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Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.

Not in today's law and nomenclature. https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-211356-why-are-the-top-14-law-schools-called-the-top-14/. Talk to any student trying to get into law schoool; it's all T14 or bust if they can do it.

Not the kids I’m talking to. They’re factoring in quality of life. And yes, turned down 14 for one slightly lower.

Then you ran into some naive kids.

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.

Not in today's law and nomenclature. https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-211356-why-are-the-top-14-law-schools-called-the-top-14/. Talk to any student trying to get into law schoool; it's all T14 or bust if they can do it.

Not the kids I’m talking to. They’re factoring in quality of life. And yes, turned down 14 for one slightly lower.

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.

Not in today's law and nomenclature. https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-211356-why-are-the-top-14-law-schools-called-the-top-14/. Talk to any student trying to get into law schoool; it's all T14 or bust if they can do it.

Also, they believe this: There’s a natural cut-off between the #14 spot and the #15 spot. There are fourteen law schools that have historically “owned” the top 14 slots in the US News & World Report ranking.

Some schools slide in and out of the Top 10. Other schools slide in and out of the Top 15. But law schools almost never move into or out of the Top 14. Year in and year out, it’s the same fourteen law schools.

We sometimes talk about law schools being in the T6, too. Again, there’s a natural cutoff at that point. Law schools may slide into or out of the Top 5, but the ones in the T6 are the same six law schools year after year.

This. It’s T14 or bust and that’s never been more true than it is today when law school is $108k a year. After expending that kind of money x 3 you want to make sure there is a job awaiting for you on the other side.

This thread is amazing…it has so much helpful info! Thank you for creating it #exlawdean!

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.

Not in today's law and nomenclature. https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-211356-why-are-the-top-14-law-schools-called-the-top-14/. Talk to any student trying to get into law schoool; it's all T14 or bust if they can do it.

Also, they believe this: There’s a natural cut-off between the #14 spot and the #15 spot. There are fourteen law schools that have historically “owned” the top 14 slots in the US News & World Report ranking.

Some schools slide in and out of the Top 10. Other schools slide in and out of the Top 15. But law schools almost never move into or out of the Top 14. Year in and year out, it’s the same fourteen law schools.

We sometimes talk about law schools being in the T6, too. Again, there’s a natural cutoff at that point. Law schools may slide into or out of the Top 5, but the ones in the T6 are the same six law schools year after year.

except that they changed the methodology this year and that did result in a change in the t14. That said I don't think anyone tethered to reality really thinks Georgetown is substantially a worse option for law school this year than it was last year.

It is not necessary to attend and graduate from a Top 14 law school in order to be a successful attorney. The two most important questions regarding which law school to attend is COA/affordability and geographic preference for one's career.

For those who want to live & work in a major US city after law school, then graduating from a Top 14 law school is important for both serious consideration by the nation's most elite law firms and for geographic mobility among major US cities.

For those who are not targeting biglaw law firms or practicing in a major US city in a large law firm, then local or state public flagship law schools are fine due to location and to affordability/low cost of attendance.

Attending a Top 14 law school often requires the student to assume a significant amount of student loan debt which almost necessitates employment in biglaw for several years in order to pay off the substantial student loan debt.

Anonymous wrote:I have recently worked in law school admissions and some of this advice on the thread is very outdated and inaccurate. Harvard Law is not going to give out merit scholarships anytime soon, they don't care that much about the rankings and they withdrew from them arguing the the rankings award law schools that give merit scholarships to the students that are often the most privileged and they want to diversify the profession.

LSAT scores and GPA's have gone way up with the pandemic and easy grading and LSAT being able to be taken remote at home and only having one logical reasoning section.

Most top law schools have less than 25 percent of the class being straight from college. Major really doesn't matter very much, except in fields in which they need more lawyers in such as STEM.

Since the recession, top law schools don't really like "mature" applicants over the age of 30, there is a lot of ageism among the prestigious ones. They want students that are more likely to get a job at a top firm and pay off loans.

Regarding the "child" who was dismissed, that is unfortunate. However, the pressure of law school is intense and it doesn't seem like a good fit for them and would be an uphill battle to fight to finish and land a job. Take this as as a sign to pivot. Explore other professions, and take a career personality test to help figure this out.

+1

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Anonymous wrote:What undergraduate majors fare best - not necessarily in admissions, but in actual coursework?

The American Association of Law Schools has studied this question in some depth. Feel free to dive in. The answers are a bit surprising. Accounting performs quite well. So does physics.

This does not surprise me. I think that accounting is also a good major if you are doing any tax law (obviously), but also business transactional work, commercial transactions, real estate, forming entities, drafting purchasing agreements, operating agreements, partnership agreements, negotiating mergers and acquisitions, etc.

It is also a good major for running a law practice, which is a BUSINESS, and this is not taught at all in law school. I came from a humanities background, both undergrad and grad, which is great for the thinking/researching/analyzing/writing aspect of law, but provided no background for running a law practice OR helping business clients with their business needs.

