Law Schools
NYU Students Seek Coveted Law School Classes, Will Pay Cash
Posted Jul 28, 2008 2:21 PM CST
By Martha Neil
At least one administrator at New York University School of Law recently has put his foot down about the practice, threatening sanctions. But students reportedly are shamelessly buying and selling seats in coveted law school courses via the Internet, in what some might consider a valuable lesson about business life outside the classroom.
Facing a Sept. 3 deadline to add or drop classes, desperate law degree seekers deluged the school's Internet forum last week with offers of sweet treats, Starbucks gift certificates, cold hard cash, and even suggestions of sexual favors, in exchange for the right class, according to the New York Post. Wrote one, in a July 21 e-mail: "WANT: Entertainment Law, Will Pay Cash."
The entrepreneurial approach has developed because the school doesn't maintain waiting lists for oversubscribed classes, the newspaper explains. So students who strike a deal can effectively put one in the other's place by dropping a class a few moments before the buyer registers for the now-available seat. Initially, class slots are awarded by lottery.
"People have been buying and selling classes ever since I started," says Colin George, a May graduate. "There are always jokes about exchanging sexual favors, but I've never heard of its actually happening."
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Comments
associate
Jul 29, 2008 9:04 AM CST
What do you expect to happen when you spend most of your time learning in areas that you will never practice in and only allow a few elective classes? Especially when most of those elective classes have nothing to do with actual practice and making money?
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wanna be
Jul 29, 2008 4:47 PM CST
LS administrators are so out of touch, what do they think this is, the Peace Corps? LS students need to learn early how to be cut-throat shysters to get ready for this douche bag profession
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associate2
Aug 1, 2008 7:19 AM CST
This problem could be solved by . . . a waiting list!
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Bert
Aug 1, 2008 8:17 AM CST
How NYU makes the top 14 in US News and other law school rankings, is seriously called into question. This is not what occurs at a prestigious law school. Can you imagine this taking place in Cambridge Massachusetts, New Haven Connecticut or Ann Arbor Michigan? Hardly likely.
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NYUlawGrad
Aug 1, 2008 8:43 AM CST
Hey, try top 5. Sometimes even top 4. We prove you can be prestigious without being an ivory tower. We are real.
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Dan
Aug 1, 2008 9:09 AM CST
Sounds like a great legal education… ::rolleyes::
Let’s ask this question… If an undergrad school did not have enough classes to give their students the classes they want, how high would they score in the USN≀ rankings of colleges? Answer: Not high.
Oh, and with regard to electives: You could try going to a school where every class after first year (and some first year) are elective. I did.
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MARY
Aug 1, 2008 9:36 AM CST
At Univeristy of Akron, they do have a waiting list… so I had to not only find someone in the class to drop, but had to pay off people who were ahead of me on the waiting list. Adminsitration claims they provide a “fair” way to fill limited classes, but the Univeristy email system does not deliver messages simultaneously to everyone so some people have a definite advantage.
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CalAtty
Aug 1, 2008 9:45 AM CST
I don’t see the problem. Since the school has failed to provide a protocol, the students have established a marketplace. Bert seemed appalled that this would happen, stating that it would never happen at an Ivy League school. Guess again. If a similar situation arose where students were able to obtain classes they needed through buying and selling, they would do so. To think otherwise is foolish. Dan is almost as laughable in questioning the level of the education based on no other criteria than the existence of a marketplace that he finds distasteful. Everyone needs to get a grip and get a life.
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Brian
Aug 1, 2008 9:46 AM CST
This is another symptom of the real problem - law schools are overenrolled and understaffed. More students and less overhead equals more cash. With your first three semesters completely mapped out, any elective courses with prerequisites or certificate programs basically require you to take a certain class in a certain semester.
Considering the cost of the degree, “sorry” is not an acceptable response from the administrators. At $100k+, what’s a few bucks more to get the education you actually want?
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Brad
Aug 1, 2008 12:34 PM CST
Um law school rankings… Yeah. The rankings where tier 100 schools cant crack the top ranks even when they have more distinguished faculty. Why anyone cares about that crap is beyond me.
For the record, my school had waitlists for seminars and other classes where a limit was needed due to multiple offerings of the course.
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sb
Aug 2, 2008 11:19 AM CST
Here’s an idea: The law of supply and demand normally works so that when you have an increase in demand, INCREASE THE SUPPLY!! Why in the world isn’t NYU responding any faster to class demand? Doesn’t anyone care about student needs over there? Or is it not really a coincidence that the initials for “school of law” are “S.O.L.”?
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Jenelle
Aug 2, 2008 10:43 PM CST
#4..maybe this specifically doesn’t occur at a prestigious law school, but how about students at Ivy League’s tearing pages out of books and study guides so others can’t study?
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Jon
Aug 3, 2008 12:09 AM CST
I have friends that went to NYU and they dont have to even be in NYC to get a law degree. I have friends that are in LA making money and just fly back to NYC for tests. Law school is a joke, waste of time and money.
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Dan
Aug 3, 2008 9:42 AM CST
CalAtty, get a clue. I’m not questioning the legal education based on the marketplace, I’m saying that a school that cannot provide enough seats in classes for all of the students is not a good school, because what other than holding classes for students is their purpose?
I think the student “marketplace” is quite a good response to a school that screws their students. A better response would be to demand some changes in the way the school creates a course catalog.
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Can't wait to graduate
Aug 3, 2008 1:09 PM CST
The problems of class size, hiring and retaining quality faculty, curriculum, course scheduling, and course variety are occurring at law schools all across the country, whether those schools are dubbed “ivy league” or not.
I’m entering my third year, and I’ve talked about this with friends at a wide variety of law schools - geographically and according to rank. One semester, you seem to only see environmental law electives. Another semester, you can’t get a class on Monday or Friday to save your life (professors apparently like long weekends as much or more than their students.) Perhaps another semester, all the classes you want are at the same time of day, so you are stuck with one class you want, and 12 credits of “filler.” Or perhaps all the classes you want are offered Spring term, and your Fall ends up being full of pointless toil.
This is not something that just NYU students are grappling with. They just decided to create a “black market” in response - isn’t that what economists have commonly found occurs when something can’t be purchased on the open market? And when people are paying $100,000 for a degree already, I can’t really condemn them for throwing another $100 into the pot so that they aren’t stuck taking yet another course that they don’t want.
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Bert
Aug 4, 2008 11:11 AM CST
The bottom line is that NYU has no business being ranked in the top 14-let alone top 5. This is a disgrace. Students pay over $100,00 dollars for a top tier law school education and then have to provide “payola” to get key classes. When coupled with the abysmal physical facilities of the law school-ever been to New Haven Conn. or Ann Arbor Michigan NYU Law Grad?-it reflects a sad fact:NYU has completely geared itself soley and exclusively for the US News rankings but lacks the real substance of quality or prestige in legal education.
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