2018 USNWR Rankings Forum

[bearsfan23]

How? I've calculated pensions because I thought about going from law to cop/teaching and pensions are worth like 1 to 2 million, at least. Upstate NY cops make six figures in addition to having pensions.....

Unionized construction workers in NYC make six figures. My unionized janitor is going to have a pension.

People really overlook certain fields because of the supposed low base pay, but in reality we're the dumb ones for not figuring out how much pensions are worth.

Are pensions really that much better than matching 401(k)s? I'm not convinced that a small but steady gov pension will outpace a strong 401(k) match.

My current employer offers both a pension (each year of service is worth 1% of of you average salary during the highest paid three year stretch) and 401k with matching (1% given regardless of participation and full matching for 10%).

If I opt to make a career here I suspect that the 401k will be more valuable, but it will depend on factors that are out of my control. Having a fixed pension is a comfort, one that I will have to consider should an outside offer cross my path.

Government? That should be the holy grail for law students....no idea why most want biglaw. It's truly awful and life sucking.

Tbf, a lot of law students do want government or at least to get gov after doing a stint in biglaw to pay off debt.

Also, the average law student doesn't understand shit about basic financial/business concepts and are drawn like moths to the flame of the $180,000 shit benefits base.

It is unfortunately hard as fuck to get government after biglaw since they get like 4k applications for one spot, all from biglawyers. It's probably easier to get honors program and start in fed gov straight out since fewer people apply.

And yes, pen$$$ion + reasonable salary and QOL are way more important than higher base salary + wanting to die. Plus fed gov attorneys end up making low six figs anyway....

It's not hard at all. People from my firm/group go BigLaw --> BigFed all the time. I might do it to in a few years.

Again, you probably never worked in BigLaw or BigFed, but it's nowhere near as difficult as you make it seem. I don't get using this thread to go on another one of your miserable anti-law crusades. Plenty of other places to spew that garbage

[Moneytrees]

UT has no reason to gloat, US News simply confirmed something that people on TLS have been saying for years: GULC is not an elite school and is in the same tier as UT, UCLA and Vandy. UT could swap places with GULC next year and nothing would actually change.

[jbagelboy]

Lock plz

[rpupkin]

UT has no reason to gloat, US News simply confirmed something that people on TLS have been saying for years: GULC is not an elite school and is in the same tier as UT, UCLA and Vandy. UT could swap places with GULC next year and nothing would actually change.

I'm sorry, but have you read this year's rankings? Your statement would make sense if you substituted "UCLA" for "UT." If UCLA and GULC swapped next year, nothing would change because both schools are currently tied for 15th. But if UT and GULC swapped, that would mean that GULC was back in the T14 and that UT returned to the regional tier. You're just wrong on this one.

[Tiago Splitter]

You: State (and possibly city) income tax owned

UT alum: Itemizing to take generous sales tax deduction

And when you combine the generous sales tax deduction with the earned income tax credit, the typical UT alum really does get a huge tax windfall.

Wouldn't you have to spend pretty recklessly, though, for itemizing to make sense?

I don't even know what to say about you anymore. After pages of garbage, I make an effort to take this thread in a positive direction—and then this. Uh....mods?

Your answer was pure gold. I'm sorry you had to endure that.

[whysooseriousbiglaw]

How? I've calculated pensions because I thought about going from law to cop/teaching and pensions are worth like 1 to 2 million, at least. Upstate NY cops make six figures in addition to having pensions.....

Unionized construction workers in NYC make six figures. My unionized janitor is going to have a pension.

People really overlook certain fields because of the supposed low base pay, but in reality we're the dumb ones for not figuring out how much pensions are worth.

Are pensions really that much better than matching 401(k)s? I'm not convinced that a small but steady gov pension will outpace a strong 401(k) match.

My current employer offers both a pension (each year of service is worth 1% of of you average salary during the highest paid three year stretch) and 401k with matching (1% given regardless of participation and full matching for 10%).

