<p>14<em>of</em>Spades,</p>
<p>If we’re talking low admissions rates as a measure of quality of degree, then why not put clinical psych programs at the top of your list, as they’re notorious for having low admissions rates?</p>
<p>I think you need to provide more reasons for your assertion other than admissions and numbers of holders of the degree.</p>
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<p>This doesn’t necessarily mean that the degree is “better” per se, though. Wouldn’t you agree?</p>
<p>sakky,</p>
<p>i’d also like to point out that u spent a bit of time explaining how someone (some people) in harvard law are lazy asses? why so?</p>
<p>wasn’t it to suggest that the JD is less work than the PhD (on average?). so really, this discussion was MORE than just showing that MIT=BERKELEY=HARVARD=STANFORD=ETC=ETC</p>
<p>edited for name</p>
<p>Are you talking to me or sakky?</p>
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<p>Why is no one here entitled to an opinion without being attacked? i think Yale JD = prestige. is this really against convention?</p>
<p>prestige. i haven’t said the word better. </p>
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<p>what assertion? please look the word “opinion” up in the dictionary. </p>
<p>and in any case, what more would u want than compelling evidence as provided by both ADMISSIONS and HOLDERS OF THE DEGREE!</p>
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<p>I don’t really see how I’ve attacked you. I’ve challenged you to maybe further explain your opinion, but that’s by no means an “attack.”</p>
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<p>Please keep this civil. </p>
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<p>You asked about the most influential graduate degree. However, I see very little evidence that Yale JDs are imminently more successful than Harvard JDs. In fact, I see almost no evidence. I think this presents a case where you should at least try to explain your belief. You claim it’s self-evident, but some of us feel that it’s not. It should be easy enough, therefore, to prove us all wrong.</p>
<p>my opinion, i think the Yale JD is the most prestigous degree. i never said anything about influential degrees (i didn’t start this thread). </p>
<p>obviously u don’t have to agree. harvard is obviously good - but for many reasons (e.g. 38% into Judicial Clerkships), Yale can be quite easily be “quantified” as being the top program. </p>
<p>u can see what wikipedia has to say.
<a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Law[/url]”>http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yale_Law</a></p>
<p>edit. ok i’ll add more. obviously, this is mostly anecdotal stuff i’ve picked off various essays/forums etc over the years.</p>
<p>apparently, a judicial clerkship is the most prestigious job a newly minted JD can get (or something like that). anyways, 2 schools account for the vast majority of those selected (harvard, yale) - either one of them basically are more than ALL THE OTHER schools combined. </p>
<p>harvard typically has more JCs overall than Yale, but only slightly so. but given that Harvard is one of the US’ largest law schools, while Yale is the smallest, Yale grads are about 3 times as likely to JC as a Harvard grad. so the disparity occurs here.</p>
<p>it’s kinda like two schools blow away the competition, but one of them have a higher yield into the top job at a rate of 3:1. obviously, my description here is very unscientific - but u could probably find this info online.</p>
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<p>Look, you are free to hold whatever opinion you want. But I am also free to hold whatever opinion that I want. And I don’t think that the YLS degree is that prestigious, either in my eyes, or the eyes of the general public, than a top-line PhD. Frankly, it takes far more work to finish the Harvard PhD than the YLS degree, because like I said, all you have to do to get the YLS degree is get in. Once you’re in, you’re going to graduate. However, simply getting into a PhD program doesn’t mean that you’re going to actually get the degree. Plenty of matriculants don’t make it. The attrition rate is around 50%. Hence, overall, in terms of sheer difficulty, I am fairly sure that it is the top-line PhD that is more difficult to get. </p>
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<p>I used the example the illustrate that law schools have some students who become lazy and just try to get away with doing the absolute bare minimum. The difference is that at the top law schools, including Yale, you can get away with that and still graduate, because almost everybody at the top law schools will graduate. However, if you try to get away with the bare minimum while in a PhD program, you will not get the degree. </p>
<p>This all gets back to what I was saying before - which is that I believe that a top-flight PhD is harder to get than a YLS degree. I am sure that if I investigate, I will find some people who went to Yale Law, and just lolly-gagged around for 3 years doing very little work. I already knew of the case of Mark Warner at Harvard Law, but Yale Law is probably even WORSE. Why? Because Harvard Law still uses class ranks and transparent grading, and so Mark Warner’s laziness was apparent to potential employers (which is why he couldn’t get a traditional law firm job after graduation and had to do other things). Yale Law does not use class rankings and has a rather opaque grading system such that it’s not that easy to tell if somebody is just trying to slide by, doing the bare minimum. Hence, I am quite sure that there are some lazy students at YLS who are just trying to slide by.</p>
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<p>Look, I can agree that the Yale JD is the most prestigious LAW degree. I am not disputing that.</p>
<p>The question is whether it is more prestigious than a top-line PhD, i.e. a Harvard PhD, or even a Yale PhD. In my opinion, it is not as prestigious, for the reasons I cited - that while it is probably harder to get into YLS than into a top-line PhD program, however, once admitted, it is much harder to actually COMPLETE a PhD than the law degree, such that in the aggregate, the PhD is probably harder to get.</p>
<p>sure. but if someone can get so famous just for slacking off at a top law school, then maybe it’s not as common as u think.</p>
<p>can anyone tell me how to get this page (the bb stuff) from any given page on CC?</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/misc.php?do=bbcode</a></p>
<p>anyways - i can see why u esteem the PhD. i haven’t done one yet, so i figure maybe my attitude will change once i start.</p>
<p>however, i’m currently in Taiwan, and by and large, anyone with a Harvard/Yale JD here basically ends up being given top positions in government IMMEDIATELY. i have a 28 year old friend, Harvard JD, he’s the english-speech writer for the vice-president. no interview required.</p>
<p>that’s what i mean when i say prestige.</p>
<p>I am not saying that it is ‘common’, just that there are some people who do that and still get away with it. Frankly, you don’t really to do that much to just barely pass law school. But for the PhD, you still have to complete a substantial thesis that has to be deemed acceptable by your committee. If you don’t do that, then you don’t graduate.</p>
<p>In addition, PhD students who are really gunning for a good academic position are doing far more than just doing the thesis. They are also publishing papers, they are presenting in conferences, they are doing lots of other things to make themselves famous in their field. But technically speaking, you don’t have to do any of that stuff to just graduate. All you have to do is complete an acceptable thesis (after you’ve completed your coursework and passed your qual exams). This is a huge hurdle that many people find they are unable to do, but that’s all you have to do. Strictly speaking, you don’t have to actually publish a single paper in any journal while you’re a student. You don’t have to make a single conference presentation of your work, heck, you don’t even have to have attended a single conference while you’re a student. All you have to do is complete an acceptable thesis. But of course, if that’s all you have, and you don’t have a CV with a strong publication/presentation history, you’re probably not going to get a good academic position. Heck, you probably won’t get ANY academic position, and thus you will be forced to go to industry. But some people don’t mind that. Like I said, there are some Harvard PhD students (as well as PhD students at any other school) who have basically decided that they don’t want to become academics anymore, so they just want to finish their thesis, graduate, and go to industry. Many of them don’t even manage to graduate, and so they just go straight to industry. But some do, and they still head off to industry.</p>
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<p>Well, I’m fairly certain that a Harvard/Yale PhD could get a similar high posting in Taiwan, if he wanted to. </p>
<p>The issue is that lots of them don’t really want to. Most of them are bonafide researchers who are not interested in becoming politically powerful. They just want to do research. </p>
<p>But my point is, if these guys just wanted to leverage their Harvard/Yale brand-names, they could do it.</p>