<p>Which one is it easier for you to get into HLS, YLS, SLS, or CLS? I'm referring to an Undergrad from Columbia/Brown.</p>
<p>I heard that Brown does not give +/- in letter grades.</p>
<p>So would a 3.9 at Brown be better than a 3.7 at Columbia? if LSAT scores were same.</p>
<p>yes</p>
<p>[LSN</a> :: Welcome to LawSchoolNumbers.com](<a href=“http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com%5DLSN”>http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com)</p>
<p>Average GPA –</p>
<p>Brown (2007): 3.61
Columbia (2006): 3.42</p>
<p>Brown has a different grading system, however. 56 percent of students get As, and 43 percent get Bs, or something obscene to that extent. Grades won’t b a problem at Brown.</p>
<p>I’d argue that the academic rigor, competitiveness, and social life at Columbia would all prepare you better to succeed in law school, though.</p>
<p>Brown has an optional grade system. In each class, you can elect to get a letter grade or a S/NC (satisfactory/no credit.) There are Brown students who don’t take any courses for grades. Most take the majority of their courses for grades but some S/NC. It’s not that 56% of students get As; it’s that 56% of students who choose to take a class for a grade get an A. </p>
<p>This means that when Brown students want to take difficult courses outside their fields of interest, they can take them S/NC. So, instead of taking the kind of courses many students at other courses take like “rocks for jocks” or “clapping for credit,” Brown humanities concentrators can take the same courses as the pre-meds if they so choose, but take them S/NC. NCs don’t show up on your transcript. </p>
<p>Personally, I think this is a TREMENDOUS advantage. I know one heck of a lot of wanna be lawyers who seek to pad their gpa’s with easy courses or at least avoid the tough math and science courses in order to “protect” their gpa’s. At Brown it’s possible to take tough courses outside your field but do it on a S/NC basis. </p>
<p>Reality is that it’s just as hard to get an A at Brown as it is at most top colleges. Students have higher gpa’s because the kids who just want to skate through and get a degree take all or almost all of their courses S/NC and thus do not bring down the median gpa and almost everyone takes any course of interest that they suspect they will not get a great grade in S/NC. </p>
<p>You can get into a top law school from either Columbia or Brown. It really doesn’t matter. Go to the college which you think is the best fit for you without taking LS into account.</p>
<p>The best way to get into one of those law schools is to go to a school somewhere else, like N. Dakota, where you’ll be the best performer. That may sound flippant but at Columbia you’ll be competing for a limited number of openings for Columbia students at Columbia Law and you’ll bust your tail to get into that top group. </p>
<p>I hope this helps convince you that this kind of planning - looking at tiny marginal differences - is pretty darn useless and that you should go where you want, take classes you want and not live your life based on a schedule of steps. If you’re “good enough,” you’ll do fine. (And one day when you are a lawyer, you’ll run into a person your age who is better at bringing in clients, better at arguing in court, better at cutting a brief to fit - and she’ll have gone to some podunk undergrad and a no-name law school. I’m not putting you down, just reminding you that degrees aren’t as important as you in your life’s course.)</p>
<p>Back in the age of dinosaurs, when I went to school, Yale Law had an effective cap on the number of Yalies who would be admitted. I didn’t want to be in that group of 10. Life is worth more.</p>
<p>Umm…I’m much older than you are, and since the days when I went to school, Yale Law has never capped the number of entering students from Yale College at 10. I sincerely doubt there’s ever been a year in which at least 20 were not admitted. The ONLY college better represented at YLS than Yale is Harvard, which usually has about 2 more per year at most. Given the fact that there are about 400 more students in each Harvard College class than in a Yale College class, Yale still does better percentage wise. </p>
<p>Nor is it more difficult to get into Columbia Law from Columbia undergrad. </p>
<p>I’m not arguing with some of the arguments you make–I agree that there are many excellent attorneys who went to lower ranked colleges and law schools. I also think that using the difference in LS admissions rates to choose between Columbia and Brown is just plain silly. However, the statement that the easiest way to get into YLS,HLS, or Columbia is to go to an unknown college is inaccurate. It is equally inaccurate to say that if you go to Yale, Harvard or Columbia for undergraduate you’ll get some huge boost in admissions.</p>
<p>PS: For those who participated in the law school admissions cycle for those who started LS in the fall of 2007, 40 Yalies were admitted to YLS (22% of applicants.) 28 actually enrolled. Thse were the most current stats I could find on-line.</p>
<p>Grade inflation is only a “soft factor”. It’s always better to have a significantly higher (0.2) LSDAS GPA.</p>
<p>Interesting, a slightly lower yield from Yale College than overall. It’s close enough (70% vs. 78%) that it’s probably just statistical noise.</p>
<p>Well, jonri, the 10 was a figure of speech, not an exactitude. </p>
