Page "Law school in the United States" Paragraph 62

Some law school graduates suggest that their schools use misleading statistics to attract students.

An example of this would be schools citing a relatively high number of its graduates being " gainfully employed " after a certain period, ranging anywhere from 6 months to 24 months after graduation.

This is misleading because the school does not differentiate between employment in legal and non-legal fields ; therefore, a graduate who is waiting tables or working in a big-box retailer would be considered " gainfully employed ", even though a law degree was not a requirement for employment.

Another example would be of schools citing a relatively high employment rate of students who responded to their employment survey without disclosing the percentage of students that responded.

This is misleading because unemployed graduates tend not to respond to employment surveys until they gain employment, and some schools even explicitly tell graduates not to respond unless they are employed.

In addition, schools cite the mean graduate salary, instead of the median ; while the median salary of law graduates is approximately $ 62, 000, the mean could be inflated somewhat by a relatively small concentration of graduates earning starting salaries well above the median .< ref >