Many elite colleges do not have law schools at all (e.g. many elite LACs, Princeton, MIT, Caltech, Dartmouth), or have law schools that are lower ranked than top 14 (e.g. Emory, WLU).
Of course, any top 14 law school’s preference for its own undergraduates would only confer an admission advantage to that specific law school, not top 14 law schools in general.
There isn’t information on admits or admit rate by undergrad school – just matriculations, which is not equivalent.
Well then, go by matriculations, it might be flawed but its the next best.
That’s the whole point of my posts in this thread. If you go by matriculations in isolation, matriculation totals are dominated by far more influential factors than prereferences by law schools for particular undergrad colleges, such as my USC example above. At UCLA Law School, UCLA and USC applicants appear to be overrepresented to a similar degree. It’s not a coincidence that the 2 colleges in LA that are located within ~13 miles from UCLA are the 2 colleges that are most overrepresented (with large sample size). Kids are far more likely to apply to colleges that are in the same city of their undergrad college than colleges that are located far away.
To separate location effect, one can compare UCLA undergrad to the nearby and similar stat USC undergrad as a reference, but you cannot control for distance effects by comparing to another college in the city like this like this most other T14 colleges. For example, I expect Cornell undergrads are far more likely to apply to Cornell Law than other colleges located hundreds of miles away. Which other reference control college is located in Ithaca, has similar law school applicant stats to Cornell undergrads, and has sufficient sample size? Columbia is also in NYS, but having grown up in upstate NY, I can tell you that upstate NY residents as a whole do not have comparable feelings about Cornell and Columbia, or similar feelings about living in upstate NY vs living in NYC. Kids from my HS had more applications to Cornell than all other Ivy+ colleges combined, so kids from my HS were overrepresnted among matriculants to Cornell, but not to other Ivies. That doesn’t mean that Cornell favors applicants from my HS over other HSs. It’s certainly possible that some law schools favor applicants from the home college, but you cannot assume this based on seeing the undergrad college being overrepresented in the matriculations totals.
It should also be noted that most likely, every UCLA undergrad who wants to go to law school is going to apply to UCLA law school. But UCLA-and every other law school-goes out of its way to prevent anyone knowing if this is true. So while matriculation data is of limited value, it really doesn’t answer the underlying question.
In your own analysis you mention geographical references, but then why is UCB overrepresented and Stanford underrepresented (identical in geographic location). You fail to take into account that UCLA is #14, a significant step down from Yale or Stanford.
This is all interesting. I ended in B school six years after I graduated. I know most go to law school immediately after but the general rule schools say to go elsewhere.
So to see them accepting so many of their own is counter that - but perhaps the # of applications far exceeds and the acceptance rate of their own students is the same or even below that of other schools…we don’t know.
As for UCLA and USC, maybe they have so many USC because of proximity - maybe after UCLA, USC is the 2nd most # of applicants.
When I look at the Harvard and see a Boise State or Idaho State at Yale, their acceptance rate from that school is likely 100%…or maybe 50% or 33%.
We’d really need to see data by each school to really know what is happening here beyond making a hypothesis.
Note - there’s also the 6 year BA/JD programs - not sure if the student has to formally apply as they “transition” to law school. I don’t see one at UCLA but they would obviously favor home grown students.
To start with, you need to consider the different applicant pool sizes. There were 109 law school applicants from Stanford (all law schools, not just UCLA). 6 matriculated to UCLA, so 6/109 = 5.5% of law school applicants. Berkeley had 524 law school applicants. 20 matriculated UCLA, so 20/524 = 4% of law school applicants. When you control for sample size, law school applicants who attended undergrad at Stanford were slightly more likely to matriculate to UCLA law than law school applicants who attended Berkeley for undergrad. This makes sense when you consider that undergraduates who attend Stanford average much higher LSAT/GPA stats than undergraduates from Berkeley. A much larger portion of Stanford kids have stats in the range for which admission to UCLA law is likely.
That said, if you review my original post, you’ll see I mentioned several contributing factors including UCLA being a step down from Yale or Stanford, and how that influences matriculation decisions. Distance is one of many contributing factors – not the only factor that has any influence on matriculations besides favoritism of law schools towards particular undergrad colleges.
For this analysis ~ 5% is roughly the same. Let’s look at the reverse, how many Stanford undergrads are attending Stanford law vs the UC’s? If you include all the UC’s you’ll find a huge difference, but I am willing to just look at UCB/UCLA.
Attendance percentage does not necessarily mean acceptance percentage followed.
I would argue the correlation is high for the very top schools like Yale.
I haven’t seen numbers for Stanford, ,but I’d expect that law school applicants form Stanford who average ~3rd highest LSAT/GPA stats of all colleges in the United States are overrepresented to a greater degree than UCB/Berkeley who average far lower stats.
The point is what we really want is a stat table showing admit rate for a particular set of stats. This would allow us to see whether applicants with similar stats have different admit rates for different undergrad colleges (assuming sufficient sample size). Just looking at matriculations totals alone is measuring something very different. Using some real numbers, stats from colleges that have been mentioned are below
Average Applicant Stats
Stanford – 165.7, 3.71
UCB – 159.4, 3.55
USC – 158.9, 3.56
UCLA – 157.0, 3.55
Average Matriculating Student Stats
Stanford Law – Average and 25/75th Stats = 171 (169-174), 3.89 (3.77-3.96)
UCLA Law – Average and 25th/75th Stats = 169 (164-173), 3.79 (3.54-3.90)
Note that there is a huge difference in average stats between applicants form Stanford and the other discussed schools. Average applicants from Stanford are within the 25/75th range of matriculating students at UCLA law in both LSAT and GPA. However, applicants from the other schools have average LSAT scores far below the 25th percentile at UCLA law, and have GPAs near the ~25th percentile. Only a small portion of UCB/USC/UCLA applicants have stats in a range where admission to UCLA might be possible, while most applicants from Stanford have stats in range were admission might be possible.