If I opt to make a career here I suspect that the 401k will be more valuable, but it will depend on factors that are out of my control. Having a fixed pension is a comfort, one that I will have to consider should an outside offer cross my path.

Government? That should be the holy grail for law students....no idea why most want biglaw. It's truly awful and life sucking.

Tbf, a lot of law students do want government or at least to get gov after doing a stint in biglaw to pay off debt.

Also, the average law student doesn't understand shit about basic financial/business concepts and are drawn like moths to the flame of the $180,000 shit benefits base.

It is unfortunately hard as fuck to get government after biglaw since they get like 4k applications for one spot, all from biglawyers. It's probably easier to get honors program and start in fed gov straight out since fewer people apply.

And yes, pen$$$ion + reasonable salary and QOL are way more important than higher base salary + wanting to die. Plus fed gov attorneys end up making low six figs anyway....

It's not hard at all. People from my firm/group go BigLaw --> BigFed all the time. I might do it to in a few years.

Again, you probably never worked in BigLaw or BigFed, but it's nowhere near as difficult as you make it seem. I don't get using this thread to go on another one of your miserable anti-law crusades. Plenty of other places to spew that garbage

(literally a first year thethial thnowflake pretending like he knows it all)

Please, show some respect to your biglaw seniors, you goddamn first year.

[BigZuck]

Any chance we can get a lock and permaban for all the posters ITT?

I speak on behalf of Wiz and rpumpkin when we say that we'll gladly give up our ILLUSTRIOUS posting histories if it means no one else has to be subjected to this thread.

#hookem

[rpupkin]

Any chance we can get a lock and permaban for all the posters ITT?

I speak on behalf of Wiz and rpumpkin when we say that we'll gladly give up our ILLUSTRIOUS posting histories if it means no one else has to be subjected to this thread.

Normally I would not permit a UT grad to speak on my behalf, but Zuck's words are so well chosen—and his sentiments so justly adapted to the circumstances of this thread—that I have little choice but to concur.

[Tiago Splitter]

Any chance we can get a lock and permaban for all the posters ITT?

I speak on behalf of Wiz and rpumpkin when we say that we'll gladly give up our ILLUSTRIOUS posting histories if it means no one else has to be subjected to this thread.

Normally I would never let a UT law grad speak on my behalf, but Zuck's words are so well chosen—and his sentiments so justly adapted to the circumstances of this thread—that I have little choice but to concur.

lol at thinking this can be stopped with a simple lock.

[rpupkin]

Any chance we can get a lock and permaban for all the posters ITT?

I speak on behalf of Wiz and rpumpkin when we say that we'll gladly give up our ILLUSTRIOUS posting histories if it means no one else has to be subjected to this thread.

Normally I would never let a UT law grad speak on my behalf, but Zuck's words are so well chosen—and his sentiments so justly adapted to the circumstances of this thread—that I have little choice but to concur.

lol at thinking this can be stopped with a simple lock.

I think the "permaban for all the posters ITT" was the real medicine in Zuck's prescription.

[Hikikomorist]

Any chance we can get a lock and permaban for all the posters ITT?

I speak on behalf of Wiz and rpumpkin when we say that we'll gladly give up our ILLUSTRIOUS posting histories if it means no one else has to be subjected to this thread.

Normally I would never let a UT law grad speak on my behalf, but Zuck's words are so well chosen—and his sentiments so justly adapted to the circumstances of this thread—that I have little choice but to concur.

lol at thinking this can be stopped with a simple lock.

I think the "permaban for all the posters ITT" was the real medicine in Zuck's prescription.

Like TLS won't continue to attract more of us.

[rpupkin]

I think the "permaban for all the posters ITT" was the real medicine in Zuck's prescription.

Like TLS won't continue to attract more of us.

To paraphrase an old lawyer joke, what do you call 100 TLS posters who were permabanned for posting in a USNWR Rankings thread?

[Tiago Splitter]

I think the "permaban for all the posters ITT" was the real medicine in Zuck's prescription.

Like TLS won't continue to attract more of us.

To paraphrase an old lawyer joke, what do you call 100 TLS posters who were permabanned for posting in a USNWR Rankings thread?

