Pre-Law. Go for prestige or not?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think parents should pay for law school. If the kid has the chops they should be able to get a good scholarship and also make their own decisions about which school to go to, balancing the cost against their career ambitions.

With what's happening with AI, now way in hell I would tell my kid today that we would pay for law school...nor that they should even be thinking about it as an option until things sort out.

As of today, the ABA continues to insist that only humans can practice law and represent others' interests.

They don't care if BigLaw uses AI to do discovery, write drafts of transaction and other legal documents, etc.

I assume they require actual lawyers to file things and attest that they are accurate, but they don't care how the sausage is made.

Most lawyers aren't trial lawyers...agree that's not going anywhere...but even those lawyers will use AI to create the documents that are filed.

This is a boon to experienced attorneys, but may dramatically reduce the number of entry-level attorneys...and the entry-level attorneys better be AI experts if they want the jobs.

However, maybe in 4 years from now the world hasn't changed much or there is a need for more lawyers...who knows.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think parents should pay for law school. If the kid has the chops they should be able to get a good scholarship and also make their own decisions about which school to go to, balancing the cost against their career ambitions.

With what's happening with AI, now way in hell I would tell my kid today that we would pay for law school...nor that they should even be thinking about it as an option until things sort out.

AI is a tool for lawyers, it's not going to replace us.

[Anonymous]

I think the poster above raised a good point that I would love for someone else to build on. I am not a lawyer so don't know how it used to be. But I have a few friends who are lawyers and went to top schools whose kids are applying to law school now who have said that the process is both more competitive but also just more complicated than it used to be. I think it was GPA, LSAT and an essay? Now I think there is more to it and it is less predictable.

Someone please confirm/reject what I am saying - might be wrong.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I went to Yale Law School and I'd say that Yale and Harvard undergrads, specifically, had an outsized presence. Less so beyond that, but the class was still 3/4th people from very, very good schools. The other 25% were valedictorians of random schools or had some other star factor (e.g., Olympic medalist(s); disabled purple heart winner with a 175 LSAT score; first ever Black student body present at white Southern school; celebrity child genius; best selling author... all real examples at YLS at the same time as me).

+ 1 with a similar experience at a different top 5 law school. Outsized presence from name brand schools, with a smattering of students from no name schools who I assume were at the very top of their class. And only 1 from each no name school as opposed to bunches from the top schools.

I always love how people assume upfront that their kid can go to a lesser ranked school and end up tippy top with credentials to get into a top law school. How could you possible know this upfront?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Yale Law School and I'd say that Yale and Harvard undergrads, specifically, had an outsized presence. Less so beyond that, but the class was still 3/4th people from very, very good schools. The other 25% were valedictorians of random schools or had some other star factor (e.g., Olympic medalist(s); disabled purple heart winner with a 175 LSAT score; first ever Black student body present at white Southern school; celebrity child genius; best selling author... all real examples at YLS at the same time as me).

+ 1 with a similar experience at a different top 5 law school. Outsized presence from name brand schools, with a smattering of students from no name schools who I assume were at the very top of their class. And only 1 from each no name school as opposed to bunches from the top schools.

I always love how people assume upfront that their kid can go to a lesser ranked school and end up tippy top with credentials to get into a top law school. How could you possible know this upfront?

Agreed. If you go to a lower school, there is a lot more pressure to be top of the class. One can assume that it will happen, but if there are a few bad grades for whatever reason, it is a big problem. Make a few bad grades at Yale or Harvard and it is less of an issue.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t think parents should pay for law school. If the kid has the chops they should be able to get a good scholarship and also make their own decisions about which school to go to, balancing the cost against their career ambitions.

With what's happening with AI, now way in hell I would tell my kid today that we would pay for law school...nor that they should even be thinking about it as an option until things sort out.

AI is a tool for lawyers, it's not going to replace us.

