<p>I had inquired about this in a thread a few months ago, and I'm wondering - does anyone have any quantitative data from the Pre-Law advising office about this? I'm curious to see how many Chicago grads are off to the top law schools. Last thread we had a lot of speculative discussion, but no one had the hard numbers. I'm hoping maybe some current U of C undergrads had a recent meeting with the Law Advising Dean to get the hard numbers...</p>
<p>One bit of data I could find that was useful (and should help get this discussion started): </p>
<p>[url=<a href=“http://members.lsac.org/Public/MainPage.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2FPrivate%2FMainPage2.aspx]LSACNet.org[/url”>http://members.lsac.org/Public/MainPage.aspx?ReturnUrl=%2FPrivate%2FMainPage2.aspx]LSACNet.org[/url</a>]</p>
<p>(Click on Data, then rollover to “top 240 ABA Applicant feeder schools”)</p>
<ul>
<li><p>This link presents the raw numbers of students applying from 240 different colleges. Chicago, Columbia, Brown, and Dartmouth (all roughly about the same size) each produce about the same number of law applicants every year. </p></li>
<li><p>While there could be some variation based on preference (i.e. more of Brown’s “very top” students want to go to law school than Chicago’s “very top” students), it’d seem as if Chicago should have roughly the same sort of representation at top law schools as Columbia, Brown, etc. </p></li>
<li><p>The other assumption I’m basing this is on is that with law, the multitude of top pre-law students matriculate at the best (i.e. highest rank) school they can get into in a given application cycle.</p></li>
<li><p>Some other points of interest, while Chicago (with 222 apps in the 07-08 cycle) roughly matched the numbers of apps from Brown (265) and Columbia (242), it seems as if law school is a much more popular option at a few other top colleges with roughly comparable student sizes. For example, Harvard saw close to 400 applications (379), Yale had 350, and Georgetown with 443. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Interestingly, up until the more recent drop in application numbers, UPenn, which is roughly twice the size of Chicago, was churning out 650+ law school hopefuls a year. Cornell, a bit more than twice the size of Chicago’s college, was pumping out a whopping 750 apps a year. </p>
<ul>
<li>One other point of interest, at most top schools, there has been a marked decline in law school applications. For example, 5 years ago, Harvard saw about 550 law school applications a year, now, that’s dwindled down to 379. Similarly, Cornell’s gone from 750 apps in 03-04 to 550 apps in 07-08. </li>
</ul>
<p>Despite all this, apps from Chicago have remained remarkably constant - 260 in 03-04 (a “boom year” in law school apps) to 222 in 07-08.</p>
<ul>
<li>Anyone know how Chicago fares? To be competitive, I’d imagine that say if, out of the 222 applicants, 200 decide to go to law school, Chicago would need to send roughly 25% of these apps to the “Top 14” schools to keep up with the representation from schools such as Cornell and Penn, and not be too far behind Brown and Columbia (which probably send as many as 35% of their law applicants to the top schools). As stated in earlier threads, at other top colleges, about 25%-33% of a top college’s law school app pool wind up at the very top law schools. </li>
</ul>
<p>Broken down another way, Chicago would need to send around 4 students to each of the top 14 schools. Conservatively, my estimate would be:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>At YHS (Yale/Harvard/Stanford Law Schools): a total of 7-8 students</p></li>
<li><p>At CCN (Columbia, Chicago, and NYU Law Schools): 20-22 students (with a bias for Chicago law)</p></li>
<li><p>At MVP (Michigan, Virginia, Penn): 10 students</p></li>
<li><p>At DCNG (Duke, Cornell, Northwestern, Georgetown): 12-14 students (with a little bias for NU Law)</p></li>
<li><p>This would break down to about 52 of the roughly 200 applicants from Chicago going to top schools, and keeping a % rate in line with the some of the other top schools, and not horribly behind Brown, Columbia, etc. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>To recent grads or those who saw the hard numbers - does this seem to be accurate and in line with the actual figures?</p>
<p>In scouring the net a little more, I’ve managed to find some stats for the two top law schools, Harvard and Yale.</p>
<p>Here are Harvard Law’s incoming student profile for 2006-07:</p>
<p><a href=“http://web.archive.org/web/20070514115552/http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php[/url]”>http://web.archive.org/web/20070514115552/http://www.law.harvard.edu/admissions/jd/colleges.php</a></p>
<p>And Yale’s for 07-08:</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/public_affairs/07_08_law_bulletin.pdf[/url]”>http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/public_affairs/07_08_law_bulletin.pdf</a> </p>
<p>(Scroll down to Pg. 158). </p>
<p>These two schools support my contention that Chicago should send around 7-8 students per year to Yale, Harvard, and Stanford. Chicago has been getting stronger of late, so I’m assuming it will now send around 5 students per year to Harvard, and then a couple to stanford and a couple to Yale per yer. </p>
<p>What is a little shocking from the Harvard list, however, is the disparity in how many Chicago sends, and how many its similarly sized peers (both in student size and # of law school apps) send. Chicago sends around 5 a year. Columbia sends about 15 a year to Harvard Law. Brown sends about 15 a year as well to Harvard. I know Columbia and Brown are more pre-professional and most top undergrads at these two schools have their eyes set on law school rather than a PhD program, but the disparity is startling. </p>
<p>I’m assuming that Harvard (along with Yale and Stanford, sure) is still one of the “beacons” in the law school world. While I’m sure Chicago has great representation at Chicago Law, NU Law, maybe Michigan Law as well, I’m a little startled that Brown and Columbia have THREE times the representation at Harvard, despite having similar law school app sizes. Three times as many? Seriously?</p>
<p>I’m still assuming Chicago sends about 25% of its law school applicants to top law schools, but judging from the numbers so far, I’m assuming Columbia, Brown, maybe Dartmouth, send something like 40% of their law school-bound grads to top law schools. </p>
<p>Chicago’s performance certainly isn’t bad - 25% at top law schools is nothing to sneeze at by any means. Unless the hard numbers of late prove otherwise, though, it looks as if Chicago’s got to ramp it up a bit to match its immediate peers.</p>
<p>The link is pretty fascinating. Is there a specific reason that explains the recent drop in numbers of applicants?</p>
<p>I don’t have any hard numbers but I was a fourth year last year applying to law school.
