Yield Protection: myth or reality? Or a little of both?

 

As a prospective incoming 1L, this post brought tears to my eyes.  In a good way.

Starting this blog was a great idea!

We exchanged a few emails some months ago, and every time your messages were both informative and very funny. I'm glad to see that this humour carries over to what you write on this blog.

Best,

Vincent

Dean:

I understand the holistic thing, but I also suspect that the student's score of 170 on the LSAT or a transfer student's 4.0 1L GPA might be pretty close to a but-for cause.  Of course, they might also have red hair.

Your blog is wonderful and I am so glad you are doing it. But after reading this article I want to call your office and be sure that "puzzling" application doesn't belong to me! Why not simply contact the student for clarification if something is so puzzling?

Sincerely Yours,

Mr. No-Way-Im-Telling-You-My-Real-Name

I love this - I try to explain to people on my blog that having 100 obstacles to write about and not having any examples of the "overcoming" part means that you're not proving what you set out to prove. It just shows you've had a string of bad luck, and pity alone is not going to get you into law school.
It's the over-coming part that is impressive!

Ann K. Levine

Really enjoyed the post! - A Michigan 2L.

Readers of this blog: Dean Z is being modest and not entirely forthcoming.  She was the host of the Mr. Wolverine competition, and she really brought the house down.  Speaking on behalf of all the contestants, we really appreciated her warming up the crowd for us so they would cheer and laugh at our choreography rather than boo and hiss.  Thanks, Dean Z!

tenacious is always a bit good AND crazy.

Defensive coordinator by day, admissions director by night. That really would be unique.

How do I get your job? I want your job.

Excellent piece.

has rendered me uniquely well qualified to tell you that this is a useful and informative post.

is to always listen to Dean Z.  She knows what's up.

I'm glad you posted this. I was thinking of people I could potentially get to talk to you about "saving" a seat for me in the incoming class.

An Applicant Patiently Hoping For Admission

Can you clarify: do you mean to say that Professor Friedman's views are "not pertinent to the matter" of this fellow's admission? Or are you simply trying to note that you, and not he, will make admissions decisions in the end?

If it's the former, I'd be interested to know why his views don't affect your view of this applicant. Maybe you're interested in protecting your authority. Or maybe you think that there's something untoward about professors putting in for a candidate. Or maybe you're just worried that others might think there's something objectionable about it. But he's not recommending this man because they're friends or relatives (see Illinois). Shouldn't his opinion count at least as much as any other recommender who's familiar with this man's work?

This is the problem with using mathematical terminology to describe non-math concepts, I guess.  My point was simply this: we don’t “save spots” in Admissions.  (Well, I guess I had a subsidiary point--the joy of re-tweaking Prof. Friedman by alluding to his use of orthogonal at the Supreme Court.)  And in fact, Prof. Friedman has never in his life asked me to save a spot, for Mr. Hopwood or anyone else.  That said, yes, of course, the substantive views of one of our own professors about the qualifications of an applicant are in fact extremely helpful.  They just aren’t dispositive.  I am actually planning to address this issue in a future post, so stay tuned!

This may be an odd question, but do you consider fairness to other students when making admissions decisions?   It might seem petty, but it seems like somebody with 12 years of studying law under his belt will make the curve even tougher.

Thanks for the link to the enjoyable give and take between the Court and Professor Friedman.

Much more collegial than I had imagined.

I think part of Dean Z's Job is making the curve as tough as she possibly can. I don't think you thought that one all the way through.

I hope I get to give Hopwood the tour of the facilities when he visits!

that is one of the coolest things I've ever seen

Next fall you're going to get an application (mine) that is tailored to these blogs... Good stuff!

Luckily I decided not to submit my personal statement as a 500 clue crossword as I'd originally planned.

~ 468 Down: Student That You Really Should Consider Admitting (Please!)

Love you, Dean Z!
Apparently you succeeded in picking the funniest fruit name. It made me laugh out.

