Cleveland State University, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Admission
Cleveland State University, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Undergraduate Program
Cleveland State University, Cleveland-Marshall College of Law Application

The Facts

Cleveland State University is a rather large, public institution located in the appropriately titled city of Cleveland, Ohio, and has a combined graduate and undergraduate population of over 16,480 students. The university's Cleveland-Marshall College of Law, however, is significantly smaller, and is home to about 747 graduate law students. The average age of enrollment is around 26, and it is quite rare for any students to enter the school directly from their undergraduate education. The school is perhaps best known for its wonderful library and subsequent research resources, as well as for its connections within the legal community of the Cleveland area. The school offers degrees in the 1 to 4 year LLM, as well as the 3 to 4 year JD. The school also has a wide range of joint degrees offered in the JD/MPA in public administration, the JD/MUPDD in urban planning, design, and development, the JD/MAES in environmental science, as well as the JD/MBA. All of the joint degrees can be completed in 4 years of full-time study. Some of the most popular programs of study include courses in the areas of business law, civil litigation and dispute resolution, criminal law, employment and labor law, as well as tax law.

Admission to Cleveland State University's College of Law is fairly competitive among the relatively few students who apply; last year, over 1,912 students applied for admission to the school, and approximately 562 of those students were accepted. Eventually however, only about 248 of the admitted students actually enrolled for the coming semester. The admitted students had an average LSAT score ranging from 151 to 156, as well as an average undergraduate GPA of about a 3.3. Students are notified of their admissions status on a rolling basis, and there is currently no early applications program in place.

The College of Law has 73 faculty members, and students agree that they are highly dedicated and professional, and do everything they can to be accessible to their students. The professors come from a wide range of legal backgrounds, allowing students to have a diverse learning experience. The school has a very manageable student to faculty ratio 13:1, and the small classes allow for plenty of discussion and interaction between students and their professors.

Employment Facts

Students at the College of Law often complain about the lack of career services, and most jobs are found through networking on their own. However, over 90% of the most recent graduating class were able to find jobs within a few months of receiving their degrees, and had an average starting salary of about $67,020. Students are most commonly hired by firms such as Jones Day, Thompson, Hine, Squire Sanders and Dempsey, Calfee Halter and Griswold, Arter and Hadden, Ernst and Young, Benesch Friedlander Coplan and Arnold, as well as Hahn Loeser and Parks LLP.

What's Good

"The research available in the library is amazing. It seems like they have every legal brief ever written."

"The faculty is incredible, and they have such passion for teaching."

"Cleveland is a great place to study law, as there is just a ton going on in this city."

What's Bad

"There aren't nearly enough career services available. You are all on your own sometimes."

"People can be overly competitive here, and seem to need to prove themselves constantly."

"There isn't enough on campus graduate housing, and housing in the city isn't cheap."

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