<p>prestige:</p>
<p>one thing that would cause the numbers at a big Uni to be skewed is that, unfortunately, they don't do much hand-holding for grad school applicants. Indeed, one of the big benefits of attending a top-notch private is that they have a whole staff that their assists students in applying for grad schools. Thus, a school like Cal doesn't have access to complete data. They can only track those students who do in fact voluntarily report back.</p>
<p>"However, we can look at the actual numbers of those enrolled. And we do have the WSJ Feeder Ranking."</p>
<p>Those are definitely interesting, but they do not tell the whole story. Actual numbers and feeder ratings talk about popularity, not applicant success. As far as I know, admissions committees at all elite graduate programs respect Cal and Michigan degrees as much as those of any Ivy League. I have never seen any evidence that suggests otherwise. </p>
<p>I do not believe that an individual will improve his/her chances of success by attending a school like Brown or Dartmouth over a school like Cal or Michigan. I do not believe that Brown and Dartmouth are more effective at educating undergrads or preparing for the real world. I do not believe that Brown and Dartmouth offer more opportunities and resources to their undergrads than Cal and Michigan. I also do not believe that a 3.9 student with a 173 LSAT from Brown or Dartmouth will be favored over an applicant with similar statistics from Cal or Michigan based on the insitution they attended. In short, no amount of statistics on Earth can prove that Brown and Dartmouth are better than Cal or Michigan. </p>
<p>But if we could see actual admissions data (percent applied, percent admitted, GPA and LSAT averages of students admitted from Brown and Dartmouth vs Cal and Michigan, we would at least be able to compare apples to apples. Right now, only Michigan offers accurate data. And just so that you know the_prestige, as a public university, any data that Michigan publishes can be audited at any time, so I doubt they "fudged" anything.</p>
<p>The prestige, please don't take this personal. </p>
<p>My concern lies on the fact that you're posting ranking that's useless and flawed. In addition to that, you seem convinced that your flawed ranking is infallible and you're sharing your flawed ranking to other people such as by posting it on here, and trying to convince them that it is veridical despite the fact that your ranking has received many criticisms and corrections. But my biggest issue here is your lack of tolerance to absorb the points made by other posters about the flaws of your ranking. Again, I appeal to you to not take our discussion on a personal level. </p>
<p>
[quote]
First of all, this is a thread about law schools. It isn't a discussion about engineering schools nor is it about the relative merits of state universities in California nor is it about whether some random CS major cares about getting a law degree.
[/quote]
No; you're wrong. This isn't just about law schools. This is about a Ranking For Undergrad With Highest Acceptance Rates To Law School. So, we better make this right. To do that, we have to divide the number of admitted students by the number of applicants. That is the correct and fair way of getting the average passign rate for each school. After all, why include those students who do not want to go to law school, or those students who aren’t involved in law school applications? </p>
<p>What you don't understand (or don't want to understand) is that large state schools such as Cal, UMich, UCLA, and to some extent UVa, operate differently from small private schools such as Brown, Duke and Dartmouth. Large state schools have usually many departments and most if not all of these departments are very large and independent from each other. For example, the College of L&S at Cal is already about the size of the entire Dartmouth or Brown. It's strong emphasis on liberal arts and science makes it an ideal for prelaw or for those students who want to to attend law school. And, surely, it is where the bulk of law aspirants come from based on statistics. Additionally, every department/college at large state schools are managed by deans whose objectives are to promote the teaching and research of their field to the highest standard. If you’re from the college of engineering, for instance, you would never ever think that you would pursue law school because the orientation at your college is not geared towards becoming a lawyer. Aside, from that, Cal eng’g – as most eng’g programs are at any school – is tough and it doesn’t need to be a genius to sense it immediately that Cal eng’g would not be an ideal prelaw. So, in short, the system at large state schools is perplexed and much more complicated than small private schools’. Therefore, to compare this kind of schools to small private schools is not right.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider here is that there are undergrad majors that are said to be common prelaw. These are political science, history, economics, government, humanities, philosophy, and English. These programs dominate the student population at any law school anywhere in the English-speaking world. Therefore, it is not correct to count engineering students as major potential law aspirants.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Here is a simple CC truth: if a thread / discussion exceeds a certain number of posts / pages, you can be sure that the Cal / engineering / science nerds will be coming out of the woodworks to chime in regardless if those views are germane to the discussion at hand.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm here not because of Cal or UMich. (I’m from neither school. I mean, for undergrad I went to Cambridge, UK) I’m here because I found your ranking flawed, and your idea that those schools with very high acceptance rates to HLS in ratio to the whole school population are superior to those schools with fewer number of students represented at HLS is absurd and wrong.</p>
