Prestige of undergraduate school?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>Currently a high school senior making decisions as to where I should attend undergraduate school - my two biggest options are Boston University and University of Massachusetts Boston Honors College - BU is far more established as a reputable and prestigious university than UMB - however, I've heard horror stories about the terrible grade deflation at BU and GPA is crucial for law school admissions. </p>

<p>There's no doubt in my mind that I'd be able to excel in my coursework at UMass Boston - plus, being Boston's only public university means that I'll be able to take advantage of UMB's internship opportunities at the JFK Library and Museum, the Massachusetts State House, the Massachusetts State Senate, and eventually the Edward Kennedy Institute relatively easily (not that it couldn't be done at BU - it's just that a very large percentage of MA state politicians happen to be UMB alum and look fondly upon the institution.) </p>

<p>I worry, however, that UMB's poor ranking (it isn't even ranked by USNWR...) will put me at a severe disadvantage at landing a spot at a T-14 law school. </p>

<p>Another thing:
UMB gave me a full scholarship w/books plus additional stipends for summer internship whereas BU would mean around 30k in debt (after my petition) after 4 years. If BU gave me a substantial leg up in law school admissions, I'd be inclined to invest that sort of money; if not I'd just try to maximize borrowing power for grad school. </p>

<p>Thoughts? Is there really a huge difference in name? </p>

<p>Other options that I have as of right now include Brandeis (Scholar Program) and Northeastern... </p>

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<p>You generally have an advantage at a T-14 if you go to an Ivy or Princeton.</p>

<p>I’m thinking that BU doesn’t give you an advantage there, since it’s not a truly relevant school. It’s more of a vague sort of safety school.</p>

<p>I’m basing this on my review of “where your class went to undergrad” about 15 years ago.</p>

<p>Granted, I also went to law school with a GPA of 3.2 from a state school, but my undergrad was engineering. </p>

<p>However, undergrad was free because I refused to pay for undergrad.</p>

<p>I recommend not paying for undergrad.</p>

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<p>@JonLaw - So, UMB is basically my only option if I choose to not pay for undergrad - I’ll graduate without having paid a cent for anything other than minor transportation costs, most of which are subsidized by the school as well, lol.</p>

<p>My question now is less about whether or not BU puts me at an advantage but rather does UMB put me at a considerable disadvantage? If, hypothetically, I were to score at or near a 4.0, accompanied with a 170+ LSAT - would I still have a decent shot at HLS and the sort? </p>

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<p>The general consensus is that HYP(C)SM can give a slight boost to a splitter, but not to the point where a Harvard 3.6 = State School 3.8. The boost that HYP(C)SM can give you is equivalent to about 1 point on the LSAT (it matters, but you’d have to be extremely on the fence).</p>

<p>Here’s some discussion from TLS (TLS is to law school admissions as CC is to undergrad admissions):</p>

<p><a href=“Undergrad Prestige Forum - Top Law Schools”>Undergrad Prestige Forum - Top Law Schools;

<p>What you’ve thought so far is correct. So long as your goal is law school and that won’t change, then go to the school where you will pay the least and get the highest GPA. I’m a high school senior as well (recognize you from the HSL section among others), but roam TLS frequently–so I have some knowledge re: law school admissions. </p>

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<p>It is best that you base your college choice on where you can receive the best education and where you can afford. In truth BU is not considered to be highly prestigious by the usual criteria. Colleges in Mass that place a good number of students to top law schools include Harvard, Williams and Amherst College. This may simply a result of the initial selection of students at these undergraduate colleges. Both Northwestern and Brandeis are highly regarded colleges and are there any reasons that they are not being considered more carefully?</p>

<p>To JoLaw, last I heard, Princeton hasn’t left the Ivy League. </p>

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<p>@padad - Boston University offered the best deal financially - Brandeis would only be <em>as</em> affordable if I was a commuter student - and doing so would mean 2.5+ hour commute there and back, which seems unfeasible. </p>

<p>I understand that UMass Boston is by no means a feeder school to HLS in the way that Williams, Amherst, and Harvard are - but I wanted to know if the odds are stacked against me with UMass Boston on my BA if everything else is up to par (GPA, LSAT primarily). </p>

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<p>BU will not give you a big leg up on LS admissions, assuming a similar GPA.</p>

<p>However, one thing to consider is whether you will change your mind about LS in the next few years…most entering Frosh change their major 2-3 times, so you might not even care about LS four years hence. If that happens, will UMB have the programs that you want to study? </p>

