<p>I would frame the question much more narrowly*: "Should a full-pay student choose to attend an [Harvard or Yale] at triple the cost of the state flagship just because one thinks the [Harvard/Yale] brand will boost his admission chances at a [Harvard or Yale] law school?
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<p>And I would submit that the answer is, ‘Yes’, depending on what one means by ‘boost’. And the obvious support for that conclusion is in post #15; the data is even more striking when one adjusts for class size, and calculates a per capita attendance number.</p>
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<p>Given the size differential in undergrad populations, do you really believe that Yale/H have that many more high testers than the other Ivies. </p>
<p>btw: Don’t forget that a public, Cal-Berkeley, has more top testers than Harvard.</p>
<p>Really? According to the most recent National Merit Scholarship Corporation Annual Report (2010-2011), Harvard enrolled 248 National Merit Scholars while UC-Berkeley enrolled 74 (and all of the UCs combined brings this up to 124).</p>
<p>^ The data in #15 only give us a bunch of numerators, which are rather meaningless without the corresponding denominators (the number of applicants from each undergraduate school), along with the average stats (GPA + LSAT) for applicants from each undergraduate school.</p>
<p>Alan Krueger and Stacy Dale looked at earnings outcomes. If one looks only at average entry-level and mid-career salaries, it may seem obvious that Ivies provide a significant earnings boost. However, among students admitted to both more selective and less selective schools, the earnings differences disappear between those who choose the one or the other. Ivy admission alone signals high earnings potential; actual Ivy attendance, for most students, does not significantly increase that potential. I see no reason why LS admission outcomes wouldn’t follow a similar pattern. And I see no reason why a law school admission committee would significantly lower the GPA and LSAT standards for certain schools. </p>
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What really matters is the number of top testers who are interested in applying to specific law schools. A top tester who chooses to attend his state university (undergrad) may have a consistent propensity to choose a closer, lower-cost, less prestigious alternative. I mean, I don’t really know. I’d want to see better data.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if bluebayou’s comment was meant to refer to the number of top LSAT or SAT scores at Cal versus Harvard, but using National Merit Scholar status is not an accurate proxy for either. NM Scholars are undergrad students who received a scholarship under the NM program. Since neither Harvard or Cal offers a NM scholarship, any NMS’s at those two schools received a scholarship directly from the NM folks. Becoming a NM Finalist depends primarily on the 11th grade PSAT score, while the NM scholarships then look at many different factors including but by no means limited to PSAT or SAT score. This of course has nothing whatsoever to do with LSAT scores (aside from good standardized test takers doing well on tests in general). </p>
<p>In the older days, I might have agreed with you. But now that our instate publics ain’t much cheaper than a private…and, add in the fact that H&Y actually provide some need-based aid the the best LRAP programs…</p>
<p>And thanks to ST for explaiing up my point (which I purposely wrote the way I did). :)</p>
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<p>Exactly. On average, HYP have the mean highest SAT scores (excluding Caltech, which probably doesn’t yield many law apps). And it just so happens that those three also have the mean highest LSAT scores. Correlation? Causation? You be the judge.</p>
<p>taking the colleges that kwu listed in the Yale book, and adjusting for class size (using BA/BS as counted by ipeds), the number who attend Y per 1,000 students are:</p>
<p>Brown University - 14.16
Columbia University - 8.17
Cornell University - 3.67
Dartmouth College -13.01
Harvard University - 44.76
Princeton University - 31.99
University of Pennsylvania - 7.26
Yale University - 67.14</p>
<p>In other words, Yalies are admitted to Yale Law school at 1.5 times the rate of Harvard students. And I would guess that we would find the exact opposite if we looked at the students at HLS. Are the student bodies and law school applicants really that different? Are the Yalies that much more accomplished? </p>
<p>btw: According to the few published reports, Y has a slightly higher undergrad mean gpa than H, but H’s undergrads have a higher mean LSAT than do Y undergrads.</p>
<p>The data only allows you to say that, in Fall 2011, Yalies matriculated to Yale Law school at 1.5 times the rate of Harvard students. </p>
<p>kwu’s list, with or without adjustment for school population size, does not tell us the YLS admit rates for Yale College or for any other school. For all we know, Coe College, which is represented by only 1 student, only had 1 applicant. And for all we know, Duke University, represented by 17 students, had 100 applicants. </p>
<p>Presumably, some Yalies choose to stay at Yale because they have local ties (apartments, employed spouses, etc.)</p>