No, I am simply saying that the mix of majors matters when attempting to predict the number of law school applications because law school is a more popular career path for some majors than others. The the numbers I provided show that the majors where law school is most popular represent a much larger percentage of Amherst’s undergraduate population than Tuft’s. This means that one would expect a higher application rate (not necessarily a higher absolute number of applications) at Amherst than Tufts.
That comment is most relevant to @merc81 tables which (because they assume an equal application rate across all majors) are biased towards schools that have a high percentage of students enrolled in majors that are popular for pre-law. (Just like starting salary data will be biased toward schools with lots of engineers, Computer Science majors, business/finance majors and nurses)
Tufts’ median early career salary is $10,000 higher than Amherst’s, but it would be misleading to claim that as a figure of merit without accounting for the mix of majors.
When looking at the undergrad populations, Tufts has about
500 Fine Arts majors
150 Child Development majors
100 Clinical Psychology majors
700 Biology Majors
700 Engineers
500 CS majors
150 Quantitative Economics majors
500 IR Majors
None of these majors (except possibly IR) is going to produce a lot of Law School applicants. Subtract these out and one is left with a big LAC. IR majors are going to be attracted to Tufts’ own Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy (or one of the other top 5 IR schools in the country). If they do go to a traditional law school, one might expect them to favor a school with a strong international law program.
As far as the Yale Law situation goes, if one looks at the link I provided, the student application data shows that (for whatever reason) Yale receives the least number of applications of any top law school. (* means T14) This is why one cannot conclude much of anything from a matriculation number for a single Law School. It would be interesting to see the Amherst application numbers for Yale.
Harvard is among the top recipients of applications (about 2.5 times Yale’s number) and students who matriculate- (with seven in one year).
Int Law Rank……. School…#Applied…#Admitted…#Matriculated
………2………….GTown…53…22…5
……1………………NYU…48…18…7
………4………….Columbia…47…12…3
………7……………GWU…41…22…2
……………………BC…41…28…7
……………………BU…41…19…5
……………………UPenn…41…7…1
………3……………Harvard…40…10…7
…….10……………Duke…38…10…1
………9……………Berkeley…32…8…2
……………………Northwestern…32…11…0
…….11……………UVa…30…4…0
………6……………Michigan…29…10…0
…………………….UCLA…29…13…1
………………………NEU…28…19…3
…………………….Stanford…27…3…2
………………………Cornell…25…7…2
………………………U Chicago…25…4…0
………………………Fordham…25…14…5
………………………Suffolk…21…20…3
………8……………American…22…14…3
………………………Vanderbilt…20…12…1
………………………Emory…18…6…2
………………………Wash U…17…7…2
………5………….…Yale…17…1…1
………………………William&Mary……14…………………5…………………1
……………………….USC…15…8…2
………………………UTexas……… … 12…………………6……………………2