A. Nony Mouse wrote:Specialized rankings don't matter. They're not rankings of what a school has to offer students in those specialties - they're rankings by academics of academics and their work, and a given academic's placement of articles into esteemed law reviews almost never has anything to do with getting students employed in a given field.
AU does have a disproportionately high percentage of graduates go into government/public interest, as compared to firms (especially biglaw), with 21% in government and 13% in public interest (however, we don't know what kinds of jobs those are). That said, they still have an employment score of 54.6%. Their public interest score is 33.7%, but 10.4% of that is made up by school-funded jobs. And something to keep in mind is that about the same percentage of the class was unemployed as working in government. It's an incredibly expensive school. And I think from what I've seen here it's one of the only schools that demands you pay back your 1L scholarship money if you transfer.
If AU works for you, that's great. But that doesn't mean it makes sense for someone who wants to do international stuff/government to go to AU over UVA, especially when the OP never mentioned any interest in AU.
There's not much to disagree with here, though I'd quibble on the specialty rankings with respect to int'l law, simply because so much of the work either is academic or substantially driven by academia. The practice is unique in that your characterization of its ranking actually is useful. Same would not apply for other areas. Also, I don't see clinic program rankings necessarily fitting your characterization as purely academic; I'd be interested to hear if you think that applies to those rankings, too.
Re: unemployment rate and expenses, not going to hear me dispute that. I wasn't trying to convince OP of anything, just saw somebody who has similar interests as me and, considering that I'm well on my way with respect to those goals, thought I'd chime in. Thanks for your constructive, fact-based, and civil comments, though. It's nice to gain something from receiving a reply (other than flames from maladjusted gunners).