Sarah

I know just how you feel! I often feel the same way when I agree to judge briefs for Campbell Moot Court, or help students prepare for Campbell and other extracurricular moot court activities.  As a Legal Practice Professor, I have weeks during which I spend just about every waking moment reading student memos and briefs and providing extensive feedback to students on their writing.  You would think I'd turn back my last student paper and just be happy to be done until the next assignment comes in.  But I find I just can't say no when asked to help out with judging or to provide feedback to students as they prepare for competition.  (Hmmm, it occurs to me that it is dangerous to admit I can't turn down student requests for help with extracurriculars.  You don't think there will soon be a line of students outside my door with stacks of briefs for me to review, do you?)

But like you, I find the rewards are considerable.  Seeing how the struggling 1L has turned in to a confident 3L who has mastered a case full of complicated legal issues, and can write about and argue that case with confidence and clarity, well, it sort of warms my heart.

And now, back to this stack of briefs that is calling me . . . 

Beth Wilensky

Dean Z:

Your posts are always informative and entertaining. I demand more!

Love,
N

You say in your FAQ, "every year, the school with which we have the highest overlap for admitted candidates is Harvard."  How do you know this? Can you see where I've applied, and which schools have admitted me?  It seems it would be hard not to let that info influence your decision, at least a little bit. 

I’m really glad you asked!  We do not have this information on an individual level, but every year, a few months after the class matriculates, the Law School Admissions Council generates a huge amount of “overlap” data, showing us in the aggregate which schools our admitted students were choosing among.  To a certain degree, the size of a class dictates the overlap, but not exclusively.  Our biggest overlap school is always Harvard, with NYU, Columbia, and Georgetown pretty close behind—but this year, Duke and Cornell, which both have small student bodies, were the next two.  I won’t go through the whole list; you get the idea.  (Interestingly, the admissions process at medical school is quite different, and admissions office do get this information on an individual level, albeit only after offers are made.)

I'm really glad that you have announced to the world that you read the online admissions boards. I would hope that if applicants realize that "the deciders" are viewing their posts, they would clean up some of the trash they spew and perhaps give better advice than "school X is a TTT in decline."

I'm really glad that you have announced to the world that you read the online admissions boards. I would hope that if applicants realize that "the deciders" are viewing their posts, they would clean up some of the trash they spew and perhaps give better advice than "school X is a TTT in decline."

I also read the threads about Michigan and yield protection right after I got waitlisted last week - I admit, it felt good to think that I wasn't WLed for any fault of mine. It felt good to take a break from thinking: "Even my on par numbers weren't enough to outweigh the negatives that Dean Z saw in my application. There must be something wrong with me."

I think I understand it now, though, despite my initial resentment and disappointment.

I want to go to law school somewhere where I'll be happy and if you think that Michigan wouldn't be a right fit for me, why shouldn't I trust you? I can't think of anyone who would know better.

Thanks for the explanation.

Still a fan,
A

YP!! It can be very comforting to answer a complex question with a simple answer that deflects accountability.

The students should have considered building this snowbeast around a tree. Not only might it have allowed them to build even higher, but it would have helped protect against attacks from 'roid raging professors.

As a newly admitted student, I'll try to make you proud next year, at least of my snow art.

YP is the ultimate means for an applicant to stroke their ego. After all, who wouldn't feel good telling others that they were too good for a top law school, and that they had this feeling validated by a top law school rejection letter? The reasoning is flawless!

Now I'm going to be wondering for a while who it was who said he could knock it down.  I have a few likely negatives.

Miller:  "Oh.  Yeah.  Sure.  Maybe I could.  But you know what happens when you knock down their big snowman?  They can't just take you out -- that'd suggest that you were equal in worth to their big snowman.  No, they take out half the faculty...and the only way the faculty's going to save itself is hauling you out there and making a big show of doing you in themselves.  Because you broke the RULES."
(Of course, meanwhile dreaming of going out in a blaze of Viking glory.)

Primus:  "Query whether, were I to slam into the snowman and knock him down, becoming sore and covered in snow in the process, I could be said to have inflicted more harm than I received."

West:  "No."

historians will look back and acknowledge the "clean out the fridge" casserole as one of the modern era's great savers of time and saviors of familial harmony (at least for an hour or two around dinner).

I've long made a variation of the pasta dish above. To make it even easier, I just throw in cherry or grape tomatoes and maybe a sliced red bell pepper. If you're feeling particularly ambitious, roast the tomatoes in a 350 oven while your pasta's boiling.

