<p>At most biglaw firms, the market scale for base salary (year 1 to year 8) is generally $160K, $170K, $185K, $210K, $230K, $250K, $265K, $280K .plus bonus.</p>
<p>“Goldenpooch, Your son earned his tuition.”</p>
<p>One year’s worth. It did give him a very nice nest egg after he graduated.</p>
<p>He probably learned more about finance in 10 weeks than 4 years as an economics major in college.</p>
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<p>That may be true, I don’t know about that many getting biglaw salaries, particularly because a lot of grads of top schools get clerkships that won’t pay that much, but Stanford is one of the top schools in the country. Grads of the top 14 have good job prospects at jobs like that. However, the vast majority of law schools do not have job placement stats anywhere close to it. There are far too many law schools in the U.S., many of which accept anyone with a pulse.</p>
<p>CountingDown, Do you mean for a summer internship, or was he working there full-time at 19?</p>
<p>Those Biglaw salaries represent a handful of firms in a handful of big cities available to a small percentage of total law school grads. When one considers the hours those associates put in to earn those salaries, they make less than $40/hr. Still a great salary no doubt, but they pay their pound (or 10 lbs) of flesh. Sadly, even the vast majority of lawyers lucky enough to be employed and who don’t work for Biglaw also work crazy hours under a lot of pressure. There are a lot of law school grads out there that are willing to intern for free just to get their foot in the door of a decent firm. </p>
<p>That’s why it is not worth to get a law degree unless one could get into one of top tier law schools. I’ve already had that conversation with D2. She will be going to one of those high placement law schools or she is not going. I told her to have a plan B just in case.</p>
<p>Oldfort, my friend’s son said the same thing you did; not worth going if not in top 15. </p>
<p>However, another friend’s son went to law school at state U, graduated middle of class, did everything he could to find work in legal field until something came through. He worked as paralegal for a firm for awhile, and then he was promoted to lawyer status. He always wanted to be a lawyer and is happy now. Sometimes working as a lawyer is more important than being in a big firm.</p>
<p>^^^I can see that. As long as he is happy. </p>
<p>Yes, I am in academia - college administration. Even my 25 year old earns more than I do … but then again, at least she can pay for the old folks’ home.</p>
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<p>That’s an annualized salary of $240K. Have never heard of an undergrad or MBA intern earning that salary in IB.</p>
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<p>Agreed.</p>
<p>Kelsmom, my new graduate son also makes more than DH who is in academia. Of course, new grad son is not making near the salary that some are reporting on this thread. My kids felt fortunate to get minimum wage internships!</p>
<p>He worked FT for the summer – hourly rate was way more than I ever made. He worked for pay for two summers and contributed programming via open source through most of college (for free). It got him into exactly the kind of work he wanted within his company.</p>
<p>You have to be careful about internships in tech they are listing, the figures they are listing can be skewed. First of all, they will pay that kind of money for interns precisely because it is short term, so while it looks like a lot of money (and it is), it is likely when they sign on the dotted line they won’t be making that much full time. There may be kids in college or coming out who have demonstrated superior skills, but they are the outliers when it comes to salary. Even in the financial sector, starting pay in tech is decent but it isn’t earthshattering, and thanks to outsourcing and H1B visa programs there is a damper on salaries, despite all the claims of shortages and such. There are tech jobs out there, and they pay decently, and over time you can do very well, but what is being cited as intern pay is not the norm for the industry. If your skills are up there, if you have unique skills, you will do a lot better than if you are simply coming out and working as a java developer, and internships in that sense help the candidate, because they will have real world experience. </p>
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<p>I know a lot of CS majors, the only time I’ve ever heard of someone getting less for full time than internships was when the internship was paid hourly and there was a lot of overtime, where the pay for full time was salaried. Other than that, full time has always paid more. Usually about 50% more. </p>
<p>We pay our full timer more than interns. I have been trying to convince management to increase our intern’s pay.</p>
<p>My son’s tech internship last summer would have landed between Yahoo and Capital One had there be enough reports to be on the list. He starts full-time in June at about a 45% increase over the internship pay. </p>
<p>cbreeze, this was a bulge investment bank (not in NYC) which paid time-and-a-half and double pay. My kid was working over 100 hrs a week. When you added up all the hours at these jacked-up rates, his total pay came close to $50,000 for a 10-to-11-week internship. For some reason, only a few banks in only certain locations do it this way.</p>
<p>GP - if we assume 1.5times for hours over 40, the number reaches 130 which means the rate was under 40?</p>
<p>Oh, I would have thought that perhaps it was a boutique rather than bulge bank since bulge banks are pretty much lockstep with no exceptions.</p>
<p>Your son is lucky then.</p>
<p>Texas, I can’t remember exactly how it was structured but I think the hourly rate was based on a annual salary of $65,000. You got 1.5 times the hourly rate once you exceeded 40 hours and twice the hourly rate for any hours exceeding 80 per week. You also got double pay for Sundays and if you worked later than 12:00 or 1:00 AM. My son averaged around 110 hours a week. </p>