<p>I believe that information published by these schools is available to anyone with an LSAC membership.</p>
<p>Any LSAC members reading this?</p>
<p>In any event, law schools publish admissions grids that tell what percentage of people with a particular combination of LSAT score and GPA are offered admission. Students (from whatever undergraduate institution) are unlikely to apply to schools where their chances are remote. Berkeley students see the same grids as Ivy League undergraduates.</p>
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[quote]
I think the_prestige finds it hard to believe that applicants from Cal and Michigan have similar admissions rates into top Law schools as Cornell, Georgetown and Penn.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Now who is the one jumping to conclusions? That is absolutely NOT why I initially starting asking questions now.</p>
<p>This list you posted initially:</p>
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[quote]
YALE UNIVERSITY APPLICANTS TO HLS:
Applied: 216
Admitted: 65
Percentage accepted: 30%</p>
<p>PRINCETON UNIVERSITY APPLICANTS TO HLS:
Applied: 123
Admitted: 34
Percentage accepted: 28%</p>
<p>STANFORD UNIVERSITY APPLICANTS TO HLS:
Applied: 155
Admitted: 38
Percentage accepted: 25%</p>
<p>UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN-ANN ARBOR APPLICANTS TO HLS:
Applied: 106
Admitted: 17
Percentage accepted: 16%</p>
<p>UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA-BERKELEY APPLICANTS TO HLS:
Applied: 46
Admitted: 7
Percentage accepted: 15%</p>
<p>CORNELL UNIVERSITY APPLICANTS TO HLS:
Applied: 138
Admitted: 14
Percentage accepted: 10%
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Now the source of these numbers are supposedly "official" numbers. Even at very first glance the one thing that just jumps off the page is the number of CAL applicants to HLS -- it is a painfully obvious outlier -- even to a casual observer. There is no reason that a school roughly as large as UMich (~25,000 undergrads -- give or take) and one of the best if not THE best public university in the US would have an applicant number that is so far off the average in this peer group. It's just off. It makes you raise questions. Cal may not necessarily be "lying" on its website, but come on, let's "keep it real" for a moment -- they post it on there as if it's the big picture -- you have to read the fine print and footnotes and go to this other law related site, over the river, through the woods, pass GO and put together Humpty Dumpty before you realize it's actually "not the big picture". It's intellectually dishonest in my frank opinion -- and that's at best -- at worst? You figure it out.</p>
<p>One of the most important things I learned in university was to QUESTION EVERYTHING. Question the data. Question the sources. What are the underlying motives and why? Who is likely to benefit? What is the spin? Everything and everyone has a bias. You don't have to look very far to prove this. Take a look at the CC community for example. Every poster here has a bias -- some leaning this way, others leaning another way, some have stronger biases, others have a more open perspective. Your job is to figure it out and see if you agree or disagree with this bias. But you can't do that if you don't even know its there in the first place. Question everything.</p>
<p>Alex, perhaps it is your own bias that has you jumping to conclusions about my own conclusions.</p>
<p>the prestige, everyone here has already said that Cal's data may be incomplete, though was quick to add that no one really knows exactly. I believe Alexandar was one of the very first poster to have declared that. So, what's the problem? </p>
<p>Are you suggesting that there were actually many more than 46 Cal grads who applied to HLS but the admitted number remains 7?</p>
<p>the_prestige, questioning is good to an extent. Law schools admissions data coming from a third party seems like a low priority affair. I am not sure what personal motives the LSAC may have in reporting faulty data.</p>
<p>OK I have a question regarding two schools: Brandeis and Wake Forest. Both are ranked highly by USNWR (#28 for WFU and #31 for Brandeis) and seem to be good feeders for Law School. Does anyone have any insight in regards to these two schools and their feeding into the top law programs? Does one school have an edge over the other? Does any particular major have an edge? Thanks!!!</p>
<p>Hmm… anyone have an explanation for Cornell’s weak showing in Harvard Law admissions?</p>
<p>any idea on Wake Forest vs. Brandeis?? I am very confused on where to go and I would love to hear which school would give me a better chance at getting into a premier law school. Thanks!</p>
<p>My son just recieve his Lsat score of 166, a gpa of 3.79 from Brown. Can he get in a top ten law school?</p>
<p>^^check lawschoolnumbers . com and look at their graphs. While the data is self-reported, i.e., not statistically valid, it’ll give you a decent idea of what’s possible.</p>
<p>“At schools like Brown, Dartmouth, Duke, Harvard, Yale and many LACs, I would say the number of undergraduate students interested in Law school is closer to 30%-40%. For this reason, per capita figures aren’t telling.”</p>
