View Libby A. Nelson's original article here. Posted by LST on January 09, 2012.
Excerpt:
As scrutiny of law schools has increased over the past year, with students bearing increasing loan debt and having more difficulty finding jobs to pay it off, law school deans and professors have come in for criticism. But on the front lines of the battle, dealing with sometimes skeptical prospective students, has been another group: admissions officers.
In a session at the Association of American Law Schools’ conference here Friday, admissions officers spoke of their balancing act: recruiting students without promising more than law school can provide.
“You can run the risk of being a little overzealous in your sales techniques,” said Alicia Cramer, assistant dean of admissions at the South Texas College of Law. …
Not surprisingly, Cramer and her fellow panelists said that admissions offices should be as transparent as possible with prospective students, including disclosing job placement statistics that are as detailed as possible. But they also suggested a few ways to deflect the rising concern, such as emphasizing students’ own responsibilities in finding a job. And when prospective students set their hearts on a certain law school, panelists said, they sometimes hear what they want to hear. …
“We really aren’t doing ourselves, nor are we doing the applicants, a service if we don’t share the information with them,” [Tracy] Simmons [of Chapman University School of Law] said. …
Even with increased transparency, they said, some students will never be satisfied.