article of possible interest

<p><a href="http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=28868%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yaledailynews.com/article.asp?AID=28868&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Despite the wording of the article, lots of people have already received acceptance letters from Yale Law.</p>

<p>Very interesting. I presume that Yale, along with other law schools, does rolling admissions, and some students have already heard. </p>

<p>Law school admissions does change significantly from year to year - you can search lsac.org for the numbers of how many LSAT takers there are every year. Assume that roughly 56,000 of them will matriculate, and you can get a good guess of how many students won't get in.</p>

<p>I believe there are 100K - 150K LSAT takers each year. So apparently less than half actually end up getting in.</p>

<p>Also nteresting that apps are dropping slightly.</p>

<p>My favorite part is that almost 50 students (out of 241) turned Yale down. Wonder where they went. Stanford mostly?</p>

<p>I know someone who turned Yale down for fall 2004. He went on a full ride to UF.</p>

<p>Of students admitted to both Yale and Stanford, only 5-10% choose Stanford. A larger number choose Harvard. A disproportionate percentage of those are Harvard Undergrads--many of whom can get law tutor positions at Harvard. (Harvard gets half of cross-admits who got undergrad degrees from Harvard College, a much higher percentage than of any other college.) Some choose the Furman or the Hamilton or the RTK or other "free rides". Probably the largest # decide to do something other than law school.</p>

<p>I credit a competing website for this citation:
<a href="http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=13800&repository=0001_article%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://daily.stanford.edu/tempo?page=content&id=13800&repository=0001_article&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Also, I do NOT think you can just look at the # of people who took the LSAT, the number of people who enroll in law school, and conclude that the difference equals the number of people who don't get in. LOTS of people take the LSAT and never apply to law school. Since the scores are good for five years, and since, historically, college students do better on the LSAT than folks who have been out of school for a while, it's common for students to take the test "just in case."</p>

<p>If I getting this correctly, Yale Freshman class is tiny! Is that the reason they are ranked so high? Harvard is approximately 350% bigger. Why doesn't Yale increase theirs? Just curious.</p>

<p>Yale's typical freshman class is in the 200 range; Harvard's 540, not exactly 350% bigger. Yale's size is actually in the range of the majority of law schools which run from about 160 to 250. Harvard actually has one of the largest freshman classes of all law schools in the nation.</p>

<p>I did not mean to imply that LSAT takers = applicants. It is a rough measure of interest in law school in a given year, and it fluctuates greatly (between 100,000 and 150,000). It also says something... generally speaking, very few people who score below a 145 will be able to get in anywhere, and most won't apply. As the LSAT is graded on a strict curve, there are larger numbers of those in the sub-150 range in different years. It's a preliminary weeding out, but it still happens. </p>

<p>I have a really hard time believing that so many students turn down Yale for... nothing. More likely, students who are talented enough to get in there can go for free or greatly reduced tuition elsewhere, and choose that instead.</p>

<p>Hi, Jonri.</p>

<p>I see the Stanford info. Where do you get the Harvard info from? (Not that this wouldn't make sense, but Stanford usually seems to be considered a more desirable and exclusive destination.) </p>

<p>And as Aries notes, while I'm sure some students choose to skip law school entirely, I'm not sure how we can assume that most do. (Yale is in fact an unappealing place in several respects, and there are a number of other top schools that would offer scholarships to many Yale admits.) </p>

<p>As for the LSAT issue, I'm sure many people who take the test never end up applying. However, most of them are probably students who realize they wouldn't get in if they did. (About half the testtakers get under 150, after all. They pretty much know they have no shot at decent schools.) </p>

<p>Drusba: HLS is indeed much larger than most law schools. (I think Wildflower meant 350 more people, not percentage -- don't make that mistake on the LSAT, W! ;^)</p>

<p>However, I also believe Yale is smaller than most schools, right? For some reason, I'm thinking 3-4 hundred is most typical. Maybe that's just for top programs though.</p>

<p>quick question -- has anyone heard how yale is sending out rejections? is it by email or snail mail?</p>

<p>also -- you guys have probably seen this already, but if not, check out <a href="http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.lawschoolnumbers.com&lt;/a>. you can search by school, and it shows lsat/gpa stats, dates of application and notification, etc. </p>

