Harvard has students from 173 colleges in its JD program: the usual suspects, but a whole bunch of state publics, including SUNY and Cal States.
https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmissions/apply-to-harvard-law-school/undergraduate-colleges/
Does NYU law school release admitted students’ undergraduate schools’ information on its website? Wonder how well it correlates with the stats on the program that Wje9146be has.
Yes, I am indeed jaded to question the accuracy on Harvard’s website because it is hard to verify. Admitted students do not have to equal matriculated students.
And who flies in for admitted students day doesn’t necessarily correlate to who got offers…
I am assuming that the program contains names of ALL admitted students, not just the names of students flying in.
cbreeze:
I think the HLS website clearly says that these 173 colleges represent matriculated students:
Why would you have reason to be skeptical?
Even Yale shows 77 colleges represented in their recent class, again with plenty of publics (along with the usual suspects):
https://law.yale.edu/admissions/profiles-statistics/entering-class-profile
No, just those attending. I obviously have no idea if those attending represented all admitted. I have no problem personally with the fact that the schools represented were top heavy
Since Harvard seeks to admit a class of 500 with a mean LSAT of 173 they would have to cast a wide net. I believe what the law schools publish. NYU is just one datapoint. Many law schools publish the list of schools represented, few publish the actual number from each school
They list all UG schools, but there is a difference between 30 students vs 1. Years ago Yale and Harvard used to list number of students per school (I don’t believe they do it any more), it was interesting how they admitted each other’s students. If they only cared about lsat and grades then I think it would have been more evenly spread among top tier schools (assuming students at thos top tier schools are usually good test takers).
Op - your D has some nice options. Instead of just looking at merit, have your D find out how each of those schools do job placements. She could get that information by talking to current students and the career center.
Well, she picked Duke with a $120K merit scholarship over Columbia and NYU and she took herself off the Harvard and U.Chicago wait lists. Columbia offered only $60K and the total cost of attendance would have been close to $80K net of scholarship due to housing costs in NYC. Since I agreed to pay for a semester of Law School for every undergraduate semester she got straight A’s, I’m very happy with her decision
Congratulations. My kid is going into her second year. The first year was tough - shed quite a few tears over the debate team, difficulty of courses (grades), competitiveness of students, getting on the journal, summer internship, externship, yada, yada. I am glad to say much of it is behind her, going into 2nd year she has 2L summer internship lined up (one and done), externship selected.
My kid wanted to be in NYC (for law school and after life), so there were only so many options. She did get more money at other schools, but I think at the end she did make the right choice.
I would have your kid pay very close attention to Duke’s recruitment process and work with the career center closely. Of course, the first year grades are very important.
@collegemom3717 @Wje9164be @oldfort I read this thread with great interest as my D is starting on the law school application journey and some of the colleges you mention are near the top of her list right now, Duke, UVA, Penn. And high on my list is trying to get merit money!. I especially appreciate the summary by the OP.
D is completing her junior year of college this week and plans to start LSAT Prep immediately. Can any of you talk about what your students did for LSAT Prep. i.e. which course (if not brand, then online self-paced vs online live teacher vs self study), how long did they prep for, did they take the test only once? She is also trying to decide which test date to signup for. She is leaning toward July, but I’m concerned that isn’t enough time, and she should do August. For what it’s worth, D did very well on the SAT without a prep course. But I recognize the LSAT is a different beast.
Any thoughts/advice would be much appreciated?
For the unhooked, merit money is predicated on two things: GPA & LSAT scores. (Hint: aim for the 75th % of a school’s numbers for merit money.)
As a result, I recommend taking the LSAT after graduation – take a gap year – so the applicant has one more semester of (hopefully) all A’s to bolster the GPA. (Unless the student already has a 3.9x) LSAT prep depends on the person, but ~3 months of near full time prep is not unusual for those aiming at 17x. Some are gifted and can ace it with little effort, but for perspective, Harvard College (undergrad applicants to LS) has a mean of ~166, so the average Harvard student is not even close to scoring high enough to get into Harvard Law (HSL matriculant mean = 173).
Online vs. inclass also depends on the person. Some need the upcoming class for inspiration to get to work. Others do well online. (and might as well get used to self-study since that is primarily what LS is). Any of the major prep firms will work, but I like Manhattan.
@Hippo21 DS took the LSAT for the first time the June between junior and senior year. He studied for 2 weeks and realized that that was not anywhere near enough. He had a very part time job that summer and spent the rest of the time studying for the LSAT. He used 7Sage and took a lot of the previous tests for practice. He was able to score where he wanted when he took the LSAT that September.
I’d recommend that she get her hands on previous LSATs. They sell them on Amazon. Take one to see what her baseline score is. That will give some indication of how much work she has ahead of her. I wouldn’t sign up for an actual test until she has a baseline score. If she is in the 160’s or 170’s, go ahead and schedule an actual LSAT. If not, I’d do some serious prep before scheduling an actual test.
If she hasn’t taken one already, I’d also recommend a course or 2 in logic.
LSAT has recently partnered with Khan Academy who offers free test prep.
Is there a quick practice sampling you can take to see where you are for the LSAT vs taking a full practice test? Like a pre-LSAT kind of thing?
Practice LSAT tests are available for purchase or for free. The free tests are typically offered by LSAT test prep companies.
short answer is No, there are no mini-LSAT predictors like the PSAT. And that makes sense as part of the LSAT is fatigue.
But as others above have posted, there are free full length sample tests available.
I had read on the internet not to take the LSAT while in High School. My 15 year old daughter scored a 35 ACT and 1510 PSAT. Because we will be considering a University Scholarship that would allow for paying a couple of years of Law School, I wondered if she also has the IQ to be successful in that area. Now 16 years (and 3 months) of age we decided to give her a real but former practice LSAT off the internet, without her knowing what the test entailed. She sat down and took the required 4 sections and said it was fun. She ran out of time on the last question on each section. She missed one of the logic questions. She said she read the question wrong. Her score was a surprising 168. She usually scores higher on test days than in practice. I figure she is in the 170-175 range now especially with a test under her belt. My thinking was to find out if she had the necessary mental skills now, so we could decide in the future which roads for her to take. The LSAT in theory is for to determine just that. Now she is leaning toward CE, MBA and JD. She plans to graduate with a 36, 1600, 4.0/4.8 with no extra curriculars to speak of. (Knowledge Bowl etc.) I am guessing that she will need leadership positions in College for T14, not really for acceptance but for $.
“I am guessing that she will need leadership positions in College for T14, not really for acceptance but for $.”
Not really. For merit money in LS, she needs a high undergrad GPA and high LSAT. The higher the better. (High, at a minimum, is above both of the law school’s admissions medians. One of both above 75% will earn big money from those that provide merit money. HYS are all need-based.)
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Thanks for your input. (in your opinion) Assuming an undergrad GPA of 4.0 and an LSAT of 175-180, it is reasonable to believe she “could” receive a Full Cost of Attendance at a top LAW School?