Remember, all, large businesses can afford high hourly rates. To get those high hourly rates, you should demonstrate that you know what you're doing. A political science major doesn't provide this type of background. Finance, accounting, maybe business provide a better background if you plan to go into any type of corporate transactional work or business litigation. Taking business law classes in law school only provides so much background.

And if you want to own or participate in running a law firm, you should have business sense. As an associate, why are you expected to bill so many hours? Because equity partners want to make money and also have to account for the firm overhead. How do you as an associate become a part of that? Bill hours efficiently and try to be likeable and indispensable. ALSO, it's often not just about doing good work and being smart....Can you bring in new business? Someone has to, and they probably are doing less and less of the actual legal work. Can you be a "rainmaker"? If so, you will be able to get away from having to account for so many billable hours.

Also, think about what practice areas are expanding? What services do your clients need?

Anonymous wrote:I disagree. Law schools are still moved by the criteria set by USNW: the higher the college GPA, the better, the higher the LSAT, the better, which is why the report sent to me by Harvard admissions about the new class always brags on these points and how Harvard has an incoming class with a 75th percentile score of GPA of 3.98 and a 75th percentile score of a 176 LSAT. I would like to see under the new methodologies chosen by USNWR a relaxing effect across the board of these two criteria and more emphasis upon special interests, interesting work experiences, advanced degrees in areas of interest, etc.

You are missing the point. I never said top law schools don't care about LSAT and GPA; they do. I said that not every student with a high LSAT and high GPA can get into a top law school these days because there are simply more applicants than the size of their classes so it is getting more competitive and unpredictable.

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.

Not in today's law and nomenclature. https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-211356-why-are-the-top-14-law-schools-called-the-top-14/. Talk to any student trying to get into law schoool; it's all T14 or bust if they can do it.

Also, they believe this: There’s a natural cut-off between the #14 spot and the #15 spot. There are fourteen law schools that have historically “owned” the top 14 slots in the US News & World Report ranking.

Some schools slide in and out of the Top 10. Other schools slide in and out of the Top 15. But law schools almost never move into or out of the Top 14. Year in and year out, it’s the same fourteen law schools.

We sometimes talk about law schools being in the T6, too. Again, there’s a natural cutoff at that point. Law schools may slide into or out of the Top 5, but the ones in the T6 are the same six law schools year after year.

I disagree. Law schools are still moved by the criteria set by USNW: the higher the college GPA, the better, the higher the LSAT, the better, which is why the report sent to me by Harvard admissions about the new class always brags on these points and how Harvard has an incoming class with a 75th percentile score of GPA of 3.98 and a 75th percentile score of a 176 LSAT. I would like to see under the new methodologies chosen by USNWR a relaxing effect across the board of these two criteria and more emphasis upon special interests, interesting work experiences, advanced degrees in areas of interest, etc.

Anonymous wrote:I have recently worked in law school admissions and some of this advice on the thread is very outdated and inaccurate. Harvard Law is not going to give out merit scholarships anytime soon, they don't care that much about the rankings and they withdrew from them arguing the the rankings award law schools that give merit scholarships to the students that are often the most privileged and they want to diversify the profession.

LSAT scores and GPA's have gone way up with the pandemic and easy grading and LSAT being able to be taken remote at home and only having one logical reasoning section.

Most top law schools have less than 25 percent of the class being straight from college. Major really doesn't matter very much, except in fields in which they need more lawyers in such as STEM.

Since the recession, top law schools don't really like "mature" applicants over the age of 30, there is a lot of ageism among the prestigious ones. They want students that are more likely to get a job at a top firm and pay off loans.

Regarding the "child" who was dismissed, that is unfortunate. However, the pressure of law school is intense and it doesn't seem like a good fit for them and would be an uphill battle to fight to finish and land a job. Take this as as a sign to pivot. Explore other professions, and take a career personality test to help figure this out.

Law school admissions is now more similar to undergraduate admissions in that top candidates with high scores and grades don't always get accepted to a T14; schools have many applicants vying for these spots. It helps to have been a standout at a prestigious institution, won awards, have strong letters, interesting work experiences, etc.

I have recently worked in law school admissions and some of this advice on the thread is very outdated and inaccurate. Harvard Law is not going to give out merit scholarships anytime soon, they don't care that much about the rankings and they withdrew from them arguing the the rankings award law schools that give merit scholarships to the students that are often the most privileged and they want to diversify the profession.

LSAT scores and GPA's have gone way up with the pandemic and easy grading and LSAT being able to be taken remote at home and only having one logical reasoning section.

Most top law schools have less than 25 percent of the class being straight from college. Major really doesn't matter very much, except in fields in which they need more lawyers in such as STEM.

Since the recession, top law schools don't really like "mature" applicants over the age of 30, there is a lot of ageism among the prestigious ones. They want students that are more likely to get a job at a top firm and pay off loans.

