<p>sreis what do you consider things that aren't marketing and branding? if branding and marketing are everything, then there really is no discussion. sakky prolly wouldve said "sorry but those are the only ways" and called it a day. my $0.02.</p>
<p>I just got into Harvard and Yale this week. If anyone has any questions about the process you can email me at <a href="mailto:JohnGaltLSD@Gmail.com">JohnGaltLSD@Gmail.com</a></p>
<p>Why not share your experience here?</p>
<p>CD</p>
<p>I second CD's recommendation JG. What were your LSATS/GPA/Expierences-- And more about the process please?</p>
<p>169/3.87/ some national fellowships/strong recs/good essays.</p>
<p>I got the call yesterday to let me know I was in to yale. For harvard, Toby stock sent me an email letting me know he wanted to talk to me. We talked about two days later about things in my application. He called a week later to let me in.</p>
<p>Where did you originate from, and what was your major? Congratulations on getting into those two amazing places! Any thoughts on where you will end up?</p>
<p>grade inflation at elite universities is a myth. higher GPAs reflect more qualified and intense students, since acceptance rates at some elite schools are 1/3 of what they were 30 years ago. Many people study constantly and never see daylight except for walking to and from class. I'm a Senior and I still have never seen 1/2 the people in my class and residence. and everyone applies to law school, even if they dont intend on going. so i would not advise going to an intense undergrad school if you really want to go to law schools like harvard, yale and stanford.</p>
<p>"[H]igher GPAs reflect more qualified and intense students, since acceptance rates at some elite schools are 1/3 of what they were 30 years ago." </p>
<p>I don't buy it. People who were applying 30 years ago were born in one of the peak years of the baby boom; there were more 18-year-olds in the US then. Today's high school seniors apply to a much larger number of colleges than was typical for members of the class of '76. Acceptance rates have dropped, but so has yield (the percentage of accepted students who chose to attend) at most of those schools. The twin phenomena of high school grade inflation and a recentered SAT that discriminates less precisely among highly qualified applicants has also contributed to more applications.</p>
<p>Which one is more important? High GPA or high LSAT? I got about a 3.67 at USC and a 175. I'm just curious. My extracurriculars include wanting to go to Harvard or Stanford Law School and not caring about discussing extracurriculars.</p>
<p>The short answer is both. You aren't going to get accepted to HLS with a USC 3.67 unless you've spent the last four years arranging truces between warring factions in Afghanistan or finding the cure for AIDS and world hunger in your spare time, while being a concert level pianist and speaking five languages including Urdu. I speak as an HLS alum married to another HLS alum. The applicant pool is scary, and the entering class is scarier still, and they have amazing GPAs and scores at a minimum. They will have SC applicants with much higher GPA's and extracurriculars that will make you weep, who also will have the test scores you have. Sorry.</p>
<p>I'm currently a senior at Tufts. I am not planning on applying directly to law school -- I'll probably want to work for a couple of years, test out the waters, see what I really want to do (it might not be law school), and then apply to grad schools. However, if I do end up still wanting to go to law school, assuming I get a high score on the LSAT, will a 3.76 GPA be good enough? No one at Tufts gets a higher GPA unless you're an art history or English major -- I study international relations. According to my advisor, who's also the head of the IR dept., I'd be hard-pressed to find many people in my major who have higher GPAs than me. I guess what I'm also asking is -- do grad schools (law schools included) receive info [and care about] where you place in your graduating undergrad class (ie, top 5%, top 25%, etc.) AND where you place relative to others in your class with the same major? Because Tufts is one of those schools that tries everything to beat down grade inflation.</p>
<p>That's two questions.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Yes, law schools know how you place with respect to the rest of your college. Some law schools (such as Penn) use this when calculating their index and rank-ordering applicants. (Generally, it's some combination of your class rank and your undergrad's average LSAT score - someone from, say, Slippery Rock with a 4.0 would come out below someone in the middle of their class at Amherst.) </p></li>
<li><p>No, they don't. Which is a problem if you have a tough major. Yes, Tufts does try to avoid grade inflation (except in child development). The best thing I can suggest is to try to get an average GPA from your department head and send it to law schools. I was unable to find the average GPA of my major - only for all engin - which was bad because mine was the most grade-deflated.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Well...</p>
<p>Law schools also know about class rank and your GPA relative to your class via the dean's certificate, I think; then again, I think HLS requires the dean's certificate after you have been accepted, so they might find out the data differently.</p>