"But I’m pretty sure that Dean Caminker has not the first clue what Rick’s is, and I know for a fact that he doesn’t know what a sharkbowl is. (How do I know? Because he asked me.  I may, or may not, have lied.)"

I'd like to bid on a candid photo of Dean Caminker's face at the precise moment he sees a sharkbowl for the first time. We could bid jointly on it because I bet we can figure out the chances of you getting a pay raise this year just based on that photo.

Love,
Nate

Frankly, that's not enough garlic. But then, my wife and mother-in-law are Korean, and their answer to everything they cook is, 'this needs more garlic' (they don't eat cereal). Coincidentally, there are no vampire legends in Korea.

Dean Z., we love you but you're bringing us down! No posts in 7 days?!

Can I have the money that would have gone to him?

I kid. This must have been terribly disappointing.

Great work Detective Zearfoss. With your deductive reasoning prowess, I bet you watch Unsolved Mysteries, hand ready on the phone, just waiting for the number to flash on the screen. You do this all behind a blocked number, voice modulator, and pseudonym because that's just the kind of person you are: an assuming  superhero!

Thanks for keeping the streets safe and our classrooms free from "sketchy" individuals.

Ouch.

This dude must be high-fiving his forehead.

Dear Dean Zearfoss,

Would an applicant that received a generous award, i.e., over $10k in need-based aid, be in a tough spot to ask for either an increase of the need-based award or to be reconsidered for merit aid?

My, um, friend has specific reasons for wanting to attend UM Law, but it is at least $25k more expensive than the other schools that accepted him.

Love,
Nate

This night was one-upped, and then some, by Thursday night's SFF finale?

We are our own worst critics, indeed.

P.S. How many times did you proofread this post, Dean Z?

Love,
Nate

I will guess your answer to the obvious question, "How do law school rankings influence the admissions process?" More than you would like, but far less than the vast majority of us would believe.

Setting that question aside, what effects do you think the rankings have on the law school, beyond application numbers? Can a connection be drawn between rankings and activities like faculty hiring and donor development?

As a graduating 3L, I have to say: I'll miss you, Dean Z!!!!!!!!!  But at least I can check out your blog.

What is your policy towards someone who has made some poor choices early in their life that resulted in a felony conviction?

thanks for this post dean Z!

You know you play that song, grab a red pen and dance menacingly around a stack of applications.

> "Almost nothing good comes from anonymity."


"For most of history, Anonymous was a woman." - Virginia Woolf

I was a transfer student myself, and certain people at my former school didn't deal with my decision to transfer in the most professional, or even mature, way.  I wouldn't be very surprised to discover that that school was one of the examples discussed above.

Points for creativity, but re: more recent discussion of nit-picky editing..."tuchus" is what you're going for, I believe. :)

Potae-to, potah-to.  AS the Yiddish Dictionary Online points out, “Spelling Yiddish with Roman letters . . . is an inexact science.” 
That resource follows the standards of the Yivo Institute for Jewish Research, and would actually spell it “tokhes.”  Let’s just compromise with תּחת.

-Dean Z.
Assistant Dean and Director of Admissions

Hi Dean Zearfoss.  It's Paul in Hong Kong. Just curious how often you are right about two strangers being destined for best-friendship?

1) Why did I have to graduate years ago?

2) Humanity should just give up now because the best idea EVER in the once and future history of the universe has been proposed and implemented.

Next thing you know, Dean Z will be a regular at section 28!

I read about the Notre Dame law student football player last week and posted the link on Facebook, stating that it was nice to see another law student football player, since I knew our former long snapper was also a law student.

Go Blue!

Tanya Lundberg
UM-Dearborn, '03
WSU Law School, '07

How do you make the mundane so interesting??  Your blog is on my bookmark toolbar, and I check up on you frequently to see if there is something new.  Nothing new, I'm disappointed.  Something new, I'm yet to be let down!  Don't worry, I'm not applying for admission, I'm way to old for that.  Just wanted to let you know that your blog, and your incredible way with words, brightens my day!  Thank you for that.  Carry on.

