Does the reputation of an undergrad school affect admission to law school?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>It has been of course noted before by many people, including myself, that the difference in grading between Harvard and MIT may have something to do with the different grading schemes between tech and nontech classes. But that only begs the next logical conclusion - why is it that tech classes tend to be graded harder than non-technical classes? This is something that I have raised numerous times here on CC, and on numerous threads that have to do with grading. I still have yet to hear of a reason that convinces me that technical classes ought to be graded harder than non-technical classes. If you want to grade your technical students hard, then it only seems fair that you should also grade your nontechnical students hard. </p>

<p>As a digression, I think this is a big reason why a lot of American college students just don't want to study technical subjects. Other reasons exist, of course. However, we have all surely read the articles and books that decry the lack of Americans interested in science and technical careers, and how our competition, in particular certain Asian countries, will inevitably snatch away the crown of technical leadership if more Americans don't study math/science (and after all, many of the people who are actually studying math/science in American schools are either Asian nationals or Asian-Americans). Well, to that I would say that one big reason why Americans don't study tech more than they do is simply because non-technical subjects are easier. You get higher grades for less work. As long as schools are going to offer easy 'gut' non-technical subjects that give high grades for doing very little, then you are always going to have those guys who hide themselves in those majors, taking them not because they are truly interested in those subjects, but just because they're easy. A lot of American college students figure - why should I have to study hard and get low grades in order to get a tech degree when I can simply just take the easy way out and study some creampuff major? </p>

<p>But in any case, it is then still true that law schools would still discriminate against MIT, if for the simple reason that they are discriminating against difficult tech-majors in general, and it's just that MIT tends to churn out lots of tech students.</p>

42

<p>In history and English classes (and other "fuzzy" studies), a typical test question requires you to marshall a few facts, and synthesize them into of a well reasoned and well written opinion essay. </p>

<p>In a science or math class, you're more likely to be given sets of problems to which there is are demonstrably true answers. </p>

<p>In a science or math class where one student gets all of the answers right, while others give demonstrably wrong answers to half or three quarters of the questions, it may be natural to grade across a wide spectrum.</p>

<p>Humanities professors, faced with bluebooks where the differences between the best exam answers and mediocre ones are more subtile, may be accordingly more inclined to cluster the grades they issue. Giving a starkly lower grade to an essay that was simply less nuanced, or less elegantly expressed, may be harder to justify than giving an A to a student who correctly solved all the math problems, and a D to a student who missed 75% of them.</p>

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<p>I will go back to the question I posed, but that no body responded to, that is the difference that exists between norm based exams and crtieria based exams. In the hard sciences there is a perference for the norm based exam which artifically forces a curve on the test, while in other disciplines the criteria based exam is used which lets the chips fall were they may, often producing a significant amount of As if the students undertsnad the material and demonstrate that understanding according to the criteria set for the test.</p>

<p>As my live-in (wife) prof. of education told me, while the selection of the test type might itself be a manipulation, the results that flow from each test type are the natural outfall of the test, the student, and the quality of teaching. Unless a test is "dumbed down" there is no further manipulation that would create grade inflation. </p>

<p>That is the best answer I have heard to date.</p>

<p>On another note, as a moderator I value everyone contribution, and I care very little about what motivates any individual to post and contribute in this forum. All I care about is that we all try to help the OP in any thread with the question posed, and do so in a civil and dignified way. I know it is trite, but we can disagree without being disagreeable.</p>

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<p>Oh yeah, one other point. My wife says that only norm based tests are valid for ranking students. And this may just be the "problem" area when so many students' GPAs are the result of criteria based testing which is not a test designed for ranking.</p>

<p>I say all of this because it just may be the case that there is no hidden agenda to inflate grades, but rather just the natural effect of test type selection.</p>

