<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>