Dean Zearfoss, I was wondering if you could illuminate how Michigan goes about determining need-based aid. I ask because despite being a financially independent adult for nearly a decade before starting law school, I was awarded $0 in need-based aid.

Thanks for writing!  Financial aid decisions are of course very dependent on individual circumstances, so I would strongly encourage you to contact either Dean Gottschalk or me directly if you’d like to talk about your specific case—but this web page,

http://www.law.umich.edu/prospectivestudents/admissions/financial/Pages/forms-aid.aspx 

explains our approach to the need-based determination.

-Dean Z.

To the person who wrote with a complaint unrelated to this blog post: please email me at szearfos@umich.edu. I’d really like to talk.

-Dean Z.

You are definitely not alone!  As a Peace Corps volunteer in rural Kenya (ok, I'm not in America, but still...), podcasts are my favorite way to stay connected with home.  From the SportsGuy to NPR's Fresh Air (both of which I listened to while living in the States) and the Sunday morning talk shows, podcasts have kept me sane.  This week (after hours of downloading) I will give Slate Political Gabfest a shot.  Thanks for the lead.

Completely agree!  I live in North Africa and only speak one of the local languages, so local media feels more like schoolwork than leisure.  On my current list of favorites:
NPR's This American Life
Canadian Public Radio's Vinyl Cafe
CNN's Fareed Zakaria GPS
and last but not least
The History of Rome (no seriously, its awesome.)

It's the protein.

Hi, Dean Z.  I think you are generally right here - people obviously find SOME amount of free time - but honestly it's probably not enough to have  a healthy, balanced life.  In this economy, you need to work almost nonstop to get a decent job.  That's just the facts, unfortunately.  :(  I think prospective students need to realize they are making a huge sacrifice going to law school nowadays.

I just spent the day reading the archives of your blog, and I'm officially obsessed. Every post makes me love Michigan more. I hope to express my adoration in person, in Ann Arbor, next fall (hint hint).

Dear Dean Zearfoss:
I come to you here via my friend Anna Ivey, who was passing on your wisdom to her masses of followers: http://www.annaivey.com/iveyfiles/2010/12/update_your_voicemail_greeting.
I don't think I've been so happy to follow a web link in a long time. I'll answer the prior commenter's question: she does it by being so funny, so right, and so kind; all at the same time.  Now, how you do *that* is anyone's guess. I'm just thankful.

I'm on number three of the archives, and as a summer starter alum I can say three things: (1) I am proof that one can become obsessed with Dean Zearfoss' writings even if one is NOT eagerly hoping for admission to the law school; (2) Dean Zearfoss is one of three very specific reasons I chose Michigan Law (the others were the Law Quad - a yearning which started when I was a senior in high school - and Dean Guindi, because when she explained how the career services office worked during my preview weekend, I knew I'd be safe jumping careers); and, (3) Everything she says about summer starters is true.

Dean Z,

I happended upon this posting while searching as to whether I should bring a Kindle on my Peace Corps service or not.  It was with great surprise that a fellow PC volunteer posted your blog to any potential JD candidates.  I am scheduled to take the LSAT on February 12, 2011 and am departing with my wife on February 24th, 2011 for Malawi, Africa.  It was encouraging to see that a Dean of Admissions looks with a keen eye on those who have completed this kind of work.  So, while I may still be unsure about what my future holds I am going to remember this post and be encouraged if I decide to apply to law school upon my return in April of 2013.  Thank you again for your kind words and best to your in this holiday season.

Ryan Byrnes
rybyrnes@gmail.com
Peace Corps Volunteer -- Malawi -- 2011-2013

Dean Zearfoss is the greatest.  She makes you feel like you have a chance  without promising you anything!

If I had a dollar for every time I sent her an e-mail and she responded with positive and encouraging words, I would be able to graduate from law school debt free! 

Even if I do not gain admission, she has by far been the most helpful and courteous law school dean I have come into contact with.

While you're on the topic of colving problems, what would you tell to recent graduates who racked up $180,000 in non-dischargeable loans and have zero job prospects?

The job market remains really challenging, obviously, and looking for a job in a market like this can be terribly discouraging. But getting out of the hopeless mindset is a necessary first step, and exactly the point of my post. My colleagues in career services are seeing positive signs. Of course, persistence and self-advocacy are critical.  And for Michigan students reading this, I encourage you to work closely with the office of Career Services and Public Service if you aren't already doing so. Part of self-advocacy is using every resource available to you.

