Big name public universities (Berkeley/UVA/Michigan/UNC/UCLA) Versus Non-HYP ivies

College Search & Selection
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<p>“Anyway, IMO the observation made earlier about “quality in, quality out” is right on target. The school does not make the student. The student makes the student. I don’t care if he/she went to Harvard or U Michigan or U Miami. Get the GPA, score well on the LSAT, maybe get some impressive work experience—that’s the path to acceptance at the T-14.”</p>

<p>I agree Hawkette. Where we lose each other is in your claim that Michigan is nowhere near its private peers in terms of student quality. If that were truly the case, how do your explain the fact that Michigan places as high a percentage of its students into top graduate programs as those universities you claim are FAR superior (Vanderbilt, Washington University, Cornell, Northwestern) and a higher percentage of its students into such programs than schools you claim have student bodies that are equal to Michigan’s, such as Miami. </p>

<p>Let us look at the numbers from three of the top 14 Law schools shall we?
YALE LAW SCHOOL
Cal: 14
Penn: 13
Michigan: 12
UVa: 8
Cornell 7
Georgetown: 6
Northwestern 6
WUSTL: 5
Emory: 3
Vanderbilt: 2
Miami: 0</p>

<p><a href=“Welcome | Office of the University Printer”>Welcome | Office of the University Printer; (page 138)</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL
Northwestern: 25
Cornell: 19
Michigan: 19
Cal: 18
Penn: 12
Georgetown: 10
UVa: 6
WUSTL: 6:
Emory: 5
Vanderbilt: 3
Miami: 1</p>

<p><a href=“Course Catalogs | University Registrar”>Course Catalogs | University Registrar; (page 134)</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN LAW SCHOOL:
Michigan: 150
Cornell: 40
Cal: 30
Northwestern: 30
Penn: 30
Emory: 20
Georgetown: 20
UVA: 10
WUSTL: 10
Vanderbilt: 5
Miami: 5</p>

<p><a href=“Admissions | University of Michigan Law School”>Admissions | University of Michigan Law School;

<p>Unfortunately, other Law schools do not offer such a detailed breakdown of their students’ undergraduate background. Harvard and Georgetown used to, but I cannot seem to them.</p>

<p>At any rate, it is clear that major publics such as Cal, Michigan and UVa place their students into top Law schools at a similar rate as schools such as Cornell, Emory, Vanderbilt, WUSTL etc… How can that be if those publics have far inferior student bodies? And how come Miami laggs so much if its student body truly is as strong as Cal’s or Michigan’s?</p>

<p>And Hawkette, at Vanderbilt, Penn and WUSTL, 80%-90% of undergrads are enrolled in either the CAS or the Business school. That is not the case at Cal, Northwestern, Cornell and Michigan, where only 55%-65% of their students are enrolled in colleges such as Music, Engineering, Architecture, Nursing etc…</p>

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<p>hah, it’s pretty convenient that you specify T14 law schools, especially considering the fact that I’m guessing Vandy places relatively well in schools of comparable prestige as T14 schools, namely Vandy and UT. </p>

<p>Anyway, I agree with Pizzagirl in that you can’t measure how good a school is by their placement into T14 programs, because, like undergrad, people consider numerous things when deciding which law school to attend. For instance, if your end goal is to work in Dallas or Houston, would you really pick Cornell over UT? </p>

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<p>Can’t really agree w/ that because you’d basically be punishing schools for having really ambitious students who apply to a bunch of reaches.</p>

203

<p>“My contention is that one’s SAT/ACT scores are a good predictor of future LSAT scores. While I don’t presently have any data to support this, my sense is that many schools have seen material changes in their average SAT/ACT scores since 2002-03. If I’m correct, then we are likely to see improvement in their average LSAT scores going forward.”</p>

<p>This exercise has already been conducted in this post #141 of thread. Cal’s undergraduate LSAT average (159) was tied at #16 among research universities. Michigan and UVa’s average (158) were tied at #21. Emory, Johns Hopkins, Georgetown, Northwestern, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, That’s in line with their selectivity rankings. Also, I am not sure how any of those universities became more selective relative to the others in the last 5 years.</p>

<p>"Btw, I was not judging the % of U Michigan students are in the entering class at U Michigan. I was commenting on the U Michigan students who achieved T-14 Law Schools and how many of them are concentrated at U Michigan Law School. Here is how it compares among the four schools:</p>

<p>16% Cornell
na Georgetown
45% U Michigan
18% U Penn"</p>

<p>I attribute this to two reasons:</p>

<p>1) Michigan law school is twice larger than Cornell’s and 50% larger than Penn’s.
2) Michigan’s yield (65%) of its own students is significantly higher than Penn’s (35%) and Cornell’s (23%)</p>