45

<p>Sakky: thank you. Just letting you know - I was not a pre-law undergrad. Actually thought for quite some time that I would do the Ph.D. route (most likely, MD/Ph.D. research thing) - then realized that spending my life in a lab wasn't for me. Sometime during my second semester of senior year (2003), I decided (tentatively) on law school! By then, problematically, the damage to my GPA had been done, both from engineering and other reasons - medical problems and stalker ex-boyfriends being among those. There were def. some decisions I made undergrad - taking a year off would have been a smart option at times, given the issues I had - not problems that most 20-year-olds face. But, as I was still thinking science and wanted to just get through, I kept the killer courseload, added a major, and still graduated in four years - not an easy feat. Anyway, it really didn't hit me how much trouble I was in re: l.s. admissions until I kept getting rejections and waitlists - at schools I would have been a shoo-in for as an English major or whatever. I mean, I realized that my lib. arts major GPA was, oh, like 3/4 points higher than my engin. GPA, but I didn't care - again, thinking science and that my research would pull me through for grad school. </p>

<p>It's sad - I think I'm a better student for it... the whole experience (which I've alluded to in other posts and above) was horrible and grueling and discouraging... but if that didn't kill me, not much that law school throws at me can faze me. Held true so far (thankfully)... but I don't think that l.s. admissions looked at me and thought, "There's a person who is used to the courseload, dry material, and synthesis; there's a student who, when something goes wrong, isn't going to drop out... looks like someone who would make a decent law student." I must say that everything in law school is significantly more exciting than some engin. classes - administrative regulations are thrilling vis-a-vis calculating reflux ratio. </p>

<p>---- continue with next post re: why are technical classes harder?</p>

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<p>I think that Greybeard hit a lot of it - it's hard to justify giving out bad grades when there are more subjective differences. I also think that it's hard to give out bad grades at all with writing - I mean, it's obvious that the student has completed the assignment and deserved to pass just by handing the thing in. If the essay addresses the topic, shows some knowledge of the material covered, and is within the length limitation, it's really hard to give it anything worse than a C or a C+. </p>

<p>Contrast technical courses: there is SO much information and synthesis of it that it's easier to justify giving out worse grades. The student might not have understood how to correctly apply Schrodinger's equation, so you can mark him down for that. Given the sheer volume of material covered and the complexity of it, it's almost a given that students don't understand it all and will get things wrong. </p>

<p>Some of it is also the testing; even humanities courses with tests will usually design them so that the median is right about where they want it. The science courses are designed so that the median is around a 50%, and grading really becomes an exercise in ranking students. C+ always means "slightly below the median," and B always is "above the median." Much like the LSAT, the grade is correlated to the same percentile. (I do know some professors who set the curve in advance, so that we woudl not penalize ourselves for helping out our classmates - but "why engineering is usually competitive" is another topic.)</p>

<p>Finally, the "weeder" concept - I'm convinced that some of this is to keep people out of the profession who lack a certain level of technical competence. (I'm not arguing <em>for</em> this system, or even saying that it works: clearly, the MIT kids, weeded out or not, would probably all have the brains to stay with a programme in a lesser school.) But, engineering jobs are finite; salaries are high; and a school probably has a vested interest in insuring that their engineering grads are competent. Almost every engin. school in the US loses more students than it gains - so fewer engineers graduate than start off as engin. majors. For whatever reason, this doesn't really apply to English courses - probably because schools really want their students to graduate. </p>

<p>Having done the double-major thing, I'll also say that the engineering courses are just plain more difficult than other majors. I think that schools probably really grade-deflate to keep out the people who can't handle the upper-level work. </p>

<p>It is odd though that science courses are the last bastion of that philosophy. Law schools have certainly moved away from it; colleges are trying to keep students in and get them out in four years with a diploma. Many it's correlated to being the last bastion of male dominance in academia... perhaps women, either as professors or as students, would help schools move away from this. Supposedly, pressure from female doctors is some of the reasons that hospitals are getting away from the 24 on/24 off routine and 100-hour-workweeks. I'll launch into a feminist critique of the current state of engineering and legal education if anyone is interested. ;)</p>

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<p>I have heard these sort of answers before, and I considered them and I reject them. I reject them for one simple reason - why exactly is it so hard to give bad grades for subjective work?</p>

<p>I would posit that the current reason that it is hard to give bad grades for subjective classes is merely because right now, the current state of affairs is such that most subjective classes tend to grade fairly easily, such that if one such prof were to behave differently and grade harshly, he would be an outlier. Students would be saying that such-and-such a major is pretty easy except for Professor Smith, he might even get criticized by fellow profs in his/her own department, etc. etc. In short, it would take a brave person to take a stand and grade harshly. But that only begs the question of how and why is it that those particular departments developed that institutional culture of easy grading in the first place? </p>

