<p>Hey guys, I have a question that I have been trying to find the answer to on the internet for awhile and I haven't really gotten one yet.</p>
<p>How important is your choice of undergraduate SCHOOL for a law school admissions committee. I'm not talking about majors, or course selection; I'm just talking about about where you went for the first 4 years of college.</p>
<p>The reason I ask is because I would like to get into a Top15-30 law school. I am currently an incoming Sophomore at a borderline Top10 undergraduate university. My freshman LSAC GPA was a 3.93, but I didn't enjoy my time there as much as I would like. I'm currently considering transferring to good ole StateU and continuing my studies in Econ/PoliSci. I have several good reasons to go to StateU which I won't get into here.</p>
<p>How much will this affect my chances of getting into a good, but not ELITE law school? I was thinking about a school around the quality of a Vanderbilt.</p>
<p>If you were getting a 3.93 at a "borderline Top10 undergraduate university," and continue to do that well at your state university, you'll be in good shape for law school, assuming you do well on the LSAT. If your LSAT is particularly high, those grades would put you in the running at Yale, Stanford, and Harvard, for that matter.</p>
<p>Until someone can get inside the mind of an adcom at, for instance, YLS, it will be impossible to be able to say that one's undergraduate school does not have an effect on the decision. As so many have said, I would argue that it is a minimal soft factor that really doesn't matter, other than maybe "validating" your GPA. </p>
<p>For whatever reason, Yale sends a lot of students to YLS/HLS. They're smart kids, so that seems likely. Why are the numbers significantly higher though for Yale compared to Columbia, which has a student body that is arguably just as good. This is still a matter of debate, but something that did catch my eye was a list of the average LSAT score by undergrad school that has been making its way around discussion boards like these for several years. If I recall correctly, Harvard's average LSAT was a 166, Yale's a 165, and Columbia's a 164/63? This goes to show that there may in fact be a slight difference in the intelligence (in this context at least) of the average student at these elite schools, and this may in fact explain why Harvard has so many students filling the seats of the best law schools in the nation in addition to HLS.</p>
<p>I must agree with the others in noting that your undergraduate school will only matter as a "soft factor." If you get a high GPA at the state school and a high LSAT you will be fine. After that it all comes down to those "soft factors," like recommendations, an interesting personal statement and some ec's. Whichever school provides the best of those for you will be the one that will increase your chances of admission even more. With a GPA like that and a (hopefully) equally high LSAT you should be able to get into at least a few T14s</p>
<p>The factor is if you are at a top school you most likely will continue and go to a top school. Why go to Northwestern for ug and endup at Northeastern for law? (yes I said northeastern). Most likely you will keep moving on up. The general idea for humans are to improve. So if you are at first tier you probably will stay at first or try to move up if there is room. </p>
<p>My economics teacher went to Rutgers for ug and then went to NYU Stern for her MBA. It really depends on the student. Going to a top rate school helps YOU personally to get into a top law school (in terms of the help you get, the libraries, etc.) If you get into a top rate ug it can't hurt you. It can only help. But going to a third tier school doesn't hurt either. Just as long as you make the best of it. </p>
<p>One of my friends went to NYU for ug cause he isn't sure if he wants to go to law school right out of ug. He might work first. So he is going to NYU. I want to go straight into law school but I'm going to Rutgers. I wanted to much to go to a top tier school (and i have the grades) but my parents wouldn't let me. So I'm stuck at Rutgers for the time being unless some how they let up and I can transfer. </p>
<p>But I have to make the best of it and get a good GPA and I can get into a good law school. But if I decide to just get an ug its a lot harder for me to move up in the corporate ladder than if i went to a top tier.</p>
<p>Again make the best of your situation. Live with it. And learn to love it. Or hate it so much you just end up doing your best. :P</p>
<p>I think that there is a chicken and the egg kind of answer to this question.</p>
<p>It is a fact that a majority (if not most) of the students at T14 law schools went to top undergraduate schools. If you look at the makeup of the student bodies of most top law schools, you will find that many of the top undergraduate schools have sent multiple students to each of the T14 law schools. It is also a fact that undergraduate schools that are not widely considered top schools also send a student or two (or sometimes even three or four) to T14 law schools. So the real question is why are the top undergraduate schools so overrepresented in the student bodies of T14 law schools?</p>
<p>Well, it could be that students who go to top undergraduate schools tend to be good students who are motivated to do well from the outset of freshman year, and who also tend to do well on standardized tests such as the SAT and LSAT. It could be that students at top undergraduate schools are more focused on graduate school preparation during their undergraduate careers. It could also be that law schools look favorably upon the students from top undergraduate schools in making admissions decisions either because students from that undergraduate school have performed well at that particular law school in the past, because those students are considered to be intelligent and intellectually curious generally (important for fostering classroom discussion in law school), because the name of the undergraduate school may make that student more attractive to employers (such as judges, government agencies, public interest groups and law firms) or for some other reason. It could also be a combination of all of the factors that I just listed plus some others that I have not. </p>
