non-traditional undergrad

<p>Say an applicant is applying to a top 20 law school, coming from a rather non-traditional LAC (Sarah Lawrence College in NY). For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it ranks fairly well (I think in the top 50 LACs, last time i checked), but there are no GPAs (well, there are but only on request, but theyre sent to grad schools), and no finals. However, the school is known to be very rigorous in terms of papers, and its well reputable from what i know.</p>

<p>My question is :will coming from a school like SLC hurt an applicant applying to top 20 schools?</p>

<p>Nope. Just look at Reed. They have very similar practices, yet they are on the list of top feeders for law schools.</p>

<p>The only thing I would say is that it might become more important to do well on the LSAT, because that is really the only "number" that admissions committees will have to evaluate you. </p>

<p>Also, you'll probably fare better at smaller law schools, where (presumably) there are fewer applicants and the admissions committee can spend more time evaluating your application. Obviously, there are some schools (HLS and Columbia come to mind) which are larger but have a more extensive admissions process - they usually take two months to examine every application.</p>

<p>What if you come from Pomona college? Some people tell me that I can just say goodbye to the top law schools if I attend Pomona. Personally, I don't think it's true, otherwise Pomona wouldn't be in feeder school list. But, I need reassurance. Can anyone clarify this?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

<p>Pomona? Are you kidding? Pomona has a great reputation as the one of the top, if not THE top, LAC on the west coast - especially good in the humanitites/writing, which I would think law schools would appreciate.</p>

<p>Yeah, that's what I thought too... but an overwhelming amount of people are saying that only Ivy's can get you to the top Law schools because they still have the "Ivy" name. They say law schools like Harvard/Yale are very hard to get into if you goto a small college. However, there are occasional people who say the top Law schools appreciate colleges like Pomona because of their liberal arts education. As of now, I am officially confused as confused can be. Can someone verify these claims? Thanks, I appreciate your responses.</p>

<p>Look at the WSJ list of top feeder schools. Those people who tell you that a Pomona degree will not get you in to the top law schools are not informed on this subject. Pomona is part of the club.</p>

<p>Well, I think the WSJ list is dubious. Take it for what it is - a mere cross-section with questionable methodology, and one that includes numbers from medical and business school admission. However, it is right in identifying Pomona as a "feeder school." Pomona, for example, has 11 students at Harvard Law School. Pie-in-the-sky East Coast LAC’s, Amherst and Williams didn’t do much better, with 15 and 16 students respectively. If you still have doubts, you should check out the composition of other top law schools you are interested in attending. I suspect that giving these lists a glance will allay your fears and misgivings about Pomona.</p>

<p>thanks I appreciate it</p>

<p>"Pomona, for example, has 11 students at Harvard Law School. Pie-in-the-sky East Coast LAC’s, Amherst and Williams didn’t do much better, with 15 and 16 students respectively."</p>

<p>But relative to undergrad size, doesn't that mean these schools did very well as compared to, say, Brown?</p>

<p>Yes, aparent5, it does mean that.</p>