Top Law Schools

Malarkey wrote:

Itiswritten wrote: Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Penn. Cornell doesn't count as an Ivy League in any way outside of name and history. Everyone knows it, and the statistics are clear. Cornell is a peer school with UCLA and anyone who thinks otherwise is pretentiously clinging on to the 'Ivy League' name with their head in the sand.

While I appreciate your contribution to this thread regarding your employment, I've never understood this line of criticism. I went to undergrad on the west coast so I have no attachment to Cornell, but the whole "not a real Ivy" shtick is baseless. First of all, what exactly do you think qualifies a school as an Ivy? If Cornell lacks some level of intellectual rigor, I'm assuming you'd also cross Brown and Dartmouth off the list.

Also, what statistics are you talking about? The ones you posted were about total partners per school, which is largely affected by total class size. That statistic certainly seems less important than say, this: https://www.lstreports.com/national/ which places Cornell at #3 for employment score. UCLA places well below.

And If we're talking about merit of the university as whole, as you seem to be suggesting with the Ivy thing, I can easily pull out random statistics that make Cornell look better than other places. Let's take the number nobel laureates affiliated with the school, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N ... ffiliation
Cornell has the 9th most nobel laureates of any university in the world. That's ahead of every Ivy except Harvard and Columbia, and way ahead of UCLA.

But my point is not that Cornell is better than UCLA or that it deserves "Ivy status." I went to a UC for undergrad, so if anything, I feel an attachment to UCLA, and I agree that Cornell and UCLA are basically peers. My point is that this line of argument against Cornell is an exercise in reductive reasoning and pretentiousness. Now we should probably move on before this devolves into another thread about lay prestige.

UVA2B wrote:TL:DR

If Biglaw>CA law: Cornell
If CA law>Biglaw: UCLA
If CA law=Biglaw: quibble over differences in national reach and placement power in LA. Make a decision if a breeze ever pushes you off the fence.

This sums it up pretty well.

Itiswritten wrote:
An Ivy League lawschool is defined by its employment statistics.

Cornell is closer to UCLA than it is to Penn, let alone Columbia or Harvard. There is nothing controversial about realizing what defines a law school (i.e. Employment). Neither Brown nor Dartmouth have law schools, so they're irrelevant. It has nothing to do with lay prestige. Cornell isn't comparable to HYS or CCN so it shouldn't be thought of as in the same category (nor should UCLA for that matter).

So why the hell are you talking about undergrad? No one gives a shit about undergrad, this is a law school forum.

Itiswritten wrote:

Malarkey wrote:

Itiswritten wrote: Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Penn. Cornell doesn't count as an Ivy League in any way outside of name and history. Everyone knows it, and the statistics are clear. Cornell is a peer school with UCLA and anyone who thinks otherwise is pretentiously clinging on to the 'Ivy League' name with their head in the sand.

While I appreciate your contribution to this thread regarding your employment, I've never understood this line of criticism. I went to undergrad on the west coast so I have no attachment to Cornell, but the whole "not a real Ivy" shtick is baseless. First of all, what exactly do you think qualifies a school as an Ivy? If Cornell lacks some level of intellectual rigor, I'm assuming you'd also cross Brown and Dartmouth off the list.

Also, what statistics are you talking about? The ones you posted were about total partners per school, which is largely affected by total class size. That statistic certainly seems less important than say, this: https://www.lstreports.com/national/ which places Cornell at #3 for employment score. UCLA places well below.

And If we're talking about merit of the university as whole, as you seem to be suggesting with the Ivy thing, I can easily pull out random statistics that make Cornell look better than other places. Let's take the number nobel laureates affiliated with the school, for instance: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_N ... ffiliation
Cornell has the 9th most nobel laureates of any university in the world. That's ahead of every Ivy except Harvard and Columbia, and way ahead of UCLA.

But my point is not that Cornell is better than UCLA or that it deserves "Ivy status." I went to a UC for undergrad, so if anything, I feel an attachment to UCLA, and I agree that Cornell and UCLA are basically peers. My point is that this line of argument against Cornell is an exercise in reductive reasoning and pretentiousness. Now we should probably move on before this devolves into another thread about lay prestige.

UVA2B wrote:TL:DR

If Biglaw>CA law: Cornell
If CA law>Biglaw: UCLA
If CA law=Biglaw: quibble over differences in national reach and placement power in LA. Make a decision if a breeze ever pushes you off the fence.

This sums it up pretty well.

An Ivy League lawschool is defined by its employment statistics.

