Final Decision: Tulane v Rutgers-N v Not going at all.

[internetuser]

thanks for chiming in botbot.

do you have aim? i'd like to pick your brain about career services.

[«ě»]

My point is that almost every school has a different median on USNWR than distributed elsewhere, I am questioning the USNews strategy for obtaining these numbers.  The more representative numbers are available for all schools, why are they not used?

My only guess would be that schools tend to report a bit inflated numbers to USNWR in hopes to boost their rankings a bit. I have no intentions of spending any time trying to figure out, but if both numbers are self-reported, that would be the most natural explanation for me.

Salary info isn't used in the rankings last I checked.

Hmm, yeah giving it a second thought that's true. Which makes me even more confused why the numbers reported are different.

[DaviesAss]

Tulane's website has these numbers posted:

Percent employed nine months after graduation: 95% of those seeking employment
Average reported starting salary: $83,000 for entire class,  $96,356 for private firms.

http://www.law.tulane.edu/tlsabout/index.aspx?id=528&ekmensel=c580fa7b_42_0_528_9

$83k "average" means for every $135k job, there is a $35k job. Ick.

Tulane's US News numbers are skewed by low reporting (24% or 26% I think) probably due to Katrina, and Tulane grads do not make more than HYS grads (I wish.) You need to look at % reporting their salary numbers to know how to interpret that number.

[botbot]

Tulane's website has these numbers posted:

Percent employed nine months after graduation: 95% of those seeking employment
Average reported starting salary: $83,000 for entire class,  $96,356 for private firms.

http://www.law.tulane.edu/tlsabout/index.aspx?id=528&ekmensel=c580fa7b_42_0_528_9

$83k "average" means for every $135k job, there is a $35k job. Ick.

Tulane's US News numbers are skewed by low reporting (24% or 26% I think) probably due to Katrina, and Tulane grads do not make more than HYS grads (I wish.) You need to look at % reporting their salary numbers to know how to interpret that number.

Guess how much gov workers make...

Katrina has nothing to do with these USNEWs numbers (because they can obviously get a ton of people to respond to career questionaires...)

[«ě»]

Tulane's US News numbers are skewed by low reporting (24% or 26% I think) probably due to Katrina, and Tulane grads do not make more than HYS grads (I wish.) You need to look at % reporting their salary numbers to know how to interpret that number.

Yeah, no *&^%? :p

The problem is that while Tulane reports that their 75th percentile makes $135k, everyone at Harvard (25th and 75th (and by inference everyone else) reports $125k. Both reports 2005 numbers, btw. So even with low reporting, if these numbers were real many Tulane graduates would be making more than Harvard grads. As you say this is obviously not the case, and is just creative marketing from Tulane; it just makes little sense why they'd lie about something like that.

[walk it out]

$83k "average" means for every $135k job, there is a $35k job. Ick.

Well, not really.  That's why you use medians instead of averages when looking at salary figures.


I love all the conjecturing that comes from 0Ls.


And I'm also blown away by how many people take it upon themselves to hate on Tulane in these threads for seemingly no reason.  Yeah, it's expensive and yeah the salary figures are inflated.  So?  It's still a good school.

[«ě»]

#1 in Voodoo Law!

[DaviesAss]

$83k "average" means for every $135k job, there is a $35k job. Ick.

Well, not really.  That's why you use medians instead of averages when looking at salary figures.

Well, the site says "averages", so I have to assume that is what they are using, not medians. I would prefer they use medians, but apparently they did not when they posted those numbers I quoted.

[DaviesAss]

Tulane's US News numbers are skewed by low reporting (24% or 26% I think) probably due to Katrina, and Tulane grads do not make more than HYS grads (I wish.) You need to look at % reporting their salary numbers to know how to interpret that number.

Yeah, no sh*t? :p

The problem is that while Tulane reports that their 75th percentile makes $135k, everyone at Harvard (25th and 75th (and by inference everyone else) reports $125k. Both reports 2005 numbers, btw. So even with low reporting, if these numbers were real many Tulane graduates would be making more than Harvard grads. As you say this is obviously not the case, and is just creative marketing from Tulane; it just makes little sense why they'd lie about something like that.

No, the problem is that when only 24% of people report, it's likely that mostly the higher-paid people are reporting, therefore you are getting the 75th percentile of only the HIGHLY PAID people. Lower paid people are not that enthused about reporting salary, I'm sure.

[«ě»]

No, the problem is that when only 24% of people report, it's likely that mostly the higher-paid people are reporting, therefore you are getting the 75th percentile of only the HIGHLY PAID people. Lower paid people are not that enthused about reporting salary, I'm sure.

No, in this argument it doesn't matter if 1% or 100% report. If Tulane's reported 75th is $10k higher than Harvard's 75th, it really doesn't matter what the percentile is. It's either bull or Tulane is magic.