Top Law Schools

I look at the stats and I can't figure it out.

According to their latest NALP report, the 50th percentile pay for the 3/4 of their grads who go into the private sector is 180k. Even the bottom 25% is 100k which isn't the end of the world and certainly isn't the horror story conveyed by that bimodal distribution chart everyone loves to trot out.

Out of the 292 people with bar passage required jobs, 260 give salary info so it's not as though there is a massive sampling error. And as far as the government employees making 40-60k, I would imagine a good portion of them were aiming for government employment to begin with.

So what am I missing here? To me it seems that this school offers a perfectly reasonable shot at market biglaw and a very good shot at getting some sort of job with either six figure private sector pay or government perks/pension.

I'm not dead set on it - and I do have options at better schools, just unfortunately not NYU or Columbia and I want to stay in New York if possible.

In what way am I being dumb? What obvious red flags am I missing?

And let's, for a second, put away the price issue since it seems people argue against going there at sticker with great vigor. Between merit aid and family, I got it covered so you can put away the COL calculators.

I think it's cuz the Undergrad program isn't great. Also the evening program brings the Us News & World Report ranking down because they are less selective.

I got accepted into Fordham as well, and on admitted students day it was pretty clear that they place really really well in New York. But they don't have a lot of students going outside New York, and that makes it sort of a regional school. If you want to stay in New York it seems like it is a good fit!

You can't just put away the price issue. It has little to nothing to do with Fordham's reputation as an undergraduate institution (although it is though too pretty highly where I'm from). Fordham Law is really expensive, it costs as much as any school at full sticker price. But it does not offer the same chance at high paying/prestigious that the very top schools do. Most people on this site would not even recommend paying sticker price at Harvard or Columbia where you are virtually guaranteed a biglaw job. And Fordham is notoriously stingy on scholarship money. So you have a school that generally costs too much for what it offers. That is really it. Not sure why that is not a strong enough explanation.