<p>Specifically, my objections are as follows. First of all, the institution of easy grading within non-technical subjects didn't always exist. Indeed, only maybe 1 or 2 generations ago, grading in all college subjects was exceedingly harsh. Those were the days of the true "Gentleman's C". Those were the days when dropout/flunkout rates were exceedingly high. So it seems that at those times, profs in nontechnical disciplines had no problem in giving out extremely harsh grades. Only in recent history did that change. Some might say it was due to the grade inflation created by profs trying to help their students avoid the Vietnam War draft by refusing to flunk their students out and thereby allowing their students to maintain their college draft deferments, but that begs the question that if the Vietnam War draft was the impetus, then why did nontechnical profs inflate their grades more than technical profs? Is it because technical profs cared less whether their students got drafted?</p>

<p>Secondly, there seems to be a disconnect between grade differentiation and general higher/lower grading. I agree that it may be easier to differentiate amongst students in technical areas, based on answers to exam questions and so forth. It is not quite so easy to differentiate between students in nontechnical areas. </p>

<p>But just because you can't differentiate amongst some students doesn't automatically mean that you should give them the benefit of the doubt. For example, it isn't automatic that just because you have a bunch of students who you can't really distinguish, then you are obligated to give them all relatively good grades, and only those few students who clearly showed a demonstrably poorer understanding of the material than the other students will get a bad grade. Instead, you could have a policy of "anti-benefit of the doubt" - where all students who you can't distinguish will automatically get a very bad grade, and only those students who clearly distinguish themselves as better than the rest will get a good grade. In other words, instead of giving the bulk of the class B+'s or better, and only a sprinkling of bad grades, give the bulk of the class 'C's or worse, and only a sprinkling of good grades. Why not? Then if a student comes and complains about the C grade, you can just say that that student did average work, and so got an average grade for that class, it's just that that average grade was a C. </p>

<p>I know what would happen, the students would all whine and cry about the unfairness of it all. Well, not only do I have no sympathy for them, I have actually have NEGATIVE sympathy for them. This sort of weeding happens to the engineering students all the time, and nobody's crying for them. I would only be subjecting those non-technical students to the same harsh grading that the engineering students have always been dealing with. Hey, if the engineering students can put up with it, those non-technical students can put up with it too. </p>

<p>Thirdly, I would proffer the example of the PhD dissertations of these non-technical subjects. From seeing the experience of numerous PhD candidates, I am confident that the requirements of the theses in pretty much all humanities and social-science subjects are highly exacting and strict. By and large, it is extremely difficult to come up with a piece of work that will satisfy the requirements of the advisory committee. This is a big reason why getting a PhD in the humanities takes substantially longer on average than getting a PhD in engineering or in the natural sciences. It takes a very long time to write a proper humanities dissertation, and then you have to endure a gauntlet of edits and rewrites and resubmissions, etc. etc. Suffice it to say that a very high and exacting standard has to be reached before one will be awarded the PhD in a nontechnical subject.</p>

<p>But that just goes to show you that humanities profs can make strenuous exacting demands on their students if they choose to do so. After all, they put their PhD students through the wringer. The advisory committee doesn't just say "Oh, well, here's a bunch of dissertations that are of roughly the same quality, and since we can't really distinguish which one is better, we're just going to be lazy and award the PhD to everybody". Not at all. The committee peels those dissertations apart and won't accept anything that isn't "just so". </p>

<p>And forget about those PhD dissertations for a moment, and let's just talk about the workload of those PhD students in general. Suffice it to say that it's a lot. Humanities and social-science PhD students have to work darn hard to meet the academic demands that their departments place on them. That just goes to show you that if the departments wanted to make its undergrads work very hard, they could do it. They're doing it right now to their graduate students, so why not their undergrads too? </p>

