New Yale Law Numbers

College Search & Selection
61

<p>
[quote]
Ugrad Class Size HLS Percentage

[/quote]

Interesting (at least to me) how much more of a relative presence Penn alums have at HLS than they have at YLS. With 57 alums at HLS, Penn has the 4th highest number (at least at the time these numbers represent) after only H, Y, and S. Theoretically, you'd think that the relative presence of all schools (except maybe for H and Y themselves) at both law schools would be roughly the same. Over the past few years, however, Penn undergrads seem to show a bias in favor of HLS (especially viewed in combination with YLS' '03-'05 Penn yield of only 38%--13 accepted/5 matriculated).</p>

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<p>Maybe they couldn't bear the thought of spending 3 years in New Haven after having just spent 4 years in Philly.</p>

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<p>^ Not quite sure whether you meant that as a compliment to Philly, or as an insult. :)</p>

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<p>Re SAT scores, it is important to use data from the same year. They have been trending up at many colleges, so comparing 1 or 2 year old data at one place to current data at another will be misleading. </p>

<p>From collegeresults.org</p>

<p>for 2005
Brown 1435
Wesleyan 1400</p>

<p>2004
Brown 1415
Wesleyan 1400</p>

<p>2003
Brown 1395
Wesleyan 1380</p>

<p>2003
Brown 1395
Wesleyan 1380</p>

<p>As I said, these are from Collegeresults.org, which draws its data from reports filed by the colleges with IPEDS. We can only take the colleges word for the data.</p>

<p>I don't understand the Columbia CGS, so I don't know whether it belongs in the Columbia numbers. Perhaps most relevant for this discussion is whether graduates from CGS would be listed as "Columbia" in the YLS and HLS reports. If so, then they should be in the denominator.</p>

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<p>HLS is considered more practical for future corporate law types. Yale is for dogooders, etc.</p>

66

<p>Yes, they are counted all as "Columbia University" on the HLS/YLS numbers. Barnard is listed as "Columbia University [Barnard]." </p>

<p>If anything, I suppose it is nice to see those numbers. Wesleyan holds up extremely well in the world of standardized test scores, even compared to top unis.</p>

<p>
[quote]
HLS is considered more practical for future corporate law types. Yale is for dogooders, etc.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>That's right. Harvard and Columbia are generally regarded as the "corporate" schools, Yale is more for academics, and Stanford has good ties with Silicon Valley and intellectual property law.</p>

67

<p>Apparently HLS is the 3rd largest law school in the country....</p>

<p><a href="http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/grad/webextras/brief/sb_law_size_brief.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://grad-schools.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/usnews/edu/grad/webextras/brief/sb_law_size_brief.php&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>^ It has the largest full-time student body.</p>

69

<p>"-Why is that funny to me.....?"</p>

<p>Since nobody answered, one might assume nobody knows. I certainly don't.</p>

<p>"You make it seem as if there is not nearly as much diversity, in this sense, at LACs. I would disagree"</p>

<p>The issue is: the proportion of students desiring to pursue legal careers from specialized colleges such as: Nursing, education, pharmacy, engineering, agriculture, business, architecture, hotel administration...</p>

<p>is far smaller than the proportion typically entertaining these viocational objectives from a liberal arts college.</p>

<p>For the most part, if students thought they were destined for a future legal career they would not have enrolled in these specialized programs.</p>

<p>Depending on the university, the distortion in the denominator can be quite significant. IIRC, at Cornell the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering combined are larger than the College of Arts & Sciences. But these two colleges obviously produce a very small proportion of future lawyers, far smaller than nearly any decent liberal arts college. Cornell is not any worse a choice for someone entertaining a legal career and applying to its Arts & Sciences College,simply because a large number of people who are also there attend other, more specialized colleges for which law school is a much less typical destination.</p>

<p>I'm sure there are many other examples.</p>

<p>"I just don't think things are as drastic as you make them. "</p>

<p>I can't speak for other schools, but in the case of Cornell it would seem that things are quite drastic. The enrollment numbers in colleges that likely do not produce many future lawyers exceeds the number in colleges that would.</p>

70

<p>
[quote]
"You make it seem as if there is not nearly as much diversity, in this sense, at LACs. I would disagree"</p>

<p>The issue is: the proportion of students desiring to pursue legal careers from specialized colleges such as: Nursing, education, pharmacy, engineering, agriculture, business, architecture, hotel administration...</p>

<p>is far smaller than the proportion typically entertaining these viocational objectives from a liberal arts college.</p>

<p>For the most part, if students thought they were destined for a future legal career they would not have enrolled in these specialized programs.</p>

<p>Depending on the university, the distortion in the denominator can be quite significant. IIRC, at Cornell the Colleges of Agriculture and Engineering combined are larger than the College of Arts & Sciences. But these two colleges obviously produce a very small proportion of future lawyers, far smaller than nearly any decent liberal arts college. Cornell is not any worse a choice for someone entertaining a legal career and applying to its Arts & Sciences College,simply because a large number of people who are also there attend other, more specialized colleges for which law school is a much less typical destination.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Yeah, but we're not talking about somebody entertaining a typical future legal career. In the context of this thread, we're talking about somebody who is entertaining a legal career that he could get from entering (and presumably graduating from) Yale Law. Let's face it. The kind of law career one would get as a graduate from YLS is almost certainly going to be better than the average law career. I strongly suspect that quite a few engineering and agriculture students would have happily gone to YLS if they had the choice. </p>

