T12, T13, T14… seems to bandied about a lot on the sites that Demosthenes49 traffics in, but I also saw it used early on by the Above the Law blog. I think it came about because rankings change every year and the USNWR rankings often have three or four schools “tie” for 10th, thus there are more than ten Top 10 schools. This is fine as far as it goes, but then when the pseudo-scientific crowds tries to draw data-driven conclusions based on the T12 or T14 term, i.e., “you need to get xxx on the LSAT to get into a T14 school” or “BigLaw hires 90% of their summer associates from T14” that’s when it becomes nonsense. It leads people to draw conclusions from data sets that change over time to meet their conclusions. (And I won’t even get into the additional problem that “BigLaw” is also a completely malleable concept as well.)
It’s my understanding that what is described as “T14” includes all schools ever ranked in the USNWR top 10. Depending on year to year rankings, that’s a number that can always grow.
And it seems to me also that law schools would give credit for the relative nature of difficulty of a major and the relative reputation of a college. However, I’d note that the law schools mentioned as T14 also seem to take pride in the number of different undergraduate colleges from which applicants were admitted.
So I’d say that a bunch of factors are in play, including astonishing GPA/LSAT numbers and interesting life experiences(broadly defined-Yale notes it accepted an eggplant enthusiast; your guess is as good as mine as to what that means).
I’ll stick with the idea that really impressive people get accepted at the top schools.
@spayurpets: There’s no causation mistake here. That’s very easy to control for. You simply need a data set where one factor varies among a population. Spend some time on LST looking at numbers (e.g., [here[/url] is last year’s UPenn admissions). If there were other, important factors, you’d expect to see people with low numbers nevertheless gaining admission based on those factors. The only time you see that, however, is for URMs.
As I mentioned above, another easy way to tell what law schools care about is to see what they pay for. If law schools really did care about amazing softs, you would expect them to offer scholarships to attract those students. Instead, scholarship money goes directly to the students with the best numbers.
You also have the problem of answering why law schools would care about softs (or, to HappyAlumnus, undergrad name). Law schools are well aware that consumers are totally rankings-driven. Rankings depend primarily on GPA/LSAT (and more recently, employment stats). Why would schools trade for things that consumers don’t care about in exchange for something they do? Obviously there’s some marketing potential in extolling how well-rounded your students are, but any student body of sufficient size will come with plenty of that (especially when it comes to law students, who tend to be overachievers).
I think maybe the root of your mistake is in your conception of how much competition there is. There are not thousands of 173 LSAT scores. A 173 is the [url=<a href=“http://www.cambridgelsat.com/resources/data/lsat-percentiles-table/%5D98.9th”>http://www.cambridgelsat.com/resources/data/lsat-percentiles-table/]98.9th percentile](Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers). There were [url=<a href=“http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/lsats-administered%5D21,803%5B/url”>http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/lsats-administered]21,803[/url] tests administered in June 2014. That means 240 people got a 173 or better. Just for reference, Harvard’s class size alone is more than [url=<a href=“http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/apply/classprofile.html%5Dtwice%5B/url”>http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/apply/classprofile.html]twice[/url] that. Add to that your assumption that they have 3.9s, and you cut that that population in half (at the very least). Competition for students with those scores is fierce. Schools can’t afford to care about anything besides the numbers because good numbers are so scarce.
The term “T14” came about because the same 14 schools have stayed in the top 14 places since USNWR began ranking them. The T14 have moved within the top 14, and every so often UT or UCLA will tie for 14th, but the T14 remain in those spaces. As it happens, employment figures drop significantly upon leaving the T14, so it’s a doubly useful term.
Perhaps you can explain something to me though, as I am a bit confused. For all your claims that my data doesn’t count, you haven’t actually elucidated any particular issues with it. I tend to avoid disregarding data based on the fiat of internet people, so do you have anything substantive supporting your claims? This is the same problem HappyAlumnus has. He talks a lot about what law schools allegedly care about, but when it comes time to demonstrate he is singularly silent. I am curious whether you fall into the same pattern.
For example, how is it “nonsense” to say that BigLaw hires [url=<a href=“http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/02/nlj-law-school.html%5Ddifferentially%5B/url”>http://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blog/2014/02/nlj-law-school.html]differentially[/url] from different schools, particularly the T14? That is clearly reflected in all the data I’ve seen (and what I’ve just linked). Do you have any hiring statistics showing otherwise, or is this just another “trust me, I’m a lawyer”?
Not so, Demosthenes.
I’ve specifically stated why law schools care about undergrad name:
- A prominent undergrad school name helps law students do well in law firm hiring (which benefits law schools, which want good placement statistics, which also count in US News rankings). Studies confirm that the second most important factor in law firm on-campus hiring is prestige of one's undergraduate institution. (It's in the Harvard Law Record from the '90s.)
- It can be used as a proxy for intelligence. Someone with a prominent undergrad name and degree on a law school application (such as a B.S. from Columbia or MIT) is likely intelligent. Someone with a B.A. in basetweaving from No-Name U. might or might not be intelligent.