Cornell is closer to UCLA than it is to Penn, let alone Columbia or Harvard. There is nothing controversial about realizing what defines a law school (i.e. Employment). Neither Brown nor Dartmouth have law schools, so they're irrelevant. It has nothing to do with lay prestige (Chicago is more of a peer school with HYCP than Cornell is, and it has little to no lay prestige). Cornell isn't comparable to HYS or CCN so it shouldn't be thought of as in the same category (nor should UCLA for that matter).

So why the hell are you talking about undergrad? No one gives a shit about undergrad, this is a law school forum.

Itiswritten wrote:Cornell is not a peer school with any other ivy and, regarding earlier, they place like 10 people in California per year.

But I'll let you Cornell students cling to that national-placement idea and the whole 'ivy-league' thing. Lol.

Malarkey wrote:

Itiswritten wrote:Cornell is not a peer school with any other ivy and, regarding earlier, they place like 10 people in California per year.

But I'll let you Cornell students cling to that national-placement idea and the whole 'ivy-league' thing. Lol.

So you ignored the link I posted to LawSchoolTransparency, and then runinthefront posted a massive graphic that you still managed to ignore. You're not making the case for UCLA very compelling here.

Itiswritten wrote:

Malarkey wrote:

Itiswritten wrote:Cornell is not a peer school with any other ivy and, regarding earlier, they place like 10 people in California per year.

But I'll let you Cornell students cling to that national-placement idea and the whole 'ivy-league' thing. Lol.

So you ignored the link I posted to LawSchoolTransparency, and then runinthefront posted a massive graphic that you still managed to ignore. You're not making the case for UCLA very compelling here.

You're right- that was a little snarky of me.

OP, long story short, do your research.
In the absence of data (I'm on my phone) it comes down to two things: We have sunshine and people don't kill themselves here.

Itiswritten wrote:

Malarkey wrote:

Itiswritten wrote:Cornell is not a peer school with any other ivy and, regarding earlier, they place like 10 people in California per year.

But I'll let you Cornell students cling to that national-placement idea and the whole 'ivy-league' thing. Lol.

So you ignored the link I posted to LawSchoolTransparency, and then runinthefront posted a massive graphic that you still managed to ignore. You're not making the case for UCLA very compelling here.

You're right- that was a little snarky of me.

OP, long story short, do your research.
In the absence of data (I'm on my phone) it comes down to two things: We have sunshine and people don't kill themselves here.

ponderingmeerkat wrote:Just in here to note the spicy hot takes coming from LA these days now GULC is ranked 15 along side UCLA. Just one time co-ranked with Georgetown and every baby blue Bruin thinks they are taking down Duke/Cornell/Northwestern.

And they said UT was "gettin' to big for their britches, partner".

Itiswritten wrote:

ponderingmeerkat wrote:Just in here to note the spicy hot takes coming from LA these days now GULC is ranked 15 along side UCLA. Just one time co-ranked with Georgetown and every baby blue Bruin thinks they are taking down Duke/Cornell/Northwestern.

And they said UT was "gettin' to big for their britches, partner".

You heard it here first. UCLA jumps to 12 next year and knocks Berkeley down and pushes Cornell out of t-14

Itiswritten wrote:

ponderingmeerkat wrote:Just in here to note the spicy hot takes coming from LA these days now GULC is ranked 15 along side UCLA. Just one time co-ranked with Georgetown and every baby blue Bruin thinks they are taking down Duke/Cornell/Northwestern.

And they said UT was "gettin' to big for their britches, partner".

You heard it here first. UCLA jumps to 12 next year and knocks Berkeley down and pushes Cornell out of t-14

Itiswritten wrote:

ponderingmeerkat wrote:Just in here to note the spicy hot takes coming from LA these days now GULC is ranked 15 along side UCLA. Just one time co-ranked with Georgetown and every baby blue Bruin thinks they are taking down Duke/Cornell/Northwestern.

And they said UT was "gettin' to big for their britches, partner".

You heard it here first. UCLA jumps to 12 next year and knocks Berkeley down and pushes Cornell out of t-14

Rigo wrote:

Itiswritten wrote:

ponderingmeerkat wrote:Just in here to note the spicy hot takes coming from LA these days now GULC is ranked 15 along side UCLA. Just one time co-ranked with Georgetown and every baby blue Bruin thinks they are taking down Duke/Cornell/Northwestern.

And they said UT was "gettin' to big for their britches, partner".

2

You heard it here first. UCLA jumps to 12 next year and knocks Berkeley down and pushes Cornell out of t-14

The gulf between Cornell and T14-20 is pretty big if you look at the score spread.
The T13 is pretty entrenched.

BigZuck wrote:Look we all agree that Cornell is an unprestigious garbage dump. Literally no one would dispute that.

But LOL UCLA isn't a peer of Cornell. Stop being so silly ya goose.

People can certainly choose UCLA over Cornell for any number of reasons. But they aren't peer schools.