204

<p>“hah, it’s pretty convenient that you specify T14 law schools, especially considering the fact that I’m guessing Vandy places relatively well in schools of comparable prestige as T14 schools, namely Vandy and UT.”</p>

<p>CRS, I am not going to debate the quality or prestige of Law schools in this thread. I respect Vanderbilt a great deal. I was merely saying that matriculation data does not support Hawkette’s claims that Vanderbilt’s student body is far superior to Cal’s, Michigan’s or UVa’s.</p>

205

<p>Alexandre - it’s also a matter of the differing distribution I mentioned. Yale Law takes truly top students, and the publics have a higher percentage of top (1550+, 4.0+) students, since some will choose them over any private school for engineering or due to financial concerns, while there’s less reason to take Emory or Vanderbilt over a top private. Of course, most of the top students at publics are in engineering or science, so law school admissions understate their advantage there.</p>

206

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<p>remember, many who take the lsat choose to ultimately not go to law school, but to go to b-school, do a different degree, never get a masters / professional degree etc. </p>

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<p>oh great oracle, how much will I earn, what will my passion be, will I be happily married, how many kids am I going to have…</p>

207

<p>Alexandre: What percentage of Vandy kids are pre-law? Maybe 10% tops, but probably in the 5-10% range. Heck, I’m a quasi-Econ major and I’ve met more pre-meds than pre-laws in my econ classes. The thing is, all of those public schools have a ton more kids applying to law schools than Vandy. </p>

<p>And I don’t think Hawkette is claiming that Vandy is FAR superior to those publics. Superior by standardized test scores, yes. But not FAR superior.</p>

208

<p>crs, read Hawkette’s previous posts. She always maintains that Cal, Michigan and UVa’s student bodies are not in the same league as Vanderbilt’s and other private elites.</p>

<p>And crs, as a percentage of their total student bodies, Vanderbilt does not have fewer prelaw students than Cal or Michigan…I guarantee it.</p>

<p>Finally, until private universities and public universities start reporting SAT averages and ranges in standardized manner, comparing public and private universities in that manner is not possible.</p>

209

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<p>I dare you to find this info. Scratch that. I double-dog dare you to find this info.</p>

210

<p>Michigan has a freshman class size of 5992. It had 864 law school applicants last year - 14.2% of a class.
Vanderbilt has a freshman class size of 1599. It had 287 applicants last year - 17.9% of a class.</p>

<p><a href=“http://members.lsac.org/Public/MainPage.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2FPrivate%2FMainPage2.aspx[/url]”>http://members.lsac.org/Public/MainPage.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2FPrivate%2FMainPage2.aspx&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>cherokeejew: I appreciate the effort but…</p>

<p>freshman class =/= graduating class</p>

<p>*I’m guessing Vandy’s class sizes have changed since the Commons was opened up 2 years ago.</p>

<p>applicants =/= matriculants</p>

<p>*I actually know a few friends who are going to apply to law schools, but aren’t 100% set on going to law school.</p>

<p>And I checked your math…864 / 5992 = 14.4 and 854 / 5992 = 14.25, which rounds up to 14.3</p>

212

<p>ericsson - that’s an absurd standard. Not getting into a t14 makes one horrendous? (btw, I bet there are people that made 163 in the t14 schools). You sound simply ridiculous, really. Percentiles are percentiles. If only 8% of the people taking the test do better, it virtually cannot be “freaking horrendous” by a sane definition of the term. While sure, it makes your odds of getting into a t14 very slim, some of the ones you mention are quite possible. Texas has a 25th percentile of 163, so 25% of the class scores that or lower. Same with UCLA and Berkeley. Vandy 164, so about the same. Same with Notre Dame, which you didn’t mention but is good.</p>

<p>So maybe that person won’t become a Supreme Court justice, but they certainly are represented in decent numbers at a lot of fine law schools. I don’t know if you are just trying to sound arrogant or what exactly, but it is eletist and rather pathetic, really.</p>

213

<p>OK, you got me good. I claimed it was 14.2% vs. 17.9%, a difference of 3.70%. It’s actually 14.25% vs. 17.94%, a difference of 3.69%.</p>

<p>Vanderbilt’s entering class in 2002 was 1579, in 2003 was 1545, in 2004 was 1601 (people don’t always apply immediately after graduation), so actually the class was somewhat smaller, meaning the % is higher.
The graduation rate at Michigan is 88%, Vanderbilt is 89%. so that ain’t the problem. </p>

<p>Not every applicant is committed to going to law school at Michigan either, and there’s no reason to assume any difference. There’s no way to ever know people’s secret desires about going to law school, so basically you are saying that your position is unfalsifiable by definition… I’d double dog dare in that position, too.</p>