-Dean Z.
Assistant Dean for Admissions
and Special Counsel for Professional Strategies

did you see this?
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/09/garden/09Bees.html?_r=1&hpw    

Dean Z., you're missing the best Jerry Garcia quote of all time: "Somebody has to do something, and it's just incredibly pathetic that it has to be us."  Collective action what?

Dean Z, I love how you embedded the lmgtfy link instead of one that takes readers straight to the information.

"Dean Z, I love how you embedded the lmgtfy link instead of one that takes readers straight to the information."

+1

I totally just texted my friend to tell him "SZ just made a post with a 'let me Google that for you' link."

Every time someone calls or emails in panic about their updated Mail & Money page saying something has been mailed to their campus inbox while they're home for break.

To be fair, the author of the article in question is talking about the dominance of football culture on campus at Ohio State, rather than in Columbus at large.  I can assure you there are huge swaths of the city that could not care less about football, much more so than in Ann Arbor. 

In terms of the extent of football obsession on campus at Ohio State versus at Michigan, I think they're about equal.  Of course, Ohio State has been winning a lot...or all the time...recently, so maybe team pride is a wee bit higher?  Nonetheless, I think your assessment is right on: Steven Conn is just a crab.

Fuehrer?

Today's Wall Street Journal has an excellent article by John Bacon on Rodriguez's tenure at Michigan. My favorite line from the article:
"This beast we have created may be bigger and stronger, but the coach's job security still rests on kids who weigh 300 pounds and squat twice that, but still can't grow a respectable mustache." :)

Dear Dean Z,

Thanks for updating us about the policy changes. However, don't you think it is a two-way street? If schools don't cherry-pick applicants, applicants won't be able to flip-flop their school selection.

Dean Z,

Have you read this article? http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704111504576059713528698754.html

For what it's worth, I don't think MLK became a civil rights leader because his mother forced him. 

I would be interested in knowing what percentage of the students employed are employed in legal jobs; I would also be interested in the proportion that are merely temping and/or working part-time to those who are in assured long term full-time jobs.

Dean Z.,

First of all, thanks for this posting specifically and for your blog in general! Definitely great to see the behind the scenes of the Law School's admissions process.

I am going to ask a question I would bet a lot of your readers are asking themselves: of the graduates employed, how many are employed in the legal sector? Even more, how many are employed in positions for which they are qualified (i.e., no J.D. holders doing paralegal work)?

I am sure most people would assume that if you were smart enough and hard working enough to get admitted to (then graduate from) Michigan, you will likely be able to find SOME TYPE of employment. The question is, however, is the employment you found worth the cost of attendance.

Thanks!

In the fifth paragraph, "Second, the combination...yield the percent of unemployed," after subtracting all the employed, further education students, not seeking, etc., shouldn't it yield the total number unemployed (instead of as written total number employed)?

Right you are!! Fixed.

-Dean Z.

The formula cited here for calculating the employment rate is the one used by US News. NALP and ABA do not to my knowledge provide any guidance to schools about how to calculate and publish their employment rates.

Thanks for making this point!  To be clear:  all three organizations (NALP; ABA; US News—as well as, doubtless, others not named) request the exact same data from us, as listed above.  You are absolutely correct that the formula I explained, leading to the 99.14% employment rate, is the one US News asks us to apply.  But NALP and the ABA both do apply their own formulations, based on the exact same raw data.  For NALP, I now know, the unknown people are simply left out of the calculation; thus, our overall employment rate for NALP in 2009 is 98.5% (397 people employed + 7 people pursuing further education = 404, divided by total class size of 412 less the 2 unknowns, for 410). The ABA omits the unknown people, treats people seeking education separately from those who are unemployed, and rounds any data to the nearest whole number; their calculation, therefore, shows us with 97% (397 divided by 410, rounded up) employed and 2% (7 divided by 410, rounded up) pursuing further education, as well as 0% (2 divided by 410, rounded down) seeking work and 1% (4 divided by 410, rounded down) not seeking work. The slight variations in the way different organizations crunch the exact same data does add a bit to the confusion.