<p>For example, instead of just assigning 1 Shakespearean play to read for a particular undergrad class, assign 10 plays to read, and if you can't prove that you've read all 10 by the end of the class, you automatically get an 'F'. Why not? Instead of just assigning 1 chapter to read every week, assign a whole book to read every week. Why not? Like I said before, the engineering students are working like dogs, and nobody's crying for them. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that those non-tech departments could be far far more demanding from their undergrads and could assign far lower grades if they wanted to. There's nothing structural within those departments that says that they can't do that. They could very easily do it. It's not that they can't. They just don't want to. There's a big difference between "Can't" and "Don't want to".</p>

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<p>Agreed with the last paragraph wholeheartedly. </p>

<p>I think that it's in part because colleges no longer want to flunk out a bunch of people. It's hard to charge someone $40k and then boot them out... won't argue about the quality of work that the students are doing for their $40k though. ;) US News, Vietnam, and rising tuition are probably the biggest culprits. Such an environment might turn the school into a pressure cooker, too. </p>

<p>Engineers have a fallback: liberal arts. Liberal artists would have to drop out if they can't cut it - and, per above, colleges probably don't want that to happen. So they push them through and give them decent grades, then graduate them, much in the same way that semi-literate children are passed from grade to grade so they aren't a problem anymore. </p>

<p>I am NOT justifying this practice, however. IMO, it's gone too far... a college degree is meaningless (or nearly so) in the entry-level workforce because, lo and behold, it actually isn't representing much. Some of them certainly do; some schools will make their students work in any discipline, but they are in the minority.</p>

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<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>I think you have a distorted view of the demands that a good liberal arts program places on its students. My undergraduate Shakespeare class required us to read something like 20 plays. We were required to read at least a book a week (and more typically two) in each of my history classes; my history degree required two years of college-level language courses at a pace that covered in a single semester what took four years in my high school.</p>

<p>OK, a B means one thing in a humanities program, and another in an engineering program, just like a pound sterling buys more than a dollar. In the real world, engineering majors and English majors rarely apply for the same jobs. Sure, engineering students sometimes apply for admission to law school, and may have to pass the hurdle of an admissions committee that has a different opinion of the value their currency. The experience of the admissions committee may be that a typical English major is better prepared than the typical engineering student for the particular demands law school places its students.</p>

<p>It's common knowledge that an engineering graduate will typically earn more straight out of college than an English major; some people choose to studying engineering because of that fact. Around this board, we understanding that a 3.5 in English is likely to be a better ticket to law school than a 2.9 in engineering, even though the two students may have the equivalent class rank. That's one argument for studying the humanities.</p>

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<p>Well Greybeard, then we will just have to admit that there are quite a few bad liberal arts programs out there - ones that demand very little from their students while showering them with lots of easy grades. </p>

<p>Are there good, strong, rigorous liberal arts programs out there? Of course. But you must agree that there also quite a few others that are not so in the least. And I'm think I'm on safe ground when I say that the level of rigor within the average engineering programs is significantly higher than that in the average liberal arts programs. </p>

<p>I would also attest to the experience of ariesathena to counter what you have said in your second paragraph. I would argue that a case could be made that those engineers who do get into law school may be more prepared than many other law school admittees, especially for the 1-L year, simply because those engineers were forced to develop a very strong work ethic. The harsh reality is that a lot of people who took easy non-technical subjects never had to work hard, and thus are, to be perfectly frank, quite lazy. But in any case, this is really an empirical question and can only be answered by the law schools themselves. Yet I don't think they are eager to perform this study, for it may well point to the fact that they've been running their admissions process incorrectly all this time. </p>

<p>I would also say that I have heard the arguments of 'jobs' that are the crux of your 3rd paragraph before, and to that I would say that I believe that is really a confusion of cause and effect. Specifically, I would argue that a big part of the reason that engineers get better jobs than English majors is precisely because engineers endure a more rigorous curriculum, and employers are hiring those engineers for their proven work ethic and self-discipline. I would point specifically to the specific example of investment banks and management consulting companies at the elite engineering schools like MIT, Stanford, Berkeley and the like. Historically, one of the biggest employers, if not the biggest employer of graduating MIT engineers are the Ibanks and the consulting companies. What specifically does investment banking or management consulting have to do with engineering? Honestly, not much. So why are these companies hiring so many of them? Are they being stupid? I think not. It seems quite simple - they are hiring them because the fact that they could survive getting through engineering at a top-notch engineering school means that they clearly have a strong work ethic, which may or may not be the case when they consider hiring a liberal arts graduate. </p>