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<p>I have seen no evidence that undergrad name plays any role in law school admissions. Maybe it could have operated as a tie-breaker back when applications were plentiful. Doubtful, but possible. These days however, with law school apps down a third, there is no way schools are picking anything but URMs and LSAT/GPA combos.</p>

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<p>“To JoLaw, last I heard, Princeton hasn’t left the Ivy League.”</p>

<p>I pretty sure that I was thinking “Ivy League w/ a law school.” When I was in law school, I had a step-sister who wanted to go to Princeton Law school. That sentence is a result of what happens when you have had too many “Princeton does not have a law school” conversations. Her life turned out just fine though, she married a doctor and had a high quality wedding. And no, I was not invited.</p>

<p>“I have seen no evidence that undergrad name plays any role in law school admissions.”</p>

<p>Yes, but we’re talking about the T-14, which are still functional even in this environment for admissions. Placement, is degraded, but not admissions.</p>

<p>Generally, they go for “diversity”, meaning they only ever pick one or two people from any particular state school, whereas they will let in 5-10 from Dartmouth, etc.</p>

<p>10% of the Duke Law class is Duke students, etc.</p>

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<p>I’m talking about the T14 too. I have seen no evidence of undergrad name playing a part. The diversity they go for us URM diversity. Yeah, you get overlap between the undergrads and law schools. Of course you would. The same people who wanted to go to area X for undergrad may want to stay in area X for law school. Similarly those who go to the best undergrads are probably pretty bright, and therefore have a decent shot at a good LSAT. Correlation, sure, but causation?</p>

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<p>“I’m talking about the T14 too. I have seen no evidence of undergrad name playing a part. The diversity they go for us URM diversity. Yeah, you get overlap between the undergrads and law schools. Of course you would. The same people who wanted to go to area X for undergrad may want to stay in area X for law school. Similarly those who go to the best undergrads are probably pretty bright, and therefore have a decent shot at a good LSAT. Correlation, sure, but causation?”</p>

<p>Yes, there is URM diversity, but there is also some sort of distribution related to getting lots of people from different schools, where you want to be the highest LSAT at your applying to that particular school to get in. </p>

<p>It’s not like Harvard undergrad, where there is definitely a geographic diversity/quota approach, but it has some sort of influence.</p>

<p>That being said, for the purposes of the poster here, BU is not a true prestige school, so it’s not relevant to this particular issue.</p>

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<p>What is your evidence for saying that undergrad name has “some sort of influence?” Law schools care a lot about USNWR rankings. Those rankings do not account for undergrad names. They do not care if you were the highest LSAT at your particular school. Why would law schools do what you suggest and act against their own interests? Even if they used to do this, which I doubt, what makes you think this practice would continue given the sharp decline in applications and, consequently, the sharp rise in competition for the good GPA/LSATs that USNWR cares about?</p>

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<p>From Duke’s website:</p>

<p>"The students making up the class of 2016 come from 38 different states, five foreign countries, and represent 102 different undergraduate institutions. Their backgrounds include science, teaching, education, entertainment, the arts, politics, public policy, government, business, technology, sports, and non-profit sector work.</p>

<p><a href=“JD Class of 2025 Profile | Duke University School of Law”>http://law.duke.edu/admis/classprofile/&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Median GPA: 3.77
GPA 25/75 percentiles: 3.59/3.84
Median LSAT: 169
LSAT 25/75 percentiles: 165/170"</p>

<p>"<a href=“http://www.lsac.org/officialguide/2013/lsac_5156.asp”>http://www.lsac.org/officialguide/2013/lsac_5156.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Numbers still looking good. About what they were in the early part of the century.</p>

<p>For many of the “102 different undergraduate institutions”, you have 1 student.</p>

<p>Remember, the class size is about 200.</p>

<p>For Dartmouth, Penn, etc., you have 5 - 8.</p>

<p>I suspect that what happens is that you have student A from State School X and student B from Dartmouth. </p>

<p>They have the same scores.</p>

<p>My hypothesis is that if you already have a <em>better</em> student from State School X, you let in Student B from Dartmouth instead.</p>

<p>In order to test my hypothesis, we would need to actually speak to the people making the admission decision, so it’s only my theory.</p>

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<p>We don’t need or even want to speak to the Admission officers. They also tell you nonsense like “letters of rec are important,” and “we look at every part of an app!.” We have lots of good numbers available to take a look at. [url=&lt;a href=“Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers”&gt;Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers]Here[/url</a>] are Duke’s. We’d want to see borderline candidates getting in with a Duke undergrad where their compatriots wouldn’t. Green blips in the yellow band not explained by other factors. I’m not seeing them, but let me know if you do. </p>

