22 of 23 people found the following review helpful:
2.0 out of 5 stars
Some Good Information, but Faulty Data, September 7, 2005
This review is from: U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Law Schools (Paperback)
First of all, I agree with the other posters that a lot of information is packed into this magazine/guide. It might be worth your while to purchase it for that reason.
However, the discriminating consumer should be forewarned that some of the data contained in this guide is inaccurate. The data is self-reported data collected from law schools. Since all the schools want to increase their U.S. News ranking, they sometimes report information that is inaccurate--or arguably fraudulent. I found this out the hard way. I attended a Top 20 U.S. News Law School. When I enrolled in the law school--and ever since--U.S. News has reported that the school I attended has roughly a 97% employment rate at graduation and that the median salary for graduates of my school was close to $100,000.
The year I graduated from the school--2004--maybe 40-50% of students had jobs at graduation. Many classmates of mine, for all I know, do not have jobs as of today. Of those students who had jobs at graduation, many were working low-paying jobs for smaller law firms or for state agencies. In other words, the U.S. News data was way off the mark.
I recognize that it is difficult for U.S. News to police the data supplied by law schools, but they need to do a better job of it. They could also use some common sense. For instance, U.S. News reports that over 95% of USC Law grads have jobs at graduation, and that the average salary is close to $100,000. But in its guide to business schools, U.S. News reports that 89% of Harvard Business School grads are employed at graduation with the average salary being $85,000 or so. How could career prospects possibly be better for USC Law grads than Harvard Business School grads? I don't believe it, and I don't see how U.S. News could believe it either.
It amazes me that law schools are able to report borderline fraudulent information and U.S. News does nothing. I was one of those who believed the U.S. News data, but then found out the hard way that the data was woefully inaccurate.
If you buy this guide, try to get as much as you can out of it, but take all the data you read with a grain of salt. Much of it was reported by law schools with an interest in inflating the data, and none of the data is ever independently verified.
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Really good resource to have on hand, August 2, 2004
This review is from: U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Law Schools (Paperback)
This is an excellent resource guide with useful information and summaries of all the ABA-approved law schools. The book provides detailed descriptions of the top 4 law schools- Yale, Harvard, Stanford, and NYU- as well. The book provides applicable and objective information, as opposed to other books which just spout off the obvious facts.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good Resource, December 14, 2005
This review is from: U.S. News Ultimate Guide to Law Schools (Paperback)
This is a great reference to anyone applying or thinking of applying to law school. Whether or not you agree with the influence US News has in law school admissions it remains a fact of life. It is a system that is inherently flawed, but along with the rankings, this book gives detail on each school which you can and should use to further investigate the schools to which you apply. Don't let the US News rankings dictate where you apply and don't let this book replace a campus visit and talking with the dean of admissions with a prospective school. Use it to supplement those things.
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