<p>I would further argue that you have to then have to ask yourself why is it that engineering jobs get paid more than liberal arts jobs in the first place. Is it just because companies just 'enjoy' paying their engineers more money? Because those companies like it? I think not. Rather, it's the simple actions of the free market. Not too many people can survive the rigors of an engineering curriculum, which makes whoever does manage to survive more valuable in the free market.</p>

<p>So what that means to me is that you have to be careful to ascertain what is cause and what is effect. It's not the salaries and jobs in engineering that produce the rigor, but rather the rigor that produces the salaries and jobs. For example, I would argue that if the English departments around the country were to become far more rigorous and harsh and start mercilessly weeding students out in order to grant degrees only to those students who were willing to work very hard, then the salary and the job opportunities of English majors would improve dramatically. All of a sudden, English would become a 'prestige' major that the Goldman Sachs's and the McKinsey's of the world would flock to. </p>

<p>The bottom line is that if the non-tech departments decided that they want to institute more rigor and force their students to work harder, they could do it. There isn't any true barrier that would stop them from doing it. What stops them is simple - they have decided that they don't want to do it.</p>

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<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>The graduates of lousy liberal arts programs aren't having their GPA's valued more highly by law school admissions committees than those of engineering graduates.</p>

<p>Top engineering graduates are competing for those investment banking and consulting jobs with top graduates of liberal arts programs. I-banks and consulting firms know that the top liberal arts graduates as well as the top engineering graduates are bright people with a strong work ethic.</p>

<p>Less stellar engineering graduates are being hired to work as engineers; they're not competing with liberal arts graduates for engineering jobs.</p>

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<p>Actually, I would argue that, for all practical purposes, the graduates of lousy liberal arts programs are in fact having their GPA's valued more highly by law school admissions committees than those of engineering graduates. What I have seen, and others, including ariesathena will back me up on, is that having a 3.9 from a no-name lousy liberal arts school makes you far far better off in terms of law school admissions than having a 2.9 in engineering, even from MIT, despite the fact that it is highly debatable as to which takes more work. </p>

<p>To continue your thought that you expressed in your third paragraph, it is also true that less stellar English majors are being hired to work as journalists, editors, marketing people, and whatnot, and they are also not competing with most engineering graduates for those kinds of jobs. </p>

<p>Yet the fact is, at the end of the day, my point is that companies can and do happily hire people whose majors have nothing to do with the job at hand. This is why lots of MIT engineers end up in Wall Street investment banking. What does Ibanking have to do with engineering? Really, not much. You said it yourself, those banks are hiring not for what they learned specifically in their majors, but rather for their brightness and their strong work ethic. In other words, it's what the major 'signals' to the market in terms of rigor rather than what specific classes were in the major that counts.</p>

<p>Hence, the point is that lib-arts majors were to vastly increase their rigor, they would vastly improve the job opportunities of those students who happened to survive those majors. Again, if Film Studies were all of a sudden the most difficult major out there, with lots and lots of weeding and massive workload, then companies would start to realize that Film Studies majors are, on average, highly capable and hard-working people, and would therefore bid up their salaries. Ibanks and consulting companies would happily adjust their hiring schemes to include more Film Studies majors. Film Studies would become something like what Electrical Engineering is today - a deeply respected major by the market, instead of what it is now, which is, to be perfectly blunt, not all that respected.</p>

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<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>I won't dispute that if all colleges flunked out all but their brightest, most hard working students, the few who managed to graduate would have better employment prospects than the average college graduate does today. Are you actually proposing that educational institutions should exist merely to maximize the earning potential of a narrow elite, or just making the point that the laws of supply and demand apply to labor markets?</p>

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<p>"Are there good, strong, rigorous liberal arts programs out there? Of course. But you must agree that there also quite a few others that are not so in the least. And I'm think I'm on safe ground when I say that the level of rigor within the average engineering programs is significantly higher than that in the average liberal arts programs."</p>

<p>Maybe. But I do know engineers that struggled in their "easy" liberal arts courses. It simply requires different skills. </p>