<p>So do students from top undergraduate schools make up a disproportionate percentage of the student bodies at T14 law schools because they are good students generally and good test takers (factors that likely helped to get them into top undergraduate schools in the first place) or is it that T14 law schools look favorably upon the fact of having attended certain top undergraduate schools as a significant factor in admissions? I think that it's impossible to say for sure (since you can't isolate one factor from the other in every case to test the idea), but it's more likely to be a combination of these factors.</p>
<p>until anyone takes an lsat they shouldn't answer this. Take the test and you will realize how those who are smart (who are more represented at top schools) do better on the test. Students at top schools make up a disproprortionate percentage of the student bodies at T14's because they are smarter then most kids, as proven by their top UG instutitution acceptance.</p>
<p>LaxAttack, unless you have irrefutable empirical evidence backing up your claims, I don't think that it is appropriate to make such definitive statements, particularly when some of the folks who visit this forum are looking for answers. I feel that some of your statements here can be misleading.</p>
<p>Students at top schools are "smarter than most kids, as proven by their top UG institution acceptance"? Maybe. Sort of. Perhaps you should consider that nothing about one's intelligence is "proven" by one's acceptance to a top undergraduate school. While there may be a positive correlation between native intelligence and admission to a top school, I'm not certain that having a degree from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, etc. proves that one is intelligent.</p>
<p>You're also assuming that you have to be smart to do well on the LSAT, and that everyone who is smart will do well on the LSAT. I don't believe that either of these propositions is necessarily true. </p>
<p>Please feel free to correct me if I am wrong here, but I think that it is important to keep in mind that things in the real world are not typically all or nothing, black or white.</p>
<p>If the link doesn't work, look at the Yale Daily News edition for November 10, 2006 to see a contrary view. The article only discusses Yale Law School.</p>
<p>according to the article, 11% of Yale College applicants get in versus 6% for the general application pool. ok, so this means that 89% of Yale College applicants get rejected. yet when those 89% got admitted to Yale College, I'm sure they thought it meant that they were among the smartest entering college students in the country -- they got into one of the most selective colleges in the country. presumably, even if they aren't the top 10% at Yale College, they are intellectually no slouches. Yet, 6% of the general application pool, which probably includes many people who couldn't get into Yale College get admitted while they do not.</p>
<p>I don't think you can conclude that more Yale (Harvard) students get admitted simply because they are smarter as evidenced by their admission to the college, otherwise the numbers would be even more scewed. Even in the article the people at YLS can't/won't cite specific reasons for the higher acceptance rate -- just a lot of general factors such as those that have been mentioned here -- eg - of course these are smart applicants, we know the profs writing the recommendations, they may be involved in things at the law school. why should anyone here presume to know more clearly what the reasons are?</p>
<p>what none of this tells you is whether any given student would be better off going to Yale College vs. NoName College vs. Big State U. If John Doe gets accepted at all three -- who is to say that if he goes to Yale, where he may be one of the crowd, that he will end up being one of the lucky 11%, as opposed to going to one of the latter, where he may be a real standout in his class?</p>
<p>John Doe isn't guaranteed an acceptance to yale, but if he got into yale ug he is obviously very smart and motivated....two things you need to get in yale ls.</p>
<p>and so are many students who don't get into yale ug. or don't even apply to yale ug for any number of reasons. </p>
<p>if you are saying that getting into yale shows that someone is smarter and thereby more worthy of law school admissions than someone who didn't get into yale, your argument is undermined by the number of yale ug's who are rejected while others who didn't get into yale are accepted. you can't have the argument both ways -- if you want to look at the students admitted to try to prove something, you should also look at the students rejected -- 89% of yale ug applicants warrant rejection from yls. they are "obviously very smart and motivated," yet other obviously very smart and motivated students are accepted instead -- you can't claim that they were all like John Doe, turning down yale ug.</p>
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if you are saying that getting into yale shows that someone is smarter and thereby more worthy of law school admissions than someone who didn't get into yale, your argument is undermined by the number of yale ug's who are rejected while others who didn't get into yale are accepted.
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<p>I'm saying that, on average, students at yale are smarter then students at BU. They are at yale, meaning they performed at a higher level throughout HS and on the SAT's then the students at BU. 89% of students from yale ug do get rejected at yale, but I bet that 11% that gets in is much higher then students at bu/tufts/bc/gtown or wherever.</p>