Since there is a PreMed thread already, I synthesized this thread in order to give people a perspective into which schools offer the best placement into top law schools. Notably, it is important to realize that law schools do not require one set major, so this thread will purely focus on schools with the tendency to put kids into the best programs. The WSJ rankings are flawed, since they do not deal with just law schools. However, which schools are all you PreLaw people looking the most at?
<p>Off the top of my head:</p>
<p>Harvard
Yale
Duke (muwahahaha)</p>
<p>The numbers speak for themselves. Look up the numbers of students from these institutions attending the best law schools. I am too lazy to get the links right now--maybe in a few minutes.</p>
<p>Those I understand, but what about LACs? Large universities have a small percentage applying to law school, so their success with grad school admissions might be misleading.</p>
<p>Also, a common misconception is that top ranked USNEWS schools offer the best placement. I suppose that is not true considering Wash U abysmal placement.</p>
<p>You are right. Check out each propsective college's specific law admissions data. The variance is interesting and may be due to reputation, type of school or region of the country.
In general the IVYs, Duke, Stanford, Amherst, Swarthmore and Williams do extremely well in law school placement to the top law schools. Georgetown also does very well.
Some of the large publics do well too but keep in mind that they have many times more applicants than the smaller colleges. For example, Michigan might be 10x the size of Amherst, but Amherst has many more students at Harvard and Yale law.</p>
<p>Yes, WUSTL does not fare well at the top law schools but does OK otherwise.
I am not sure why except that their reputation is lagging behind the US News rankings or perhaps it is not viewed at the level of the top 10-15 schools. There are several schools in the midwest with much better law school placement than WUSTL. U of Chicago does much better. Northwesern does fares better also.</p>
<p>Thank you for this information.</p>
<p>"Some of the large publics do well too but keep in mind that they have many times more applicants than the smaller colleges. For example, Michigan might be 10x the size of Amherst, but Amherst has many more students at Harvard and Yale law."</p>
<p>Not to mention the, you know, small fact that Amherst has a stronger student body. I rather doubt that a 3.8 from Michigan and a 3.8 from Amherst are going to be viewed with a large degree of a significance.</p>
<p>Wait, I really DO believe that law schools analyze the strength of the schools that their applicants hail from. With that said, it would probabaly be MORE difficult to attain a high GPA at a large public like Umich, than say...Stanford or Duke. Publics tend to be unforgiving with their grading policies, so outstanding applicants at these schools are highlighted. However, Williams has an almost 100% degree of succes with law school admissions....Umich does not. It could be the pre advising or the curriculum, but Williams is awesome with law school placement. GO PURPLE COWS!</p>
<p>Williams places more grads into a good law school because it has almost a universally strong student body. There is a higher percentage of "average" students at Michigan who can't get into Harvard law than Williams. Not to mention the fact that Michigan law probably siphons off a decent number of applicants because of in-state tution.</p>
<p>Very good point. LOL ALexandre will be furious with this. haha</p>
<p>WashU has bad law school placement?? Yikes!</p>
<p>ParisKM, Washington U in St Louis does not have bad placement into law school. It just doesn't compare to truly prestigious schools. I discount fabricated US News Rankings so I am not overy surprised. An aspiring law student attending WUSTL can do well in law school placement, however U of Michigan, Northwestern and U of Chicago do better overall.</p>
<p>Does anyone know how well Emory Undergrad deals with Pre-law?</p>
<p>a good prelaw school would be top schools with grade inflation. i.e. harvard hehe</p>
<p>If you know you're going to law school, I'd go to your local state university for a few reasons.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Saves you a lot of cash. 1 year of law= around 50K</p></li>
<li><p>You need over a 3.7 for Harvard law. Easier where you're the big fish.</p></li>
<li><p>LSAT. Yeah you get a 170 LSAT 3.9 from Washington State University, you might not get into Harvard, but you're going to a top 14 law school. Most likely with very little debt. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>It's an incredibly unfair numbers game and I really believe we over state the importance of undergrad rep except for a case where you have some incredibly identical stats. I'd much rather have a 3.8/172 from a top 100 school, than 3.5/165 from Duke. Check out some of the law school admission websites.</p>
<p>Transfer: However, it has been noted that state universities tend to have less--if not a complete absence of--grade inflation than many prestigious private universities. So attending a local state university, may in fact, result in a lower GPA. If that were to occur, you would have to attain a great GPA to compensate for that GPA--if not, you could very well be SOL.</p>
<p>I understand what Transfer is saying. It would be easier o be recognizable in a state school, but I think a privae school is the way to go because: A. they tend to have great pre-advising for law B. They offer the best LSAT prep courses (mostly for free) C. Top law schools will trust their curriculum in preparing the student for their law school</p>
<p>That's just my $.02</p>
<p><a href="http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php</a>
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/bulletin/html/law/students.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/bulletin/html/law/students.html</a>
<a href="http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admissions/jd_profile.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.georgetown.edu/admissions/jd_profile.html</a>
<a href="http://www.law.upenn.edu/prospective/jd/schools.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.upenn.edu/prospective/jd/schools.html</a>
<a href="http://www.law.virginia.edu/home2002/html/prospectives/class07.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.law.virginia.edu/home2002/html/prospectives/class07.htm</a></p>
<p>Here are some links to top law schools and where their classes are coming from</p>
<p>Thanks man. I was looking for these.</p>
<p>Anyone know where I can find the NYU, Stanford, and Uchicago class data? I'm trying to find it now.</p>
<p>oh god are you still trying to find ways to make Duke look better than Stanford for pre law lol? not going to happen</p>
<p>stanmaster, have you read this at all?</p>
<p>I want to know Stanford law's class makeup, so I can see which schools fare the best in getting in. Where does elitism come into play?</p>
<p>I think that is just the (HYP > S) stigma kicking in. :)</p>