<p>First, I don't ever take things personal on an anonymous internet board. You'd have to actually "know" me to get personal.</p>
<p>Second, your opinion is your opinion, nothing less, nothing more. Same with mine.</p>
<p>Third, I never, ever claimed that my ranking was infallible. I posted a per capita ranking for HLS and YLS a couple of years ago and found it interesting, and I did say that this ranking reflected pretty accurately the views of another much maligned ranking, the Revealed Preferences ranking. That's it. Nothing less, nothing more. Someone else actually brought up that ranking I posted a couple of years ago -- I did not bring it up into this discussion / thread. Further, I challenge you to find a post of mine that even comes remotely close to me ever stating that I believed that the per capita ranking was infallibe. </p>
<p>Good luck with that I will be waiting.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do not believe that Brown and Dartmouth are more effective at educating undergrads or preparing for the real world.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I never claimed that they did. Besides, "effective" is a vague term. I've certainly made the case that one would receive a stronger undergrad focus at a LAC-like university such as Dartmouth and Brown (by sheer number of grad-to-undergrad ratio and class sizes) than you would at a large state university with a full complete of grad schools and research activities. Take for instance Brown where every single professor is REQUIRED to teach at least one undergrad class. Michigan just cannot come close to making such a claim. </p>
<p>Now having said that, whether one takes advantage of that "special focus" or not is up to the individual. I absolutely agree that one can receive just as an "effective" education at Michigan as you would at Brown or Dartmouth and that all three schools do a fine job preparing its students for the real world.</p>
<p>"I never claimed that they did. Besides, "effective" is a vague term. I've certainly made the case that one would receive a stronger undergrad focus at a LAC-like university such as Dartmouth and Brown (by sheer number of grad-to-undergrad ratio and class sizes) than you would at a large state university with a full complete of grad schools and research activities."</p>
<p>That is true the_prestige. And I agree with you on that point. And by that reckoning, there are benefits of equal importance that come with the size of Cal and Michigan that schools like Brown and Dartmouth cannot duplicate. It really boils down to preference. Some students really value knowing that the bulk of their schools' resources are dedicated to undergrads, others would rather have cutting edge faculty and beadth of course sellection at the expense of having an insitution devoted to undergrads.</p>
<p>I never said Cal and Michigan where identical to Brown and Dartmouth. In fact, I never compare those schools because they have nothing in common other than the fact that they are all elite universities. Cal and Michigan's true private peers are Cornell, Northwestern and Penn. </p>
<p>All I am saying is that when you take into account the overall offerings of those 4 universities, you cannot prove that one (or two) of those four universities is (are) superior to the others. I also do not believe, to get back to the original point of this thread, that graduate school admissions committees give preference to Brown and Dartmouth applicants over Cal and Michigan applicants.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Third, I never, ever claimed that my ranking was infallible.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I never said you said that either. I said you're convinced that your ranking is infallible, which is true, because if you think it isn't, then you would have been flexible even by just a bit. But the fact that you don't take other people's comments means my idea about your thoughts of your ranking is correct.</p>
<p>And, the prestige, I've already thrown a lot of questions for you which you've been avoiding to answer. Why is that? Well, I think I have an idea why you've been avoiding my questions. I think you really believe that your ranking is indeed infallible.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I never claimed that they did. Besides, "effective" is a vague term. I've certainly made the case that one would receive a stronger undergrad focus at a LAC-like university such as Dartmouth and Brown (by sheer number of grad-to-undergrad ratio and class sizes) than you would at a large state university with a full complete of grad schools and research activities. Take for instance Brown where every single professor is REQUIRED to teach at least one undergrad class. Michigan just cannot come close to making such a claim.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>But isn't Harvey Mudd College an LAC too just like Williams, Pomona and Amherst are?</p>
<p>you seem utterly fascinated with Harvey Mudd.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Thus, a school like Cal doesn't have access to complete data. They can only track those students who do in fact voluntarily report back.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Is this true? Doesn't the LSAC keep track of numbers and can report to any undergraduate school the application and admit numbers of its students? That was my understanding. Which would mean that good data is not only available to small private schools with staff who are intimately involved in students' application efforts.</p>
