gets to tout diversity and inclusiveness, while the students graduate with six figures of nondischargeable debt and poor bar passage odds and the poor job prospects that come hand-in-hand with their diploma.

Definitely looking forward to seeing what the view is from the undergraduate advising end.

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