<p>I disagree. Maybe that’s the case at Brown. At Harvard, Yale, Dartmouth, Duke, etc., a vast majority of the top pre-law candidates would be lured away by high paying jobs in finance. “Pre-law” and “pre-business” at these schools severely overlap, and a vast majority of the candidates prefer the quicker way to become wealthy: go into to finance & consulting right after graduating from college and never return to school again.</p>
<p>IvyPBear is absolutely correct; a vast majority of grads of schools like Dartmouth and Harvard go after lucrative banking and consulting jobs EVEN if they were premed at the beginning of college and ESPECIALLY if they were pre-law before college.</p>
<p>Duke’s representation at Harvard Law has been steadily decreasing over the years and I suspect that many of the strongest students who would have enrolled are now being lured away the quick wealth offered by Wall Street/MCs, especially now that the visibility of these industries has vastly increased over the past decade ago.</p>
<p>All this data should be taken with a grain of salt since its hard to gauge the serious level of interest in attending law school among student bodies at various universities.</p>
<p>Those who claimed that the population of students in law schooling coming from Brown/Dartmouth is much greater than their counterparts at Michigan/Berkeley is DEAD WRONG. What do all those LSA grads from UM and UCB do after they graduate college? Sure they could go into finance or consulting but most of these students will have no shot at these jobs since the Haas and Ross kids will get all the job offers.</p>
<p>So what are those UMich and UCB English/History/Psychology majors to do? Sure some go to masters programs, but the vast majority will AT LEAST apply to law school, if not enroll there.</p>
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</p>
<p>And a substantial share of those who go into IB and consulting jobs straight out of undergrad end up in JD or MBA programs within 3 or 4 years after joining the workforce. There’s a lot of “churning” of employees in those industries—intense work demands, high stress, long hours, high burnout rate, high washout rate. They hire lots of smart young kids and put them in sink-or-swim situations, expecting most will sink; but that’s OK because there’s always a fresh crop of eager undergrad cannon fodder right behind them. Only a few make it for the long term. Most don’t stay for the long haul, either because they’re told after a few years their careers are going nowhere, or because they decide they can’t endure the work demands. Of course, many will go through the same thing all over again when they join big Wall Street law firms or consulting firms (again) right out of law school or business school; the percentage who survive to make partner or otherwise join the most lucrative ranks of the profession is very small. Most eventually land on their feet, but a lot of those entry-level jobs, while well-paying, are not the rocket ship to riches and financial security they appear to be to cocky undergrads.</p>
<p>bclintonk,</p>
<p>You clearly have no idea how either of these 2 industries work. IB and MC firms select the brightest undergrads from around the country and out them in challenging but rewarding analyst roles that many of them ACTUALLY ENJOY and have terrific exit opportunities. Here are the 3 most common next steps:</p>
<p>1) Most investment banking analysts go into Private Equity/Hedge Funds after their 2-year stint as an analyst and the same applies to associate consultants at top MCs (BCG, Bain, McKinsey, Parthenon, Oliver Wyman, etc.) can move into the PE space quite easily as well. By the time many of are ALREADY making high six figure salaries and are on the fast track to retirement by the age of 40.</p>
<p>2) Some analysts/associate consultants continue working in their IB or MC and move on up to the senior consultant/partner level by their late 20s after their MBAs and start making high six figures as well and their workload SIGNIFICANTLY drops in comparison to their analyst years.</p>
<p>3) Another subset of former analysts/ACs use the powerful/diverse skillset they have built over their past 2-3 years to go get an MBA and become successful entrepreneurs. Countless Fortune 500 executives were former consultants at Bain/BCG/McKinsey.</p>
<p>The crazy thing is you don’t even need to get an MBA in some firms to keep on moving up in the pecking order. At niche consulting firms, you can make Senior VP in your early 30s WITHOUT an MBA as long as you keep developing your analytical skills and performing at the expected level.</p>
<p>You are totally wrong on every level bclintonk. It’s clear you are an accomplished and intelligent philosophy expert, but your knowledge of the current landscape of the business world is quite limited so I would stop giving advice on these matters if I were you.</p>
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</p>
