Anonymous wrote:My co-clerks went from Penn State to HLS and Oregon to YLS.

That said, I think the whole T14 law school business is malarkey. I wish I'd gone to a law school ranked from 20-50 and saved a ton of money. Most people quickly burn out on big firm practice, and it really sucks to need a high-income job because you're carrying a six-figure law-school debt.

x1,000,000

Have your daughter intern in "big law" for a summer even filing papers for minimum wage before applying to law school. The environment is not for most and the only ones who can afford to walk away could easily ford law school without undergrad or grad loans.

Anonymous wrote:The undergraduate schools represented at Yale law are posted on another thread. Harvard has been posted many times on DCUM. There may be 86 and 146 different schools represented but one needs to look into the details to see that the ivies and top privates make up the majority of the class. Sure, each ivy may take one kid a year from some subset of average state flagships, but many years there are none from specific schools. Now if the state flagship is UVA or Berkeley then it matters a lot less as these undergrad institutions are well represented in ivy law schools.

The fact that the law schools do not disclose in these reports of undergrad represented scholls is that a huge portion of the class is from Harvard and Yale. It looks far more egalitarian to say "Look! Yale Law takes from 86 undergrad institutions! Aren't we wonderful!" to admit that there are only
204 in Yale's entering class, 80 of which are from Yale, 39 from Harvard plus 86 from "others" which magically takes you to roughly 204. My alma mater, Harvard does the same thing. One-third of the class in my class was Harvard undergrad. So while Harvard says "Look we take from 146 different schools!" the fact overlooked is that the entering class at Harvard is over 500. After you subtract the 144, the remaining 360 is primarily Harvard and Yale grads.

OP - you need to realize of those 84 at Yale and 144 at Harvard, those students are almost always the valedictorians of their college class, as I was and have perfect GPAs and extremely high GPAs. Harvard's 75th percentile has a 3.99 and higher GPA and a 177 LSAT or higher. So if your daughter is intentin this llan she needs to go to a school where she canbe valedictorian (take a soft major).

JMU undergrad admitted to Columbia (#5), U of Chicago (#3) and UVA (#4)

Anonymous wrote:What's the motivation for law school, beyond making a high salary? Big law is not a given, becoming equity partner, ever, even less so. Not what I'd recommend if the goal is just wealth.

+1

Many firms are changing the metrics to make equity and/or de-equitizing partners if they don't meet plan.

Since the kid in question is still in HS, I wonder how much they truly know about becoming a lawyer, other than thinking it seems to pay well. I assume the parents aren't in BigLaw or they'd be sharing warnings about this.

Certain practice areas in a boutique setting can be quite lucrative, and a good living can be made in midlaw, but the hours requirement isn't necessarily much smaller.

It was easy for me to get to a very highly ranked law school having attended city college and a virtually open-admissions undergrad that no one has heard of.

How'd I do it? 99th percentile LSAT. That's not really replicable, though.

What's the motivation for law school, beyond making a high salary? Big law is not a given, becoming equity partner, ever, even less so. Not what I'd recommend if the goal is just wealth.

Anonymous wrote:Cornell Law does have a breakdown.

https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admissions/jd-admissions/class-profile/

Cornell undergrad 28
Columbia 3
Penn 2
Which means Yale brown Princeton and Dartmouth sent either one or zero.

Other than the consistently large numbers going from Cornell to Cornell Law, these numbers vary dramatically year to year. Looking at any one year is worthless. We had 4 from Princeton in my Cornell Law class. We actually had 3 from my High School in my class so I guess my HS is a T14 feeder school!

Anonymous wrote:PP here but just want to double down on the important of GPA and LSAT, period— from any school. It’s not like applying to college. And agree that the stats are skewed since so many work 2+ years before going back to law school.

+100. Also tell it to the other active thread on the grad school-undergrad relationship where people are badly struggling with this concept.

Cornell Law does have a breakdown.

https://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/admissions/jd-admissions/class-profile/

Cornell undergrad 28
Columbia 3
Penn 2
Which means Yale brown Princeton and Dartmouth sent either one or zero.

PP here but just want to double down on the important of GPA and LSAT, period— from any school. It’s not like applying to college. And agree that the stats are skewed since so many work 2+ years before going back to law school.

I went from UC Santa Cruz to Stanford Law.

All come down to the LSAT.

it's not hard. I did it. penn state to penn.