-Dean Z.

Chiming in with two previous commenters:

"I would be interested in knowing what percentage of the students employed are employed in legal jobs; I would also be interested in the proportion that are merely temping and/or working part-time to those who are in assured long term full-time jobs."

"I am going to ask a question I would bet a lot of your readers are asking themselves: of the graduates employed, how many are employed in the legal sector? Even more, how many are employed in positions for which they are qualified (i.e., no J.D. holders doing paralegal work)?"


It makes me very angry to see law schools summarize their employment situation as, for instance, "98% employed at graduation; average salary 140K."

The average person looks at that, mixes it up with their common presumptions about "lawyers" and "good law schools", pours it into the "thousands of people wouldn't be putting the money down for law school if it were such a disastrous idea!" mold, and ends up with this mental picture:  "You'll almost certainly have a job, and you'll make somewhere from, say, 100K to 180K."

But:
-what percentage of students report anything?
-how many people are employed by the school or in some other holdover job?
-does everyone who reports "employed" also report their salary (or their lack of a salary)?
-is the outcomes data distributed such that an "average" is not misleading?  ("The average person is named Mohammed Chang.")


More fully:

I think part of the criticism is that law schools report "95% employed!" and prospective students (maybe less now than a few years ago) naturally assume that these are people working as lawyers.  And not just as lawyers, but as lawyers making tons of money (people assume this is generally true of lawyers) such that their loans are insignificant.  (My own father was shocked when I mentioned the situation demonstrated by the notorious "it's a bimodal distribution so stop quoting averages" graph: If you're not making 160K with BigLaw, you're probably making something like 50K, which is just barely above what you get straight out of undergrad.  "Huh?  *Attorneys* getting paid 50K?")  Which leads one to think, "Well, I might make 50K, but I'll get to work for the public interest."  From what I hear ... no.  You'll make much less than that, but more crucially, there's a very good chance you'll be outcompeted for public interest spots, too, especially where such organizations do not share BigLaw's peculiar fetish for recent graduates.  You might end up with the worst of both worlds: BigLaw hours and stress for a tiny fraction of BigLaw pay.

That said, I agree that it would probably be irresponsible for Michigan to report LST-grade statistics, in terms of the prestige hit it would take.  So long as other schools can profit from the erroneous assumptions of applicants, anyway.  I wish the ABA would do something.

Full disclosure:  I'm a Michigan student and I'm doing fine job-wise.

Dear Dean Z.,
After reading what feels like endless internet commentary on how going to law school today is a Terrible Idea and will never lead to meaningful employment, it's nice to hear something optimistic.  Thank you!

Thank you for the detailed employment data! I also have a deep love of data, as it is impossible to make sensible decisions without it. It is always concerning when schools refuse to parse the data, and I applaud you for doing so. There is no guarantee to find a job after graduation, but it is still important to be able to accurately gauge the odds before making one of my biggest life decisions nonetheless.

I do have a question on the law school funded positions. How long do these temporary positions last? Is there any additional assistance available to those unable to find long-term legal employment? And, perhaps most importantly, what percentage of those funded temporarily go on to find permanent, long-term legal employment?

Thank you very much, it is sincerely appreciated.

As a recent admit who was a bit concerned about employment prospects, thank you Dean Z for your sincere efforts to illuminate the issue. I don't know of any other school that would make such an effort, and it speaks volumes that you not only allow comments on a blog--or really, that you have one at all--but that you are willing to respond to them as well.

That being said, is this a one-time thing? I'm not sure how easy it was for you to get these results, or whether you faced any resistance to having the numbers released, but is this something we can look forward to seeing each year? Any interest in being part of the Law School Transparency Project?

Honestly, writing all this up was more of a pain than I would have anticipated—writing is always harder than I think it will be!  But what I learned in the effort was that the annual NALP reports (which are generated as an internal report for each school in the summer, based on the comprehensive data each school turns over in the winter) contain a remarkable amount of useful information. We’re planning to post our report for 2009, and to do so going forward.

-Dean Z.

Thank you for taking the time to put this up.

