<p>I am a highschool junior, and am finding many colleges that I like. I know it is annoying when people post questions about LSATs their first year in college, but I think this applicable and worthwhile. I have been looking at a wide array of schools varying in "prestigue", and have had the dream of being a lawyer for a long time. I have shadowed lawyers, done teen court, and read what I could about law (although some was John Grisham :)) Anyway, back to the point. I was wondering how much weight admissions put on the prestigue of the undergrad school. Does it even matter if you have a great LSAT score and GPA, but when to a 2nd tier undergrad school, or should I try to get into the best reach school I can, and suffer a low GPA? Thanks</p>
<p>They don't put too much weight on your undergrad school. Because, remember, no matter which school you go to you still take the same LSAT as everyone else, and the LSAT is what counts for the most. So in answer to your question it's not really important at all.</p>
<p>The list is somewhat of a helpful indicator, though it is obviously insufficient from which to draw any sort of sound inference.</p>
<p>Grade Deflation </p>
<p>Berkeley (ave GPA around 3.2) </p>
<p>UCLA (ave GPA aroudn 3.27) </p>
<p>UNA (Average GPA 3.10</p>
<p>Grade Inflation </p>
<p>Stanford 3.50</p>
<p>HYP 3.45</p>
<p>I wouldn't say "it's not important at all." Most of the students at the most selective law schools went to selective colleges, and earned high GPA's there to go along with their high LSAT scores. These schools also admit a few people with GPA's close to 4.0 from less selective undergraduate schools, coupled with similarly high LSAT scores.</p>
<p>Approximately half of the people who apply to ABA-accredited law schools nationally don't get in anywhere they apply. Moreover, admission to a selective college is no guarantee of admission to a selective law school. There are 27 law schools that rejected more than 50% of the candidates who applied from Yale last year.
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/statsintro.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.yale.edu/career/students/gradprof/lawschool/statsintro.html</a></p>
<p>Bottom line is this.....</p>
<p>Go to the best school possible. Look at the list of the "feeder" schools for the specific law school you want to go to, and see where your future or present school stacks up.</p>
<p>I currently attend UCLA, and it does not feed as well to Harvard, as say Yale.</p>
<p>It makes a big difference, but that being said, if you do very well on the LSAT and have a high GPA, you always have a shot.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I currently attend UCLA, and it does not feed as well to Harvard, as say Yale.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>What on earth are you talking about?</p>
<p>"Quote:
I currently attend UCLA, and it does not feed as well to Harvard, as say Yale. </p>
<p>What on earth are you talking about?</p>
<hr>
<p>UCLA does not place as many people into Harvard Law School vs Yale's undergraduate's ability to place people into Harvard Law School.</p>
<p>My apologies, I was committing an amphiboly.</p>
<p>It doesn't make a big difference, but it makes a difference.</p>
<p>I would say that the difference largely lies in tiers moreso individual schools. For example, people at the top 5 or 10 are going to do better than the rest of the top 25, and after the top 25, the drop is noticeable.</p>
<p>However, keep in mind that an excellent student who would have been successful at Harvard will do just as well at Berkeley or Georgetown. It's largely individual, and the reason you see 100 students at Harvard Law from Harvard and 35 from UCLA is an issue of percentiles. The top students at UCLA will be in every way comparable to the ones at Harvard. Just be in the top of your class anywhere.</p>
<p>There are actually 238 Harvard graduates at HLS. Given that there are 3.9 times as many UCLA undergrads as Harvard undergrads, a Harvard undergrad is 24 times as likely to end up at HLS than a UCLA undergrad.</p>
<p>And UCLA is hardly my idea of a second tier school. It's ranked 25th on the US News list. I'd personally rank it even higher.</p>
<p>Its 35 alumni at HLS stack up pretty well against the 5 HLS students from the entire SUNY system. Compared to CUNY, or Haverford College, or UCONN, or the University of Rochester, or the University of Vermont, each with a single student among the three classes at HLS, UCLA's track record is quite impressive. There's no one at all at HLS from UMASS, or the University of New Hampshire, or Mount Holyoke, or Hamilton College.</p>
<p>But back to the OP's question, which after all wasn't about HLS:</p>
<p>Most law school admissions committees take the strength of the undergraduate programinto consideration. A low GPA will hurt you regardless of where it's from, but a 3.7 from a really competitive school may well trump a 4.0 from a truly second tier school.</p>
<p>Yes, I understand that the number of students at UCLA is much larger, but...</p>
