Law school: Does the school you go to in undergrad matter??

Anyone who says undergrad college doesn’t matter is not very credible. Undergrad matters more for personal/intellectual development and grad school/professional school matters more for your professional development. Obviously undergrad also helps getting into right grad/professional schools.

Maybe it would be easier to compare groups of majors rather than types of schools? The problem with comparing LACs to universities is that liberal arts majors are also offered at universities. Majors like poli sci and English are common among law students; is there a difference between the English major from a university and an English major from an LAC, apart from the selectivity of the instutions? Or does some of the LAC feeder argument boil down to selectivity/major classmates?

@evergreen5: That is why I noted the available resources to compare LSAT scores by major as well by school.

The question is not easily addressed as a mediocre large state university may have a great highly selective honors college or a particular dept. that is strong.

Reasonable to assume, in my opinion, that a larger percentage of students at LACs intend to go to law school than do students at a national university which offers more specialized majors.

@aditib, getting back to your original question!

  1. Where you go to undergraduate matters for lots of things, but for getting in to top law or business programs it is not defining. Top MBA programs require, and top law schools increasingly prefer, some work experience. For both, stats matter a lot.

  2. LSAT & GRE are just 2 college board variants. If you have the test scores for Kelley to be a safety, you are obviously fine at test-taking. Relatively straightforward prep/review should see you right. Not a big deal to do both (once upon a time some of us did LSAT, GRE and MCAT in the same year).

  3. Kelley is more than reputable enough for an undergrad- there will be lots of resources to help you get meaningful internships as an undergrad and good job placements out of college.

  4. Unless your parents are happy to pay for undergrad and grad school, anything you can do to avoid debt is worthwhile. Both law & business grad schools are wildly expensive, and the less debt you carry as you go out into the work world the more choices you will have when you graduate. I think it is the rare HS student who really gets how heavy a burden - how much it restricts your choices- debt is.

@merc81 - I read “premise” to mean the same as “hypothesis” or “assumption.” Can you point me to any testing of your premise? Does going to an elite LAC improve cognitive skills, measured by GRE/LSAT/GMAT score, more than going to a top public university? Or is there any improvement at all in cognitive skills as a result of attending college?

\Looking at just one data point, I was an indifferent student at a public university and my percentile scores on the SAT, GMAT, and LSAT were identical. I was much better educated after college (and after law school and business school) but my cognitive skills, measured by standardized tests, did not change. My multi-state bar exam score from 1983 was within 4 points of my score in 1987. For “fun,” I took an SAT practice test a few years ago when my kids were applying to colleges. My percentile rank was basically unchanged from my junior year in high school. (better on verbal, not as good on non-verbal - I’ve forgotten some of my high school math, but my vocabulary is better).

Expanding on what I said before, the 75th percentile composite SAT score (a measure of cognitive skills) for the University of Michigan is 1500. Williams College’s 25th/75th percentile admission scores are 1400/1570. So its fair to say that at least 25% of Michigan freshmen had SAT scores good enough to get into Williams, the top-rated LAC in the U.S. In the fall of 2017, Williams admitted approximated 1300 applicants. Michigan admitted over 16,000 applicants, so at least 4000 of them should have SAT scores comparable to average Williams SAT scores. If we follow these groups later and focus on those that applied to law school, would the Williams kids score higher on the LSAT than the top-tier Michigan kids? Of course, a properly done study would exactly match the two groups for SAT scores and relevant demographics.

^Well, I don’t know many adults who have re-taken their SATs, but, I do think it interesting that you would report an improved verbal score after forty years of professional school and practice as an attorney. We know that “tween” brains are still developing well into their twenties, so it stands to reason that scores can improve. Can four years of writing papers improve them faster than four years of multiple-choice questions? I too would like to see the data.

Increased verbal is not all that uncommon. Every few years there’s a journalist who retakes the SAT (for an article?) and experiences a big increase in the verbal scores, much of which is based on solid grasp of vocabulary.