<p>I trust you realize my point is that you have to do very well at Yale to get into that group and that thus puts you in competition with a highly gifted, highly motivated group. The point is not that there are excellent lawyers from other schools. That should not be an issue in anyone’s mind; this is America, not pre-war Britain. My point was simply that it can be much easier to do extremely well at another school. </p>
<p>When I went, I doubt the number who applied was much more than 40. Of course the law school class is somewhat larger now, but I think there’s that much more interest in law school among undergrads. The $$$ in the profession have changed incredibly over the years. As I’m sure you know, used to be that going to work at a big firm paid roughly what a teacher makes. People follow money and thus Wall Street and law (and consulting) draw so much attention.</p>
<p>My point is that it is easier to get into Yale Law from Yale College than it is from an unknown college, particularly if you do not fall into a favored group (legacy, URM, etc.) or have some “story,” e.g. served as a Navy Seal or won several Emmies or were a union organizer for about 10 years. It seems that you are arguing the contrary…and I disagree with you. </p>
<p>Whether you have to do “very well” at Yale UG to get into YLS depends upon how you define “very well.” I assure you that there are a LOT of Yale College grads at Yale Law who were not elected to PBK, and thus were not in the top10% or so. There are some who graduated cum laude, which means that they were in the top 30% of the class, but not the top 15%. If you define being in the 15%-30% range as doing “very well,” then your statement is true. If you don’t, it isn’t.</p>
<p>There are certainly lots of students at Yale Law from relatively unknown colleges. However, last time I checked, a small group of colleges, especially Harvard and Yale, accounted for a very substantial proportion of the student body.</p>
<p>PS: This is the most recent breakdown of the colleges represented at Yale Law School I could find. (It seems to include candidates for degrees other than the JD as well as first, second, and third year J.D. candidates). The fact that 88 were grads of Yale College suggests to me that it is NOT more difficult to get into YLS than it is from some college in North Dakota, as you have stated. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.yale.edu/bulletin/html/law/students.html[/url]”>http://www.yale.edu/bulletin/html/law/students.html</a></p>
<p>I note that during the time period above, there were more Yale College than Harvard College grads enrolled in YLS. So, I want to correct the statement to the contrary I made earlier, but it’s past the time limit for editing a post.</p>
<p>Also there were 82, not 88 YLS grads. </p>
<p>Sorry for the errors.</p>
<p>jonri, my point is the competition is different. I would be curious to know the non-high gpa Yalies who got into the law school. For the years that I know, the only ones who fit that category had a special reason behind them. Again, with no reason to continue splitting hairs, an ordinary student with no special story will need to do very well among the other ordinary students at Yale who are trying to do very well. One group within Yale is not the same as the other groups within Yale. If I’m wrong and the law school admits ordinary kids with ordinary gpa’s then that is indeed a surprise.</p>
<p>One can always point to oddities. I can say for example that some of the most prestigious, nearly impossible schools to get into admit students with 2.0 gpa’s - even under - and absolutely terrible SAT’s. (This is true; I have actual data.) I’m obviously talking undergrad but my point is that one can take an average and it would be completely misleading. A general statement that one can get into these schools with ordinary to lousy scores would also mislead unless that one is similar to these exceptions.</p>
<p>It’s simple enough. A quick eyeball demonstrates that YLS seems to cut off around 3.8. Let’s assume arguendo that Yale undergrads get no bonus.</p>
<p>[LSN</a> :: Yale University - Admissions Graph](<a href=“http://yale.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats]LSN”>http://yale.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats)</p>
<p>A 3.8 is high, but it’s hardly elite status. You can see that that would place a student exactly where jonri said: top 30% but not nearly top 15%.</p>
<p>[Yale</a> Daily News - Honors cutoffs stay steady](<a href=“http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/25168]Yale”>http://www.yaledailynews.com/articles/view/25168)</p>
<p>So basically you have to be in the top 20% or so of Yale undergrad to stay YLS-eligible in terms of GPA. Whether that sounds like a good or a bad strategy is obviously in the eye of the beholder.</p>
<p>Lergnom, You are really twisting what I said. I didn’t claim that “ordinary” students got into YLS from Yale. “Ordinary” students don’t get into YLS from any other college either. </p>
<p>The median GPA of Yalies admitted to the YLS class which entered LS in the fall of 2007 was 3.83, according to Yale College. According to the article Mike posted above, the cut off for magna, meaning you’re between the 5th and 15th percentile in the class, for the Class of 2006 was 3.82. For the Classes of 2007 and 2008, it was 3.85. That means the MEDIAN GPA of students admitted to YLS from Yale College put them just about the 85th percentile in the class. In other words, roughly half of the 40 students admitted to Yale Law School from Yale college were NOT in the top 15% of their Yale College class in terms of gpa. Mike’s guess that top 20% is probably good enough to get considered seems valid. </p>
