Comments on: Is Cornell the Lady Gaga of Law Schools?Plus: celebrity comparisons for other law schools.

By: guest

guest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 20:20:48 +0000

179: I give up. Feel free to live in your fantasy world believing that most Cornell transfers are making lateral or downward (rather than upward moves).
But even if you’re right, you can’t dispute the raw ABA numbers, which show that for whatever reason, Cornell loses a much larger percentage of its student body via transfer than any other T14 schools do. Given how high the percent is compared to other T14 schools, any reasonable person (but clearly not you) would admit Cornell has a serious retention problem on its hands.

By: guest

guest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 18:35:37 +0000

178- your making assumptions that you have no evidence for. In fact a number of people that I know have transferred do so laterally because of location/weather. And they are not on balance at the top of the class by any means.

By: guest

guest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:40:46 +0000

177: Ok, I’m going to explain this to you SLOWLY, because you keep missing the point, and you can tell me where you’re not onboard.
1) We’re not talking just about attrition numbers, but TRANSFER data. The ABA data, year in and year out, shows that Cornell loses 10 to 15 of its 180-200 student class to TRANSFER. Not dropping out, but TRANSFER.
2). You need solid grades to transfer up, especially to schools higher ranked than Cornell (the rest of the T14, T6, HYS)
3). If you didn’t have high grades at Cornell, you wouldn’t be able to transfer up, but only laterally or even down.
4). No one is stupid enough to transfer down sans a very particularized family, etc. issue. If you’ve proven you can’t cut it at Cornell, you’re going to try to coast off the school name all you can, not downgrade to a crappier place where you still might do badly.
Therefore, the 10-15 transfers leaving Cornell are almost certainly among the top students there (at least top third, probably top 10-20%). This represents a large brain drain — potentially half the top 10-20% students there leaving. This is a much larger percentage loss than any other T14 incurs.
Questions? Transfer stats are just transfer, NOT attrition (which would be just dropping out).

By: guest

guest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 17:14:19 +0000

172: How does the attrition rate translate into losing the “best and brightest?” Unless you have data you’re not sharing with us.
Let’s throw out this tidbit too: Cornell has zero attrition for its 2nd and 3rd years based on the latest ABA numbers, whereas many higher-ranked schools continue to lose students throughout the 3 years (4 if you count night students).
Quit fudging your numbers and pretending that you know what they numbers mean, because you don’t (nor does anyone else).

By: guest

guest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 14:31:43 +0000

“Columbia = Rihanna. Talented; sometimes gets beat up.”
Here’s a comparison:
David Lat = George W. Bush (circa mid- to late-2000′s). Oblivious; though, somehow still employed.
Work on your compassion and foresight.

By: guest

guest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 11:39:08 +0000

Temple = OJ Simpson- you get away with (attempted) murder

By: guest

guest — Mon, 08 Feb 2010 10:42:50 +0000

What about BYU? I’m thinking Kenneth on 30 Rock: naive, sheltered, usually ignored, but good at what he does and well-liked.

By: guest

guest — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 21:57:09 +0000

Cardozo = Adam Sandler: young, jewish, kinda funny-looking, type-cast and vaguely charming

By: guest

guest — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:54:15 +0000

170: Yeah, and the Cubs had a 3-0 lead in the 8th inning of Game 6 of the 2003 NLCS, needing only five more outs to secure a World Series trip, and we all remember what happened there. When I see it, I’ll believe it.
Re: transferring, yes, people transfer for different reasons, but you don’t find it very very peculiar that year after year, Cornell loses transfers at double to triple the rate of other T14 schools? I’m sure people transfer out of Cornell for those reasons you’ve listed (weather, location, amount of work), but that still means Cornell is losing a lot of its top students, year after year. That’s not usually seen as a good thing to lose many of your best and brightest. No other T14 school has that type of attrition, and regardless of the cause, Cornell has a serious retention problem.
If you’re going to go somewhere for three years, you’d at least like students to be reasonably happy there. If there are 10-15 students each year out of Cornell’s very small under 200 person class who dislike their Cornell experience so much that they jump ship, that’s not exactly saying much about the infamous “small school experience” that Cornell brags so much about.
I dunno about you, but I’m glad I didn’t go to the T14 with the worst retention rate, the greatest number of hours studied per night, no SCOTUS clerks in the last ~20 years, brutal winter weather, a surrounding city hostile to big business, and the list goes on.

By: guest

guest — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 17:41:24 +0000

Hey CHECK YOUR FACTS guy:
Your school’s bar pass rate (and it’s clearly your school based on your shameless trolling) is based on more than one administration of the bar and more than just the July test. Yes, Cornell had one time where only one student failed and should be commended for that. However, based on its overall trend, that was a statistical fluke. That would be like me saying that Hofstra is better than Cornell just because it had better bar results for one year in 2007. And also, there’s this thing called the February bar for your comrades at Cornell who don’t pass the first time around. In the real world, we can’t just ignore the stats that aren’t favorable to our point of view.
The Official ABA Data says 90.91% (120 passers / 132 takers):
http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchResults/SchoolPage_PDFs/ABA_LawSchoolData/ABA2098.pdf and that’s what I’m going with until next year’s data comes out, which will reflect the new 94% for this year along with every other school’s NY bar pass data. If it’s more favorable for Cornell compared to other schools (and yes, that includes the February data), then I’ll gladly concede the point. But, bragging about one time where Cornell did well isn’t exactly going to win the day. Among New York law schools, it’s usually third, and has even been fourth. And, compared to other schools outside of NY who send decent numbers to NY, it doesn’t compare well as the ABA data shows.
And, if you want to look up that “fake” data I provided, feel free to go to the ABA site because we all know that the ABA has a giant conspiracy going against Cornell and is absolutely going to fabricate data that Cornell itself had to report, just so I can win this online argument.