<p>I want to go to law school after undergrad, and I'm not sure if going to an Ivy League school (as opposed to UGA's Honors Program, which would be free) is worth it. I've heard that getting into law school is basically all about GPA and LSAT scores, but how much does undergraduate university play a role, especially with the very top law schools?</p>
<p>Also, will having gone to an Ivy League school as an undergrad look better than going to UGA when I'm applying to a law firm, even if I went to, say, Harvard or Yale for law school?</p>
<p>And finally, how much is the education worth it? Will I be better preparing myself for law school by going to an Ivy League college for undergraduate school?</p>
<p>Most people tend to say that if you definitely are going for grad school, then the grad school’s name gets the importance and undergrad isn’t considered as much when it comes to jobs and such. </p>
<p>As far as is it worth it, grad school can be 200K+, so if you know you’ll be spending money for that it’s best to save for undergrad. However, most of the Ivies offer great financial aid. So whether or not you end up paying the nearly $60k price tag is a factor too. For low-income families Ivies can be incredibly cheap to virtually free. It’s worth considering the COA with relation to income.</p>
<p>Law firms care about your law school, not your undergraduate unless your undergraduate degree is pertinent (for example getting an engineering degree from MIT and becoming a patent lawyer). And while the top law schools do have a disproportionate population of students from top 20 undergraduate schools it is because those schools have higher average LSAT scorers than other schools. Do well at UGA and score 170 on the LSAT and you will get into a top law school. FWIW, I have two sisters that went to state schools and then onto top law schools.</p>
<p>You posted the same question with a slightly different title earlier. Best to bump an old thread, not start multiple threads on the same topic.</p>
<p>And I wold go to an Ivy if you can finance it without hardship. From my experience, if you do well at in Ivy it will be easier to get into a top law school and a top law firm as compared to being from UGA (even in an honors program).</p>
<p>Sure, ain"t it great? Unfortunately, Harvard no longer shows the number of Harvard law students from each undergrad college instead of just a listing of the names. This simple listing gives the false impression that graduates from all schools have an equal shot. The reality is many of these not-so-selective colleges have only 1 or 2 alums enrolled, while Harvard College itself and the other high-end colleges have grads enrolled in the high double and even triple digits. </p>
<p>The point is that high-end law schools will take a much deeper cut into the graduating class of selective colleges but will take only the top 1 or 2 kids from lesser schools. </p>
<p>So can you get into a top law school from a not-so-top college? Sure, it’s doable. But you better make sure you are graduating near or at the very top of your class.</p>
<p>^ The question is whether students with equal LSATs and GPAs have nearly equal chances, regardless of where they went to college. Is Harvard Law admitting more Harvard College students because (a) they believe Harvard College prepares them better for law school, (b) law schools favor their own undergraduates regardless, or (c) high-stats Harvard College students apply in greater numbers.</p>
<p>I suspect that something like “c” is the most important factor (although I’ve never seen good data on College Confidential to rule any of these possibilities in or out.)</p>
<p>C makes absolutely little sense. Why would more high stat Harvard grads apply “in greater numbers” to LS than high stat Yale grads or Princeton grads? (unless you mean it is just a larger undergrad pop.) (And don’t forget, that Y has a slightly higher mean gpa than H.)</p>
<p>For all intents and purposes, the quality of the kids at Y and H are interchangeable – all are tippy top and posses the best testing skills on the planet. But why then, does Yale Law have a lot of Yale undergrads – moreso than from H (on a % basis)? Ditto HLS for H undergrads?</p>
<p>IMO, the answer is a combination of a & b and d (HYP attracts the best testers in the world and thus, has HYP undergrads have the highest mean LSAT scores, which is 50%+ of admissions).</p>
<p>Based on personal experience – I think an Ivy League undergrad degree can bolster the credentials of someone who went to a very good, but not tippy-top graduate school. </p>
<p>i.e., my case – Boston U Law/Cornell undergrad – I have felt that the Cornell affiliation has helped throughout my career. </p>
<p>I was not comparing Harvard grads to Yale and Princeton grads. I was suggesting that Harvard (and other highly selective colleges including Princeton and Yale) simply enroll more high-stats, highly-driven students than the not-so-selective colleges coureur mentions. So if scores of not-so-selective colleges each have only 1 or 2 alums enrolled at Harvard/Yale/Stanford Law, I suspect it’s primarily because fewer students from those schools have sufficiently high scores (or money, or inclination) to even bother applying.</p>
<p>Now I don’t really know for sure, because I haven’t seen good data (just anecdotal reports, and statements on LS web sites, suggesting that LSATs and GPAs are the most important factors - not where you went to college.)</p>