I see that Spayurpets, like me, is curious as to why you refuse to share anything much about your background that is relevant for discussions of law schools and the legal hiring market. As I’ve stated before: if you have been through a top law school and top law firm hiring in real life, you should be willing to provide evidence. Otherwise, your posts could be made by a 16 year old or by a 62-year old millworker who just likes researching Internet data.
While I do think the statistically based analysis offered by Demo doesn’t tell the whole story-I too think that major/school/other non-statistical factors play a role in admissions-he does supply numbers to support his thesis.
So how would his personal story make any difference? I know next to nothing about you or any of the other posters here, other than the oblique information occasionally provided. Some posters will say they went to a “top school” and worked at “big law”; without from where and when they graduated, it’s not much help, and what do they mean by “big law” or “corporate counsel” or “boutique law” if they never provide the names of the firms/corporations? Nobody here supplies much information, and even if they reveal they went to HLS, nobody ever says when the graduated, what their class rank was, or anything even vaguely specific-and it makes a difference, even at the top schools, when you graduated and what your class rank was. Nobody ever reveals where they practice in the US. Nobody reveals their actual salary. Very few reveal where they practice. For a while several posters kept suggesting that new graduates go to “legally underserved” areas. I never did agree with this advice, as it’s my opinion that any area that calls itself “legally underserved” is underserved because the area can’t support a lawyer-period. Am I right? My life experience tells me yes-but you may not agree. Your life experience may be totally different.
The reality is that we end up swapping anecdotes and opinions. For example, it’s routinely stated here that DA’s office will take undergraduates as interns. I’ve worked in a DA’s office-the only "intern’ we had who was an undergraduate was the DA’s nephew, and he worked as an administrative aide(delivering mail/answering phones, etc). That’s it; we never had any others, ever, as there were too many law students also willing to work for free to bring in any undergraduates. Because of this experience, I find it grating when I read that government law offices welcome undergraduate interns. But maybe there are DA’s offices who bring in undergraduates.
And maybe you too have worked in government for years and have knowledge of dozens of undergrads working as interns in your office. A geographic issue? Just different offices/DAs? In any case, what’s the difference-other than you and I having very different experiences in the same sort of legal work?
So I read the statistical information and always think of Mark Twain’s quote about statistics. That said, if the numbers support the argument, then I guess they are valid, statistically anyway.
So I’ll always believe that the top schools do look for students with amazing numbers and some interesting other stuff, too. Why else would they bother to post it on their websites? Again, it may just be that people with amazing numbers are all around amazing people.
But it’s an anonymous internet board; if Demo appears in ten minutes and let’s us know that he went to YLS and graduated first in his class, was a SCOTUS clerk and is now a partner at X, X, and X firm making seven figures, what difference would it make? The weight given to any of the arguments presented here is based on how well supported they are. And I’ll be the first to admit that my suggestions are based primarily on my life experience practicing law.
Hi crankyoldman:
I graduated from HLS in the '90s and was in the middle of the class. I have no problem sharing that. Dean Clark was dean, Langdell han’t been renovated when I arrived, Loker Commons in Memorial Hall was new, etc. The good old days!
Demosthenes’ numbers certainly don’t tell the whole story, and they are certainly 100% not supportive of his or her thesis. To the contrary, they support mine: that there is a range of GPA/LSAT scores that is “acceptable” for getting into a top-10 law school, and within that range, “soft” factors will result in an admissions decision one way or the other.
If all that mattered was the GPA/LSAT information of an applicant, then everyone meeting a law school’s GPA/LSAT cutoff for a law school would get in, and everyone who didn’t wouldn’t get in. The numbers, however, show that people above an alleged cutoff don’t get in, but those below do. The numbers even show that there is no clear cutoff.
Demostehenes’ background (and lack of detail about background) goes to credibility. If Demosthenes turns out to be a YLS SCOTUS clerk who is a partner at Davis Polk and worked in YLS admissions during law school, then I’d certainly be inclined to hush up. If Demosthenes turns out to be a millworker who just loves law school admissions data and is just bitter about never having gone to law school–which is what I assume he or she is until he or she shows otherwise–than his or her posts should be taken in the context of the source.
Would anyone pay any attention to a legal scholar who never attended law school? No. Would anyone pay lots of attention to a legal scholar who was a SCOTUS clerk and who teaches at Yale? Yes.
Yes, but you’ve not really shared anything-nor should you. What does “mid-90s” mean? What does “middle of the class” mean?" I have no idea where you work or what you make or what your “softs” were that made you a candidate for admission to HLS. Everyone here takes great pains to preserve his/her anonymity. And if Demo appears and states-anonymously, of course, as s/he’ d still be “Demosthenes,” all the credentials stated above-would you abandon your opinion and suddenly agree?
And you’re a “Happy Alumnus” of what? Law school? Undergraduate? Both? I will certify that I am both cranky and an old man-but is that correct? Could I be a barista borrowing free Wi-Fi and offering opinions on careers ranging from physicist to carpenter? Absolutely!
