Philanthropy v. Big Money

Which means more to you? Would you rather take your MBA, go into the world of non-profit organizations to make a difference in the world? Or, do you want to launch your own company, start raking in profits, and live the high life? Either way is perfectly valid and respectable, but not necessarily equally desirable. Check out this BusinessWeek article for more on the topic.

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Surviving the Rankings Game

The U.S. News & World Report grad school rankings for 2009 came out a few weeks ago and revealed some interesting developments. (By the way, what is with the "2009" rankings coming out in April of 2008? Have academic rankings gone the way of automotive companies?).

For me, the most interesting development of all could be found in the Law School Rankings, where the 5-10 spots continue to undergo a major transformation.

First, a quick note to say that I am a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, which helps explain my attention to this sort of detail and my concern over some recent trends that pretty much boil down to two things:

1. Chicago does not care about rankings

2. Everyone else does.

These two trends have, obviously, led to significant changes at the top of most ranking systems, with U.S. News being no exception. While Chicago has continued to keep the ranking process at an arm's length, other programs have embraced it, even staffing positions that deal exclusively with ranking services. Not only that, but many law schools have made strategic decisions to boost their profiles by pouring scholarship dollars into securing the best GPA/LSAT yields they can muster.

The combination is an effective one indeed. Schools are influencing public (and private) opinion in order to score higher in the subjective areas, while increasing their academic profile in order to score higher in the more quantitative ranking components.

Meanwhile Chicago is going the other direction. The administration has taken an "anti-rankings" stance that is both admirable (in that they refuse to game the system) and destructive (in that it is hurting the school). The problem with refusing to engage in the rankings world is that everyone else cares about this. Employers, investors, voters, and pretty much any other "er" is going to put some stock in rankings like U.S. News, which means that students will care about it. They have to, because it is their future on the line. Students can't afford to rest on their laurels or sleep easy knowing how great the faculty is. They have to think about the rate of return on their educational investment. And if that return isn't as promising at Chicago as it is at Columbia, then the student is going to Columbia. Period.

As recently as this decade, Chicago was ranked third in the country among all law schools by U.S. News. When I was admitted for the fall of 2004, the school was fourth (Stanford had moved up), just ahead of Columbia and NYU. By the time I reached my 3L year, the New York schools had moved ahead and dropped U of C to sixth. Last year, Penn moved into a tie for sixth.

Now, Berkeley has vaulted into the #6 spot, leaving Chicago in a tie for seventh with Penn.

No matter how you feel about academic rankings in general, or U.S. News specifically, going from third to tied for seventh in under 10 years is a pretty terrible.

Even worse, it becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. As the school slides in the rankings, it starts to lose out on the top students. Then, the quality of each class starts to drop. Before long, the school is sliding down the charts, not because of an aversion to "The Rankings Game," but because they simply don't have the same caliber of students.

And that's what I fear for Chicago. It is a school with a lot of great qualities and a very pure approach to academia. But it is also a law school with a crappy old building, an increasingly archaic approach to education (one of the last schools to cling to the Socratic Method, one of the first to turn off wireless Internet in the classrooms), and a stodgy campus setting. If the University of Chicago starts to lose its level of prestige - which is derived largely from rankings - then what is left to keep the best and brightest from going elsewhere?

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Clutch

It's all around us this time of year - the NFL Draft talking heads will discuss it ad nauseum, as will commentators for the NBA playoffs. Barack and Hillary are embroiled in a public relations debate over who would have more of it given a 3 a.m. phone call. Interviewees in this competitive job market are faced with it, as are traders trying to keep investment banks afloat admist market uncertainty. So often in life, as we see today more than ever, one's ability to perform under pressure is what matters most. What, then, can Matt Ryan, Chad Henne, Barack Obama, a Citibank trader, or you, a GMAT test-taker, do to become more "clutch"?

As I've taught the GMAT for five years, I've come to realize that "clutch" has common attributes across situations, and that the most easily distilled features are confidence and relaxation. If I can break it down even further, I'd say that the singlemost important gesture a person can make under pressure to increase his potential for clutch is to smile. Think about it - where have you most been impressed by a clutch performance in the past?

-Before Joe Montana led the 49ers to a 92-yard, Super Bowl-winning drive in Super Bowl XXIII, he casually joked to his teammates in the huddle, "Look, it's John Candy!"

-Similarly, when Tom Brady led a game-winning drive in Super Bowl XXXVI, he famously spiked the ball to stop the clock, caught it with one hand, and delivered it to a referee with a confident smirk

-In NBA history, the list of most clutch performers would have to include Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Isiah Thomas - all known famously for their smiles. Similarly, among Larry Bird's most famous moments was a shot to win the All-Star weekend Three-Point Shootout during which he turned, smiled, and pointed up his index finger before the final shot even neared the rim.

-The most powerful political debate answers almost always start with a grin and the words "I'm glad you asked that"

-When I took the GMAT, I laughed out loud on multiple occasions

The common thread? People tend to perform their best when they're enjoying what they do. Naturally, it's difficult to enjoy the process if you're struggling the entire time, so it's extremely important to be able to perform the skills required. From there, however, attitude controls a large portion of whether someone maximizes his potential. The ability to relax and even smile will undoubtedly increase your performance. How can you practice "clutch"?

-As you practice, make it a goal to note at least two questions each session that you "enjoy", either because of their difficulty level, your admiration for the way in which they are written, or your interest (or lack thereof) of the subject matter. Learn to embrace the GMAT as a challenge just like Sudoku, crossword puzzles, Minesweeper, Free Cell, or Solitaire.

