<p>Since I have the time today . . . </p>
<p>You challenged me for real information. That is too easy. These are the actual stats from Harvard for 2006: 6,810 applicants, 831 accepted, 558 went, GPA range for the middle 50 is 3.72 to 3.95 and LSAT middle 50 was 169 to 175. Those numbers prove my point beyond a doubt. First, LSAT matters more than your GPA - I've explained elsewhere why - but the range in GPA is pretty darn high given a 4.0 scale (and there is another quarter below that range). </p>
<p>By the silly comments made here, Harvard's stats should be a similar LSAT range but a much narrower middle 50 for GPA. The range now is over 2/10ths of a point, which is nearly an entire half step of grade (here, from A- to A). This means they run a pool, that they select people from that pool who have relatively similar scores but with a lot of leeway. Harvard, being private and rich, can accentuate minority and poor as preferences. </p>
<p>But let's cut to the chase: Yale says explicitly that they use a 12 point system. Here is a description:</p>
<p>"Of the over 4,000 applications that are received, about 90 of the top applicants are sent on for final review by the Faculty Admissions Committee chair (essentially a "free ride" to admission). The rest of the hopefuls are divided into two groups, with some 800-1,000 applications separated for consideration in the "first round." These applicants are reviewed by three randomly chosen faculty members, who score each application from 2 to 4. It was reported in 1999 that each of the first two faculty readers receives 80 applicants, giving a 4 to the top quarter, 3 to the second quarter, and 2 to the bottom half. If two faculty members give consecutive 2s, an applicant is rejected; the remaining files go on to a third member of the faculty, who scores 2-4 equally. A score of 12 is guaranteed admission (and the vast majority of 11s as well) while the remainder go into further review."</p>
<p>More absolute proof? Yale rejects a large number of the highest scoring applicants: From Yale's own admissions data for 2003-2005, "Even with a GPA above 3.75 and an LSAT above 175, which places an applicant above the 99.5% percentile of the general pool, a staggering 257 of 439 applicants were rejected over the three years represented. On the flip side, an average of 3 students who had scored below 160 on the LSAT was admitted per year, although an average of 937 students with comparable scores were rejected each year." </p>
<p>There you have it: the most selective law schools in the country use a pool. The most selective law school, Yale, rejects 59% of the highest scoring candidates and, if you look at the numbers at all, over the 3 years of data, this means they admit by far most of the class having lower scores than the top applicants. The other most prestigious law school has a GPA range far greater than a pure numbers game. </p>
<p>I could go through each of the top schools. Stanford, being private, specifically says they look for minority applicants with "unique life experiences." Stanford's entire class is less than 200 and they get over 4000 applicants so you know they could fill the class in a heartbeat with top scorers only. </p>
<p>Here's a statement from Michigan: "We are committed to considering a wide variety of factors in the admissions process and put an enormous amount of effort into assessing applications. Often, students will measure themselves by our median LSAT and GPA and make broad assumptions about the likelihood, or lack thereof, of their admittance a calculus that can be quite misleading." Their LSAT middle 50 is 164 - 167, which generates a fairly wide overall LSAT range, and their GPA range is 3.45 - 3.78 (lower for in-state and higher for out). Penn is similar and reports a middle 50 GPA range of 3.4 to 3.7. Did you read that? A 3.4 or a 3.45 is not that high a GPA. Virginia is similar. </p>
<p>These schools regularly reject higher scoring candidates. You think they maintain admissions staffs to collate papers and mark off who scores the highest?</p>
<p>Do you even know the admissions rates to law schools? Or their yields? Virginia's admit rate is nearly 20% and their yield is only about 1/3. </p>
<p>I quoted in another thread that you've read other comments that agree exactly with my statements. I took the time to look into the law school forum and found that what was said there is essentially what I'm saying. You misunderstand the tenor and content of many of the remarks. For example, there is not a single poster of repute in that forum who would say school doesn't matter. They would all agree with what I say, that the school generally doesn't matter much because most schools are considered in the same general category. </p>
<p>The major posters in that forum all essentially say again what I've been saying but what you apparently don't get: that schools get thousands of applicants and most fall in a very narrow range. You can't simply pick this one over that by numbers because each rung on your calculated range has lots of people. You think that if there are 50 people on a rung that Podunk State as undergrad is the same as CalTech? </p>
<p>I note that one of you people asked in a forum if Asian counted as a minority and was told it does not. That again is what I've been saying, that points are awarded to minorities. This matter has been the subject of massive litigation - are you aware of this at all? - and there are explicit laws in California and Michigan which govern affirmative action programs in admissions. (Both states are seeing a drop in minority admissions to the top schools at both the undergrad and graduate level.) These laws allow the counting of socio-economic factors and other supposedly race-neutral points systems. </p>
<p>Now, since you call me names and then say I don't offer anything, my challenge is for you to come up with something actual, some actual hard data that refutes what I've just posted. You won't be able to do it.</p>