I assume you are an experienced attorney. It may be a boon to you...it's the pipeline for entry-level white collar folks in many professions including law, that everyone fears could be a huge problem.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Does it really matter where your DC goes for pre-law if they’re bright enough to get into a top law school for their JD?
I'm looking for insights from professionals in the field. I'm really conflicted due to the peer pressure of sending my DC to a prestigious undergrad school.
JD is 125k per year. It's a no brainer to me to pay for JD instead of undergrad so that DC has no student debt. They're likely to get a full-ride at a T50+. I'm ok to pay the difference if it's not a full-ride.
Please don't talk about alumni benefit if you haven't personally experienced it. Looking for non-hypothetical views.

I graduated from a top 10 undergrad, and went to a top 5 school within the last five years, and currently an associate at a firm that's ranked in the top 10 by Vault.

Law school admissions is mostly GPA + LSAT. However, it's also much more holistic than people make it out to be, especially in the past few cycles where it has gotten much more competitive compared to the 2010s when people were regularly getting into places like UVA Law with a 160 LSAT.

Going to an elite undergrad does not inherently increase your chances to getting into an elite law school, but the boost comes from mostly the intangibles that boost the soft factors that law school admissions officers look at when determining who to admit. Law schools nowadays give more weight to work experience, so if you've worked a few years in tech, IB, consulting, and other jobs that elite schools feed into, that's going to be a plus. If you've studied on an elite postgraduate scholarship like the Schwarzman, Marshall or Truman (again outcomes that elite undergrads feed disproportionately into) that's going to also be a plus. Because Ivies and Ivy Plus school have lower faculty to student ratios, students can often develop meaningful relationships with the faculty, and have them write strong, individualized rec letters, another plus. Elite schools also have pretty rampant grade inflation, which is going to be another plus factor.

Moreover, certain undergrads are perceived as feeders into certain law schools. At my law school, I would guess that around 20% of the law students also did their undergrad at the same school (an Ivy). At Yale Law (widely considered the top law school in the country) the majority of their students come from the Ivies, Ivy Plus, and top liberal arts colleges. However, my law school classmates also came from schools that I've never heard of, but were definitely the valedictorians or summa grads of their respective schools.

However, if your child is self-driven, they should be able to maintain a high GPA at a state school, get a high LSAT score, develop strong meaningful relationships with professors, and maybe get a few years of meaningful work experience, and be able to get a T14 law school acceptance.

The legal field is notoriously prestige driven, however, and some firms and judges looking for clerks have been known to also be cognizant of where their applicants did their undergrad. So there's also that intangible in going to an elite undergrad if your child is looking to be a lawyer.

100% true and have direct experience with it. Undergrad matters for the intangibles.

[Anonymous]

Early retired partner from an elite Biglaw firm by anyone’s definition. A firm that is full of top law school grads. I was also heavily involved in on campus recruiting.

At the very very top of the law firm food chain - think Yale and Stanford - graduating from an elite undergrad school does make a significant difference unless you have a compelling personal story like our a$$hole vice president. Beyond those two, not so much - and not even at Harvard because the law school is so big.

The so called T14 are full of graduates of non-elite colleges. And any one of those will put you on third base for landing a top job after graduation.

If money is an issue at all, I wouldn’t stretch your undergrad budget just to improve your chances at Yale Law. It’s a tough admit regardless, and if you’re not aiming to be a law
professor or whatever you don’t need that particular degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I went to Yale Law School and I'd say that Yale and Harvard undergrads, specifically, had an outsized presence. Less so beyond that, but the class was still 3/4th people from very, very good schools. The other 25% were valedictorians of random schools or had some other star factor (e.g., Olympic medalist(s); disabled purple heart winner with a 175 LSAT score; first ever Black student body present at white Southern school; celebrity child genius; best selling author... all real examples at YLS at the same time as me).

+ 1 with a similar experience at a different top 5 law school. Outsized presence from name brand schools, with a smattering of students from no name schools who I assume were at the very top of their class. And only 1 from each no name school as opposed to bunches from the top schools.

I always love how people assume upfront that their kid can go to a lesser ranked school and end up tippy top with credentials to get into a top law school. How could you possible know this upfront?