<p>of users on that site for this application cycle, just over 40 have been accepted to yale, about 145 rejected, and over 200 are still pending. also really cool (and quite scary) graphs showing rejects and accepts by lsat/gpa.</p>

<p>quick question -- has anyone heard how yale is sending out rejections? is it by email or snail mail?</p>

<p>also -- you guys have probably seen this already, but if not, check out <a href="http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com%5B/url%5D"&gt;www.lawschoolnumbers.com&lt;/a>. you can search by school, and it shows lsat/gpa stats, dates of application and notification, etc. </p>

<p>of users on that site for this application cycle, just over 40 have been accepted to yale, about 145 rejected, and over 200 are still pending. also really cool (and quite scary) graphs showing rejects and accepts by lsat/gpa.</p>

<p>What can I say? I don't even know what I wrote! lol. I had just crawled out of bed. </p>

<p>I guess I'll sign up for the noon LSAT :D</p>

<p>Well, I tried to find out for you today. All I found out is that in past years, Yale rejections and wait lists came by snail mail. I don't know if that's still true..but, I suspect it is.</p>

<p>"Stanford usually seems to be considered a more desirable and exclusive destination"</p>

<p>Did you attend Stanford Law?I don't know ANYONE who thinks that Stanford is a more desirable or exclusive destination than Yale. Granted, I live on the East Coast...I freely admit that colors my thinking. But since only 5-10% of those admitted to both Stanford and Yale Law choose Stanford and less than a quarter of those who are admitted to Stanford and Harvard, choose Stanford, I really do NOT understand how anyone can claim that "Stanford..usually...[is] considered a more desirable and exclusive destination." </p>

<p>Where are you getting YOUR information from?</p>

<p>"Did you attend Stanford Law?I don't know ANYONE who thinks that Stanford is a more desirable or exclusive destination than Yale. Granted, I live on the East Coast...I freely admit that colors my thinking. But since only 5-10% of those admitted to both Stanford and Yale Law choose Stanford and less than a quarter of those who are admitted to Stanford and Harvard, choose Stanford, I really do NOT understand how anyone can claim that "Stanford..usually...[is] considered a more desirable and exclusive destination." </p>

<p>Where are you getting YOUR information from?"</p>

<p>Jonri, I'm sure you're a nice person and all, but you seem to have an unfortunate habit of flying off the handle whenever you feel someone may be questioning one of your statements. I really wish you'd get some help for that. </p>

<p>First off, I was comparing Stanford to Harvard, not Yale. I thought this was clear from the fact I referenced the Stanford information, which noted that Yale was strongly preferred to Stanford. </p>

<p>(I don't know anyone who would disagree with this anyway. Palo Alto is certainly more desirable than New Haven, but Yale is clearly the #1 law school in the country from a placement standpoint.) </p>

<p>If this wasn't clear, I apologize to anyone who misinterpreted it. </p>

<p>My question was with regard to your various assertions about Harvard. I based my stated opinion on all the posts I've read on various discussion boards about Stanford and HLS, the fact that Stanford is usually ranked higher than HLS (in recent years, anyway), the fact that Stanford appears more difficult to get into (given its smaller class size and HLS's more mechanical focus on numbers), and the fact that the weather and evironment is generally considered to be far better at Stanford. </p>

<p>I actually missed the Stanford/Harvard comparison also noted in the Stanford article, as I was just looking for the Stanford/Yale info. It does appear that most students prefer HLS to Stanford, though I find this surprising. </p>

<p>However, we still don't know how many students chose HLS over Yale, and that's also what I was asking about. I'll ask again (politely), where exactly are you getting your information in this regard? You appear to be speaking from direct evidence. </p>

<p>On the other hand, if you can't respond in a polite and appropriate way, you should certainly feel free to keep any further statements to yourself. There's probably enough rudeness and incivility on the internet without people gratuitously contributing to it.</p>

<p>Jonri,</p>

<p>If half of the students who are admitted to Yale are also admited to Stanford (which seems like a reasonable guess to me), and five to ten percentof these chose Stanford, that's still 6 to 12 out of the 47 who don't accept Yale's offer.</p>