A good start, but again this has a life of it's own like the mirror in the back of Wal-Mart that runs the entire operation.

[InterLaw]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to add some international experience to the discussion. Back in pages 27-30 someone brought up the question of international renown for US universities. Since I'm Italian (following this forum from here ) and I spent a semester in Belgium and another one in California (GoBeach!), I have some considerations that I wanted to express here.

First of all, the US system for Law and Med degrees is completely unknown by the 99% of European students and professionals. In Europe, those degrees are like a "long bachelor", that in 5 or 6 years starting right after high school grants a graduate level degree. Thanks to Med dramas (almost always based on Interns), the med school system is maybe a little bit more clear. Moreover, since the Law studies are strongly related to the country of study, is almost impossible to find someone who is interested in applying for a JD (the LLM is a bit more common among who wants to specialize in American law). So: the European conscience of US law school system si close to 0.

That being said, some US universities are still well known as the "best of the best" from many students here, probably mostly thanks to Movies and TVshows. What I wanted to say is: our perception of US top schools is different than what you would probably expect. And, if I can paraphrase Wittgenstein here, "prestige is perception".
I asked 20 friends, undergrads, studying in different cities with international experience around Europe, with different majors, to tell me the 10 best US universities in order of importance. If they did not know 10 schools, they could just say what they knew. Important: no one of them has ever been actually interested in studying there, and they didn't look to rankings or something. I have attended 5 different schools in 3 different countries as of nowm and believe me this is a pretty accurate sample of european students perception. These are the results.
Times every school has been inserted in a personal ranking (always out of 20):
1.Harvard 19
2.Yale 16
3.Stanford 14
4.MIT 14
5.Princeton 12
6.Berkeley 9
7.Columbia,UCLA 8
9.NYU, Brown, Boston University 4
12.Cornell, CalTech 2
13. Michigan, UTAustin, WUSTL, UofIllinois Chicago (wtf??), Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Chicago, San Francisco, UCD, UCSB, WashState, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Upenn, UofNorthCarolina 1

We can just consider the Schools with at least 4 presences to have at least some kind of international renown. Everything else is somewhat accidental and related to personal experiences. Thus, the constants in my small experiment are 11.
Here I rank those schools by average position in personal rankings, considering only the times such a school is mentioned in a ranking:

1.Harvard 1,63
2.MIT 1,79
3.Stanford 3,71
4.Berkeley 3,78
5.Yale 3,88
6.Princeton 4,75
7.UCLA 5,13
8.BU 5,25
9.Columbia 5,38
10.NYU, Brown 7,00

The previous ranking is slightly different if we weight together the time a university is named in a ranking and its position in such a rank, thus considering for the times a school is not named in a rank its position as "length of the ranking +1". Here's the final result in relation to previous one:

1.Harvard 1,95
2.MIT 3,60
3.Stanford 4,25
4.Yale 4,40 (+1)
5.Berkeley 4,95 (-1)
6.Princeton 5,45
7.Columbia 6,00 (+2)
8.UCLA 6,05 (-1)
9.BU 6,90 (-1)
10.NYU 6,95
11.Brown 7,05 (-1)

However, many of the changes are due to the small size of the sample.
To conclude this endless post, I would say that the only schools having a large international renown are HYS MIT Princeton (first tier) B C UCLA. At least almost a half of the people in the western world outside the US spontaneously knows such school, and if you name them almost everyone knows what you are talking about. The previous percentages shift from 50% and 100% to 25% and 50% for NYU and Brown. I think, and I might be wrong, that it is valid for Cornell too. Finally, I don't know what happened with Boston U, really.
Every other name, are they mentioned once or never mentioned in my fast research, is absolutely the same for the 95% of university educated population in Europe: Michigan, UVA, NU, Georgetown, Upenn, UT, Chicago, Duke, CalState, UNLV, Becker. All of them cause the same reaction: "wow you're studying in the states! how is it?". While Harvard means: "c'mon dude... are you serious? HARVARD? wtf did you do to get there?".