<p>the_prestige: your reply to me is just as uncivil as your baseless implied allegation that Cal and Michigan are lying (fudging=lying) in their numbers. Someone should have taught you manners. </p>
<p>Your post made me curious to see why you post with so much hubris. Usually this means the poster is so young that they aren't able to put their limited exposure into perspective, and therefore feel comfortable making general, chest beating proclamations that cause the experienced among us to just ... laugh.</p>
<p>However, it took me all of 60 seconds to find in your prior posts that you seem to be a mid-career person who has had tremendous financial success... can't tell if that is on Wall St, your own business, or a combination of both. At any rate, </p>
<p>your success has numbed you to a perspective that only comes from humility.</p>
<p>
[quote]
you seem utterly fascinated with Harvey Mudd.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You seem utterly unphased by the superior performance of the best LACs =D</p>
<p>"This is about a Ranking For Undergrad With Highest Acceptance Rates To Law School. So, we better make this right. To do that, we have to divide the number of admitted students by the number of applicants. That is the correct and fair way of getting the average passign rate for each school."</p>
<p>Even that won't get it completely right. To determine an actual effect of the undergaduate school itself on the admissions outcome, you need to identify those applicants who are similarly qualified from each of the various colleges, and look at their outcomes.</p>
<p>If less capable students from your university are applying to a particular law school, and they are rejected, that may say nothing about the odds that you, a more capable applicant graduating (with higher credentials) from that same university, will be accepted.</p>
<p>That a liberal arts college like Amherst may produce a higher proportion of future lawyers than an engineering college like MIT is a trivial result, and says nothing in and of itself about whether Amherst is "better" than MIT for any purpose, including law school admissions for a particular individual student interested in same. </p>
<p>Academic interests aside, that a high-quality college with a more uniform group of students may produce a higher proportion of students entering top graduate schools, vs. another top college that is known to have a student body with a wider dispersion of academic capabilities, is also a trivial finding. It does not necessarily follow that if you are a top student attending the college with the more diverse student body you will personally be at any disadvantage in admissions.</p>
<p>"Vanderbilt and WUSTL somehow don't do well. "</p>
<p>My guess is they are victims of regional biases in graduate applications and admissions. They probably are highly reprresented in admssions to the programs in their regions of the country, which are not on the coasts.</p>
<p>Excellent points in posts 133 and 134 monydad.</p>
<p>"Is this true? Doesn't the LSAC keep track of numbers and can report to any undergraduate school the application and admit numbers of its students?"</p>
<p>Yes. In this case, there IS a third-party auditor. This isn't like college applications. There's a central clearinghouse through which all law school applications must pass. LSDAS generates all kinds of data, like the average GPA of LSAT-takers from an undergrad college. There's no way to apply "under the radar" without your college finding out.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Even that won't get it completely right. To determine an actual effect of the undergaduate school itself on the admissions outcome, you need to identify those applicants who are similarly qualified from each of the various colleges, and look at their outcomes.</p>
<p>If less capable students from your university are applying to a particular law school, and they are rejected, that may say nothing about the odds that you, a more capable applicant graduating (with higher credentials) from that same university, will be accepted.</p>
<p>That a liberal arts college like Amherst may produce a higher proportion of future lawyers than an engineering college like MIT is a trivial result, and says nothing in and of itself about whether Amherst is "better" than MIT for any purpose, including law school admissions for a particular individual student interested in same.</p>
<p>Academic interests aside, that a high-quality college with a more uniform group of students may produce a higher proportion of students entering top graduate schools, vs. another top college that is known to have a student body with a wider dispersion of academic capabilities, is also a trivial finding. It does not necessarily follow that if you are a top student attending the college with the more diverse student body you will personally be at any disadvantage in admissions.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I don't disagree that the INDIVIDUAL is what really matters at the end of the day in terms of determining success -- this is true for every stage of one's life / career, etc. A truly bright, motivated individual generally wills his / her way to success. So let's assume that as a given for a moment and take a step back and not lose the forest for the tree.</p>
