Best 117 Law Schools 2005 Edition (Graduate School Admissions Gui) [Paperback]

Princeton Review (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 21, 2004 | Series: Graduate School Admissions Gui (Book 117)

Very minimal signs of shelf wear to cover, but all pages are clean, bright and intact. Binding is tight. SHIPS NEXT BUSINESS DAY!

Product Details

• Paperback: 432 pages
• Publisher: Princeton Review (September 21, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0375764194
• ISBN-13: 978-0375764196
• Product Dimensions: 8.9 x 6.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,729,521 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars useful info but misleading title, March 15, 2005

By 

Andrew Ballister "A.B." (Providence, RI USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best 117 Law Schools 2005 Edition (Graduate School Admissions Gui) (Paperback)

This book has short chapters about the law school experience and pertinent application issues, but the main reason to consider this book is the section featuring 117 schools profiled in depth. Especially valuable is the feedback, summarized or quoted, provided by students who have attended or are attending those schools. The editor chose not to include students' comments if only a few students responded to the Princeton Review survey, so I accept that the comments supplied reflect a general consensus. At times when opinions differ, balanced views are quoted and provided as well.

The main problem with the book is that the 117 schools selected are not necessarily the "best" 117 schools. All the ABA-accredited schools (and some others) are profiled in the book somewhere, but only those that generated enough student survey responses are featured in the 117 that are covered fully. Thus some top-name schools like Cornell, Yale, etc., are tucked away in the back, and we have only bare-bones statistics describing those places and the other 70-odd schools from which an insufficient number of student surveys were drawn to warrant inclusion in the main part of the book. So the book is really about 117 schools, selected on the basis of the numbers of student respondents; these schools are profiled in depth, and the others are relegated to the back of the book, with minimal information imparted about them. That's okay, as long as you know what you're getting. Just don't believe that the 117 profiled fully are the 117 top schools, according to anyone's view.

There are some "top ten" lists that are fun to read, such as the most competitive schools, the most welcoming of older students, most right-wing student body, most left-wing student body, most diverse faculty, most diverse student body, best career prospects, best quality of life, most highly regarded faculty or overall academic experience, etc.

A worthwhile purchase, overall, for anyone considering enrolling in an American law school, but probably an inadequate guide to use as one's only resource to help decide where to apply, or which school to attend.

0 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Law School Bible, July 19, 2005

By 

Alba Jaramillo (USA, Arizona) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Best 117 Law Schools 2005 Edition (Graduate School Admissions Gui) (Paperback)

This is a great book. I recommend it to anyone who wants quick facts about their law schools of interest.

10 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Partly Responsible for Ruining My Life, September 7, 2005

By 

Dissident Aggressor (Hot Air Balloon, Circling Earth) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Best 117 Law Schools 2005 Edition (Graduate School Admissions Gui) (Paperback)

Hear ye! Hear ye! Be forewarned! Read my tale of woe and do not make the same stupid mistakes I did!

I am a pretty methodical person. Therefore, when I was applying to law schools as a college senior, I tried to learn as much about different schools as I could. My GPA and LSAT were very good, but not exceptional, and I was looking for a law school that first of all would admit me, but also that would have excellent academics and would set me up for a nice legal career in the northeastern part of the United States.

I did what the other posters recommended: I visited the schools that admitted me. The trouble I found was that law schools do not make it easy for you to assess them. Most law schools (with the exception of Northwestern) do not interview applicants, and only give group tours where you are one of 20 people. Every school representative I talked with said that that school had brilliant and engaging professors, that the school was academically rigorous yet warm and fuzzy, that graduates of the school go on to work for the top law firms in the region if not the world, etc., etc. As part of my research, I also went to each law school's bookstore and wrote down the authors of the first year texts. As far as I could tell, each law school basically was teaching from the same books.

How then to sort out the schools? I needed some type of objective resource. As such, I bought the 2001 incarnation of the Princeton Review Best Law Schools guide. The guide provided the same basic statistics the other guides provided (average GPA and LSAT of admitted students, student/faculty ratio, size of 1L sections, etc.). But it also had several top-twenty lists. The top twenty lists ranked schools by various categories (i.e., at which schools students study the most, party the most, etc.). Two of these lists were particularly relevant to me: "best career prospects" and "professors rock." The first list was important to me because, if I was going to invest $100,000 in a JD degree I wanted to have a job lined up for me afterwards. The second list was important to me because I wanted to be taught by dynamic and intelligent professors who would be able to transmit legal principles to me in a logical and coherent fashion.

Long story short, I enrolled in the school that ranked 1st on the Princeton Review's "Professors Rock" list and that also was in the top 5 in terms of "Best Career Prospects." My decision was largely based on the rankings in the Princeton Review Guide. I figured I couldn't go wrong enrolling in a school where professors rock and where I would have very good career prospects.

I graduated in the top half of my class from that law school in 2004. I did not have a job at that time, and neither did 60% of the students in my graduating class, including many friends of mine who had gone to Yale, Harvard, Williams, Amherst and other top undergrads. One of my friends who went to Yale undergrad now works the night shift at Target--yes, you read that right. The professors at the law school I chose (based on the PR lists) were good, but not great--a mixed bag just like at most schools, but definitely also worse on the whole than the professors at the undergrad I attended. Princeton Review had been mistaken both about the quality of the faculty and about the graduates' career prospects.

Where am I today? I am writing from a cyber cafe somewhere in Europe. I have grown a beard, I have lost about 60 pounds to change my appearance, I wash dishes to make a living, and I sleep on the floor at a local library. I was not able to find a legal job in the United States, and my law school did not have a loan-forgiveness program. Ultimately, my loans became due, and I could not pay them off. The truck I bought to get me from my apartment to law school classes has been repossessed, and I have fled the country. My hot girlfriend broke up with me when it became apparent that my legal career was a no-go, and I am no longer able to visit my family, as their home is under constant surveillance both by helicopter and by agents who sometimes hide in the bushes outside (or so my family tells me). I live the life of a fugitive, even though I graduated from a supposedly good law school, passed two state bar exams, had a 164 LSAT score and a 3.65 cumulative undergraduate GPA.

To Law School Aspirants: do NOT take any of the lists in this book seriously! At least two of them ("professors rock" and "best career prospects") are complete bunk.
To Sallie Mae: you have my truck. Let's just call it even. I am sick of being on the run.
To Eric Owens: thanks for writing this book. You are partly responsible for ruining my life. I hope you feel good about yourself.