<p>Anyway, the whole thing’s remarkably pointless - law schools care about your LSAT, period. Whether there’s a slight average difference in other applicants from your school is entirely irrelevant to any individual. I’ve got bigger problems, like the fact that I just floundered in elucidating my memo to the head of my practice group (who, incidentally is Princeton - Yale Law - Supreme Court clerk, which kind of makes it all seem pointless for the rest of us)</p>

214

<p>cherokeejew: I’m merely pointing out the flaws in your metrics and numbers. I could point out more, but I don’t really care to get that thorough. Determining the number of serious, ‘I 100% want to go to law school’ pre-laws at a school is going to be a futile search. As a result, you can’t guarantee, as Alexandre did, that there are more pre-laws as a percentage of the student body at Vandy than at Cal and Michigan. In addition, I’ve never made any claims regarding the number of pre-laws at Michigan because I don’t know anything about the students that go to Michigan. </p>

<p>Now I’ll acknowledge that I’ve probably underestimated the number of pre-laws at Vandy but I highly doubt that ~18% of Vandy’s graduating class are pre-law, “I 100% want to go to Law School.” In addition, one class is not representative of the entire freshman to senior student body.</p>

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<p>You should read up on legal employment prospects before you speak. Many people who score low on the LSAT pay 200k tuition to attend law school and end up unemployed. I certainly would not pay sticker to attend UCLA Law right now, particularly since less than 20/30% of the class has a shot at biglaw in this economy. Just read up, educate yourself, and then respond. And yes, a 163 is pretty bad. The lowest LSAT 25ths in the t-14 are at Berkeley and Virginia: 165…and then I am sure those people have close to 4.0s and decent ECs. Pretty much every other t-14 school has a 167+ for their 25th.</p>

216

<p>Alex,
My belief is that students who score well on the SAT/ACT are likely to score well on the LSAT. </p>

<p>The LSAT scores that are being reported now for recent law school entering classes relate to students who took the SAT/ACT exam anywhere from 6-8 years ago. </p>

<p>If I look at an old USNWR (eg, Best Colleges 2003 edition) and compare it to the latest SAT/ACT data that is now available for undergrads that entered in Fall, 2009, I find the following change over that period of time:</p>

<p>26-30 U Michigan then
27-31 U Michigan now
1230-1430 U Michigan now</p>

<p>1270-1470 Cornell then
1290-1500 Cornell now</p>

<p>1290-1460 Georgetown then
1300-1500 Georgetown now</p>

<p>1310-1490 U Penn then
1350-1530 U Penn now</p>

<p>1230-1400 Vanderbilt then
1350-1520 Vanderbilt now</p>

<p>1170-1440 UC Berkeley then
1230-1470 UC Berkeley now</p>

<p>1210-1420 U Virginia then
1230-1440 U Virginia now</p>

<p>1160-1400 UCLA then
1170-1410 UCLA now</p>

<p>1150-1370 U North Carolina then
1210-1410 U North Carolina now</p>

<p>I can add more if you let me know which schools interest you, but the schools above have all been mentioned recently in this thread.</p>

<p>If my thesis holds that there is high correlation between high SAT/ACT scores and high LSAT scores, then it’s pretty obvious which schools should see the biggest improvement over the next decade by their students taking the LSAT.</p>

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<p>Hawkette, Michigan’s mid 50% SAT range in 2003 was 1180-1390. Now it is 1230-1430.</p>

<p>At any rate, most schools have experienced a similar increase in SAT averages, so that’s not really going to be much of a variable in this equation.</p>

218

<p>I thought Michigan did not super score SAT/ACT scores?</p>

219

<p>It doesn’t. I don’t think anybody said Michigan did.</p>

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First of all, what someone has to pay has nothing to do with whether the score is “horrendous” or not. That is like saying that because someone gets a 2200 SAT and therefore can’t get in and can’t get that merit scholarship from Chicago and so has to attend a lesser university, that SAT score is “freaking horrendous”. Quite silly. Whether or not they can find a job at “big law” also has nothing to do with it. I’ll take your word for those employment stats, although I know there are a lot of other things for lawyers to do other than go into “big law”. I know many that wanted to get a law degree specifically so they could do other things like sports law where they work in smaller specialty areas, work for the government, and many other areas of either direct law or other professions where a law degree was extremely useful. Please tell me you are not an attorney. Obviously the 163 limits their choices of schools, I just take serious issue with your ridiculous choice of description.</p>

<p>There are only so many slots open at the t14 law schools. That is where the top 5% or so go, I suspect. So no one else should go to law school? You have an odd way of describing things, calling everything below the top 14 “freaking horrendous” because right now the job market is weak.</p>

<p>I think it is obvious that calling an LSAT score of 163 “freaking horrendous” when it is 91st percentile is fairly ridiculous on its face, as is saying that if you can’t get into a top 14 law school don’t bother going at all, so I will let you have the last word. Feel free.</p>