Tuesday, January 24, 2012

It's a threepeat!

Tonight I was going over more law school data, and actually made a new chart (more on that later). I thought I'd wrap up the evening's law school perusal by checking my application status at my list of schools. Most law schools let you check the status of your application through some handy web service done by LSAC, and now that my applications are in I get more and more anxious about checking that status.

Anyway, I was making the rounds, and when I checked my Iowa application I happened to come upon this:

"Congratulations!  You have been admitted to the 2012 entering class."



Whoo-hoo! That means I'm 3-for-3!

Nobody jinx it.



So once again I have a specific reason to look forward to mail time.

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This is what I was working on before I discovered the news:


I started thinking about it after BYU's "Law School Boot Camp" on Saturday. I looked up the average starting salary of each school's graduates, and compared it to the average debt.

Some of the law schools' websites couldn't give me a straight answer on average salaries:

* Median, instead of mean/average
** 50th percentile, instead of mean/average
*** 50% of graduates made this much or more
**** Only for private sector jobs

Also, the statistics can be a little misleading because not every single graduate reports back to their alma mater to give that information.

But, I think this can still be somewhat useful. One thing I realized was that it shows there might be some truth to the theory that "you get what you pay for." In other words, a higher ranked school might be more expensive but it's worth the investment.

4 comments:

  1. Median, 50th percentile, and 50% of graduates all mean the same thing. Congrats, though! Sounds like you'll have your pick of schools.

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    Replies
    1. Haha, thanks. It's been a long time since I took a math class, so all I knew for sure was that average and median were different. I just made a note of each law school's explanation behind their number. Some called it a median, some called it a 50% percentile, etc.

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  2. I hate to be Mr. Raincloud...but those numbers still are high and not totally accurate. Law schools continue to fudge their numbers even though the ABA is currently working on fixing that. Those median salaries probably do not account for non-legal jobs. Additionally, those who are working part-time who want to be full or those who are unemployed with zero or lower salary are unlikely to report. So just remember unless you're top 1/3 of your class, those salaries are high and scholarships will be more attractive

    But in good news...the economy seems to be improving and hopefully there will be more jobs out there when you need them even though salaries might still be more depressed than normal.

    Good luck choosing a school.

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    Replies
    1. Yeah, I've heard of the ways that schools make those statistics more attractive. So I'm looking at them with a grain of salt.

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