Ranking For Undergrad With Highest Acceptance Rates To Law School?

College Search & Selection
181

<p>
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At Harvard, there are two law school resident advisors living in every 400-student upperclass House, all of whom are either HLS students or JDs.

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<p>This is precisely what I am talking about.</p>

<p>
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I guess the interesting question would be: do those graduates at the large more diverse universities, that desire and might reasonably achieve top law schools, have advising comparable to that at the more homogeneous colleges, and tailored to their particular objectives.

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</p>

<p>Likely not. So whether its an "unfair" advantage or not, would you not acknowledge that this is a tangible advantage nonetheless for the H Y P S / B / D of the world?</p>

182

<p>It would be an advantage, to be balanced against the disadvantage of self-competition from too many other Uber-candidates from your own college. If it's true.</p>

<p>However, I really don't know if those upper-tier students at the more diverse universities such as : Berkeley, Michigan, Cornell, etc -feel they have inadequate advising and are ill-prepared to apply to top law schools. I have no basis to conclude "likely not". My guess is they are, in fact, adequately advised for this. Given that so many of them, in absolute number, wind up at these law schools.</p>

<p>And whether, even if they exist, these relative advantages/ disadvantages really result in differential results for similarly-qualified applicants from these different schools has yet to be demonstrated.</p>

<p>My own guess is possibly the slightly lower than middling applicants from the very top colleges might have done better if they had gone to a slightly easier college where they would have been considered outstanding. But I could easily be completely wrong.</p>

183

<p>The story doesn't end with what law school you get into, of course. A student with higher standing in a law school ranked a little further down the totem pole will have job prospects equal to students with lower standing from schools a little further up the totem pole.</p>

184

<p>I have found admissions statistics intop N14 Law schools for Georgetown and Penn, so I will add them. </p>

<p>Again, there is no distinction in the acceptance rate into N14 Law schools between elite private universities (like Cornell, Georgetown and Penn) and elite public universities (like Cal and Michigan). It would seem that the claim that elite private universities like Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, Duke, Penn etc... provide a significant advantage over their public counterparts when applying to graduate schools may not be as pronounced as thought. If anything the evidence points to there being virtually no advantage at all. </p>

<p>I welcome admissions statistics into N14 Law schools from Brown, Chicago, Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins and Northwestern, but I doubt they will vary much from those of Cal, Cornell, Georgetown, Michigan and Penn.</p>

<p>Below are the links to each university's application data. Some of the universities even give the average GPA and LSAt scores of the students admitted into each of the N14 programs. </p>

<p>Law</a> School Admission Statistics for Georgetown Students (2007/2006)</p>

<p>Career</a> Services, University of Pennsylvania</p>

<p>College</a> of Literature, Science, and the Arts | Students</p>

<p>Career</a> Center - Profile of Law School Admissions - UC Berkeley</p>

<p><a href="http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Law/PrelawGuide_2008kg.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.career.cornell.edu/downloads/Law/PrelawGuide_2008kg.pdf&lt;/a> (turn to the last page)</p>

<p>Here's a side-by-side comparison in admissions rates between those 5 elite universities (in parentathese, I provide the average GPA and LSAT score of the students admitted into the particular program from the university in question):</p>