Right! Over 25% of the last several years of Harvard, Duke, Yale, others have over a 3.9 on a 4.0(no bump for A+). Even the average 3.7-3.8 kids from these schools go to T14. For students who are influenced by the peer group, it is easier to be average to above at an elite undergraduate program than have to be at the very top of a typical public or non-T30 private.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't it be extremely competitive to get into a top law school from a T10? It's like attending a very rigorous IB/Magnet program in HS. It's a fantastic program, but when the admissions cycle arrives, a pool of 50+ almost equally talented students from the same school are applying to the same colleges. There is no way any school is going to accept more than a couple from that program.
Leaving Harvard, Yale, and Stanford out of the discussion, since they have a large number of undergraduates feeding into the top law schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't it be extremely competitive to get into a top law school from a T10? It's like attending a very rigorous IB/Magnet program in HS. It's a fantastic program, but when the admissions cycle arrives, a pool of 50+ almost equally talented students from the same school are applying to the same colleges. There is no way any school is going to accept more than a couple from that program.
Leaving Harvard, Yale, and Stanford out of the discussion, since they have a large number of undergraduates feeding into the top law schools.

Yale used to provide a detailed listing of the number of kids by undergrad attending Yale law school (I think they stopped this in 2022).

Yes, Yale undergrad was literally like 25% of Yale law school (so like 150 kids)...but I remember seeing that UPenn had like 20 kids attending...Williams like 8.

At 600 total students, I think Yale is on the small side?

[Anonymous]

A top 30 undergrad may help slightly, and it can help when applying to a particular law school that you went there for undergrad. Other than that it doesn't matter.

[Anonymous]

I've posted before - I am a law professor some direct experience in law school admissions (at a top-tier but non-T14 law school). Only the few very top law schools (possibly even just Yale and Stanford, as the previous poster said) have anything like the holistic admissions of undergrad. Law schools, even the large majority of the T14, are extremely stats-driven. If you are above the median GPA/LSAT for a given law school and don't have a major negative (like a DUI, academic dishonesty, etc.), you are very likely to get in. If you are below the medians, you are very unlikely to get in, even with a compelling personal story. Where it gets more unpredictable is for students who are right around the median, or above one median but a little below the other. For those students, their undergraduate institution (as well as the rigor of their major/courseload) might come into play in the sense that a 3.9 from an Ivy will be better regarded than a 3.9 from a non-state flagship. But if the student's GPA is above the median at the law school they are applying to and they have a strong LSAT to go with it, it is unlikely to matter very much where their degree is from; conversely, a top undergrad won't matter much if they're below the medians.

Elite colleges are far overrepresented at top schools because 1) those schools grade-inflate, so it is generally easier to have a high GPA there; 2) their students have far higher LSATs on average, and the LSAT is a very important part of the process; 3) at the couple of law schools that are more holistic and for applicants in the middle of the pack for a particular law school, going to an elite college helps a little bit. That means that on balance, yes, there's a slight advantage to undergrad prestige. However, other factors are significantly more important, and the outsize presence of students from elite colleges at T14s is probably more about correlation than causation.

And this may change over the next several years, but at the moment AI is in no way capable of performing reliable legal research.

[Anonymous]

To expand on OP’s question - for law school admissions purposes, is it better to do very well (summa/awards) at a school like BC/Miami/Northeastern/Tulane/Wake with substantial merit, or say 3.7 at a T20 with limited accolades/merit, assuming major(s), LSAT, ECs and LoRs essentially are the same?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To expand on OP’s question - for law school admissions purposes, is it better to do very well (summa/awards) at a school like BC/Miami/Northeastern/Tulane/Wake with substantial merit, or say 3.7 at a T20 with limited accolades/merit, assuming major(s), LSAT, ECs and LoRs essentially are the same?

Better to have the highest possible GPA at a reasonably good school than a lower GPA at a top school. No question.

-Someone who works in T10 Law School Admissions