<p>Robert Rubin once admitted in his autobiography that he didn't really know why he was going to law school (at YLS), and that he certainly didn't intend to be a practicing lawyer forever. He went because he felt that a degree from YLS would be useful in whatever he ended up doing in his career. {He ended up becoming the Co-Chairman and Co-Senior Partner of Goldman Sachs and then Secretary of the Treasury, so clearly things worked out quite well for him.} However, if Rubin could have only gotten into some no-name law school, he probably wouldn't have gone to law school at all. In other words, when we're talking about a school like YLS, matriculations tend to be opportunistic in nature. Heck, even in my own former circle of engineering classmates, I distinctly remember people saying that they would never consider going to any law school at all...unless it was Yale or Harvard. Similarly, if we were to offer a bunch of Cornell engineering students the chance to go to Yale Law, I strongly suspect that a lot of them would take it.</p>

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<p>the School of General Studies of Columbia University is the finest liberal arts college in the United States created for adults who wish to pursue an Ivy League education full or part-time."</p>

<p>-Why is this funny to me? Simple; it's funny because it says: </p>

<p>"the finest liberal arts college in the United States created for adults who wish to pursue an Ivy League education full or part-time"</p>

<p>How many colleges can allow people to "pursue an Ivy League education full or part-time"? Eight! Yet this statement makes it seem like Columbia has done something that ALL colleges in the United States can or do strive to do - that is, create an IVY LEAGUE school of continuing studies. I just find the use of "Ivy League" and "United States" in that sentence to be hilarious.</p>

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<p>" I strongly suspect that quite a few engineering and agriculture students would have happily gone to YLS if they had the choice"</p>

<p>but in reality, this isn't the case. </p>

<p>How many engineering students apply to HLS, YLS, and Stanford law ... and only those 3 with the train of thought of "If I get in, I'll totally go, otherwise law school isn't an option I'd like"?? My guess is most people would consider this to be a tremendous waste of time and money (with LSATs and application fees) and only those who would seriously consider going to law school (not just HYS) would attempt. </p>

<p>If somebody offered me their spot in the YLS class, I would go. But, I don't want to go to law school and I'm not going to pursuit a spot in the YLS or any law school class, and accordingly I don't want to be considered in one of the statistics released by universities. Engineering and ag. students should be viewed as the same.</p>

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<p>The point is, again:</p>

<p>Most people who plan to go to law school eventually will apply to a College of Arts & Sciences. Or some other program of studies for which law is a reasonable outcome. </p>

<p>Not every person. just most people.</p>

<p>Cornell is not any worse a choice for someone entertaining a legal career and applying to its Arts & Sciences College,simply because a large number of people who are also there attend other, more specialized colleges for which law school is a much less typical destination. A student in its Arts & Sciences college who applies to Yale law school does not him/herself have a worse chance of getting into Yale Law simply because there are other people on the same campus who are in a totally separate college, with different admissions, courses and requirements,and are studying architecture.</p>

<p>If these statistics are not intended to compare colleges in that regard, then they have no real purpose whatsoever. So then nobody should post them, and nobody should be interested in them either.</p>

<p>There is no aggregate Cornell that an individual student can apply to. The student applies to particular colleges, each of which has different curricula, students, and standards. Same for a number of other multi-college universities. But in Cornell's case, the proportion of colleges who, by their very mission are not likely to be turning out many lawyers compared to a typical selective Arts & Sciences college is extremely high.</p>

<p>Someone interested in law might consider applying to Cornell Arts & Sciences, or Wesleyan or other LAcs. They would not be nearly as likely to apply to Cornell Architecture, etc. Whether Cornell Arts & Sciences or Wesleyan might be better at facilitating their posible legal careers should not be influenced by the fact that there is also an architecture college at Cornell, but Welseyan doesn't have one.</p>

<p>But when all the students from all these other Cornell colleges that are not probable pre-law havens are lumped into the denominator when statistics like this are presented this is not always so clear. (unless someone mentions it...). Then it looks like these LACs, or more homogeneous universities, are better at producing future lawyers than Cornell is, when really what is happening is they are better at not also having any other specialized colleges on campus, in addition to the Arts & Sciences College. Which does just fine.</p>

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<p>Regarding School of General Studies, from what I've read on CC, Columbia GS students are taught by the same faculty, with the same courses and the same standards, as Columbia College kids are. And students at each college are free to take courses at the other, as schedules permit. This is evidently different than traditional "continuing ed" programs.</p>

<p>So when they refer to "ivy league education" like that, possibly implied is that even within the 8 eligible schools, the others don't provide education to this consituent group, in significant numbers anyway, commensurate to what this group of schools is otherwise more generally known for.</p>

<p>For the colleges beyond these 8, I suppose there'd be less basis for your amusement if a word like "equivalent", "quality", etc. had been added to their sentence. But then this too would look peculiar, becuse they are in fact an actual member of the Ivy league, not just a provider of an education of that quality.</p>

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<p>True, but to me it should say something more along the lines of:</p>

<p>"the finest liberal arts college in The Ivy League for adult full or part-time education"</p>

<p>Instead of:</p>

<p>"the finest liberal arts college in the UNITED STATES created for adults who wish to pursue an IVY LEAGUE EDUCATION full or part-time"</p>

<p>To me, the former is clearer and less misleading. This is, of course, just my opinion...</p>