How do you get into a top law school?
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Anonymous
I don’t work at a law school but I wouldn’t worry about that. In general law schools are profit centers for universities so I think they are less concerned about admitting people to generate future donations. |
Anonymous
No, only college grades earned before the first bachelors degree are counted toward the GPA used for admissions (and counted toward the law school’s median). |
Anonymous
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Here's a list of top law school feeders, just FYI:
2019-2020 Yale Law School undergrad representation: 1. Yale (90) 2. Harvard (54) 3. Columbia (34) 4. Princeton (31) 5. Stanford (22) 6. Dartmouth (21) 7. Cornell (19) 8. Chicago (18) 9. Brown (17) 10. Pennsylvania (16) 11. Georgetown (13) 11. Berkeley (13) 13. Duke (10) 14. Northwestern (8) 14. USC (8) 14. Michigan (8) 17. JHU (7) 17. UVA (7) 19. Amherst (6) 19. Swarthmore (6) 21. Bowdoin (5) 21. NYU (5) 21. Tufts (5) 21. UCLA (5) 21. UConn (5) 21. UNC-Chapel Hill (5) Stanford Law (Class of 2020-22): https://www-cdn.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/upload...lete_201920_FINAL_102019-1.pdf Universities (includes people with master's/other advanced degrees): Yale- 56 Stanford- 46 Harvard- 39 Princeton- 24 Columbia- 21 UC Berkeley- 20 UPenn- 19 Duke- 18 UChicago- 17 UCLA- 16 Cornell- 13 Georgetown- 13 Dartmouth- 12 U of Oxford- 12 Brown- 11 U of Cambridge- 10 NYU- 9 Vanderbilt- 9 USC- 9 Notre Dame- 8 UVA- 8 LACs: Pomona- 8 Middlebury- 6 Williams- 5 Amherst- 4 Swarthmore- 4 Wellesley- 4 Wesleyan- 4 |
Anonymous
| You get in by having a very high LSAT and GPA. They are numbers driven. The "feeder" schools are largely the schools that have a higher percentage of students that will get high LSAT scores and GPAs. The school isn't producing them as much as they are enrolling them. |
Anonymous
If you look at the average LSAT and GPAs from ABA: https://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/administrative/legal_education_and_admissions_to_the_bar/council_reports_and_resolutions/May2018CouncilOpenSession/18_may_2015_2017_top_240_feeder_schools_for_aba_applicants.authcheckdam.pdf A lot of schools have very similar average LSAT and GPAs but some schools like the ivies feed more into the top-tier law schools than other institutions. For top-tier law schools, having a high LSAT and GPA is just a prerequisite and other factors are taken into consideration during the admissions process. For example, the undergraduate schools ranked by average LSAT scores in 2017 are: Yale - 167.5 Harvard - 167.4 Princeton - 166.10 UChicago - 165.98 Stanford - 165.72 Dartmouth - 165.67 Columbia - 165 Duke - 164.97 Penn - 164.58 Tufts - 164.48 Brown - 164.31 Northwestern - 164.30 WUSTL - 164.05 Georgetown - 163.48 Vanderbilt - 163.45 Rice - 163.44 Amherst - 162.79 Notre Dame - 162.75 Cornell - 162.65 McGill - 162.64 Wesleyan - 162.61 JHU - 161.82 NYU - 161.75 W&M - 161.18 UVA - 160.84 UBC (Canada) - 160.76 BC - 160.70 Emory - 160.64 Michigan - 160.48 Brandeis - 160.30 Colgate - 160.23 Berkeley - 159.44 The clear overperformers (for YLS and SLS) are schools like Columbia, Cornell, Brown, Georgetown, Berkeley, while Duke, Tufts, Northwestern, WUSTL, UChicago, Vanderbilt underperform relative to their peer institutions. |
Anonymous
Feeders are not a thing no matter how many times these lists are repeated. The applicant's test score is what matters, not the average for the undergrad. A particular applicant's undergrad does not affect their LSAT score. |
Anonymous
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I read a study that elite grad programs really prefer to accept elite school grads. In fact more than 70% of elite post grad programs followed this rule. In addition there was a step down not a step up pattern in accepted students. For example an Ivy grad might go to an elite state school, not the other way around.
Sorry I can’t find the article but probably NYT or WPOST. Something to think about when applying. Better have a safety or two. Also for current applicants the required P/F for Covid isn’t helping too students. |
Anonymous
| Feeders is absolutely true unfortunately. Grads from those listed schools have a much better chance. It’s more of a proven quantity. Those elite schools really want lawyers who go on to do elite things … like run law firms become clerks judges senators and so on. |
Anonymous
It does unfortunately. Otherwise UChicago or Stanford would be sending droves of kids into YLS, but unfortunately they don't. YLS has a very clear East Coast bias. |
Anonymous
| Or YLS has a bias for public interest-y people, which isn’t necessarily what Stanford and Chicago are known for. |
Anonymous
This may be true of other academic graduate programs, but not for law school. Agree with pp who says that “elite” undergrads enroll people who make good grades and do well on standardized tests, which is why they make good grades and do well on the LSAT, and that is all law schools care about. I’ve helped my t-14 recruit top undergrads (they do this after they’ve been admitted) and I can assure you the numbers are the beginning and the end. Being the child of a famous jurist, billionaire, etc, may help, but not as much as undergrad. The stats have to be in range. Also, grads of top law schools tend to do well and are themselves in a position to donate money, so they are less dependent on generational wealth for contributions. |
Anonymous
Not all schools have a similar numbers or similar percentage of students applying to law school. Stanford, for instance, had 323 applicants to law school over a 3 year period. Berkeley had 1,506. Nearly 7% of Stanford law school applicants ended up at YLS vs. only .9% for Berkeley. Median LSAT at YLS is now 174, so you shouldn't really look at average LSAT score for applicants of a school. You should be looking at how many applicants the schools have that can produce the YLS median or higher. Ohio State for instance, had 404 law school applicants in 2017 and only the top scorers out of that 404 reached 174. There are many schools that don't have any applicants that reach that score. |
Anonymous
On a percentage of applicant basis ending up at YLS, Stanford trails only Yale, Harvard, and Princeton. A smaller percentage of Stanford graduates apply to law school compared to those schools. Stanford has a higher percentage of students graduating with engineering and other tech degrees, and they don't tend to apply to law school. School Percentage Applicants (3 year) Yale (90) 15.79% 570 Harvard (54) 8.37% 645 Princeton (31) 7.51% 413 Stanford (22) 6.81% 323 Columbia (34) 6.77% 502 |
Anonymous
| Yale Law School accepted 16 applicants straight out of undergrad this year. The other 184 (or so) had at least one year of work experience, and often several years. So no one is directly feeding students into YLS |
Anonymous
| By dressing very well |