Reputation of Undergrad School Does Matter...

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>I found this on a different forum where there was a thread discussing law school admissions. I copied and pasted this with the guy's permission, I spliced two of his posts together to make it a little more concise. </p>

<p>"I was doing a mock admission exercise with the admissions officer of U. Michigan, one of the top schools in the nation, and we went over three real applications.</p>

<p>One had a 3.8, 152 LSAT.
One had a 3.1, 171 LSAT.
One had a 3.7, 171 LSAT.</p>

<p>Only the first two got into the school for varying reasons. </p>

<p>This is relatively verbatim so you can take it as you will, I don't know if the admissions officer was just trying to give us hope or whatever, but this is what she said:</p>

<p>The first applicant had a letter of rec from a former academic advisor that had known him for a very long time, and supposedly there was enough evidence to show that he was simply a bad test taker, but a stellar student. I'm not sure I agreed with the logic - as the Bar Exam is necessary for all lawyers to pass, but whatever...law schools are looking for great law students I guess. The applicant also went to Haverford college, some small liberal arts school, I would think that had a negative bearing on his app but she said it was very reputable...</p>

<p>The second applicant had a lot of work experience out of college, and actually had a 2.6 for his first two years until he transferred schools and started making higher grade averages. He also had a very stellar personal statement and a letter of rec from Ben Affleck (can you believe that ****? it was a real letter from Ben Affleck that had substance...apparently the guy is actually very intelligent, you could tell from how the letter was composed). This leads me to believe that the admissions officer was showing very outrageous cases of admission - I don't think I know anyone within three degrees of familiarity that would get a good letter from Ben Affleck.</p>

<p>And finally, the reject had bad letters of rec, a bad personal statement. The three letters were actually from very good sources, but one of them was from a governor and it didn't say much about him. It seemed like he didn't put much effort into his application process. She said he had all the potential in the world, but didn't show it enough."</p>

<p>I believe the first applicant shows that the reputation of the undergrad school you attended does matter to some extent in law school admissions. The second applicant is just kind of interesting lol. The third applicant shows that law schools are looking for more than just great stats.</p>

2

<p>How do you know that the guy posting this was completely BSing? If this were true, then there could be possible explanations:
1)Either a URM or extremely well-connected. Maybe has a rich uncle that donated a couple million to the school?
2)The 171 is above Michigan's avg. I think the odds for getting in isn't THAT bad. And yes Ben Affleck is intelligent, he went to Harvard.
3)Who knows...</p>

3

<p>Never assume that an applicant's having gone to a small liberal arts school that you've never heard of will necessarily reflect badly on his application. As people who go to such small, elite schools say, those who matter will know. In other words, the greater public doesn't realize the quality of schools like Williams, Amherst, Haverford, or Swarthmore, but the admissions counselors of T14 law schools are well acquainted with such schools. Go to the school representation stats for most T14 schools, and one will notice that students from such schools fare very well (consider, for example, that there are about as many Williams kids at Harvard Law as there are kids from UVA, NYU, or Northwestern, and the latter three are FAR larger schools).</p>

4

<p>Affleck went to Occidental.</p>

5

<p>I think it's a little fishy that someone was doing a "mock admission exercise" with Dean Zearfoss and then posted about it online. I'm a UM law student and it just doesn't seem her style. in general, someone with a 3.7 and a 171 is much more likely to get into a top school than someone with lower grades or test scores. Yes, your recommendations count, but this has very little to do with where you go to school and a lot more to do with what the people say about you in the letters. I know people who went to my small liberal arts college and don't know professors well enough to get good recs, whereas a friend who went to a large state school undergrad got great letters from grad student instructors that helped her land a very competitive job. Admissions officers want good, thoughtful recs from people who know YOU, and whether that's your boss at McDonalds or the grad student who taught your calculus section at Podunk U or the most famous prof at Yale doesn't really matter all that much. </p>

<p>Tonight, we had a recruiting event for admitted students. Among the current students there were people who'd done undergrad at flagship and non-flagship state schools, a very highly regarded science university, liberal arts colleges throughout the US news top 50 (some co-ed, some single-sex), and a variety of other places. The connections you make and the activities you do at your undergrad school matter a ton more than its US news ranking. and of course, your gpa and lsat scores matter even more than that.</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
Affleck went to Occidental.

[/quote]

Ah, you are right! I mistook Ben Affleck for Matt Damon lol</p>

7

<p>Damon went to Harvard, not Occidental (didn't Obama transfered out of this school?).</p>

8

<p>I don't see how you could come to that conclusion. They've been using these examples for years and the point is to make you think your PS/other ECs actually matter when they largely don't. Didn't the Affleck guy go to Arizona or something? When I saw them do this (Penn, UVa and Mich used to send people around the country to different schools with these examples) the rejected girl was from Rice or Williams (I think she had transferred from one to the other) and wrote her PS about shopping or something. I don't know what makes you think this is evidence your UG matters.</p>

9

<p>He's trying to say that the Haverford applicant got in with a weak LSAT score in large part due to the reputation of her school. If she had maintained a 3.8 GPA at a third tier, gotten a professor to write the same recommendation that said that she was a bad test taker, and had gotten a 152 LSAT... she would've been rejected. But, maintaining a 3.8 at Haverford was enough to make up for the low LSAT.</p>

10

<p>"she would've been rejected. But, maintaining a 3.8 at Haverford was enough to make up for the low LSAT."</p>

<p>Riiiiight...</p>

11

<p>Shazilla: he'd be right if:</p>

<p>1.) The admissions officer had treated Haverford as a positive, not as a non-negative.</p>

<p>2.) This had been an actual admissions, not an exercise.</p>

<p>3.) The story made more sense (see post #5).</p>

12

<p>It's not just an exercise; they use actual applicants' materials. If I recall, the one guy knew Affleck because he (the applicant) had been the Green Party candidate for some office in California and Affleck had endorsed him or something. But the fact that one person, years ago, got into Michigan with a 3.8/152 from Haverford doesn't really mean anything.</p>

13

<p>But by definition, unless they're actually admitting or denying students, it's just an exercise.</p>

14

<p>Well, ok, if you want to split hairs.</p>

15

<p>yay for splitting hairs! yay! yay for nonsensical threads...ok, may be not. :)</p>