<p>Well, to be honest, I could very well be wrong.</p>
<p>Technically, anyone in the top 25 has a shot if they have a 3.85+. Technically, any one in the 25th/75th percentile for HLS has a shot. The problem is that they occupy the second-worst (or best, depending on how you look at it) group of applicants. In such a group, the adcom is looking for a reason to accept you, which is rather difficult to demonstrate.</p>
<p>If you are above the 75th percentile, the adcom looks for a reason to reject (ie. being a convict). If you are below the 25th, the adcom skims through your application, looking for a Pullitzer or a Rhodes or something of the sort.</p>
<p>Schools like Cal, Cornell, and UMich are tough schools from which to apply to top law schools simply by virtue of the size of their student-body. You can point to that profile on HLS's site all you want. Having 30-something students out of a gigantic student-body attend HLS is nothing impressive, especially since a school like Georgetown has 33 and we have only around 6,800 undergrads. </p>
<p>I mean, look at UT-Austin. They have, I think, 44 students at HLS. They also have 60,000 bloody undergrads. UT-Austin has more at HLS than Cal, UMich, and Georgetown. Would one choose UT over the latter schools? If plan II, maybe. If not, heck no.</p>
<p>Edit: And yes, I am aware of my assumption that that more students apply from Cal than from GTown and so forth. With twice the student-body, Cal probably has more applicants. It would be very surprising if they did not.</p>