Reply to If most careers require grad school does where you get your 4 year degree really matter?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Eh, not all schools are equal.

A top honors degree from third rate undergrad may not get you into prestigious graduate school, especially if their programs suck in your field of interest.[/quote]
There's a lot to be said for being the big fish in a small pond.  I ended up at a third rate undergrad for financial reasons and had no problem getting into a top grad school and top law school.  Leaving undergrad I had tons of awards, glowing recommendations, and perfect grades.  I don't know that my application would have been as stellar from a more competitive school.[/quote]

How many other kids from your undergrad were at your top law school with you?  How many of your law school classmates graduated from the undergrad of your law school?[/quote]

Congrats to PP for threading the needle and getting into top law school the harder way. We have a very close relative at Yale law. They went to a different ivy for undergraduate. Over half of the YL entering class each year is from the same 20 or so elite undergrads. Most of the rest are from T25-40 types/6-15 ranked LACs. There are almost no students from colleges below the top100 and these students are either hooked demographics or truly genius. [/quote]
Yale lists the 86 undergrad institutions that are represented at Yale Law School on their website.  You'll see lots of non-prestigious schools listed, from Northern Arizona University to Florida International University to Southern Utah University.

[url]https://law.yale.edu/admissions/profiles-statistics[/url][/quote]

That's 86 out of 204 students. 90 are from Yale, 30 odd from Harvard. Magically, that leaves your 84-odd figure because Yale, like Harvard, cherry picks the valedictorians from those other schools. That's how I got into both Harvard and Yale law schools. Both institutions brag these figures because to the unknowing it makes the schools appear less elitist. Fully one-third of my HLS class (560) were from Harvard undergrad ergo 185.[/quote]

This is not because the law schools are selecting for harvard grads.  It's because law schools are selecting for pretty much the same things harvard undergrad was selecting for.[/quote]Harvard and Yale have a lot of talented undergrads.  That's why you see them highly represented.  But you aren't going to see undergrads in the bottom 30% of the Harvard and Yale classes going on to top professional programs.  And it's pretty darn embarrassing to graduate from Harvard or Yale and then end up at as school like George Mason or American for law school, likely because of a poor GPA, so it's not frequently done.  [/quote]

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