Attending Chicago seemed to carry a lot of weight with admissions offices given that many of my friends from other schools with similar GPAs and LSAT scores were rejected at places where I was accepted. I don’t know exactly though because a lot of the admissions process seems really arbitrary. </p>
<p>I managed to get in my top choice (Chicago’s law school which is ranked about 6th in U.S. News and World Report) and two of my friends got into Harvard. All in all I know about 75 people who applied and everyone got into at least one tier one law school with a full scholarship and it seemed like most of us got into our first choices as well . </p>
<p>The pre law advisor at Chicago, Debbie Chizewer, has all the exact numbers for the year and I think she also records how many of us get into our dream schools. She’s very hands on and is willing to read and edit personal statements as many times as you want. It was extremely helpful working with her.</p>
<p>Hey busterbunny - Thanks for the info, and congrats to you! Chicago Law is outstanding, and probably a bit underrated at #6 in US News. I should have mentioned this in my past post, but with Chicago’s incoming classes getting stronger and stronger (and probably a bit more pre-professional) I think a target of 30% of law applicants from Chicago going to top 14 law schools is a reachable goal. </p>
<p>Back when I was at Chicago and the incoming classes were not as strong (around 2000), I think we were maybe sending 20% to the top law schools. By 2006-2007 (around when the Harvard law profile data was last available on online), probably about 25% of Chicago students went to top law schools.</p>
<p>Now, for busterbunny and others, I’m hoping the number is reaching around 30%. Again, to get to this, since Chicago has about 200 law applicants a year, we would need:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>10-12 students per year at Harvard/Yale/Stanford Law Schools</p></li>
<li><p>22-25 Law students a year at Chicago/Columbia/NYU (I’m including a bias because Chicago Law should take at least 12-14 students a year from Chicago undergrad. Then I’m hoping that Chicago can place around 5 students per year at Columbia and around 5 per year at NYU. Not unreasonable since Chicago traditionally placed 3-4 at each school in the past). </p></li>
<li><p>9-10 students per year at Michigan, Virginia, and Penn (Given Michigan’s midwestern location, I’m hoping Chicago places around 3-4 at Michigan, and then maybe 2-3 at Penn and 2-3 at UVa)</p></li>
<li><p>12-14 students at Cornell, Gtown, Duke, and Northwestern. I’m including a little bias for NU here since it probably has favorable relations with Chicago undergrad. So I’m assuming maybe 4-5 a year to NU law, then maybe 3-4 at Gtown given Gtown’s size, and 2-3 at Cornell, 2-3 at Duke. </p></li>
</ul>
<p>Does this sound reasonable to recent Chicago grads? Busterbunny, of the 75 you knew applying to law school, would you say a significant portion (say around 30%, or maybe 22-25 kids) were going to top law schools? Back in my day, if you did a random sample of 75 Chicago undergrads going to law school, I’d imagine that maybe 15 were going to top law schools. Now, I’m hoping that number is closer to 25 out of 75).</p>
<p>I have a single data point. Just talked to a friend of S1 who is going to a top law school next fall having been accepted at all but 1 of the top 10 law schools with a 3.6 GPA, don’t know the LSAT. All this talk of having to have a GPA north of 3.75 did not seem to apply in this case.</p>
<p>In my experience it seemed as though your LSAT score mattered far more than a GPA. Some of my friends had really high GPAs (in the 3.9s) and got rejected from all the top ten schools because their LSAT was in the lower 160s (which is rather low given their GPAs) whereas some of my friends had GPAs of 3.2 or 3.3 but LSAT scores in the lower 170s or higher 160s and got accepted almost everywhere they applied.</p>
<p>Yes idad the general theory is LSAT matters even more than GPA. A 3.3 172 lsat has a bstter shot at at least a couple top ten schools than a 3.9 162 lsat applicant. If the student with a 3.6 had a high lsat, he’s in great shape. </p>
<p>Where i imagine chicago does very well is with its students with high but not stratospheric gpas and high lsats. So for example a 3.7 173 lsat from chicago may still have a shot at harvard, but a 3.7 173 lsat from a not-as recognized for its rigor school woulx not.</p>
<p>That’s interesting. The last law school applicant with whom I was completely familiar was about four years ago. He had a 3.9+ GPA from Penn (#1 in his department) and a 169 LSAT (which he had thought was fine). Also – an Oxford MA, great recommendations, a published novel, professional-quality jazz musician, and very personable. He applied to 8 or 9 of the top schools and was accepted at half of them.</p>