<p>Eh, nevermind. And my whole argument about using HLS as a case study too, forget it.</p>
<p>Nothing I say is going to make anyone understand how much your personal experience in college matters, because I'm talking to the wrong group here. Just, for the love of God, don't choose an undergrad program based solely on the number of School X grads at HLS or YLS or UCLA Law or wherever. </p>
<p>The Golden Handcuffs may one day be your jailor.</p>
<p>Not sure why I'm getting myself involved in this, but here goes:</p>
<p>*It depends on the school. Some law schools do their alpha order of applicants using LSAT, GPA, and average undergrad LSAT score (which gives more weight to better students). Some schools are all about straight GPA.</p>
<p>*We can go for the argument that there are more brilliant, HLS-caliber students at Yale than at UCLA. So in some sense, schools might equate the top of the class at UCLA with the middle or the bottom of the class at Yale.</p>
<p>*Prestige in the way that high school students think is often entirely different from the way that law school admissions officers think of it. Research universities and larger schools tend to be thought of as more "prestigous," but smaller schools might help with law school admissions in terms of recommendations, feedback on writing, opportunities for research or independent study, etc. More nurturing environment. Less chance to slip through the cracks. All of that good stuff.</p>
<p>*I'm not entirely convinced that you will do significantly better at a slightly less prestigious school, nor will you do significantly worse at a good school. This really holds true for law schools, by the way. Let's push aside the grade-inflation question and the major issue (so we are assuming that the two possible schools have the same grading scheme) and think about this. There are students at every school who get to college and decide that they are burnt out, or need to find themselves, or party too much, or don't study because they coasted through high school. There are students who, for some reason, really shine in college and are standouts in ways that they never were in high school. There are students who take easier courses to pad their GPAs, and there are those who have their lives fall apart and have a lot of problems that have nothing to do with academics. There are a lot of students who went to that school for the wrong reason and find themselves strugging in an environment which they should never be in. In short - there is a reason why SATs only predict freshman year performance. Too many variables after that. (I've heard that bright, successful students will challenge themselves more and take harder courses, which adds another variable in there - hence the reason why things even out after freshman year.) </p>
<p>Note: this is all within certain groups of schools. I have no doubt that the B student at MIT would be able to get straight As at third-tier schools.</p>
<p>So I would say that there are pretty dubious connections between going to a more prestigious school and getting a lower GPA there. My guess is that the most important factors for getting good grades in college mostly depend on things like major, rigour of courses, course load, time management, how well you adjust to your environment, study habits, and ability to seek help when you don't understand the material.</p>
<p>for all that is worth, I back Aries, fully.</p>
<p>
[quote]
We can go for the argument that there are more brilliant, HLS-caliber students at Yale than at UCLA. So in some sense, schools might equate the top of the class at UCLA with the middle or the bottom of the class at Yale.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>We can go for it, but we'll quickly find that it's either:</p>
<p>A: Completely unsubstantiated
B: Impossible to prove
C: Not true</p>
<p>I have spoken with people in adcoms for a variety of fields, and there is no way that a top UCLA student is going to be seen as middle or bottom of the Yale barrel.</p>
<p>Unless of course they all lied to me. ALL of them.</p>
<p>On average, 12 students a year from UCLA enroll at HLS. Three quarters of the Yale students who apply to HLS are rejected. I rather doubt substantial numbers from the bottom of the class at Yale are applying, and if they are, I'm sure they're among the rejects.</p>
<p>In any event, HLS is an extreme case. Many fine lawyers were rejected there. I like to think I'm one of them (a fine lawyer is; I know that Harvard rejected me.) I was happy to go to Boalt, which accepted me the day Harvard rejected me, and where more than ten percent of my classmates were UCLA alumni.</p>
<p>The paranthetical was supposed to read as follows: "(a fine lawyer, that is; I know that Harvard rejected me)."</p>
<p>Greybeard,</p>
<p>How can you sleep at night knowing that you didn't go to Harvard or Yale for law school? By the logic of this website, you should be giving up on life right now, because you had to go to a top 10 and not top 5.</p>