<p>There’s probably a bias towards their own undergrads. That’s not uncommon with universities that have top programs. Yale admits Yale undergrads at the highest percentage as well i believe; And, if memory serves, UCLA does this for the Geffen SOM.</p>
<p>I think if there’s a choice with two students with (near) identical stats, and one of them went to Harvard, the H. grad would probably have the edge. They need to have the test scores and LSAT as well (a 3.3gpa and a 159 LSAT from Harvard isn’t going to beat a 4.0 and 177 LSAT from UCR.) All else being equal though, i think there’s a slight bias.</p>
<p>Brown University (22)
Columbia University (15)
Cornell University (13)
Dartmouth College (14)
Harvard University (80)
Princeton University (39)
University of Pennsylvania (21)
Yale University (86) </p>
<p>University of Georgia (4) </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The cost discrepancy shouldn’t be significant, unless your family is wealthy. Regardless, do you consider yourself a good investment?</p>
<p>I believe it was shown that princeton students that got into top law schools had on average lower GPAs and LSATs than students from other schools that got in.</p>
<p>^ Can you cite a source? Does it clearly show the number of applicants from each school, their average GPAs and LSATs, and the number admitted? (How much lower were the Princeton averages, according to your source?)</p>
<p>If the results are to be believed, more than 60% of applicants with GPAs 0f 3.7 and LSAT scores of 177 are accepted to Harvard Law. More than 70% of applicants with those stats have been admitted to law school at Chicago, Berkeley, and Duke. More than 90% of applicants with those stats have been admitted to law school at NYU, UCLA, and Columbia. At about 20 other prestigious law schools, 100% of applicants with those stats have been admitted. At other law schools (except Yale, Stanford, and Penn), the probability of someone being admitted with those stats is undefined, because apparently hardly anyone ever applies with stats that high to those schools. </p>
<p>This is very different from the pattern of near-perfect SATs in college admissions. Harvard College is still a reach even with perfect scores and grades. Harvard Law? Apparently, not so much. I’m not surprised if Harvard Law gets a Zipfian distribution of students from represented colleges (relatively many from each of a few colleges, 1 or a few from each of over 200 other schools). However, I’m skeptical that this reflects a preference by admission committees for certain colleges. I suspect it simply reflects the distribution of proficient pre-law test-takers at American colleges (and the difficulty of getting near-perfect LSAT scores.) </p>
<p>Does anyone believe Yale Law rejected anywhere near 82 UGa applicants with stats as good as the 86 Yalies they accepted? If high-stats state university students didn’t have a good shot at T14 law schools, and there were that many of them, I don’t think we’d see so many “N/A%” results on the “Law School Probability Calculator” for other law schools.</p>
<p>Note that the “Law School Probability Calculator” doesn’t even ask where the user goes to college. It doesn’t need to. GPA + LSAT alone seems to be a good enough predictor (if not to HYS specifically, then at least to “T14” law schools in general.)</p>
<p>No doubt about it. Yale has such a small class, once one applies with the requisite (extremely high) numbers, ECs play a much bigger part at that LS (and also at S). Professional skydiver vs. frat Treasurer? Surgeon vs. honors undergraduate? Yes, it is easy to believe that there are 100+ other high stat kids that don’t have any ECs (and they end up at H).</p>
<p>All other law schools are (nearly) numbers only.</p>
<p>I noticed that Stanford (34), Duke (17), and Chicago (13) are the only universities with 10+ undergraduates enrolled in Yale Law School that are not Ivy League schools. On the public side, only Berkeley (14) and Michigan (12) have double digit representation at YLS. Lots of great schools like Vanderbilt, Emory, Georgetown, USC, WashU, Rice, Notre Dame, JHU, and Boston College have 5 or less alums currently at YLS.</p>
<p>The Ivy advantage to Yale Law is very real. I wonder if Stanford Law is more egalitarian in its admissions practices.</p>
<p>^^ What bluebayou seems to be saying is that at Yale Law and Stanford in particular, ECs are a factor along with GPA and LSAT scores. What he and goldenboy have not demonstrated is that the Ivy brand, per se, gives a significant advantage. Ivy League colleges admit students who not only are proficient test-takers, but who also have gee-whiz extracurriculars. So if more of their graduates get into top law schools, that may well be a selection effect, not a treatment effect of the Ivy experience.</p>
<p>Again, what you need to show is that applicants with equal LSATs and GPAs have a significantly better shot at top law schools if they graduate from some colleges rather than others. For Yale Law or Stanford Law, there may be other significant factors that need to be compared along with the numbers. However, so far nobody has convincingly shown that one of those factors is where you went to college (per se).</p>
<p>Let’s be clear about what we’re debating. Should a full-pay student choose to attend an Ivy at triple the cost of the state flagship just because one thinks the Ivy brand will boost his admission chances at a T14 law school?</p>