<p>Your original stipulation was that the hypothetical student in question had near-perfect numbers and “very poor” ECs. First off, please keep in mind that college is very different from high school. You simply don’t have enough time to sign up for half a dozen ECs, participate in them, and keep up a good GPA. Most students stick with 2-3, with some really only dedicating themselves to maybe 1 or 2 big ones. And leadership positions are certainly not necessary. I never held a major leadership position in any of my ECs.</p>
<p>You may want to check out </p>
<p>[Graphs:</a> | LawSchoolNumbers.com](<a href=“http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/graphs.php?school_code=0008]Graphs:”>http://www.lawschoolnumbers.com/graphs.php?school_code=0008)</p>
<p>This is a scatter graph of applicants to HLS who have self-reported their numbers and the results of their application, either accepted, waitlisted, or rejected.</p>
<p>This may not be a completely representative sample, but there are a lot of data points to consider and some definite trends emerge. Of the twelve applicants who scored 180 on their LSAT, eight reported that they were admitted.</p>
<p>At the 172 level, there are a lot on the waiting list, even with a a 3.9 GPA.</p>
<p>“In my judgment, a 3.9 178 who literally left his resume utterly blank would not necessarily be admitted to HLS.”</p>
<p>Glad your judgment doesn’t count: you don’t work at HLS admissions. :)</p>
<p>Haha – let me rephrase. “By my guessing…”</p>
<p>I have been away from this forum for a while, but didn’t HLS tend to be a numbers-based “lock” school? Whereas YLS and SLS relied more on intangibles like leadership & potential, and stuff like major fellowships/ being a navy SEAL or Miss Universe?</p>
<p>Yes, but that’s within the extremes. Harvard is still going to admit a 3.7/165 who wins the Nobel Peace Prize. Likewise, I’d guess that they’re still reject a 4.0/178 who literally left his resume blank. Similarly, handwriting your essay, receiving a sabotaging letter of recommendation, having arrests on your record, etc. will all also get you rejected from Harvard, no matter what your numbers are.</p>
<p>“By the numbers” means “assuming everything else is halfway decent.”</p>
<p>Yale is reputed to be less numbers based because they actually want good soft factors. Harvard is reputed to be more numbers based because they want not terrible soft factors. Again, within the extremes. The “interdecile” range, if you will.</p>
<p>“Yale is reputed to be less numbers based because they actually want good soft factors. Harvard is reputed to be more numbers based because they want not terrible soft factors. Again, within the extremes. The “interdecile” range, if you will.”</p>
<p>I think Yale and Standford are also number based (3.9+, 173+) + extreme good soft factors.</p>
<p>Yeah – they’re much smaller schools, so they pay attention to numbers as well as soft factors. Note that Stanford’s LSATs are lower than Harvard’s.</p>