<p>YALE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: N/A
Georgetown University: 49 applied, 1 admitted, 2% acceptance rate (N/A)
University of California-Berkeley: 16 applied, 2 admitted, 13% acceptance rate (3.86 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 33 applied, 3 admitted, 9% acceptance rate (N/A)
University of Pennsylvania: 62 applied, 5 admitted, 5% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>HARVARD UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 138 applied, 14 admitted, 10% acceptance rate (3.93 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 114 applied, 14 admitted, 12% acceptance rate (3.83 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 46 applied, 7 admitted, 15% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 104 applied, 17 admitted, 16% acceptance rate (3.92 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 152 applied, 21 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>STANFORD UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: N/A
Georgetown University: 74 applied, 5 admitted, 7% acceptance rate (3.8 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 34 applied, 2 admitted, 6% acceptance rate (3.9 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 54 applied, 6 admitted, 11% acceptance rate (4.0 GPA, 174 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 98 applied, 8 admitted, 8% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 186 applied, 31 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (3.75 GPA, 173 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 142 applied, 33 admitted, 23% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 48 applied, 17 admitted, 35% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 129 applied, 22 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (3.80 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 217 applied, 51 admitted, 23% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>NEW YORK UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 185 applied, 40 admitted, 22% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 171 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 133 applied, 36 admitted, 27% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 172 GPA)
University of California-Berkeley: 44 applied, 16 admitted, 36% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 131 applied, 25 admitted, 19% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 196 applied, 63 admitted, 32% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY LAW SCHOOL
Cornell University: 125 applied, 18 admitted, 14% acceptance rate (3.8 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 101 applied, 9 admitted, 9% acceptance rate (3.82 GPA, 167 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 87 applied, 17 admitted, 20% acceptance rate (3.77 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 109 applied, 12 admitted, 11% acceptance rate (3.9 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 111 applied, 21 admitted, 19% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 98 applied, 23 admitted, 23% acceptance rate (3.67 GPA, 171 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 76 applied, 11 admitted, 14% acceptance rate (3.71 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 35 applied, 13 admitted, 37% acceptance rate (3.74 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 100 applied, 16 admitted, 16% acceptance rate (3.85 GPA, 173 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 96 applied, 34 admitted, 35% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 152 applied, 31 admitted, 20% acceptance rate (3.67 GPA, 169 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 100 applied, 16 admitted, 16% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 26 applied, 5 admitted, 19% acceptance rate (3.76 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 100 applied, 13 admitted, 13% acceptance rate (3.9 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 251 applied, 64 admitted, 25% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 133 applied, 28 admitted, 21% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 168 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 88 applied, 21 admitted, 24% acceptance rate (3.63 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 28 applied, 9 admitted, 32% acceptance rate (3.78 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 324 applied, 91 admitted, 28% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 113 applied, 36 admitted, 32% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: N/A
Georgetown University: 94 applied, 20 admitted, 21% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 167 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 19 applied, 0 admitted, 0% acceptance rate (N/A)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 135 applied, 23 admitted, 17% acceptance rate (3.68 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 104 applied, 31 admitted, 30% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 128 applied, 32 admitted, 25% acceptance rate (3.77 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 101 applied, 22 admitted, 22% acceptance rate (3.61 GPA, 169 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 23 applied, 3 admitted, 13% acceptance rate (3.98 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 95 applied, 25 admitted, 26% acceptance rate (3.79 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 101 applied, 22 admitted, 22% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>CORNELL UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 229 applied, 70 admitted, 31% acceptance rate (3.61 GPA, 166 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 74 applied, 31 admitted, 42% acceptance rate (3.57 GPA, 166 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 22 applied, 4 admitted, 18% acceptance rate (3.67 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 78 applied, 22 admitted, 28% acceptance rate (3.69 GPA, 166 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 87 applied, 29 admitted, 33% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>DUKE UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 147 applied, 50 admitted, 34% acceptance rate (3.73 GPA, 170 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 94 applied, 31 admitted, 33% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 170 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 26 applied, 11 admitted, 42% acceptance rate (3.77 GPA, 172 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 95 applied, 28 admitted, 29% acceptance rate (3.75 GPA, 171 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 120 applied, 40 admitted, 33% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

<p>GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY LAW SCHOOL:
Cornell University: 245 applied, 66 admitted, 27% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 169 LSAT)
Georgetown University: 323 applied, 95 admitted, 29% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 167 LSAT)
University of California-Berkeley: 56 applied, 24 admitted, 43% acceptance rate (3.64 GPA, 164 LSAT)
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor: 194 applied, 39 admitted, 20% acceptance rate (3.72 GPA, 168 LSAT)
University of Pennsylvania: 241 applied, 84 admitted, 35% acceptance rate (N/A)</p>

185

<p>"t's a coin flip. To choose to become a small fish (middle of the pack at CHYMPS) has an unknown outcome."</p>

<p>I agree that you can't know for certain at 18 where you will thrive the most, but that doesn't mean it's a coin flip. A student, his parents, and his teachers can make an informed prediction about what's right for that student. Yes, sometimes they are wrong. But if you choose with care, your odds are pretty good.</p>

186

<p>"The story doesn't end with what law school you get into, of course."</p>

<p>True, but this thread does.</p>

187

<p>I couldn't help but notice the Berkeley applicant admittance disparity between UVA (13%) vs. Duke (42%) ... the n's are similar so it can't be that ... apparently adcoms at UVA must think Berkeley applicants are still too ... Californian :) Chicago, Columbia and Yale seem to (relatively) really like Berkeley applicants as well, but Stanford and Cornell don't ... I get the Stanford thing though, LOL the two have been battling for #1 in Ph.D. peer rankings for about 30 years ongoing.</p>

