Average undergrad but excellent grad school?

[juillet]

People on this site often claim that where your undergraduate degree is from does not matter for the purposes of gaining admission to professional training programs like law or medicine. A recent review of some of the top professional training programs suggested otherwise, with graduates from top private schools and flagships from states with strong university systems differentially represented…But it is rare. Undergraduate institution matters. Can you overcome graduating from a less rigorous university? I am sure. But it will be harder than if you graduate from an excellent university.

Correlation =/= causation, for a variety of reasons. Here are some confounding variables that may explain why people who go to top/elite colleges are also overrepresented at top/elite law schools:

1. Elite university students may be more likely to want to go to professional school in general, because they are more exposed to the careers (and people in them) that require professional school. Most people have heard of lawyers, but that is different from having a parent or a family friend who is a lawyer.

2. Elite universities are expensive. Elite law schools are also expensive. The students who go to elite universities are wealthier than the students who go to lesser-known public universities and smaller private schools, and thus are more able to afford a top law school. So the kids who go to the lesser known schools may be either less likely to apply anyway OR may be less likely to matriculate if they get in because they can’t pay without going into debt.

3. By dint of being, on average, wealthier and more connected, elite university students may be more likely to do the kind of internships that make them more attractive to law schools and to know people who can give them good recommendations into law school.

Those are just three - there might be some other ones that I haven’t thought of.

It is not rare for people from lesser-known colleges and universities to go to top law schools. They are certainly less represented than top schools, and I’m not saying that the education and training at a top undergrad has nothing to do with it. It matters, but not as much as people think it does.

[yikesyikesyikes]

I would recommend saving money for Law School. Law School Admissions are almost entirely LSAT and GPA based anyway. Besides, Rutgers and TCNJ are solid schools (I would easily pick them against paying full tuition at at any UC besides maybe Berkeley and UCLA).

[tk21769]

Between Rutgers and the UCs is a whole country full of other options.
If you want to focus on state flagships, most of them have lower out-of-state sticker prices than the UCs.
For example, Wisconsin, Florida, Iowa, and Minnesota all offer OOS sticker prices below $40K.
If your stats are good enough for Berkeley or UCLA, then they also may be good enough for selective private schools that offer much better need-based aid, or else for big merit scholarships from less selective schools.