<p>If one has a strong interest in the math / sciences, isn't that person better off / has a wider breadth of choices / puts himself in a larger surrounding learning environment with like minded students / puts himself at the cutting edge at, say, MIT / Caltech? Now that doesn't necessarily mean that if you DON'T go to MIT / Caltech, that you are destined to become a second tier mathematician - of course not.</p>
<p>Nor does it mean that a particularly bright, particularly motivated student at MIT could not go to a top law school or business school or med school or whatever. Similarly, it does not mean a student at a humanities dominated LAC or LAC-like environment could not go onto become an engineer. </p>
<p>But, see, this misses the point (and frankly no one is really arguing otherwise - at least I am not). It misses the point because if you take the example of the "highly motivated, highly intelligent" student, it proves nothing. You could put that person in a home schooled environment in some random igloo in Alaska, and odds are, that person will end up somehow rising to the top.</p>
<p>So what is the point? You seem to think that the statistics / numbers (such as a high percentage of Amherst / Brown / Dartmouth grads perennially enrolling into Harvard Law School) is a trivial matter. I believe that it's not. But taking the "highly motivated, highly intelligent" student as the example to invalidate or validate either premise is not a compelling one.</p>
<p>You finish by stating:</p>
<p>
[quote]
It does not necessarily follow that if you are a top student attending the college with the more diverse student body you will personally be at any disadvantage in admissions.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Again, stripping away the "top student" argument for a moment, I do believe that you increase your odds of attending a top 3 law school if you happen to be going to school at an undergrad program that perennially sends a high percentage of students to those law schools in question. </p>
<p>for more detailed explanation, i reiterate the points in my initial response to your earlier post:
<a href="http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061948714-post68.html%5B/url%5D">http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/1061948714-post68.html</a></p>
<p>
[quote]
Again, stripping away the "top student" argument for a moment, I do believe that you increase your odds of attending a top 3 law school if you happen to be going to school at an undergrad program that perennially sends a high percentage of students to those law schools in question.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Well, I didn't question that part. Like you, I also think that the undergrad institution that you went to has a significant role (or maybe less significant but still has a role) in molding you and making you a highly able candidate to get into any top law school. I believe some schools are more particularly concern about sending their undergrad students to top professional and postgrad schools than the others. I think Williams, Amherst, Pomona, Dartmouth, Brown, Duke and the like are the exact examples of that kind of schools. </p>
<p>I also do not disagree with you when you said that B,D,D would better prepare you to get into HLS vs Cal and the like. I would question however when someone will make a claim that BDD better prepare their students at law schools. </p>
<p>The main issues I have with your assertions are two things:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I do not believe that those schools that send more students to top law schools are generally superior schools in terms of academic quality/standard. I cited Caltech, MIT, Mudd and Berkeley engineering which are all great institutions but don't send many students to any top law school.</p></li>
<li><p>I do not believe, as well as I found it stupid and insane... to rank schools in terms of better feeder schools to top law schools (particularly HLS) using the whole student population as a base, for the simple reason that not all schools function the same. </p></li>
</ol>
<p>Some schools are large and function more as per department rather than as a whole single unit. Each of these departments is focused on its major field of interest. Most of this kind of schools are researched-based. Cal, UMich and UCLA are the best examples of this type of school. </p>
<p>Some schools are specialized such as Mudd, MIT, Caltech and GeorgiaTech which are engineering, comsci and science focused. Most students at these schools would rather pursue their field of studies or proceed to business schools (if they still wish to study) than get into law schools. </p>
<p>There are med and paramedical focused schools too. JHU comes to mind as med school focused than a prelaw focused. </p>
<p>And some schools are liberal arts which offer prelaw courses and guide students better than the others when it comes to assessing their students to get into top law schools. Amherst, Williams, Brown, Dartmouth and Duke are good examples of this kind of schools. These schools maybe sending more students to top law schools in ratio to their entire student bodies, but they're not necessarily superior schools in terms of academic quality/standards than those that send less.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I do not believe that those schools that send more students to top law schools are generally superior schools in terms of academic quality.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Note that I have never said that those schools are superior in terms of academic quality.</p>
<p>^ Yes, you never said that verbatim, but you've implied that on almost all of your posts.</p>