<p>Oh, really? Well, here’s one standard industry profile of the investment banking sector:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Young employees in the IB sector are compensated handsomely and treated ruthlessly. Many quit because of long hours and job stress. Relatively few advance very far. Annual job turnover is close to 20% industry-wide, and higher than that for the younger cohorts. Top graduates of elite schools are sought out for these jobs and some will make it over the long haul, but they’re not coddled once they’re there, and they’re replaceable by a steady stream of new graduates. I don’t think I’m the one who’s naive about these jobs, blue devil. I’m not saying they’re bad jobs. The pay is good, the experience can be great, and most of these people will eventually end up with more stable employment elsewhere; a few will even stick in the IB sector, and a tiny fraction will rise to become stars. But an entry-level job in investment banking or consulting, where much the same dynamics apply, is for many a relatively short-term venture. A large fraction of those who begin will either burn out, or eventually be quietly told their services are no longer needed and they’re being replaced by another eager, fresh-faced Ivy grad. And yes, I do know a lot of these people who have ended up in JD or MBA programs. Most don’t regret the experience, but their days of dewy-eyed naivete in which they imagined themselves rising to become the new “masters of the universe” are behind them.</p>
<p>When I was there the analysts all left after 2 years, most got MBAs, lots of those did not come back into the business after though some did. People did all sorts of things. One I know went to divinity school.</p>
<p>Different now, they don’t automatically jettison analysts, ones they particularly like get asked to stay and made associates. Nephew is there now, reported lots of analysts left, didn’t like the industry, the hours. So doesn’t sound completely dissimilar, in that respect.</p>
<p>The hours never got good. Then there was the travel, many people were away from home more than they were there. There were many divorces.</p>
<p>Many people I started with are out of the industry now, and not by choice either. If you look at a tombstone (offering circular) from the 80s you will see almost all the firms listed are out of business now; each time that happened there were body counts. During twelve years I was in NY the firm went through 4 cycles of layoffs.</p>
<p>“Exit strategies” really depend on what they had you doing there. Lots of what people do there are not really applicable to the rest of the world, and would-be employers will look at you cockeyed when they see your prior compensation. It can be rough when you’re out. And once you’re out you can’t go back in.</p>
<p>Big law isn’t stable either.</p>
<p>Here, from an academic study, is a description of HR practices in the management consulting industry, which makes it clear the high turnover rate among junior employees is part of a deliberate strategy by management. Bottom line, the business model of these firms absolutely requires that most junior people are there only for a short time.</p>
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</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Absolutely right, monydad. The big law firms, especially the big Wall Street firms, use exactly the same highly leveraged strategy. To keep feeding the partners at the top of the pyramid, they need employ relatively large numbers of junior “associates” who get handsome entry-level salaries but are worked ruthlessly. Most will never make partner, because there’s just not that much room at the top of the pyramid. They’ll either burn out, or one day be quietly told they have no future and, if the firm is kind, they’ll get help transitioning to some other, often kinder and gentler (but probably less remunerative) career path, perhaps as in-house counsel at a client corporation or as an attorney at a less high-powered firm. And they’ll be replaced by a new cohort of starry-eyed recent law grads who think they’ve hit the jackpot. That’s just exactly the HR system this article describes as standard practice in the management consulting sector, and the same one that’s used in investment banking…</p>
<p>Friend of mine who graduated from an Ivy League law school refused to be part of this system; said he had no interest in being treated as “spare parts.” That’s perhaps going to an extreme. As I said, most people who do these jobs don’t regret it, and they do gain valuable experience, skills, and contacts. But for most, it’s a relatively short-term gig.</p>
<p>
are you talking about prostitution? :)</p>
<p>Bclintok - just as anecdotal evidence I probably know about 200 people who went into banking or consulting after college. I only know a couple who went to law school afterwards- not a larger percentage.</p>
<p>And where are they now?</p>
<p>I’ll answer that for slipper.</p>
<p>1.) Private Equity
2.) VPs/MDs at the same banks/consulting firms they started at
3.) MBA at a top-notch b school
4.) Upper Management at a Fortune 500 company
5.) Elite law school/PhD program–>academia</p>
<p>What are all those Wisconsin farmers…err students doing now?</p>