<p>Does the selectivity or prestige of a university factor into the law school admissions process significantly?
For example, would a 3.4 at Berkeley, be better than or equal to a 3.8 at UC Santa Cruz? Or conversely would a 3.7 at UCSB be better than a 3.5 at UCLA, etc.?</p>
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[quote]
Does the selectivity or prestige of a university factor into the law school admissions process significantly?
For example, would a 3.4 at Berkeley, be better than or equal to a 3.8 at UC Santa Cruz? Or conversely would a 3.7 at UCSB be better than a 3.5 at UCLA, etc.?
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<p>Answers to your question are: No, No, and Yes.</p>
<p>Thanks for the response, but is that true even for T-25 schools, more specifically Stanford, Cal, UCLA, USC, Chicago, Harvard? Also, would it change the circumstances if my first two years were at a California Community College with a 3.9, and I was still able to get a 3.7-3.9 at a percieved easier school such as Santa Cruz as opposed to a 3.4-3.6 at Berkeley if I was still able to obtain around the 75th percentile LSAT score?</p>
<p>Sakky's response is correct. Some law schools look at each candidate and you can address the fact that your GPA is lower since you went to a tough school. It's unlikely to be much of a selling point for your application.</p>
<p>Unfortunately law school admissions is just a numbers game.</p>
<p>They only care a little about your alma mater and your major. </p>
<p>So lesson learned: if you know you are going to law school, major in something easy and boost up your GPA.</p>
<p>I heard from an admission session that the strength of UG does matter, but it only adds a little to the application. In other words, ad coms know that some schools are more academically rigorous than others. However, it's not as dramatic nor clear-cut as saying a 3.6 at UCSB=3.3 at Cal.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, when it comes to T14 law school admissions, berkeleysenior is oversimplifying the evaluation process. Admissions to a top law school is not just a numbers game, though without solid numbers, you probably don't have much of a chance. Once you are in the ballpark with your numbers, though, there is at most law schools an evaluation of the softer factors, such as your recommendations, your personal statement, your achievements and activities, your work experience, the quality of your undergraduate and graduate schools, etc.</p>
<p>A statistics professor ran a regression and found that the LSAT accounts for 60-70% of the application. While lacking ECs completely may be detrimental, having them may not be all that beneficial unless they are TFA/Peace Corps, etc. Unless you are 3+ or 5+ years out of undergrad, the percentages are pretty much broken down in this fashion:</p>
<p>80% LSAT/GPA
10% ECs/LORs
10% Diversity, geography, etc.</p>
<p>I would also posit that URM status may be a larger factor than just 10%... and it may reduce the other categories' percentages when accounting for admissions.</p>
<p>Although I am by no means an admissions director or anything, rumor has it that many law schools do this:</p>
<p>Set thresholds for reject/accept based purely on the LSAT and GPA. Admit everyone above this threshold and reject below.
The people in the middle range are then evaluated further on their ECs/LORs/etc.
Some are then sent to a second review panel where their applications are analyzed with further depth.</p>
<p>But those percentages are a rough guideline for law school admissions for those less than 3/5 years out of undergrad.</p>
<p>
Unfortunately, when it comes to T14 law school admissions, berkeleysenior is oversimplifying the evaluation process. Admissions to a top law school is not just a numbers game, though without solid numbers, you probably don't have much of a chance. Once you are in the ballpark with your numbers, though, there is at most law schools an evaluation of the softer factors, such as your recommendations, your personal statement, your achievements and activities, your work experience, the quality of your undergraduate and graduate schools, etc.