-Embrace your mistakes as opportunities to learn. In practice, laugh at your careless mistakes while reminding yourself that "I'm better than that". Note the most common errors you make, and challenge yourself to be conscious of them the next time. Few things are more enjoyably rewarding than knowing that you've saved yourself a few points by not making the mistake that had become your Achilles' Heel.

-Write a few GMAT problems. If you can write a question that tricks your friend or study partner, you'll learn to appreciate those same questioning devices when you see the GMAT try them on you. Jordan and Bird could openly smile during games because they knew the strategies their opponents were trying to employ - they had practiced and used them themselves. If you know that you can outsmart your opponent - the GMAT exam - you can confidently enjoy watching the test try in vain to beat you.

-Remember that, regardless of what happens, you will live to fight another day. In Jordan's first NBA Finals, he missed a shot that would have won the first game...then came back to win the next four. For all of Joe Montana's and Tom Brady's successes in the Super Bowl, each of them has failed to even make the game more often than they won it. Similarly, business schools are only concerned with your ability to attain a high score once - they won't penalize you for a subpar performance en route to your top score. Relax knowing that, at worst, a poor score only means you have to retake the exam. The GMAT is a tremendous opportunity for you to succeed with little to no penalty for failure. Enjoy the experience!

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Loan Forgiveness Programs: Should Applicants Consider Them?

Obviously, one of the primary factors that govern a graduate school applicant's enrollment decision is The Almighty Dollar. As in: how much will this cost, what kind of aid can I get, and what sort of earning potential am I looking at once I finish? Analyzing educational cost is a complicated task because students must first identify actual numbers (sticker price - available scholarship and grant money) and then put those numbers in the proper context by understanding loan repayment and properly estimating future salary figures.

See, complicated.

One thing that is further complicating this financial aid stew is the addition of loan forgiveness programs. Popularized by elite law schools, the concept is a relatively simple one: eschew the big paychecks (and long hours) of a big law firm in favor of public interest work and, in exchange, you will get help paying back your enormous graduate student loans. Law schools have discovered that an attractive loan forgiveness program is a terrific marketing tool. This is primarily due to the fact that a huge number of law school applicants (especially those who are qualified to land admission spots in the elite programs) are highly optimistic people who view themselves as truth-seeking, freedom-fighting altruistic beings. In other words, everyone thinks they are going to do public interest work when they first apply to law school.

This poses an interesting question: how much stock should a top-flight candidate put in a school's loan forgiveness program?

A quick look at any reputable survey (I'm too lazy to find one at present) will tell you that the number of law school graduates who ultimately do public interest work is far, far less than the number of law school applicants who say they will one day do public interest work. There are many factors that play a role in this phenomenon. It is easier for a student at an elite law school to secure a summer associate position at a law firm than with a cutting edge public interest entity. Public interest firms and groups have fewer recruiting resources. The pressure to work in the big legal markets like New York or L.A. force students to search for an accessible path that will also pay the costs of relocating and then living in those cities. There are also simple (and often perverse) economic incentives, career-building considerations, and personal preference factors to consider. But the simple truth is that the number of actual public interest lawyers is so much lower than the number of hypothetical public interest lawyers because - pay attention now - people have no idea what they want to do when they are applying for law school! In fact, it is safe to say that the "actual" number for any subset of the legal profession is substantially lower than the suggested numbers generated by surveys of law school applicants.

It is human nature to change one's mind, especially after being exposed to hundreds of hours of logical reasoning and critical analysis.

So this takes us back to our initial question, framed in a new way: if students think they might want to do public interest law, but know they probably won’t, should they put much (or any) stock in each school's loan forgiveness program?

My answer to this - perhaps surprisingly - is yes. But it comes with a caveat. Students who see themselves doing public interest work after law school should still take that aspect of a program into account, but must do so with an understanding of human nature and the likely evolution that will take place in law school. This approach will help applicants identify those programs that offer a more realistic possibility of providing a future benefit.

Take, for instance, the different loan forgiveness programs at both Harvard Law School and the University of Chicago Law School. Both have interesting and competitive loan forgiveness programs that work in very different ways. Harvard has introduced a new program that subsidizes a public interest student's education by picking up the tab on the entire third year of law school ($45,000). This will, no doubt, catch the eye of more than a few applicants. However, it comes with more strings than John Cusak's puppet show in Being John Malkovich, as students who receive this subsidy are then required to work at least five years in a qualified public interest position. Five years! If students do not meet their end of the bargain, Harvard has to come and ask for that money back.

Chicago's program, on the other hand, is more modest in scope but less fraught with peril. Students who do post-graduate work in the public interest sector are eligible to receive up to $10,000 for each year that they do so, for as many as seven years. This might not be as enticing to an applicant as the promise of a free third year of tuition, but it comes at no risk and is still a very nice way of rewarding people for using their legal educations to make the world a better place (presumably).

Law school applicants everywhere, consider loan forgiveness programs if you see fit, but be sure to analyze them with the proper lens of perspective and rational expectation. And just know that whatever school you are analyzing and whatever program they are offering, the whole thing is primarily a marketing concept brilliantly designed to play on your own idealized view of your eventual career.

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Power Couple

It's Final Four time! It seems like a lot of our recent posts have had a sports theme to them, but with the start of one season (baseball) and the fast-approaching end to another (college basketball), you'll have to be understanding. Fortunately, my recent obsession (ok, maybe not that recent...) with Yahoo! Sports has led me to this post.

There was an article put up earlier today about two guys who are running a very successful business centered around college basketball. They are the epitome of the entrepreneurial spirit, and while there is some controversy around them, you can't deny their success.

For all you budding entrepreneurs out there (and all you college basketball fans), this one might be worth the read.

Source: Power Couple

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