I don’t know if anyone remembers seeing this story all over FoX, ABC, NPR and rest of the national news circuit few months ago. Just saw a current article on this topic.
This student did HES with high school, won many scholarships and was hoping to attend Harvard Law or Columbia Law but ended up at Washburn Law. Why? Am I missing something? May be couldn’t get in his target schools. Is this a comparable law school?
Washburn Law is an in-state public law school in Kansas (his state of residency). Yearly cost for Kansas students is $40k, of which $23k is tuition. This is much lower than (for example) the $99k cost (including $66k tuition) at Harvard Law.
LSN and LST on Washburn Law:
http://washburn.lawschoolnumbers.com/
https://www.lstreports.com/schools/washburn/
Harvard, Columbia and law schools of that tier look for work experience and maturity in students’ applications. That’s because it’s also what law firms who hire their graduates are looking for. It’s as if he applied to an executive MBA program, for example. He just doesn’t have the experience. It’s one of the pitfalls of rapid acceleration. Washburn is in no way a comparable law school.
Law schools aren’t like medical schools where name and rigor of the program becomes pretty much irrelevant. It’s a crucial part of your resume. If a top student really want to get into top law schools, apparently, an online degree and low LSAT isn’t a great plan, even with a full on media campaign. Same schools tend to accept celebrity status as a qualifier for undergrad but apparently it’s not a hook for law schools.
Harvard Extension is not Harvard College. At all.
He is a bright and hard working kid with a good media savvy support network so hopefully he’ll go places from Washburn as well. May be there is a film, book or a TV serial on his academic adventure is already in making.
Last I looked HES required some in-person classes.