Regarding the "child" who was dismissed, that is unfortunate. However, the pressure of law school is intense and it doesn't seem like a good fit for them and would be an uphill battle to fight to finish and land a job. Take this as as a sign to pivot. Explore other professions, and take a career personality test to help figure this out.

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Anonymous wrote:I’m a retired lawyer following up on the Harvard poster’s criticism of the OP. I’m not a Harvard guy.

I agree with the criticism. I think the OP is out of touch and that much of what he says is demonstrably wrong. I don’t think, for example, that Harvard is now going to start awarding merit scholarships to maintain or move up in the rankings,


and neither will the other schools who have boycotted the publication. One of their core stated reasons for the boycott was that it led too many good law schools to award merit aid at the expense of need based aid and that was bad for the system. The boycotting schools aren’t about to reverse course now.

Interestingly, OP uses Chicago as an example of an elite school that “clearly” gives merit aid, while failing to mention that it’s also the one elite school that didn’t boycott the rankings. So it’s the exception that proves the rule actually.

The one thing I will disagree with the Harvard guy about is his claim that Harvard has always been the number one most in demand law school. US news ranking or otherwise, the “number one” distinction belongs to Yale and has for a long time. It is without question, the nation’s most selective law, school and when given the choice between Yale and Harvard, the majority of students accepted to both pick Yale. That is a fact, not conjecture.

+1. Harvard does not need USNWR and doesn’t care if it dropped from 3 or 4 to 5. It’s still considered the finest law school in the world. Dean Spitzer is out of touch. He was Dean at USC (not a law school I would pay for) from 2000-2006 and is 71 or 72. A lot has changed in the law school world during COViD. Fwiw I got in to Yale, Harvard, Chicago, UCLA, Stanford and Minnesota and picked Harvard, precisely for the reasons good center above (size, reputation, law review clout, contacts, federal clerkships, diversity, foreign students, etc.) My friends at Yale were miserable. And they did not go on and teach. The fact that USNWR has had it at no. 1 for 30 odd years is baffling to most and actually never discussed because no one cares. It’s time to scrap a ranking service that was designed to drive up advertising and subscription revenues for a failed magazine. All if the law schools which pulled out did the right thing. It’s obsolete.

More accurate phrasing: Harvard Law School is considered to be among the finest law schools in the world.

Yale, Stanford, Chicago, & Columbia are also among that group. There are probably a few others as well.

No, from the world perspective, HLS is no. 1. I checked it via google before posting it. I'm not saying that's right or correct but go to any foreign country and ask someone where they want to send their child to law school: It's Harvard. And Harvard does indeed have many better programs for international students..

Just google a bit. Here from "abovethelaw" "Harvard continues to reign supreme, beating Yale and Stanford in this worldwide law school ranking. Harvard is still the most elite law school on the planet"

Say, you are foreign and you want your kid to have circuit court clerkship so they might feed to scotus - it's Harvard - unless they are prescient enough to pick a judicial feeder to a yalie AND manage to get that coveted position. .. There are a of "if"s there. There are just simply a lot more Harvard judges - at all levels - than Yale judges. ("Of the 2,917 federal judges who served between 1789 and 2014 and graduated from law school, nearly 10% went to Harvard, while more than 4% went to Yale, the researchers found.Feb 8, 2022).

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Anonymous wrote:As a parent, my 1st question is how hard or is it possible to get scholarships/FA from a top 14 law school? DC is attending college in the fall at a top SLAC and is aspiring to study environmental science, law and public policies. Any advice will be appreciated!

Not OP, but I got one at Georgetown. My sense of what were the contributing factors: (1) high LSAT (174); (2) hard-core major (math); (3) good undergrad grades; and (4) documented interest in a particular specialty (law & econ/antitrust).

Other people had better LSAT scores and better grades than I did, so it was not just about those two numbers.

Georgetown law school is well known for awarding lots of merit scholarships to both incoming first year law students as well as to transfer law students.

The top 3 law schools (Yale, Stanford, & Harvard) do not award merit scholarships, but these law schools do award need based financial aid.

I don't disagree, but the poster asked about T-14, which includes Georgetown.

No, Georgetown is T15. https://www.usnews.com/best-graduate-schools/top-law-schools/georgetown-university-03032

The schools at 14-16 move around pretty frequently. It’s why a student with high stats is more likely to get a merit scholarship from these schools. They’re constantly competing to improve their rankings.

No they don’t. There is a significant drop off at T14 which is why the Dean and others keep referring to it.

This is ridiculous. The difference between 14-17 is meaningless. Those schools are always moving around.

Not in today's law and nomenclature. https://blog.powerscore.com/lsat/bid-211356-why-are-the-top-14-law-schools-called-the-top-14/. Talk to any student trying to get into law schoool; it's all T14 or bust if they can do it.