Hello everyone. I am having a bit of a debacle. Having gotten off the UPenn waitlist, I am struggling between what to do next. I really hope to go to law school, and I want to make sure going to Oberlin would not significantly hinder my chances. I just don’t think I could afford going to Penn and the loans would possibly not be worth it. On the other hand, between the scholarship I was awarded and the fact I have a discount from both of my parents being college professors, Oberlin would be essentially fully covered. I really hope to be able to gain admission to top law schools and have no issue in future job applications due to a less prestigious undergrad experience, any thoughts on how I should go about this?
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People get into top law schools from tons of undergrad colleges and Oberlin is a really fine LAC. Your post-college outcome wlll depend on what you achieve at either school you choose to attend.
IMO if Penn is unaffordable then Oberlin is the answer - especially with law school in your future.
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Thank you for the input. To my knowledge, Oberlin used to be more respected than it is now? Do you think law schools will still recognize its academic strength and such despite its ranking drop?
Oberlin won’t hinder your chances at all! Debt could, though. Stay the course and get an excellent, debt-free education at Oberlin - no need to lose a moment’s sleep over it!
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Perhaps Oberlin’s history of being highly academically respected suggests a strong future as well. Since you appear genuinely curious about this, you might note that, by SAT profiles, Oberlin once placed a tier higher than UPenn: LIFE - Google Books.
You can afford Oberlin. You cannot afford Penn. If you get a stellar GPA and LSAT from Oberlin, you will still get into an excellent law school.
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Check Harvard Law. They show 174 schools as part of their attendance. Schools like Cal State LA, Bloomsburg PA, Fairleigh Dickinson, Jackson State, Lamar and University of you name it - Arkansas, Nevada, New Mexico, etc.
Where you go doesn’t matter. How you do and what you do on your LSAT is what matters, etc.
Oberlin is free. And it’s still very well respected.
Best of luck to you.
Undergraduate Institutions - Harvard Law School | Harvard Law School
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I am not doubting what you’re saying, and thanks for providing the link of undergraduate schools representing the HLS class.
One question, though: is there a NUMERICAL listing of each undergraduate institution sending students to top law schools. It’s one thing to say that a single student from College X is at HLS compared to (possibly) many more students from a “top school” going to HLS. For example, I would assume that several students from Harvard College matriculated at HLS. Would the same apply to College X?
Isn’t that the real indicator of the weight given to the undergraduate institution? From what I can tell, HLS has a class size of around 560 students, so how indicative is 174 schools in relation to that large class size?
Things have drastically changed since I went to law school, so I am curious about the relevancy of where a student went to undergrad. And, I confess I have no idea, so my use of the word “curious” is indeed just that…nothing more.
That being said, OP is exceedingly blessed to have such fine undergrads to choose from, one of which is obviously a financial no brainer. All the best to OP.
I would say this - and of course it’s my hypothesis:
I would assume that kids from top undergrads dwarf the kids from non-top undergrads - especially at top law schools. don’t know how many attend from each school. But I’d surmise bigger #s come from more difficult to get in undergrad schools. But that’s just because they have more top students; I’m not sure they have an actual advantage.
Why? Because the kid talented enough to get into Harvard - or this student who got into both Oberlin and Penn - and regardless of what they think - Oberlin is not an easy admit (35%) and it’s a very respected school - kids like this student will naturally do better on an LSAT than say the average student at Youngstown State or Fairleigh Dickinson, etc.
However, as we’ve seen - smart kids abound everywhere - because schools pay to get them. No one sees Alabama as an academic powerhouse and yet they have more National Merit Scholars than any school in America…and those great test takers will likely find themselves in top schools.
But as a concentration of students vs. smart kids at Ivies or even an Oberlin - it’s going to be a lot less.
So we don’t know why someone chose Cal State LA or Northridge. Maybe cost, maybe they went for a top major, or maybe they needed to live near home.
But they have the academic chops and test taking ability for Harvard to say - come join us.
So my belief is - a top student is a top student - no matter where they go. They can excel, whether it’s Delta State, Denver, or Dartmouth, etc.
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Truer words have never been spoken! Agreed entirely.
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I will add that, at least to me, it truly does seem like a no brainer given that Oberlin is essentially a free ride for OP.
Do your best at any place, and good things will often happen. Life is what you make it.
And it really helps not to be saddled with debt at such a young age. Oberlin is an excellent school for sure.
Kudos to the OP. And it’s not a debacle: you are very fortunate!
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Thanks for all the thoughtful answers on this thread, I’ll go with Oberlin! Ty to all for reassurance
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Congrats! Work your tail off (but have a reasonably good time doing so)!
Keep in mind I started going to college with the idea of being a doctor and changed very late in the game, realizing how much I despised science. I woke up one day and said I’m going to law school, not med school. Thank heavens.
Law school is great, but keep ALL your options open and find what you love to do during the next few years. I’m lucky because becoming a lawyer is exactly what I should have been aspiring for, but I didn’t realize it for most of my college years (and before). Several decades later, It was the best career move I made. But finding yourself is what college is about.
Have a great summer and excel at Oberlin! Sincere congrats.
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Piling on – if Penn isn’t affordable and Oberlin is essentially free, this is an easy decision: go to Oberlin.
You and your family can use the money you saved at Oberlin to pay (fully or at least a large chunk) for law school.
Oberlin is an excellent school.
And – even if you do change your mind about law school, Oberlin still has a huge $$$ advantage, and they offer plenty of majors from which to choose.
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NYT article on Supreme Court clerks, but it also includes a study of the makeup of HLS classes.
Relevant excerpt (emphasis mine):
"The study, which considered 22,475 Harvard Law graduates, took account of three data points: where they went to college, whether they qualified for academic honors in law school (graduating cum laude, magna cum laude or summa cum laude) and whether they obtained a Supreme Court clerkship.
About half of the graduates had attended one of 22 selective undergraduate institutions, and more than a fifth of the graduates had gone to college at Harvard, Yale or Princeton. Both of those groups graduated with honors from Harvard Law at above-average rates.
But here is the key point: Even controlling for achievement in law school as measured by academic honors, members of the two groups were more likely than their peers to obtain Supreme Court clerkships. And most of the difference could be traced to students who had gone to college at Harvard, Yale or Princeton."
While there is certainly a high degree of correlation (top 22, HYP undergrads generally being high achievers and good test takers), the extreme over indexing of undergrads from those schools suggests that is also an element of causation.
As for the OP, if Penn is not affordable, it is just not an option. A free education at Oberlin sounds pretty good, and I don’t think there is any huge advantage that Penn has over Oberlin.
If you can’t afford it, the math kind of already made that decision really easy. Law school is a holistic process that looks at mainly at individual grades and LSAT scores. If you have those, you’ll be fine. Plus law school is very expensive, relative to pay. Law school debt is a big enough burden, but undergraduate debt added to that can create major financial problems. You’re in a good place right now.
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Undergrad may count for a small plus factor at the smaller law schools (Yale, Stanford & Chicago), but HLS is (almost) purely a numbers game. Its class is so large that HLS has to offer most 17x to hold its median. There are just not that many 174’s to go around, particularly since that kinda number will earn big merit money at other T14’s.
But Oberlin is certainly not Podunk U, and is well respected academically so the OP will be fine.
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