<p>Sure, the competition is tougher at Yale. However, I think it’s self-evident that YLS admissions reflect that. If you want to get into YLS from a no-name college without a special factor, you’d darn well better be at the very top of the class. </p>
<p>BTW, being at the top of your class at Yale College does not guarantee admission to YLS. YLS cares about more than just numbers–and, obviously, LSAT matters a lot. </p>
<p>I’ll stop quibbling but again, IMO, going to Yale College most definitely does NOT hurt your chance of getting into YLS and going to some college in North Dakota doesn’t improve it. That’s the statement you made that I vehemently disagree with. </p>
<p>You still want to believe it, be my guest. But before any high school student aiming for a top law school takes your advice, I’d urge him to look at the info in the links Mike and I have posted and draw his own conclusions.</p>
<p>…and I mean that. Your profile says you were born in 1973, but your posts say you went to Yale in the 1970s. I assume you just made a typing error when you posted your DOB. If so, you might want to correct it. </p>
<p>(Maybe you’re NOT a lot younger than I am 
)</p>
<p>I have no idea what the profile says and would have to take a serious memory pill to dig up my reasoning why I “lied.” I probably didn’t care at the time. I’m significantly older than that. </p>
<p>Again, we seem to be talking about two slightly different things. It’s not important in any great way but let me do this one more time. I don’t quibble with the data; I’m well aware of the Latin honors cut offs and I don’t think that top 20% is a particularly outstanding GPA. My point, which I don’t think you have data about, is that if you look at the bottom half of that group, will they have the same extra characteristics of the top half of that group? A number of kids at Yale are privileged in a variety of ways - not talking about ability. Take away the privilege so you have an ordinary Yale College student. My bet, since it appears at this point we can little on this but bet, is these kids will be much more highly grouped to the top end of the GPA distribution. (I’d also bet that some, meaning a few, of the kids admitted to the law school fall well short of the 20% line, but that’s not the issue.) </p>
<p>Now to put this in what I perceived as the original context for the question. (You may disagree about that but this is my post.) The question was for an ordinary person, no privilege. Not wealthy. Not the daughter of a minority Appeals Court justice. My original comment was that you’d need to get into the top of the class at Yale College to get in - 5-10% is a good marker. You may disagree with my conclusion, especially since we appear to be betting about these exact data points, but my reasoning should now be clear: take out the privileged admits and look at what you need to achieve. It’s a lot. And if you want to put an extra on your resum</p>
<p>So if I read this thread correctly, we all agree on two points.</p>
<p>There are some advantages to being the very top student at a less competitive university. Conversely, there are also some advantages to being surrounded by other also-talented people.</p>
<p>My argument is that the first set is *not more than<a href=“maybe%20equal%20to”>/I</a> the advantages posed by the second set.</p>
<p>My reasoning is actually rather simple. Based on graphs and other objective, generalized data such as the USN quartiles, 3.8 seems to be approximately what it takes to get into YLS without any of the “networking” advantages you mention. 3.8 from Yale College is approximately top 20% or so. That’s high, but it’s not nearly the top 5-10% you’re mentioning.</p>
<p>The relationship between intelligence and income (feel free to substitute “success as a lawyer” for income, although they’re not the same thing) is kind of like the relationship between height and ability to play quarterback. The best NFL quarterbacks tend to about about two standard deviations taller than the average male. They’re rarely significantly taller than that. Why not? </p>
<p>Those first two standard deviations are important, because quarterbacks have to be tall enough to see over their linemen to their receivers. Once they’ve reached that threshold, additional height doesn’t provide much of an advantage, and other factors become more important (having a competitive personality, arm strength, the quickness to elude defenders, the ability to see patterns developing in a rapidly changing environment). It’s not just that being 6’6" necessarily provides a disadvantage; the paucity of NFL quarterbacks who are three standard deviations taller than the mean may just be a function of there being 20 guys who are 6’3" for every one who’s 6’6", and therefore a much larger pool to search for the ones who have the other characteristics necessary to be a good quarterback. </p>
<p>Success as a lawyer requires a certain degree of intelligence; once that degree is achieved, other factors become more important, such as work ethic, likability, even acting ability for trial lawyers. </p>
<p>The father of two of my high school friends was a Harvard law school graduate who went to work as an assistant D.A. in a small city. He retired as an assistant D.A. in that same small city. I don’t know whether he went there thinking he’d be a big fish in a small pond; if so, he was disappointed. I always suspected that juries (and his co-workers) just didn’t like him very much.</p>
<p>Quoting Lergnom: The best way to get into one of those law schools is to go to a school somewhere else, like N. Dakota, where you’ll be the best performer. That may sound flippant but at Columbia you’ll be competing for a limited number of openings for Columbia students at Columbia Law and you’ll bust your tail to get into that top group.</p>