<p>"I would also attest to the experience of ariesathena to counter what you have said in your second paragraph. I would argue that a case could be made that those engineers who do get into law school may be more prepared than many other law school admittees, especially for the 1-L year, simply because those engineers were forced to develop a very strong work ethic."</p>

<p>On the other hand, many engineers can't really read (or write) very well, which puts them at a disadvantage in law school. I think Greybeard had a point when he notes that liberal arts majors may actually be better prepared for law school, because of the requirements of the major. There are certainly plenty of engineers that end up at the bottom of their LS class, and plenty of liberal arts majors who end up at the top. </p>

<p>"The harsh reality is that a lot of people who took easy non-technical subjects never had to work hard, and thus are, to be perfectly frank, quite lazy."</p>

<p>Grade inflation aside, I'm not convinced that technical subjects are necessarily harder then non-technical subjects. Is it really harder to learn how to repair a copier than it is to get a 4 year history degree at a decent school? Most technical degrees, of course, can be acquired in just a couple years. </p>

<p>"But in any case, this is really an empirical question and can only be answered by the law schools themselves."</p>

<p>Yes, and I think they probably understand the issue better then we do. </p>

<p>Ultimately, you should probably study engineering only if you actually want to be an engineer, or have a passion for the material. If your entire aim is to go to law school, you'll generally be better off with a major that is more conducive to law school study, as determined by law schools themselves. After the fact, you can certainly complain about their standards (just like you can complain about reliance on the LSAT), but it's not going to get you very far.</p>

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<p>Aw come now, Cardozo. Your first couple of objections are somewhat fair, but your third one - learning how to repair copiers? I think you can tell by context what I am talking about. Getting a degree from, say, MIT, is far more difficult than just learning how to repair copiers.</p>

<p>If you want me to make it explicit, fine, let me do so. I am talking about comparing comparable liberal arts degrees to comparable engineering degrees. I.e. a degree in English from Harvard vs. a degree in EE from MIT. Or a degree in liberal arts from a no-name school vs. a degree in engineering from a no-name school. What's harder to do? I think the bulk of the evidence indicates that the difficulty probably lies in the degree in engineering, in those comparative situations. </p>

<p>Finally, as to your last statement, I agree with you that choosing liberal arts is better for getting into law schools, but not for the reasons you stated. I would contend that the law school admissions committees, by their actions, have indicated that lib-arts degrees are better. But it's not because they thought it through. I would assert, and probably ariesathena would agree, that the law school adcoms don't WANT to know any better. It's one thing to say that the adcoms have really thought this thing through and have determined that one really is better than the other . It is entirely different thing for them to have made their decision arbitrarily and with little thought. True, when it comes to determining your strategy about getting in, that's not in debate. If you want to maximize your chances of getting into law school, you should choose liberal arts, and at an easy school. That is indisputable. But the reasons why you should do so are very debatable. I would contend that the reasons why is that the odds are unfairly stacked against engineers.</p>

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<p>Sakky,</p>

<p>The notion that all that law school adcoms are willfully ignorant about the comparative performance of students they'e admitted in the past, and that all of them have decided arbitrarily and thoughtlessly to discriminate against engineers, violates Occam's razor. </p>

<p>The members of these committees are educated people. Many of them are lawyers, who are professionally committed to fundamental fairness and the careful consideration of evidence. They have access to data that we don't have. They're highly motivated to select a highly qualified class. It may be that they're all ignoring the evidence, and that their actions are motivated by blind, willful prejudice against engineers. A simpler explanation though, is that the evidence of their past admissions decisions has led these committees to a conclusion that's at odds with your notion of what the evidence would show.</p>

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<p>Sakky, </p>

<p>I respect MIT degrees. My older kid has some friends who did UG at MIT and one of them is a student at a LS in the HYS group. (He's a friend from UG days; they don't attend the same LS.) So, disabuse yourself of any notion that it's "impossible" to get into a top LS from MIT.</p>