<p>
[quote]
The applicant pool is scary, and the entering class is scarier still, and they have amazing GPAs and scores at a minimum. They will have SC applicants with much higher GPA's and extracurriculars that will make you weep, who also will have the test scores you have. Sorry.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What qualifies as an amazing GPA for you? I have around a 3.81 (and hopefully higher by the end of this semester) in philosophy, having taken courses both in the undergraduate and graduate curriculum, and I am looking at a decent score on the LSAT (170+), assuming the planets are well-aligned in February. I could give you a whole list of extra-Cs, but I am not sure they will factor significantly in the admissions process.</p>
<p>Yeah, sure nspeds, "decent" is 170+. Take off your cc goggles.</p>
<p>:rolleyes:</p>
<p>Not all schoo's require a dean's certificate; Tufts does not calculate class rank, anyway, so it just leaves that blank.</p>
<p>
[quote]
grade inflation at elite universities is a myth. higher GPAs reflect more qualified and intense students, since acceptance rates at some elite schools are 1/3 of what they were 30 years ago. Many people study constantly and never see daylight except for walking to and from class.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Let me put it to you this way. I think we can all agree that the students at MIT and Caltech are some of the best students in the world. So why do they, on average, end up with such low grades, relative to students at HYPS? Even molliebatmit, who is one of the most accomplished graduates MIT has produced in recent times, graduated with only a 3.4/4 GPA. Even many Harvard students that I know have conceded that MIT grades harder than Harvard does. </p>
<p>You either have to conclude one of 2 things. Either students at MIT and Caltech are getting low grades because they're dumb and lazy, or the schools are grade deflated relative to peer schools.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Law schools also know about class rank and your GPA relative to your class via the dean's certificate,
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't know about that, at least as far as the class rank is concerned. Some schools simply don't even have a concept of 'class rank'. MIT immediately comes to mind as a school that does not calculate rank.</p>
<p>Very quickly: There is definitely grade inflation at top schools, it is just that people here do not understand what grade inflation is. Grade inflation is not that students automatically earn As or A-s. If you want to get through your undergraduate career by relying on grade inflation, the maximum you could get is probably a B or B+ average, which comes to a 3.0 or 3.33. Those GPAs are hardly sufficient for a competitive applicant at a top 14 law school.</p>
<p>At Georgetown, I could probably coast by and still graduate with honors. The problem is that earning the As requires a lot of work (as it should). There is no way in hell that grade inflation is bringing you up to the A.</p>
<p>Thank you for replying to my post momesq. I appreciate your opinion, but I'm not sure it quite makes sense to me (maybe just wishful thinking).
You say that I simply won't make it into Harvard with a 3.67, but the 25-75% range is from 3.68 to 3.92. That puts me a decimal under the 25% mark for the accepted class. Not good news, but several people definitely made it in with a 3.67 or worse.<br>
Then you say Harvard admissions is going to be flooded with SC people that got a 175 or better. But the 25-75 range for LSATs is 170-176. This time I'm bordering on the top quarter of Harvard freshman.
175 is, by the way, the 99th percentile. So will Harvard really have piles of other Southern California applicants that are part of the remaining 1 in a hundred? I suppose that is possible. I don't know. From my vantage point, this extreme "scariness" doesn't quite mesh with the admission statistics. It looks to me like I'm a bit low for GPA, and high within the LSAT range at Harvard--very low for GPA, but over the top high for LSAT at Stanford. (3.80-3.96 167-172)
I'm not trying to delude myself, though. I'd just appreciate a bit more explanation.</p>
<p>It's pretty simple, actually. Like it or not, USC does not enjoy the same reputation in the hallowed halls of Ivy that you may feel it enjoys on the West Coast. I don't think that the admissions staff is going to be overly impressed by a GPA such as yours coming out of SC. Fair or unfair, it isn't only the raw numbers that count. They will be looking at the institution that generated the grades you got. Consider for a minute the fact that about 1/4 of the entering class at HLS comes from Harvard College-- that isn't an accident. The law school can draw the very top students from West Coast universities that are considered USC's betters-Stanford, Berkeley and Pomona. Don't forget too that you aren't just competing with people who are arriving with only a BA. My law school class contained at least 10 M.D's and several dozen PhD's. The fact that you scored very well on an exam that lasted several hours is nice, but they are going to be a lot more focused on the long haul, and the combination of your GPA and where it is from probably isn't going to wow them.</p>