[BigZuck]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to add some international experience to the discussion. Back in pages 27-30 someone brought up the question of international renown for US universities. Since I'm Italian (following this forum from here ) and I spent a semester in Belgium and another one in California (GoBeach!), I have some considerations that I wanted to express here.

First of all, the US system for Law and Med degrees is completely unknown by the 99% of European students and professionals. In Europe, those degrees are like a "long bachelor", that in 5 or 6 years starting right after high school grants a graduate level degree. Thanks to Med dramas (almost always based on Interns), the med school system is maybe a little bit more clear. Moreover, since the Law studies are strongly related to the country of study, is almost impossible to find someone who is interested in applying for a JD (the LLM is a bit more common among who wants to specialize in American law). So: the European conscience of US law school system si close to 0.

That being said, some US universities are still well known as the "best of the best" from many students here, probably mostly thanks to Movies and TVshows. What I wanted to say is: our perception of US top schools is different than what you would probably expect. And, if I can paraphrase Wittgenstein here, "prestige is perception".
I asked 20 friends, undergrads, studying in different cities with international experience around Europe, with different majors, to tell me the 10 best US universities in order of importance. If they did not know 10 schools, they could just say what they knew. Important: no one of them has ever been actually interested in studying there, and they didn't look to rankings or something. I have attended 5 different schools in 3 different countries as of nowm and believe me this is a pretty accurate sample of european students perception. These are the results.
Times every school has been inserted in a personal ranking (always out of 20):
1.Harvard 19
2.Yale 16
3.Stanford 14
4.MIT 14
5.Princeton 12
6.Berkeley 9
7.Columbia,UCLA 8
9.NYU, Brown, Boston University 4
12.Cornell, CalTech 2
13. Michigan, UTAustin, WUSTL, UofIllinois Chicago (wtf??), Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Chicago, San Francisco, UCD, UCSB, WashState, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Upenn, UofNorthCarolina 1

We can just consider the Schools with at least 4 presences to have at least some kind of international renown. Everything else is somewhat accidental and related to personal experiences. Thus, the constants in my small experiment are 11.
Here I rank those schools by average position in personal rankings, considering only the times such a school is mentioned in a ranking:

1.Harvard 1,63
2.MIT 1,79
3.Stanford 3,71
4.Berkeley 3,78
5.Yale 3,88
6.Princeton 4,75
7.UCLA 5,13
8.BU 5,25
9.Columbia 5,38
10.NYU, Brown 7,00

The previous ranking is slightly different if we weight together the time a university is named in a ranking and its position in such a rank, thus considering for the times a school is not named in a rank its position as "length of the ranking +1". Here's the final result in relation to previous one:

1.Harvard 1,95
2.MIT 3,60
3.Stanford 4,25
4.Yale 4,40 (+1)
5.Berkeley 4,95 (-1)
6.Princeton 5,45
7.Columbia 6,00 (+2)
8.UCLA 6,05 (-1)
9.BU 6,90 (-1)
10.NYU 6,95
11.Brown 7,05 (-1)

However, many of the changes are due to the small size of the sample.
To conclude this endless post, I would say that the only schools having a large international renown are HYS MIT Princeton (first tier) B C UCLA. At least almost a half of the people in the western world outside the US spontaneously knows such school, and if you name them almost everyone knows what you are talking about. The previous percentages shift from 50% and 100% to 25% and 50% for NYU and Brown. I think, and I might be wrong, that it is valid for Cornell too. Finally, I don't know what happened with Boston U, really.
Every other name, are they mentioned once or never mentioned in my fast research, is absolutely the same for the 95% of university educated population in Europe: Michigan, UVA, NU, Georgetown, Upenn, UT, Chicago, Duke, CalState, UNLV, Becker. All of them cause the same reaction: "wow you're studying in the states! how is it?". While Harvard means: "c'mon dude... are you serious? HARVARD? wtf did you do to get there?".