<p>Having said that, I agree with Greybeard. The idea that admissions committees don't "WANT" to know the truth as Sakky sees it, is well..a bit far-fetched. Remember the old Boalt law gpa formula you said you've seen? It gave a bigger boost to Harvard gpa's than to MIT gpa's, as you acknowledged. As I've already said, I think MIT's grading is somewhat tougher than Harvard's. So why did Boalt give a bigger boost to Harvard gpa's? BECAUSE THE DATA SHOWED THAT WHEN HARVARD AND MIT GRADS HAD THE SAME LSAT AND UNDERGRAD GPA, THE HARVARD STUDENTS GOT HIGHER GRADES AT BOALT (U of California-Berkeley law school). Doesn't that tend to disprove your theory? The adjustment was based on pure mathematical data.</p>

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<p>Actually, I don't think your stated reason for the Boalt grade adjustment is true. I recall the article too, and I don't recall any specific reason that was cited as to why one school was specifically ranked higher than another. I believe that your stated reason is simply conjecture. If you have the link that specifically says that this is the case, then please present it. </p>

<p>Furthermore when did I ever say that it was impossible for an MIT student to get into HYS? Please point to the quote where I specifically said that it was impossible. Oh, wait, you can't? I see - is that perhaps because I never said it? Allright then - don't put words in my mouth. </p>

<p>What I contend is that it is a harder road to do so. I believe it is because the adcoms are highly numbers oriented. Other people here on CC, most notably ariesathena and calkidd, have arrived at the same conclusion, independently from me. The simple reality of the law-school adcom process is that many if not most applications are never even read carefully, and many are not even read at all. Rather, incoming applications are first sorted into piles according to GPA+LSAT, and if your numerical index is below some cutoff, your application might be given a perfunctory read, but will probably simply be thrown away without being read. Furthermore, even if you survive that cutoff, then the lower the pile you are in, the less time the adcom is going to spend evaluating your app. In short, you better have something truly striking about your app to catch an officer's eye, otherwise, your app will be tossed. </p>

<p>Nevertheless, the bottom line is that I think there is little disagreement that it is harder to get high grades at MIT than at Harvard. Does anybody want to dispute that? Furthermore, you said it yourself, jonri, the Harvard GPA is actually weighted MORE heavily than the MIT GPA, at least for Boalt (at least in the past, I know Boalt no longer uses that system that we have referred to). You and Greybeard might contend that this is possibly so because Harvard prepares students better for law school than MIT does. But at the end of the day, it doesn't really matter why. The only thing that matters is the effect - that is, who has a better chance of getting into law school. </p>

<p>Hence, in the final analysis, if you get admitted to both Harvard and MIT, and you want to go to law school, then you should go to Harvard. You will not have to work as hard to get higher grades, and the law schools will value your grades higher than if you had gone to MIT. It's a win-win for you. You do less work, and you get a better chance of going to law school. </p>

<p>All of that gets down to the basic point I have been making here. Hard work is not really rewarded by the adcoms. If that's blunt, then so be it. We can argue about why it's not rewarded, but all of that is neither here nor there. The takehome point is that just because you choose a difficult major and/or difficult classes, you should not expect the adcoms to reward you for it.</p>

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<p>Here's a further point. Again, while I don't necessarily agree that the Boalt indexing rating was built out of who tends to get the higher law school grades, let's presume that that is in fact the case. And in fact, let's presume, for the purposes of this post, that as a general principle, law schools are admitting people based on who they think will get the highest law schools grades. Presuming that all of that is true, then I have to ask, why is that desirable? Is the purpose of law school admissions to get the student body who is going to get the highest law school grades?</p>

<p>Case in point - I think that with the exception of a few law subspecialties (most notably academic law and judge clerkships), all practicing lawyers can attest to the fact that law school grades are, at best, only moderately correlated with success as a lawyer. For the vast majority of lawyers, practicing as a lawyer bears little relationship with being a law student. I don't think I really need to belabor this point too much, because I think it is fairly self-evident.</p>

<p>Furthermore, I would argue that if it was really true you simply want to admit people who will get top law-school grades, then why even have a human-run admissions process at all? If the purpose is just to get those people who will get top grades, then it seems to me that you can just simply make the process completely automatic and mechanical - the top X of all applicants, as judged by LSAT and GPA (perhaps adjusted by that Boalt index), is admitted, and everybody else is rejected. In other words, you don't even need a human being to be in the process. Just put it in a computer software program, run it, and then automatically send out the admit and reject letters. Would be a very simple piece of software. </p>