"We’re planning to post our report for 2009, and to do so going forward."
Without quite rising to Bidenian levels of exuberance, I'll say that this is a Pretty Big Deal.  I am surprised, although perhaps I shouldn't be.  Go Blue!

I'll add in a "qualification" and a "quibble", neither of which are meant to detract from the overall "woo!" message I mean to convey here:

"a quibble":  these are boom numbers
Those numbers do look very good, although I believe 2010 was the first class year to get hammered by the recession.  (So these are still "boom" numbers, unless I'm mistaken about 2010 being the first to get hit.  By which I mean they had a "boom" OCI in 2008 but then a bunch of them got deferred or no-offered from their SA positions; 2011 had the first post-crash OCI in 2009 in which getting SA positions in the first place was difficult.)

"a quibble":  could do even better by showing ranges, and could perhaps indicate (publicly available) data on which nonprofits/government agencies people have joined.
One way to capitalize on the bimodal distribution, so as to give even more accurate data without listing individual outcomes, would be to simply indicate what % of students are in that rightward node.  A bar graph with approximate salary ranges would certainly do the job.  (see: LST)
As for non-profits and government work, it'd be neat to see where people are going, but that's truly a quibbler's quibble.

As someone who was just rejected from Michigan and is still smarting, I have to wonder: I know the world takes all kinds, but as the Director of Admissions, isn't even a little embarrassing for the school to be proud of graduates who can be "glib" about big oil's environmental sins? I'm not particularly environmentally conscious on a day-to-day basis myself, but I'm also not complicit in helping corporations dodge regulations.

The most interesting aspect of these employment statistics to me is that out of 397 employed graduates only 10 work for the government and only 32 are in public-interest careers. It's easy to see how the questionable values embedded in corporate legal practice continue to reign with numbers like that.

First, as a 2009 grad myself I think we got hit pretty hard by the recession.  Many of my fellow '09 grads saw their supposedly solid firm jobs disappear during 3L and had to scramble to find something else.  Maybe 2010 got the worst of it, but we were not unscathed.

Second, the employed at nine months stats may underestimate public interest and government work a bit for my class (and maybe other classes too).  From my knowledge of a large chunk of the people who are clerking in these statistics from my class, I know that a significant number of us went from clerkships to government and public interest work.  So I think the relative balance of firm vs. government and public interest work has already changed for the class of 2009 now that most of our clerkships are over. 

The post states, "3.5/408 = .0086%." Not so. 3.5/408=0.0086=0.86%.

Also, I think being transparent regarding class of '09 data misses the point. The class of '09 did OCI in 2007, during the height of the boom times. In fact, the 10 year high of the S&P 500 occurred in the middle of their OCI interview season. Statistically, class of 2011 had it the worst (see link below). I suppose the information for this class will be out by March 2013, when the data is obscured by obvious signs of recovery?

http://amlawdaily.typepad.com/amlawdaily/2010/07/summer-associates.html

I just submitted a comment that mistakenly said that the class of 2011 data should be posted in March 2013. I meant to say 2012, since the data is posted "about 10 months after graduation." Even still, I think the last sentence of my comment was unfair, since I neglected the fact that Michigan will presumably release some class of 2011 data soon, on this page: http://www.law.umich.edu/careers/factsandstats/Pages/2Lstats.aspx . So, strike the last sentence of my comment.

Thanks for the typo correction—right you are! Someday I’ll get through a post listing all these ## and not make a mistake….

Unfortunately, we can’t edit comments, so I can’t omit the last sentence of your first submission.  But just to be clear: while it’s absolutely true that the class of 2009 was affected less by the economy than were the classes of 2010 and 2011 (which is not to say that 2009 wasn’t affected at all), I’m not focusing on 2009 because those data are better than 2010—I’m doing it because 2009 is all I have right now.  We’ll have 2010 available soon, and we’ll certainly be updating our website promptly. Don’t succumb to low-brow cynicism!

Finally, although projections were that 2011 would be the class hardest hit by the economy, developments this fall suggest that might not in fact be the case. We’re definitely seeing some signs of strengthening. Mid-year comparisons are very tricky to be confident about because even small fluctuations in the percentage of people reporting at different times of the year can have a big effect on apparent results, though, so I am leery about making any grand pronouncement on that score.

-Dean Z.