188

<p>Might it be that UVA, a state school, gives preference to applicants with in-state residence or connection, relatively few of whom attend Berkeley, but Duke, a private school, doesn't?</p>

189

<p>OT... does it bother anyone else here that the words 'what' and 'which' seem to have lost their distinctive meanings and have both melded into a one-form 'what'?</p>

<p>Somebody posted ""The story doesn't end with WHAT law school you get into, of course".</p>

<p>the correct grammar is: "The story doesn't end with WHICH law school you get into, of course".</p>

190

<p>$$father -- how does that explain 26% acceptance of UMich applicants, vs. 12% for Berkeley? I sense a Berkeley bias attributed to the late '60s protests.</p>

191

<p>I hope that wasn't directed to me.</p>

<p>My "handle" is M-O-N-Y dad.
Not $$$.</p>

<p>But if it was: I can't explain anything, did not look at any data, was just a thought that occurred to me based solely on what was posted and no further investigation.</p>

<p>Maybe those particular Berkeley applicants sucked, and those particular U MIch applicants were better. Again, everyone applying from a particular school is not all the same. And you aren't talking about huge samples, there is ample room for statistical deviation, from year to year. If you saw people who seemed very comparable in their whole application, but for college, being disproportionately favored in admissions, over several years, then you'd have a case.</p>

192

<p>Some of the apparent Berkeley anomalies may just be a small N phenomenon. It's striking how small the Berkeley application numbers to any of these law schools are, despite its having the second-largest undergrad student body among this cohort of 5 schools. Only 34 Berkeley undergrads applied to Stanford Law School in this data set; 2 were accepted (6%). If just 2 more had been accepted its acceptance rate would have shot up to 12% which would have put it at the head of the pack. Same with UVA Law School: only 23 Berkeley applicants, 3 accepted (13%); if just 2 more had been accepted, the rate would have jumped to 22%, very much in the ballpark with the other schools. On the other hand Berkeley shows very high acceptance rates to the University of Chicago (35 applied, 13 admitted, 35%) and Duke (26 applied, 11 admitted, 42%) but again on a very small base, so small differences in the absolute numbers of admits could regress those rates towards the mean pretty quickly.</p>

<p>I'm surprised that Berkeley didn't have more applicants to top law schools. Despite its being the second-largest undergrad institution in this cohort, there were only 468 Berkeley applications to all 14 of these law schools. Total applications from each of the other schools ranged from 1462 (from Georgetown) to 1949 (from Penn). You've got to assume the total number of applicants is considerably smaller than the total number of applications because most applicants will apply to multiple law schools. One way to gauge the total number of applicants is to look at how many applications each undergrad school had to the most popular law schools among its own undergrads:</p>

<p>Undergrad school, largest # of apps (law school), 2nd largest # (law school)</p>

<p>Cornell, 245 (Georgetown), 229 (Cornell)
Georgetown, 323 (Georgetown), 142 (Columbia)
Berkeley, 87 (Berkeley), 56 (Georgetown)
Michigan, 324 (Michigan), 194 (Georgetown)
Penn, 251 (Penn), 241 (Georgetown)</p>

<p>Wow! Only 87 Berkeley undegrads applied to UC Berkeley Law School---and that was the MOST popular law school among its own undergrads? Now it may be that some Berkeley undergrads applied to other top law schools but not Berkeley. But the same is also true for the other schools. So it's a safe bet based on these data that there were roughly 3 to 4 times as many applicants to top law schools from each of the other 4 schools in this cohort than there were from Berkeley. Explanation, anyone?</p>

<p>On the other hand, Berkeley had the highest cumulative acceptance rate to all these law schools at 28.6%---though all the other schools were within a few points of that figure. </p>

<p>(Alexandre, thanks for the data; it's most helpful in cutting through the horse manure).</p>

193

<p>It's likely that data for Berkeley is not complete.</p>

<p>Would a better measure be to somehow take these law school admission stats and normalize them for incoming frosh SAT scores 4 years past? Perhaps this would give some indication for how colleges are preparing students.</p>

194

<p>When I went to Berkeley's law school back in the eighties, there were more Berkeley grads in my class than there were graduates of any other school (45, if memory serves). Stanford and UCLA were next, with 40, and 35, respectively. </p>

<p>In view of that fact, and in view of the fact 7.66% of all members of the California Bar have undergraduate degrees from Berkeley, I suspect that the data Berkeley published are incomplete.</p>

<p>The main conclusion I've drawn from the data I've seen on this subject is that graduates of all of these schools are fairly even in their ability to selecting what law schools give them a reasonable chance of admission, given their particular LSAT and GPA combination.</p>

