<p>i have a dilemma...i did the same thing on the other board but i just realized that there is a law school forum on CC...lol i was too focused on business before.</p>
<p>anyway, can u guys give me some suggestions as to which of these combo's weigh more?</p>
<p>mediocre undergrad school (like Rutgers New Brunswick, i really like RU) w/whatever major + elite grad law school ______ elite (as elite as i can get into, but better than RU) w/the same major + the same grad law school</p>
<p>plug in the greater than/smaller than signs in the equation! lol.
the main reason i'm wonderin about this is b/c of the money situation. i'm not from a extremely wealthy family, nor am i from a extremely poor family. so i'm in the middle. that doesn't do me really any good when it comes to financial aid and stuff i suppose. so....</p>
<p>I don't really know what you're saying in the 3rd paragraph. If you're asking what would be better for career prospects: Rutgers -> Yale Law (using Yale as example of elite school) or Yale -> Yale Law, it really makes no difference, they only care where you went to law school. If you're asking if it would be easier to get into a top law school if you go to a top undergrad school, not really. If you go to Harvard or Yale or Princeton then yes, you will be given a slight boost in law school admissions, but I'm assuming you wont be going to one of those three. So I'd say you should definitely go to Rutgers if money is an issue and the other school would cost more. In law, your undergrad school is of minimal value.</p>
<p>i meant which is better: if i attend a MEDIOCRE undergrad school and then go to say, Yale for law school, is that better than if i just start off goin to an ELITE undergrad, and yet, still attend Yale for grad. will it make a difference. but i guess u did answer the question after all. sry my 'equation' was vague.</p>
<p>I agree that if you get into Yale Law School, it won't really matter where you went for undergrad. But before you go off to Rutgers with the notion that you'll have a decent chance of getting into Yale Law from there, you might consider the fact that, as of the 2006-07 academic year (the most recent for which there are published stats), there was not one student enrolled at Yale Law School who went to Rutgers undergrad. Not one. In contrast there were 78 students at Yale Law who went to Yale undergrad, 79 from Harvard, 37 from Stanford, 31 from Princeton, 21 from Columbia, 16 from Dartmouth, 16 from Berkeley, 13 from Brown, 12 from Williams, 10 from UVA, 9 from Amherst, etc. You can probably get the picture.</p>
<p>if u do well on the test and in ur undergrad school, it still matters which school u come from? so, yale (for example) would PREFER students from elite undergrad school over those from mediocre ones? even w/the same GPA and LSAT?</p>
<p>If one applicant went to a better school than you, and you both have the same numbers, quality of EC's, rec's, PS, etc., then he would get the edge over you. All other things being equal, keep in mind.</p>
<p>OK if you have the same numbers, but stats show that students coming from better schools have better LSAT scores. Harvard 166, Columbia 163, U Texas 156, Cal State Fullerton 148, etc.</p>
<p>That's like saying Duke basketball players get drafted more often than Kansas State players. It's not that Coach K necessarily trains them to be great, but they recruit the best in the country out of highschool, so naturally they will do better. But if you know you have the skills to play at Duke, but decide you'd rather play at a lesser known place you're more comfortable at, Kansas State, that doesn't mean you will be overlooked and not drafted, Michael Beasley case in point . Cal State Fullerton scores low on AVERAGE because anybody can go there, but a highly intelligent person from Fullerton can do just as well as a highly intelligent person from Harvard.</p>
<p>This entire "if all else is equal" discussion is silly.</p>
<p>First, two candidates with the same GPA and LSAT are almost certain to have the same outcome. They will either both be accepted or both rejected. For them to be so intensely on the borderline that a school will pick one is exceedingly slim odds.</p>
<p>Second, at that point other factors come into play. These two candidates will NOT have identical EC's, LORs, and essays. (If they do, then at least one of them cheated, and he will get rejected.)</p>
<p>School name-branding is NOT something that comes into play as a tiebreaker.</p>
<p>I'm going to quibble with bdmike. No one knows for sure-- but an elite school MAY give you a bit of a nudge (as well as other factors like geographic diversity) towards acceptance.
Mike- do you remember a few weeks ago, "we discussed" an Ivy grad (later found out she was from Cornell) with an LSAT 166/ 3.9 GPA getting off the Harvard law waitlist?? You mentioned that you had a friend from a public U with similar stats also on the waitlist. I'm curious if she got in. I'm not saying the Ivy degree WAS the reason Cornell grad got in- but when GPA/LSAT are the same and there is only one opening, some bit of info or background is used as a tiebreaker. Sometimes the tiebreaker may be the UG school. Other times it may be they want someone from Kansas.</p>
<p>I don't think BDM disagrees with you, he's just saying such instances are extremely rare, and as you've just said, maybe in a different cycle that guy that went to a public U in the underrepresented Midwest may actually have an advantage over the New York kid at Cornell. I actually think that geographic diversity would play a much bigger factor than name branding.</p>
<p>Its objectively to your advantage to go to the better school. They will inflate your GPA more than the academic difference merits, mostly due to their formulas.</p>
<p>Re: 12: Yeah, I said in another thread on the same subject that waitlist admissions have me completely confused. I probably should have clarified that here, too. Honestly, having talked to my UCB friend, I can easily think of several reasons that might explain it -- including not being willing to commit during the very first phone call. Too, "similar" stats might mean the Cornell kid was actually slightly higher -- or had more interesting essays/EC's/major/LORs... or maybe it really was Cornell vs. UCB. Not sure, but my guess would be the commitment thing.</p>
<p>Re #14: I don't really understand what you just said. Can you clarify?</p>
<p>i know that usually it's best if u get some job experience before goin into grad business school for MBA. what about law school? does it require experiences outside UG or do most students go straight into law schools after UG?</p>
<p>You need extracurriculars, it doesn't have to be in any specific field, and they don't have to be all that great (except Yale/Stanford). They just want to see that you have a life outside of school basically. As for students going straight to law from UG, i think it's about 60/40, 60 being not going straight from undergrad. As you can see from the 40, it can easily be done, but a slight majority choose to take a year or two (or twelve) off. The two main advantages from this are it'll be easier to get good EC's after UG and they will count your last semester's grades if you need a GPA boost.</p>