<p>Does it matter where you attend undergrad school in preparation for law school? If so, where is the best place to attend?</p>
<p>East Carolina University, major in arthropological music and biology.</p>
<p>Just kidding. I think we have beaten this horse to death enough so I'll just add but one more slap.</p>
<p>1) LSs will not deny you admission because of where you went to college
2) LSs mostly focus on GPA and LSAT score</p>
<p>Of course it matters. Roughly 70% of the students at the top 10 Law Schools graduated from 30 or so elite universities. The remaining 30% of top 10 Law Schools students graduated from the remaining 1,000+ universities. So there is obviously a preference.</p>
<p>However, there are other factors. A tough courseload, high GPA and high LSAT score along with great essays will get a student into most top Law schools, regardless of where they went to college.</p>
<p>Alexandre, I heard that a 'tough courseload' isnt a factor in getting into grad school nearly as much as a good GPA is. Have you heard anything like that?</p>
<p>I really am not an expert on Law Schools. I was merely refering to students who are not attending top universities. Say you attend a second rate university like New Mexico State University or the University of Idaho, you would need close to a 4.0 GPa taking some of the tougher classes and a high LSAT if you want to have a reasonably good chance of getting into a top 10 Law school. Again, that's just a guess on my part. I am just happy to read the posts of the people on this forum who really know their stuff.</p>
<p>Ah I see, what do you think of Gonzaga U. for undergrad? I am seriously considering GU, and I was also looking into it for law school. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>I know of Gonzaga, but I am not very familiar with it. I believe Gonzaga is Catholic. Catholics are pretty tough. So I assume you would get a good education there. Law schools usually give preference to applicants who attend their undergraduate programs. So if you wish to go to Gonzaga, doing your undergraduate studies there will probably help. But like I said, there are people on this forum better equipped to tell you about Law Schools.</p>
<p>law schools certainly do consider the "level" of undergrad education is comparing a 4.0 from school A to a 4.0 from school B, so to that extent the qulaity of undergrad program is a factor. More important, perhaps, is what "level of law school you are hpoing to attend. Without more information, the only answer to your question is "get the best GPA from the best school you can get into, and then ace the LSAT."</p>
<p>Do you think a factor in the decision is "rigor of academic courseload" outside of where one went to college; i.e. if someone took a smattering of intro classes and only a few higher level classes at a top university versus if someone went right into their focus and took mostly higher level classes at the same college?</p>
<p>What about Amherst's placement in the top 15 law schools?</p>
<p>Does anyone know what type of law school Gonzaga is? I haven't really checked into it, and now I am kind of skeptical. I do plan on doing my undergraduate studies there, but I am not sure if I would like to attend there for law. Any suggestions?</p>
<p>I'm not sure, but I've heard that HLS comprises mostly of Harvard College grads. I heard of a girl that transferred to Harvard from my school, Bryn Mawr, because she was convinced that most of the female HLS students came from either Harvard or Wellesley.</p>
<p>HLS publishes this information. There are currently 238 students in the J.D. program at Harvard with undergraduate Harvard degrees. The first-year class has 554 students; there are three classes, so figure about 14.3% went to Harvard undergrad.</p>
<p>That's still a lot - more than the first two runners-up combined (Yale with 109, and Stanford with 90).</p>
<p>Jessiehopper,</p>
<p>There are 15 Amherst graduates enrolled in the J.D. program at Harvard, five per class on average.</p>
<p>Very important to normalize that for the number of kids who applied and the number in the undergrad school. Harvard graduates about three times as many students as Amherst. Not sure how many Amherst-types apply to HLS, but it's probably not as many as Harvard College.</p>
<p>You should also normalize for geography. Let's face it. Nobody likes moving. People tend to prefer staying where they are already comfortable. Stanford graduates therefore have a reason to stay at Stanford, Yale graduates have a reason to stay at Yale.</p>
<p>Greybeard, is there a place where one can view consolidated admissions data to law schools by school? </p>
<p>Say, to the Top 20 from Smith, just to make a wild stab in the dark? Or does one have to search school by school, say at the HLS site, the YLS site, the....</p>
<p>I'm almost certain that you have to search by site. You can go to, say, Smith and get their data on where the grads go.</p>
<p>The colleges compile it. Some, like Yale, put it on line. Others do not. Smith apparently falls in the latter group, but it looks like Smith compiles something called the "Smith Action Report" which can be accessed by students. This statement is based on <a href="http://sophia.smith.edu/cdo/handouts/law-school.PDF%5B/url%5D">http://sophia.smith.edu/cdo/handouts/law-school.PDF</a></p>
<p>US News has a rating of all law schools on-line. While controversial, it does give you a good idea of how various law schools rank. I wouldn't choose X Law School over Y Law School because one is ranked #41 and another is #47, but a difference of #1 vs. #87 is meaningful. </p>
<p>There are about 185 ABA-accredited law schools. US News ranks the top 100, and towards the bottom, some schools have been in the top 100 some years and not in others. (Syracuse is an example.) Below that US News lists Tier 3 and below that Tier 4.(Yes, there is no tier 2 these days.) ROUGHLY 45 or so schools are in tier 4 and Gonzaga is one. </p>
<p>Now, I know some very successful lawyers who graduated from tier 4 schools. But, this should give some idea of how Gonzaga compares to other law schools.</p>