<p>Here's a list of the top twenty-five undergraduate schools represented among the California Bar, with the absolute numbers of graduates, and the percentage of total membership in the California Bar representted by undergraduate degree holders from each institution on the list: State</a> Bar of CA :: Member Demographics</p>

<p>By Undergraduate School
The 25 undergraduate schools with the largest number of graduates admitted to the State Bar of California.</p>

<p>Rank School Population % of Membership
1 Univ of California at Los Angeles; CA 19,066 8.59 %
2 Univ of California Berkeley; Berkeley CA 17,010 7.66 %
3 Univ of Southern Calif; Los Angeles CA 6,843 3.08 %
4 Stanford Univ; Stanford CA 6,823 3.07 %
5 Univ of California Santa Barbara; CA 6,296 2.83 %
6 Univ of California Davis; Davis CA 5,092 2.29 %
7 Univ of California San Diego; La Jolla CA 4,436 2.00 %
8 Univ of California Irvine; Irvine CA 3,683 1.66 %
9 California St Univ Northridge; CA 3,244 1.46 %
10 San Diego State Univ; San Diego CA 3,192 1.44 %
11 California St Univ Long Beach; CA 2,567 1.16 %
12 Harvard Univ; Cambridge MA 2,336 1.05 %
13 Yale Univ; New Haven CT 2,259 1.02 %
14 Santa Clara Univ; Santa Clara CA 2,170 0.98 %
15 Brigham Young Univ; Provo UT 2,067 0.93 %
16 California St Univ Fullerton; CA 2,060 0.93 %
17 Univ of California Santa Cruz; CA 2,060 0.93 %
18 San Francisco State Unv; San Francisco CA 2,005 0.90 %
19 San Jose State Univ; San Jose CA 1,935 0.87 %
20 California St Univ Sacramento; CA 1,881 0.85 %
21 Loyola Marymount Univ; Los Angeles CA 1,737 0.78 %
22 Cornell Univ; Ithaca NY 1,729 0.78 %
23 California St Univ; Los Angeles CA 1,703 0.77 %
24 Univ of California Riverside; CA 1,642 0.74 %
25 Univ of Pennsylvania; Philadelphia PA 1,608 0.72 %</p>

195

<p>couple of thoughts about Cal, one of which I posted earlier. </p>

<p>1) Even tho a large undergrad student body, the high number of Pell Grantees ensures a low number of applicants to top schools since few of those kids will even come close to scoring into the LSAT range needed for T-14.</p>

<p>2) Cal's grad schools in general, including Boalt, are known for not preferring its own undergrads.</p>

<p>Now if we looked at Hasting or Davis, we'd likely find quite a few Cal grads.</p>

196

<p>Interesting that 1.05% of the members of the CA Bar hail from Harvard College, while 3.07% from Stanford. The two undergraduate populations are similar in size.</p>

<p>This confirms several posts addressing regional preferences among college graduates. It appears from this that a Californian college graduate is 3x as likely to become a member of the CA bar as a Massachussetts (place holder for East Coast) college graduate, number of graduates held constant.</p>

197

<p>Only 36.6% of Stanford's undergraduates are from California, so I'd be cautious about making too many extrapolations based on that. (It was about 50% Californians when I went there in the 70's. Many of us from out-of-state did end up settling in California, however.)</p>

<p>I looked for information on undergraduate schools on the web sites for the DC Bar and the New York Bar, and drew a blank.</p>

<p>I thought it was interesting that there are only five schools from outside California on the list - four Ivy League schools, and BYU.</p>

198

<p>Greybeard... I didn't mean to imply that CA high school students are likely to stay in CA (which I think is intuitive), but that CA University graduates are... which in Stanford's case supports my point because most are not from CA, yet seem to be members of the CA Bar in triple proportion to Harvards's undergraduate turned-lawyer.</p>

199

<p>Understood. </p>

<p>I suspect if NY bar info were available, we'd see a similar percentage of Harvard College graduates.</p>

200

<p>


</p>

<p>Well, those figures are available, but again only for Berkeley’s “graduating seniors.”</p>

<p>Law school, Berkeley applicants 2008, admits, admit rate, (median LSAT/ GPA) </p>

<p>UC Davis, 51, 19, 37%, (162/ 3.60)
UC Hastings, 85, 33, 39%, (162/ 3.62)
UCLA, 84, 18, 21%, (168/ 3.74)
UC Berkeley, 87, 17, 20%, (169/ 3.77)</p>