<p>I would assert that the whole point of having human beings in the admissions process is to go beyond the numbers. In other words, they are there to judge criteria that cannot be computerized and numericized. Their raison d'etre is to assess those applicants who may not have the best 'numbers', but have potential. If the point is just to admit those people who will get the best law-school grades, then you don't really need adcom officers at all. Just put it in a computer. Would be cheaper, faster, and more reliable. </p>

<p>In other words, the 'value-add' - the central reason why law school adcom officers exist in the first place - is to identify those people who don't have the best numbers (and, by extension, who may not get the best law school grades), but would still be worthy lawyers and who would be good for the law school to have. Case in point - all the top law schools reject some people with 4.0 GPA's from elite schools and perfect 180 LSAT scores. They don't reject a lot of these people, but they do reject some. They reject them even though these people would probably get very good law school grades. They reject them because they feel that these people would, for whatever reason, not make a good lawyer, or some other reason that has nothing to do with future law school grades. </p>

<p>So the purpose of human officers is to be able to assess long-term potential, not just who is going to get better grades in the next 3 years of law school. In other words, to go beyond the numbers. Maybe the guy coming out of MIT is not as well prepared for law-school classes as the guy coming out of Harvard, and so the MIT guy might get lower law-school grades. But it is entirely possible that the MIT guy has more potential, most notably because of a better work-ethic. I would also point out that while law school will last for only 3 years, a law career will last for at least 30 years, if not more. Adcoms should be taking a long-term view and not asking who might do better in the 3 years of law school, but who is going to do better over their entire law careers.</p>

<p>But it has been asserted here that what is important to the adcoms is who is going to do better only in the next 3 years of law school. Not only would I argue that that is short-sighted, I would argue that that invalidates the reason for even having a human law-school adcom in the first place. If what is important is just who will do well in law school, just write a computer program. The purpose of having human beings in the process is to realize that Electrical Engineers work harder than liberal arts majors, and then adjust the admissions accordingly according to the applicants' long term potential. But if they're just going to go by who is going to get the best law-school grades, then there really isn't a whole lot of reason to have human beings in the process in the first place. Why even have human beings in the process if they are just going to replicate what a computer would have done?</p>

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<p>I'll make a minor point (or try to :) ):</p>

<p>I don't think that law school admissions properly accounts for engineering GPAs. There are two things that, IMO, should happen to evaluate engineering applicants: bump up their GPAs to account for the lower mean from engin. grades, and bump up for the fact that engineers tend to work harder. An electrical engineer and an English major might both be dead at the middle of their classes - and one would have a 3.4 and the other would have a 2.9. At least at my alma mater, the engineers had better stats (SATs and class rank) coming in than the liberal arts. So there should be a bump for that. Finally, engineers just plain work harder. I was a double major - frankly, I think I'm pretty qualified to make the comparison... and there just is no contest. So, IMO, admissions might give a slight edge to engineering applicants, but I don't think that it's enough. </p>

<p>Deviating slightly - the "some engineers don't do well at liberal arts" point is kind of a red herring. Again, double major here - engin. is just plain hard. I don't think that my brain for foreign languages is better than my brain for science (in fact, the opposite is probably true!), but the classes are just easier. Disagree at will, but take them both concurrently and you will probably change your mind.</p>

<p>IMO, admissions officers at law schools aren't wilfully ignorant about engineering, nor have they studied it extensively. Roughly 1% of l.s. applicants are engineers - honestly, do you really think that they can properly analyze how well they perform in law school and adjust accordingly? I've heard, anedoctally, that engineers often perform the best because of the type of thinking involved (inductive and assimilating a lot of information), but their writing skills are often rusty (not bad - just rusty - not enough of that in engineering). While l.s. admissions people are professionals, they are also liberal artists. I doubt that many (if any) of them took a single engineering or science class beyond that required for distribution courses. Do you think they can properly analyze, from experience, how hard the major is? It's not that they are bad or ignorant people so much as a lack of exposure. Finally, there might be differences between engineering disciplines - an environmental engineer, with a more broad background and more project-type courses, may perform better than a computer engineer who spent four years writing code.</p>