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<p>Demo, Graphs as such are meaningles as they represent a small fraction of the number of total apllicants. For example, Duke has close to 5000 applicants in the last cycle, and the graph here has less than a thousand points. Moreover, i suspect the group here is not representative of the total as LSN attracts certain applicants. Because of its priority review policy, the school does attract applicants that would not normally applied. I know someone who applied just to get a sense whether her package can be ultracompetitive at other schools. In her case, she was admitted in 4 days and nominated for the Mordecai and went on to be admitted by others. </p>

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<p>There is no reason to assume that they care about college diversity. There are 3000 colleges, and Duke only accepts several hundred for a class of ~200. First and foremost, its all about the numbers. Now, sure, diversity of geography is nice from a marketing standpoint, but that’s just it: marketing.</p>

<p>The reason that they pick 5-10 from Dartmouth is that Dartmouth undergrad preselects for high test takers. The vast majority of state schools do not. Thus, Dartmouth grads will tend to have more T14 LSAT quality scores while only the tippy top of State school grads will. </p>

<p>And if one wants to be cynical, LS financial aid budgets might even come into play. At many top private undergrads, more than half of students are full pay. Selecting a Dartmouth grad over a State grad with the same numbers is more likely to admit someone who does not need $$ to attend. </p>

<p>Heck, being even more cynical: if you are the Prez reviewing the Adcom’s results, wouldn’t you be more impressed if you were looking at a report that showed that your Adcom just matriculated 20 students from HYPS rather than 20 students, 1 each from a regional state college? (I’m just arguing that they don’t care one whit for college diversity.)</p>

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<p>@padad: A thousand would be way, way more than you needed to establish a decent sample. A better argument is that LSN is not representative. However, I don’t know that (even if it’s not representative) it’s not representative in a way that affects Duke students getting preference at Duke Law. Maybe it skews upwards on numbers but you’d still expect to see otherwise-unexplained blips in the data. The converse proposition, that Duke preference is so low that it doesn’t even appear on the graph, makes it fairly indistinguishable from not existing, which was my point anyways.</p>

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<p>“Heck, being even more cynical: if you are the Prez reviewing the Adcom’s results, wouldn’t you be more impressed if you were looking at a report that showed that your Adcom just matriculated 20 students from HYPS rather than 20 students, 1 each from a regional state college? (I’m just arguing that they don’t care one whit for college diversity.)”</p>

<p>As an aside, I note that Harvard undergrad has geographic quotas built into its admission policy for undergrad.</p>

<p>And Duke law <em>does</em> want people from HYP more than state schools, which is my point. If you have the same scores from HYP and State U, you are more likely to get in if you went to HYP because they want you more if you went to HYP. After they are finished getting what amounts to half class from the Ivy League, they then fill in the class with 1 (or possibly 2) students with similar GPAs/LSATs from the lower ranked schools.</p>

<p>And Duke basically has a hard cap on Duke Undergrad. They essentially take the 20 highest LSAT/GPA’s from Duke undergrad, so you are normally at a disadvantage if you went to Duke undergrad to get into Duke Law. My roommate’s GF with her 164 was dead in the water and both my roomate and I knew it before she even applied (and got rejected).</p>

<p>Duke undergrad is the largest percentage of Duke Law students. 10% (20 students), year after year.</p>

<p>They use the exact same system every year.</p>

<p>And they use their money to buy the LSAT scores they want. </p>

<p>I sold mine to them for a year’s worth of tuition (and still ended up with $120,000 in debt).</p>

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<p>Quotas for undergrad I believe. Students looking for undergrads aren’t tied to the rankings in the way law students are. As for Duke undergrad students being highly represented at Duke Law, why should that be surprising? The same people who wanted to be in North Carolina for undergrad probably want to be there for law school too. There’s an inherent tension in your position: if Duke Law wants the highest LSATs such that they’re willing to pay for them, why would they also want to give extra admissions points to Ivy undergrads? The money tracks the USNWR rankings, and so they pay for the things that achieve that ranking. Why give preference to something that can only hurt them?</p>

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<p>All of those schools (BU, Brandeis, Northeastern, and UMass Boston) have data about where students applied, their GPA and LSAT scores, and where they were admitted, waitlisted, and denied. They also have data about the mean and median GPAs. You’re at the point of signing up for four years of your life and a lot of money (or giving up the opportunity to attend a school like Brandeis or BU). Get that information from them and make a really informed decision based on actual students’ outcomes, not what any of us think might happen.</p>

<p>Depending on how much aid Brandeis offers you, that would be (IMHO) the best option of the four. But if you are dead-set on law school, then try to keep your undergraduate debt load as low as possible. </p>