TITCR. GPA matters much more than undergrad quality, but undergrad quality still matters to a small degree.</p>
<p>Students from top UG schools have higher LSAT scores. So that, it really matters</p>
<p>^Yes, that's a significant factor. For example, I believe the average LSAT for Harvard undergrads is 166/167.</p>
<p>However in terms of the school name alone mattering: stats show that the very elite universities (maybe top 5) get a small boost. In general, lower ranked schools do not get a boost. As I said earlier adcomms "only care a little about your alma mater."</p>
<p>BS,
Would you mind sharing the stats that show that only very elite universities get a small boost? I would be very interested to see them.</p>
<p>Thank you!</p>
<p>Pft, maybe I should transfer to East Asian Studies or International Relations. Screw Econ. I'm gonna go for a 4.0 in an easier program.</p>
<p>haha. I'm an Econ major and the only B's I've gotten in college have been in Econ. I've taken many classes outside my major and pulled straight As. Maybe I shouldn't have majored in it.</p>
<p>Will law schools weight the courses you have taken significantly in the admissions process? Will they know what courses are easy grades and what are not and to what extent do they matter? For example let's say someone got a 5 on the AP Economics test and takes an intro econ class and does similar course selection to the person's advantage and attains a high GPA. Is the GPA mostly what Law School admissions will care about and not so much the courses?</p>
<p>Re: 11: From what I've seen, this boost only matters in students who already have an extremely strong LSAT and a low-mediocre GPA (slightly above the 25th percentile). It can replace, basically, another soft factor. However, I've never seen it work in reverse -- a strong GPA, name-brand school, and low-mediocre LSAT doesn't seem to work in the same way.</p>
<p>Re: 12: I don't know what BerkeleySenior is referring to; from my experience, he's right, but the only evidence I have to support it is anecdotal. I've only ever seen ~6 schools or so get a boost. (HYP, Swarthmore, Williams, Amherst.)</p>
<p>To answer aznmatrix1869's question, the answer is no. Law schools really have no way of gaging accurately the difficulty of one's course selection. Every school is different. Indeed, every professor is different. For instance, when I took an introduction to statistics course my sophomore year, it was very easy for me. I barely showed up and coasted by with an A. The next year, though, a different professor taught it and more or less killed the class. The material he taught was much more advanced, and the amount of homework he assigned was much greater. Moreover, law schools can't just assume that "lower numbered" courses are less difficult. At Williams (my soon to be alma mater...::sigh::), some department's introduction-level courses are harder because they're designed to weed out students not cut out to be majors. Senior seminars, on the other hand, can be quite easy at times. The fact that course difficulty can have so much variance is one of the reasons why law schools rely so heavily on the LSAT.</p>
<p>IMO- I think you'd be terribly naive to think UG school plays no role in Law school admission. We can only go by anecdotal info, unless a Law school admission officer came on board "To tell all". </p>
<p>but I do get my anecdotal info from LSD and LSN and have followed the saga of kids with similar stats to my d with an LSAT range of 166-168.</p>
<p>One very lucky lass with a 166 LSAT and high GPA (3.9) was ecstatic last week when she got her Cornell acceptance.<br>
She was even more ecstatic when her Harvard acceptance came a few days ago. Based on her LSN info (which she has since removed the link), she is not URM but was an Ivy grad (and my guess would be H-Y-P). </p>
<p>No one can say with full certainty- but I am sure that a very few select schools have a bit more wiggle room in the admission process. And I'll agree with Berkley on this (or was it BDM)- it's probably just 5 or 6 schools that get the extra boost. Maybe another 10 schools get a nudge, and the rest are just the rest!!</p>
<p>80 % of an acceptance based on GPA/LSAT sounds plausible for law school admission. </p>
<p>All other factors like UG school, personal statement/application, EC's, diversity, work experience and recommendations probably make up the other 20%. </p>
<p>But why people feel the need to deny that UG school may be a factor in law school admission is a mystery to me. Even if it only plays a 1 % role, that may have been enough to get that Ivy 166 LSAT scorer into Harvard.</p>
<p>Conventional wisdom regarding waitlists is that schools use them to protect their GPA percentiles, so the 3.9 at that point is the most important thing. I know one girl who's received a lot of HLS interest with a 3.9/167/Public college; I'll come back and rescind if she doesn't get an admission over the next week or so.</p>
<p>But fully agreed -- I think it's clear it plays some role.</p>
<p>bdm- you could be right. It may be the very high GPA to bring up the stats was the main reason to take her off the waitlist. But the high GPA from an Ivy got her Harvard acceptance before the high GPA public college applicant.</p>
<p>In the real world- lots of things come into play re: law school admissions. I think I get a bit irked when some people deny that grads from very elite schools don't have a bit of an advantage.</p>