January 2008

"A British researcher reports that the male ego is often larger than his actual IQ. But you might be surprised by what women think of men's intellect."

Curious? Me too!

Read the Newsweek article here. It's interesting to think about how this plays out in the classroom and in the workplace.

It's been a great day, hearing from so many of my blog readers! Here's another one that just came in:

Ms. Ivey,

I'm sure you've probably been emailed this recent article from the New York Times  ["Who's Cuddly? Law Firms"] multiple times today, but I felt compelled to share.

I read it, breathed a sigh of relief, and thought you could post your thoughts on the situation to your blog. It seems everything I'm hearing lately about law school is grossly negative, and this makes me feel better about having to choose between enjoying my life or my career.

I also wanted to take a minute to share my appreciation for your Guide to Law School Admissions. I find myself reflecting often on its messages, and though I find the admissions process daunting, at least I now have expert and candid advice to approach it. Thank you so much, and if you're still available, I'll be sending you my stats and information for my applications next fall.

Thanks again and keep up the good work!

First of all, I'm so utterly charmed when people call me "Ms. Ivey," but seriously, you can call me "Anna."

Second, I have the nicest readers, ever. Thank you.

And finally, to answer your actual question: I remain pretty skeptical. (Another blogger recently decided I'm a pessimist, but I prefer to think of myself as a realist.)

I think these are wonderful experiments, largely driven by PR, but the fundamentals of the law firm business model have not changed, and until they do, I think all these wonderful law firm life-balance initiatives look great on paper but are probably a bunch of hooey.

It's a really nice idea that some firms are letting people bill fewer hours and still be on the partnership track, but until those people actually start making partner... well, I'll believe it when I see it. (Not that partners have such a great life either. They work tremendously hard, and as one law firm partner friend of mine put it, "It's like winning a pie eating contest, where the prize is... more pie.")

See here ("Law Firm Brain Drain") for a longer discussion I posted about the law firm business model and why it's likely to outlive you, me, cockroaches, and Twinkies. (I know, I know. Twinkies don't last forever. It's just a turn of phrase.)

I realize all this might seem weird coming from someone who, among other things, helps people get into law school, but my mission is to help people make informed decisions, and the reality of law firm life is something they need to grasp. And the day I become some ambulance chaser pushing people into law school, that's the day I hang up my shingle and go do something else. (In case you were wondering why I keep writing these pessimistic/realistic articles...)

And if I'm wrong, and law firms are indeed becoming "cuddly," I'll be the first to celebrate and do a happy dance!

An eagle-eyed Ivey Files reader just sent me the following:

Hope all is well! I ran across this [USA Today] article on helicopter parents and thought it was right up your alley. In case you didn't see it, here is the link.

It amused/disturbed me to discover that there is a national advocacy/interest group for parents of college students. Is that really necessary?!

Wow.

There's lots of good stuff packed into that article, not least the following about a study conducted by UCLA about the role of parents on campus:

[R]esearchers found significant differences among students of different racial backgrounds. More than 43% of Latinos, for example, said their parents were involved too little in choosing college courses, compared with 37% of Asian students, 33% of black students, 29% of American Indian students and 19% of white students.

I've written elsewhere about how employers who complain about coddled college students and their intrusive helicopter parents need to cast their net more widely. I've been especially impressed by the self-sufficiency of people coming back to school from the military, as well as the children of immigrants, and children who have been working in a family business since they could walk. Those are just some examples. Their resumes might look a bit more unusual, but I don't think it's asking too much of employers to look a little harder. There are plenty of great "kids" out there whose parents haven't been hovering all the time.

Which reminds me... I've been meaning to share this article in the Washington Post by a Georgetown college student who recently returned from a tour of duty in Iraq. Fascinating, and humbling.

When Columbia Law School accuses the law school admissions community of dissing minorities, I sit up and take notice. A recent press release from Columbia trumpets a new study it conducted that makes the following argument:

• African-American and Mexican-American applications have been steady over the last 15 years.

• During the same time, their LSAT scores and GPAs have been improving.

• During the same time, the number of law schools seats has grown.

• And yet, enrollment from among these two groups is down.

Their conclusion:

“The net result is that for African Americans and Mexican Americans, law schools are not progressing towards more inclusive admissions.  This affects everyone who is concerned about better education and a more representative legal profession.”

The press release raises the alarm more generally about a “disturbing decline in minority enrollment in U.S. law schools," and the study calls for a “diversity focused admissions plan,” or what the rest of us call affirmative action.

The charges being leveled are indeed troubling, if true, so I took a look at the underlying LSAC data to see if I could identify the same problems. Not even close.

Here’s what I see in the data*:

Black/African American enrollment went up by 8.9% in the last ten years. Not earth-shattering, but not too shabby either.

During the same period, there was a sizable drop in the category LSAC calls “Chicano/Mexican American”:  -18.9%. That does look pretty bad.

But wait... what’s that row right beneath Chicano/Mexican American in the LSAC tables? That would be the row called “Hispanic/Latino,” which saw a 62.4% increase in enrolled students in the same time period. That spike dwarfs the percentage increase in Asian American (43.3%), “Other" (57.3%), and white (5.8%) enrolled students. And for some reason, Columbia chose to focus on the drop in Chicano enrollment and ignore that much bigger jump in Latino enrollment.

So what's the scandal here? I don't think it's any "disturbing decline in minority enrollment," because I'm not seeing one. What's disturbing is that Columbia looks at this data, cherry-picks its numbers, and pretends there is a disturbing decline.

It's pretty cheeky to cherry-pick the data to make a point and then issue a breathless press release about how “the statistics help people focus on the numbers, not on ideology.”

Another interesting omission: while the Columbia study basically accuses the admissions community of failing to admit enough minorities (hence the call for more affirmative action or "diversity focused admissions plans"), here’s what the LSAC data show about the growth in the number of minority applicants who were admitted (note that admission is different from enrollment, hence the different sets of numbers):

Hispanic/Latino:                  +62.8%Other:                                 +51.7%Asian/Pacific Islander:          +36.5%Black/African American:        + 7.8%Caucasian/White:                 +  4.0%Chicano/Mexican American:  -23.0%Those numbers also paint a rather different picture than Columbia’s study or press release. In those numbers, I see admissions officers working very hard over the last ten years to create an ethnically diverse class, and doing a pretty good job at it, too.

Incidentally, I haven’t even touched on whether Asian Americans count as minorities. If they do, then Asian American admissions and enrollment data undermine Columbia’s argument even further. In any event, it would be helpful for Columbia to use more precision when it throws around terms like “diversity."

But back to the study: Columbia needs to be less selective with the data, and I would encourage the media who respond to the press release (some of whom have been calling me for comment, hence this posting) to dig into the underlying data. And if I’m reading the data wrong, I’m happy to be corrected.

_______________________________

*Here's a caveat: the Columbia study looked at LSAC data going back to 1992. The LSAC website currently gives data going back only to the class that started in fall 1997, so I have five fewer years to work with; I do have the latest ten, however. For those of you who want to take a look, go here, then roll over the Data button, then click on LSAC Ethnic/Gender Volume Summary. In that section, I looked at the enrollment and admissions tables in particular. I compared the numbers for “Fall 2007” to the numbers for “1996-1997” and calculated the percentage changes between those two points in time.