With respect to GPA, law schools will apparently make adjustments based on their analyses of LSAT performance across undergraduate colleges:

Among groupings of schools, Ivies, NESCACs and Claremonts appear to represent the types of colleges from which applicants received consistent upward adjustments in the example cited.

http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm

That is an outlier (from 1997) and a complaint was filed with the Dept of Education for being discriminatory. I don’t think that they are doing that now.

A larger blow back was from the state education establishment when they found out that the top Cal State grads had no/little chance at Boalt. That practice died quickly when it hit the fan, particularly since the the Cal States were much more diverse than the typical NE LAC.

Regardless, that was all before USNews rankings became the ‘thing’.

That’s waht I was thinking-I got scholarship and financial aid at kelley so it is a lot cheaper for me to go there

Well, I would say it matters a lot more of you want to go into BigLaw. But that’s a horrible life. If you want to be a solo practitioner, or work for a small firm (also not an easy life), it matters a lot less which college and which law school you go to. Your success will be measured by your ability to network, to bring in clients, to handle cases well, make clients happy and get results. Interpersonal skills are very important.
However, I would say admission to law school is easier from a more prestigious school. For example, if you go to a well-regarded LAC like one of the NEASCs and do fine, you probably won’t have a problem getting in to law school. Might not be a top law school, but it’s still law school.

But really do your research as to whether law school is really what you want. It’s very expensive. And starting your life with a lot of debt really sucks. Talk to real lawyers, ask them what their work is like. Get a really good feel for it before you make that commitment. You don’t have to know now what kind of law you want to practice - your interests will develop over time, but it would be good to just get a general sense of what lawyers do and how mundane and soul-sucking it really is. Lol.

Oh Lord, I went back and tried to read through this thread and now I’m brain dead. OP-do you have a particular type of practice you’re thinking about? What are the schools you are looking at for undergrad?

@Trixy34 I was thinking about going for international policy/finance law, something that would tie in with my (most likely) BA in economics (with a focus in math and finance). I’m expecting a decision from Brandeis, and if I go there I want to apply to their BA/MA program in international economics and finance, and if I go to kelley I’m going to major in economics/finance. I’m also waiting on other schools, most of which are reaches cause they’re so hard to get into.
I’m heavily considering kelley because I got an academic scholarship as well as financial aid to go there (so I can save money and possibly earn better grades in an easier environment so I can get scholarships)

So basically, I think I’m heading towards law in terms of policy making or private finance law

@aditib1018 - Sounds like you have a great handle on what you want to do. No matter where you end up, work hard, study for the LSAT, and you’ll be fine. Eventually, you’ll probably want to end up in DC for law school. Georgetown, of course, would be ideal, but there’s GW, American (WCL) and George Mason - I imagine they all have international programs at this point. Good luck!

Econ is a great background for antitrust. Try to take an econ course in antitrust while in undergrad and later antitrust law in law school.

This is just not true. Law schools (even Harvard & Yale, who have a particular fondness for their own grads) look at LSAT + GPA + (increasingly) your 1-2 years of experience. I know people who are at T12s right now who went to very ordinary colleges and universities- and I know people at T50s who went to very fancy undergrads but didn’t have great GPAs/LSATs.

OP, go where you can get a good GPA, have little to no debt, and can do internships & placements that are genuinely interesting to you.

(Disclaimer) anecdotal evidence: A friend of mine attended Michigan State with a full-ride merit scholarship. College was much cheaper back in the day, but he graduated debt-free with no parental support. MSU is a very good public university, but clearly not Harvard. My friend got pretty good grades, smoked the LSAT, and was accepted to both Harvard and Yale law schools.

@trixy34 I know Georgetown is great for international policy law, etc. but I don’t really like DC hahaha I really wanna go somewhere like NYU or Columbia or Uchicago or (maybe) even Harvard

NYU >> Georgetown for International law.