So by stats alone, one would expect Stanford pre-law undergrads to be far more likely to be admitted to UCLA law than Berkeley undergrads. However, one also needs to consider which group is more likely to apply, among other factors including chance of accepted student attending. I expect kids who chose the UC system for undergrad are far more likely to think highly of the UC system and favor the UC system for grad than kids who attended Stanford. As such, I expect after controlling for stats, UCB undergrads to be far more likely to apply to UCLA law than Stanford undergrads.
So the net effect between these two factors is:
Matriculation totals depend on both portion who apply and admit rate. One of the two factors favors Stanford and the other favors UCB. The net combination could result in either one of them being more represented. I don’t find the 5.5% Stanford undergrads matriculate vs 4% UCB undergrads matriculate particularly surprising.
However, if you instead look at the reverse and see which is most likely to matriculate to Stanford Law, then the 2 factors are:
If Stanford is far more likely to apply and far more likely to be admitted, then of course you’ll find a large difference in matriculation rate. If anything else occurred, it would be surprising.
Since Yale law school keeps getting mentioned, I did some research and the percentage of Yale undergrads in each law school class is typically around 10-13%. That does not seem disproportionate when you consider all the other factors likely at play. Harvard has a similar percentage represented. Meh
That is quite an assumption and one which I disagree with. It implies that UCB students would like to go to UCLA over Stanford when they know that the law school they attend matters. It is an irrational decision.
Could you empirically define what other factors would account for such a large disparity? Are you suggesting that applicants from other top schools aren’t applying to Yale in significant numbers?
Not in the same numbers no. Again, Yale and Harvard have larger concentrations of pre-law students with high GPAs and high LSAT than most other undergrads. They are also more likely to apply in large numbers to YLS and HLS. Why is it surprising that they get 10% or so of the seats? There just isn’t enough information to assume a preference for those students.
In short the same 2 factors mentioned in my post above – law school applicants who attended Yale for undergrad averaged higher stats than any other undergrad college, so a larger portion have stats in range where admission is likely. And students attending Yale for undergrad are more likely to apply to Yale for grad than other colleges after controlling for stats – both due to distance and similarity of colleges/preferences.
The LSAC provides reports that list number and stats of applicants, accepted, and matriculated; which sounds like what you are looking for. However, most schools to not put this online. An example one for Emory is at http://www.career.emory.edu/_includes/documents/pre_law_2019.pdf. A list of the most applied to law schools among Emory undergrads below. Note that the most applied to law school among Emory undergrads is Emory Law school. I expect a similar pattern occurs for most colleges. Kids who attend undergrad at college x are far more likely to apply to college x’s law school than average, so college x is expected to be far more overrepresented among law school matriculating students, after controlling for stats.
Also note there is a regional bias in which law schools received most applications among Emory undergrads. There also seems to be a bias towards large cities, which fits with Emory being located in Atlanta. Many, many law schools received more applications than Yale Law. .
Most Applied to Law Schools Among Emory Undergrads
1 . Emory – 35/109 admitted (51% of Emory undergrads applied to Emory Law)
2. Georgetown – 13/96 admitted
3. George Washington – 16/69 admitted
4. NYU – 12/64 admitted
4. Vanderbilt – 13/64 admitted
6. Columbia – 7/61 admitted
7. Duke – 9/56 admitted
7. UCLA – 13/56 admitted
9. Texas – 7/54 admitted
10. UVA – 9/53 admitted
…
Low. Yale – 3/21 admitted
I think you misread my post. Stanford Law School was not mentioned in the quoted statement. The comparison is which group of undergrads would be more like to apply to UCLA Law – UCB undergrads or Stanford undergrads? I said UCB undergrads. UCB undergrads are more likely to apply, but Stanford undergrads are more likely to have stats in the range where admission is likely.
You seem to be implying that admissions to law school is an empirical formula based on LSAT/GPA. While no doubt important factors, they are not absolute. There is no real way to prove/disprove the OP’s original point without having direct knowledge of the admissions process. The Harvard lawsuit (even though its undergrad) has shed some surprising light on this subject, and we actually got a decent look into how it’s not all about scores/GPA.
There are actually few surprises in law school admissions. The various sites which compile the data note that there are a few unpredictable factors:
Yale. They take who they take. The class is small, the pedagogy is not identical to its peers, it runs on its own fumes at times. So many top top top applicants who get accepted to Harvard and Stanford (and Chicago, et al) either get rejected from Yale or don’t apply.
Incredibly compelling “backstory” from an otherwise under-represented or marginalized group in society (and in this case under-represented means “less access/more need to legal counsel”). That means that a student whose stats put them below the median or even in the bottom quartile who grew up homeless, on Tribal Lands, disabled, etc. gets some sort of an admissions boost since law schools are sensitive to opening access.
Substantive, relevant and recent professional work (this favors the older student of course) which suggests that the student will punch above his/her weight in class discussions. That does not mean working as a paralegal for a year while studying for the LSAT’s. But it can mean working as a military police officer (or law enforcement of some kind), White House fellow, etc.
So while I agree with CU that the LSAT/GPA formula is not absolute, the data these sites aggregate show that there are VERY few surprises, and admissions, based on the stats, is highly predictable. And when there is an idiosyncratic result, it’s generally not because “oh, she juggles and collects butterflies, that’s so cool”, but for some personal/biographic element which is part of the school’s overall mission.