+1

[InterLaw]

Now, since we are talking about Law Schools, the question is: why should I care about international recognition of my school? Well, apart from the upsetting situation in which you, UVA lawyer, and your childhood best friend, Santa Clara lawyer, are on vacation in Europe and you would even be at the same level while talking to people if it was just for you equal education... But you know, he lives in cali, you live in... How is it? Williamstown?

I was saying, apart from that, if you aim for BL you shouldn't care about the international recognition of your school. This is more important for who wants to work for International Organizations, NGO, multinationals, private sector. If you decide to work for McKinsey in Milan, because having a salary wich is 1/4 of your BL former classmates is worth it if they can't eat an actual pizza, not even for 180K (just saying), I was saying if you decide to work for McKinsey in Milan and you send them your CV with "JD at Harvard/Yale/Stanford/Berkeley/Columbia/UCLA", they'll call you back in 5-6 minutes. Maybe even with NU, because of their Business School, well renowned among managers. If you send them Duke of GULC, they'll need to look for information, but they'll call you back the day after. However, they would do the same if you show a 1-Year Master of Arts cum laude from one out of 15/20 business schools in UK and Europe. It would be so strange for them to receive such an application that you would probably catch more interest than other candidates, but you wouldn't have a sure employment. And I'm talking about a 40k € position.

As I said, the European knowledge about US Law School is pretty much non-existent, and it's very hard to find someone with a JD working in Europe (except London, probably). However, the most important Italian top manager Sergio Marchionne (FCA) owns a JD. From Osgoode Hall.

[sadpandayolo]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to add some international experience to the discussion. Back in pages 27-30 someone brought up the question of international renown for US universities. Since I'm Italian (following this forum from here ) and I spent a semester in Belgium and another one in California (GoBeach!), I have some considerations that I wanted to express here.

First of all, the US system for Law and Med degrees is completely unknown by the 99% of European students and professionals. In Europe, those degrees are like a "long bachelor", that in 5 or 6 years starting right after high school grants a graduate level degree. Thanks to Med dramas (almost always based on Interns), the med school system is maybe a little bit more clear. Moreover, since the Law studies are strongly related to the country of study, is almost impossible to find someone who is interested in applying for a JD (the LLM is a bit more common among who wants to specialize in American law). So: the European conscience of US law school system si close to 0.

That being said, some US universities are still well known as the "best of the best" from many students here, probably mostly thanks to Movies and TVshows. What I wanted to say is: our perception of US top schools is different than what you would probably expect. And, if I can paraphrase Wittgenstein here, "prestige is perception".
I asked 20 friends, undergrads, studying in different cities with international experience around Europe, with different majors, to tell me the 10 best US universities in order of importance. If they did not know 10 schools, they could just say what they knew. Important: no one of them has ever been actually interested in studying there, and they didn't look to rankings or something. I have attended 5 different schools in 3 different countries as of nowm and believe me this is a pretty accurate sample of european students perception. These are the results.
Times every school has been inserted in a personal ranking (always out of 20):
1.Harvard 19
2.Yale 16
3.Stanford 14
4.MIT 14
5.Princeton 12
6.Berkeley 9
7.Columbia,UCLA 8
9.NYU, Brown, Boston University 4
12.Cornell, CalTech 2
13. Michigan, UTAustin, WUSTL, UofIllinois Chicago (wtf??), Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Chicago, San Francisco, UCD, UCSB, WashState, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Upenn, UofNorthCarolina 1

We can just consider the Schools with at least 4 presences to have at least some kind of international renown. Everything else is somewhat accidental and related to personal experiences. Thus, the constants in my small experiment are 11.
Here I rank those schools by average position in personal rankings, considering only the times such a school is mentioned in a ranking:

1.Harvard 1,63
2.MIT 1,79
3.Stanford 3,71
4.Berkeley 3,78
5.Yale 3,88
6.Princeton 4,75
7.UCLA 5,13
8.BU 5,25
9.Columbia 5,38
10.NYU, Brown 7,00

The previous ranking is slightly different if we weight together the time a university is named in a ranking and its position in such a rank, thus considering for the times a school is not named in a rank its position as "length of the ranking +1". Here's the final result in relation to previous one:

1.Harvard 1,95
2.MIT 3,60
3.Stanford 4,25
4.Yale 4,40 (+1)
5.Berkeley 4,95 (-1)
6.Princeton 5,45
7.Columbia 6,00 (+2)
8.UCLA 6,05 (-1)
9.BU 6,90 (-1)
10.NYU 6,95
11.Brown 7,05 (-1)

However, many of the changes are due to the small size of the sample.
To conclude this endless post, I would say that the only schools having a large international renown are HYS MIT Princeton (first tier) B C UCLA. At least almost a half of the people in the western world outside the US spontaneously knows such school, and if you name them almost everyone knows what you are talking about. The previous percentages shift from 50% and 100% to 25% and 50% for NYU and Brown. I think, and I might be wrong, that it is valid for Cornell too. Finally, I don't know what happened with Boston U, really.
Every other name, are they mentioned once or never mentioned in my fast research, is absolutely the same for the 95% of university educated population in Europe: Michigan, UVA, NU, Georgetown, Upenn, UT, Chicago, Duke, CalState, UNLV, Becker. All of them cause the same reaction: "wow you're studying in the states! how is it?". While Harvard means: "c'mon dude... are you serious? HARVARD? wtf did you do to get there?".

Helluva post. Rare to see quality in a rankings thread. I'll try to contribute something similar for a couple east asian countries.

[hammy393]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to add some international experience to the discussion. Back in pages 27-30 someone brought up the question of international renown for US universities. Since I'm Italian (following this forum from here ) and I spent a semester in Belgium and another one in California (GoBeach!), I have some considerations that I wanted to express here.

First of all, the US system for Law and Med degrees is completely unknown by the 99% of European students and professionals. In Europe, those degrees are like a "long bachelor", that in 5 or 6 years starting right after high school grants a graduate level degree. Thanks to Med dramas (almost always based on Interns), the med school system is maybe a little bit more clear. Moreover, since the Law studies are strongly related to the country of study, is almost impossible to find someone who is interested in applying for a JD (the LLM is a bit more common among who wants to specialize in American law). So: the European conscience of US law school system si close to 0.

That being said, some US universities are still well known as the "best of the best" from many students here, probably mostly thanks to Movies and TVshows. What I wanted to say is: our perception of US top schools is different than what you would probably expect. And, if I can paraphrase Wittgenstein here, "prestige is perception".
I asked 20 friends, undergrads, studying in different cities with international experience around Europe, with different majors, to tell me the 10 best US universities in order of importance. If they did not know 10 schools, they could just say what they knew. Important: no one of them has ever been actually interested in studying there, and they didn't look to rankings or something. I have attended 5 different schools in 3 different countries as of nowm and believe me this is a pretty accurate sample of european students perception. These are the results.
Times every school has been inserted in a personal ranking (always out of 20):
1.Harvard 19
2.Yale 16
3.Stanford 14
4.MIT 14
5.Princeton 12
6.Berkeley 9
7.Columbia,UCLA 8
9.NYU, Brown, Boston University 4
12.Cornell, CalTech 2
13. Michigan, UTAustin, WUSTL, UofIllinois Chicago (wtf??), Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Chicago, San Francisco, UCD, UCSB, WashState, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Upenn, UofNorthCarolina 1

We can just consider the Schools with at least 4 presences to have at least some kind of international renown. Everything else is somewhat accidental and related to personal experiences. Thus, the constants in my small experiment are 11.
Here I rank those schools by average position in personal rankings, considering only the times such a school is mentioned in a ranking:

1.Harvard 1,63
2.MIT 1,79
3.Stanford 3,71
4.Berkeley 3,78
5.Yale 3,88
6.Princeton 4,75
7.UCLA 5,13
8.BU 5,25
9.Columbia 5,38
10.NYU, Brown 7,00

The previous ranking is slightly different if we weight together the time a university is named in a ranking and its position in such a rank, thus considering for the times a school is not named in a rank its position as "length of the ranking +1". Here's the final result in relation to previous one:

1.Harvard 1,95
2.MIT 3,60
3.Stanford 4,25
4.Yale 4,40 (+1)
5.Berkeley 4,95 (-1)
6.Princeton 5,45
7.Columbia 6,00 (+2)
8.UCLA 6,05 (-1)
9.BU 6,90 (-1)
10.NYU 6,95
11.Brown 7,05 (-1)

However, many of the changes are due to the small size of the sample.
To conclude this endless post, I would say that the only schools having a large international renown are HYS MIT Princeton (first tier) B C UCLA. At least almost a half of the people in the western world outside the US spontaneously knows such school, and if you name them almost everyone knows what you are talking about. The previous percentages shift from 50% and 100% to 25% and 50% for NYU and Brown. I think, and I might be wrong, that it is valid for Cornell too. Finally, I don't know what happened with Boston U, really.
Every other name, are they mentioned once or never mentioned in my fast research, is absolutely the same for the 95% of university educated population in Europe: Michigan, UVA, NU, Georgetown, Upenn, UT, Chicago, Duke, CalState, UNLV, Becker. All of them cause the same reaction: "wow you're studying in the states! how is it?". While Harvard means: "c'mon dude... are you serious? HARVARD? wtf did you do to get there?".

Thanks for the quality post!

[BigZuck]

Now, since we are talking about Law Schools, the question is: why should I care about international recognition of my school? Well, apart from the upsetting situation in which you, UVA lawyer, and your childhood best friend, Santa Clara lawyer, are on vacation in Europe and you would even be at the same level while talking to people if it was just for you equal education... But you know, he lives in cali, you live in... How is it? Williamstown?

I was saying, apart from that, if you aim for BL you shouldn't care about the international recognition of your school. This is more important for who wants to work for International Organizations, NGO, multinationals, private sector. If you decide to work for McKinsey in Milan, because having a salary wich is 1/4 of your BL former classmates is worth it if they can't eat an actual pizza, not even for 180K (just saying), I was saying if you decide to work for McKinsey in Milan and you send them your CV with "JD at Harvard/Yale/Stanford/Berkeley/Columbia/UCLA", they'll call you back in 5-6 minutes. Maybe even with NU, because of their Business School, well renowned among managers. If you send them Duke of GULC, they'll need to look for information, but they'll call you back the day after. However, they would do the same if you show a 1-Year Master of Arts cum laude from one out of 15/20 business schools in UK and Europe. It would be so strange for them to receive such an application that you would probably catch more interest than other candidates, but you wouldn't have a sure employment. And I'm talking about a 40k € position.

As I said, the European knowledge about US Law School is pretty much non-existent, and it's very hard to find someone with a JD working in Europe (except London, probably). However, the most important Italian top manager Sergio Marchionne (FCA) owns a JD. From Osgoode Hall.

This

[radio1nowhere]

Hi everyone! I just wanted to add some international experience to the discussion. Back in pages 27-30 someone brought up the question of international renown for US universities. Since I'm Italian (following this forum from here ) and I spent a semester in Belgium and another one in California (GoBeach!), I have some considerations that I wanted to express here.

First of all, the US system for Law and Med degrees is completely unknown by the 99% of European students and professionals. In Europe, those degrees are like a "long bachelor", that in 5 or 6 years starting right after high school grants a graduate level degree. Thanks to Med dramas (almost always based on Interns), the med school system is maybe a little bit more clear. Moreover, since the Law studies are strongly related to the country of study, is almost impossible to find someone who is interested in applying for a JD (the LLM is a bit more common among who wants to specialize in American law). So: the European conscience of US law school system si close to 0.

