<p>goldenboy, I am not going to go into a Law school debate. It is pointless, in your corner, you have your opinion, or rather Leiter’s, and on mine, I have the entire Legal profession covered; academe, thousands of practicing lawyers and judges, and recruiters and hiring partners at Big Law (the top and most prestigious law firms in America). You can claim whatever you like, the fact is, Michigan Law has a very high rating across all segments of the legal profession.</p>
<p><a href=“http://premium.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-firms-rankings[/url]”>http://premium.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/law-firms-rankings</a></p>
<p>As the link shows, it is not academe, but rather practicing lawyers and judges (#4 tied with Chicago, Columbia and UVa) as well as recruiters and hiring partners at Big Law (#4 tied with Columbia) that give Michigan Law a top 5 rating. Those are very much active today and not out of touch with reality. </p>
<p>At any rate, the above does not address the point of this thread, which asks about how this year’s 16% increase in EA applicants should be viewed and when will this increase in applicant pool level off. Our debate about law school ratings neither addresses nor alters the fact still that Michigan had a 20% increase in applicants for undergrad 2 years ago, and should have a 15%+ increase in applicants for undergrad this year. In three years, Michigan has gone from 30,000 applicants to 50,000 applicants, the University does not intend to increase the size of the undergraduate student population and the yield is holding at ±40%. </p>
<p>It also does not change my opinion, and that of most people, that while the 2003 WSJ was interesting, it was grossly incomplete. I don’t see why you would object to such a survey including top 15 graduate programs in each field, and expending for more fields of equal importance to human development, such as Engineering/CS and the traditional disciplines, such as Bio, Chem, Econ, History, Math, Physics, Poli Sci etc…</p>