<p>I hope this helps convince you that this kind of planning - looking at tiny marginal differences - is pretty darn useless and that you should go where you want, take classes you want and not live your life based on a schedule of steps. If you’re “good enough,” you’ll do fine. (And one day when you are a lawyer, you’ll run into a person your age who is better at bringing in clients, better at arguing in court, better at cutting a brief to fit - and she’ll have gone to some podunk undergrad and a no-name law school. I’m not putting you down, just reminding you that degrees aren’t as important as you in your life’s course.)</p>
<p>Back in the age of dinosaurs, when I went to school, Yale Law had an effective cap on the number of Yalies who would be admitted. I didn’t want to be in that group of 10. Life is worth more. </p>
<p>I’m curious where Lergnom went to school, and whether, despite her sage “advice” for the OP to go to a school like U of North Dakota, he/she has even the slightest idea what they’re talking about.</p>
<p>Speaking as a current Yale student, one of the reasons (and I’m sure there are many) that YLS takes more people from Yale than from other schools might be that the quality of Yale students (and Harvard students and Princeton students, etc.) tends to be higher than the quality of students coming from other schools. Regardless of what the numbers say–and trust me, there’s a lot of reason to believe that they’re inaccurate given the myriad disincentives there are for giving your accurate GPA to the College’s daily paper–do you have even the slightest idea how difficult it is to end up with a 3.8 at a top school and what that says about the person who has managed to not only get those grades, but to get them consistently? The fact of the matter is that Yale is, despite all the griping about grade inflation from haters (some of whom are wannabes and rejects), a hard school, and it is very difficult to get an A there. Thus, if I were on the YLS admissions committee, that would be something I took into account when I was deciding exactly which kids were admitted. It’s one thing to say the process is numbers-driven and quite another to compare a 3.8 at Yale to a 4.0 at UND, say, and conclude that one is always better than the other. That just isn’t true, and it’s ridiculous for you to even insinuate that it’s best to go to a smaller school where, as some of the other posters pointed out, you would have to knock it out of the park with your grades and with the LSAT in order to be considered at YLS.</p>
<p>Another reason that Yalies tend to be represented at YLS in greater numbers is that the process is numbers based. In order to get into Yale in the first place, most people had to have high test scores. Many studies say that if you do well on one type of standardized test, you’re likely to do well on others. Therefore, the Yalie with the 3.8 is more likely to have the requisite 173 to match, than the UND student, all other things being equal. This is to say nothing of the extra curricular achievement that is usually required to end up at Yale (or at any other top school), which a newly admitted student at that top college, is very likely to continue once they arrive. Therefore, when you’re taking top students from top schools, you’re more likely to have the student with the high GPA PLUS the high LSAT and the interesting extra curriculars or job experiences that would make them an attractive candidate to law school admissions committees.</p>
<p>The fact that there are more Yale students (or other students from top schools) represented reflects the quality of the student bodies at those institutions. It is an understanding among the law school admissions committees that there are many more gifted and talented students who meet their criteria than there are at other schools. The larger number of Yalies at YLS has much less to do with privilege than it does with their merit as students.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to sound unnecessarily snarky, but it irks me when people offer advice on these forums without taking the time to a) learn the facts of current admissions processes b) apply it to the advice that they give and c) avoid sounding like an authority on a subject that they clearly don’t know as much about as they believe, while managing to minimize the quality of the student body at undergraduate institutions by chalking up their admissions successes to mere “privilege”</p>
<p>also: As a Yale student, I have to say that the lower YLS yield rate among admitted Yalies probably has to do with wanting to go somewhere else after having spent the last 4 years of their lives in New Haven. I know that if I were fortunate enough to be deciding between YLS, and a comparable school, I’d probably decide to go somewhere else for the change of scenery/ experience.</p>
<p>Just a quick note, having transferred to Brown from another top school, I recognize that the grading system here is kind of ridiculous (I love it, and most don’t “abuse” it, but you certainly could), but not nearly to the extent that people in this thread are suggesting.</p>
<p>I’ve never met anyone taking all their classes pass fail, I’ve never met anyone even taking more than one of their classes pass fail, and many if they are taking pass fail classes, are taking an overload. The breakdown of grades is not 56/43 A/B as someone said, though it is still very high. The average GPA is 3.6 as was said though.</p>