That being said, some US universities are still well known as the "best of the best" from many students here, probably mostly thanks to Movies and TVshows. What I wanted to say is: our perception of US top schools is different than what you would probably expect. And, if I can paraphrase Wittgenstein here, "prestige is perception".
I asked 20 friends, undergrads, studying in different cities with international experience around Europe, with different majors, to tell me the 10 best US universities in order of importance. If they did not know 10 schools, they could just say what they knew. Important: no one of them has ever been actually interested in studying there, and they didn't look to rankings or something. I have attended 5 different schools in 3 different countries as of nowm and believe me this is a pretty accurate sample of european students perception. These are the results.
Times every school has been inserted in a personal ranking (always out of 20):
1.Harvard 19
2.Yale 16
3.Stanford 14
4.MIT 14
5.Princeton 12
6.Berkeley 9
7.Columbia,UCLA 8
9.NYU, Brown, Boston University 4
12.Cornell, CalTech 2
13. Michigan, UTAustin, WUSTL, UofIllinois Chicago (wtf??), Johns Hopkins, Mayo, Chicago, San Francisco, UCD, UCSB, WashState, Georgia Tech, Carnegie Mellon, Upenn, UofNorthCarolina 1

We can just consider the Schools with at least 4 presences to have at least some kind of international renown. Everything else is somewhat accidental and related to personal experiences. Thus, the constants in my small experiment are 11.
Here I rank those schools by average position in personal rankings, considering only the times such a school is mentioned in a ranking:

1.Harvard 1,63
2.MIT 1,79
3.Stanford 3,71
4.Berkeley 3,78
5.Yale 3,88
6.Princeton 4,75
7.UCLA 5,13
8.BU 5,25
9.Columbia 5,38
10.NYU, Brown 7,00

The previous ranking is slightly different if we weight together the time a university is named in a ranking and its position in such a rank, thus considering for the times a school is not named in a rank its position as "length of the ranking +1". Here's the final result in relation to previous one:

1.Harvard 1,95
2.MIT 3,60
3.Stanford 4,25
4.Yale 4,40 (+1)
5.Berkeley 4,95 (-1)
6.Princeton 5,45
7.Columbia 6,00 (+2)
8.UCLA 6,05 (-1)
9.BU 6,90 (-1)
10.NYU 6,95
11.Brown 7,05 (-1)

However, many of the changes are due to the small size of the sample.
To conclude this endless post, I would say that the only schools having a large international renown are HYS MIT Princeton (first tier) B C UCLA. At least almost a half of the people in the western world outside the US spontaneously knows such school, and if you name them almost everyone knows what you are talking about. The previous percentages shift from 50% and 100% to 25% and 50% for NYU and Brown. I think, and I might be wrong, that it is valid for Cornell too. Finally, I don't know what happened with Boston U, really.
Every other name, are they mentioned once or never mentioned in my fast research, is absolutely the same for the 95% of university educated population in Europe: Michigan, UVA, NU, Georgetown, Upenn, UT, Chicago, Duke, CalState, UNLV, Becker. All of them cause the same reaction: "wow you're studying in the states! how is it?". While Harvard means: "c'mon dude... are you serious? HARVARD? wtf did you do to get there?".

Please sir/madam, no Good Posts™ are allowed on TLS

[rpupkin]

This is an excellent development ITT. It's nice to see data-driven confirmation that Duke's "prestige," such as it is, doesn't really extend outside the South. Meanwhile, Penn struggles to maintain pace with the likes of UC Davis. LOL @ these obscure institutions.

[curry1]

This is an excellent development ITT. It's nice to see data-driven confirmation that Duke's "prestige," such as it is, doesn't really extend outside the South. Meanwhile, Penn struggles to maintain pace with the likes of UC Davis. LOL @ these obscure institutions.

I have to admit I'm disappointed with UChicago's name recognition among random Italians.

[Dcc617]

I am befuddled about the point of this thread. What are you all even talking about anymore?

[BigZuck]

I am befuddled about the point of this thread. What are you all even talking about anymore?

G
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Please Moderators!

[jbagelboy]

UCLA and Boston University are super random. Otherwise, I get it, sort of. My experience working, living, and studying in western europe is that professionals know the five or so elite northeastern schools (HYPMC) pretty well and maybe random midwestern schools like Northwestern or Washington University; maybe Cal and Stanford (but surprising how often not). Whereas in South Korea, Cal and Stanford were gods among mortals.