And I didn’t attend HLS, but do agree that it’s not just numbers to get into these top schools. These are people with interesting lives in addition to their academic achievements. I will never be convinced that numbers alone make the admissions decision.
So while I agree with your analysis, I think you expect too much. Demo’s background is pretty much irrelevant to his arguments, as neither he nor I have ever sat on a law school admissions committee. OK, I know that I haven’t.
crankyoldman- look at Biglaw Lawyer’s thread; I’ve posted my employment history there.
I’m a Happy Alumnus of law school. I hated undergrad.
If Demosthenes turns out to be a graduate of a US News top-10 law school, with an employment history in Biglaw, then I’ll consider his or her posts as coming from someone who is intelligent and with experience in the area, and thus entitled to careful consideration. (I wouldn’t necessarily agree with them, since as well-educated lawyers, we don’t just blindly accept anyone’s view on anything.) Otherwise I’ll largely ignore them.
crankyoldman, you mention possibly being a barista. To turn your argument around: if this thread were about coffee, I’d certainly give your posts about coffee much more weight if you actually were a barista than if you were just someone who looked on the Internet about coffee and came up with arguments that you found. Same goes for Demosthenes’ posts: his or her background is certainly relevant.
For your other points: I think that you can figure out what mid-90s and “middle of the class” mean.
Also, for further details: you don’t have to sit on a law school admissions committee to know whether or not GPA and test scores are the only things that matter, although it would be extremely helpful to have done so. Studying at law school and hearing your classmates mention their LSAT scores and knowing their backgrounds will give plenty of personal examples that destroy the claim that meeting a LSAT/GPA cutoff will result in admission, but not meeting it will result in rejection. Those kinds of personal experiences add color to the raw data that one can find on the Internet and help show the full picture, above and beyond what some Internet exploring of law school admissions information will show.
I’m not asking for Demosthenes to post his or her name or anything; Demosthenes just refuses to provide any non-identifying information to show that he or she has a relevant background for discussions about top-10 law schools and Biglaw.
Ok, you totally lost me with the last two posts. This is an utterly anonymous forum, where there is no way to verify what person says about him or herself-and everybody, including you(why not list your year of graduation and actual class rank?) wants to remain anonymous. So what Demo says about him or herself is irrelevant-especially per his/her analysis, which is statistically driven. So I’ll concede the discussion to you, as I don’t understand how Demosthenes(I’m guessing that’s not his or her real name) stating s/he has amazing(yet unverified and unverifiable) credentials would in any way add or subtract from what s/he’s saying.
Does this matter really? This is after all an anonymous forum.
I am a lurker in this forum and I am not a lawyer. I have tons of friends and relatives who are lawyers.
Assuming that Demosthenes is a top law school grad and Happy Alumnus is a HLS grad, is this information verifiable? Is the opinion Happy Alumnus more credible than Desmosthenes?
Having read these forums for over 10 years, I take everything with a grain of salt.
If you make a premise, back it up with facts, not with (unverified) credentials.
I think there is a critical word missing from this sentence: you’ve specifically stated why law schools might care about undergrad name. I agree with you that undergrad name is a plausible factor in the admissions process (though not a particularly good one). It just doesn’t appear to be one they actually use. That’s why I want some data to back that up. For example, students with poor GPA/LSAT (25 percentile for the school) but who went to fantastic undergrad institutions nevertheless being admitted regularly. That would be very compelling.
Demosthenes, with your emphasis on Internet data, surely you can go to law school websites and see lists of undergraduate institutions of current students. You can surely combine that with your own personal experience at a top-10 law school–which surely you have, right?-- or even just looking at your law school yearbook–which surely you have, right?-- and see that students at top-10 law schools come disproportionately from Ivies and comparable schools (e.g., Amherst, Duke, Chicago, Stanford, etc.); while a current student list can list a huge range of institutions, ranging from No-Name University X to Yale, the no-name universities have just one student or so at the law school, while Princeton will have dozens.
So, the data are clear: students at top law schools come disproportionately from highly-ranked colleges. But does going to a highly-ranked college make it easier to get into law school?
Yes. Personal experience shows that students from highly-ranked colleges often have a “edge” in admissions. The data to back up this claim would be available in admissions offices, but some of it leaks out within the law school.
If you actually went to a top-10 law school–which you did, right?-- you’d know your classmates, where they went to undergrad and, for the ones who loved to talk about themselves, how they did on the LSAT.
From my own personal experience at HLS–which you have, too, right?–I know of several classmates who went to Harvard College who got only a 165 on the LSAT but who got into HLS. One had a very compelling personal story of adversity. Neither was an URM. You have that personal experience and knowledge of your own classmates, don’t you? Don’t you?
Even if a name of a fancy college per se doesn’t open an admissions door, the peer pressure to succeed, and the institutional support, at a fancy college can help better-prepare a student for admission to a top law school, based on my own experience, which I am sure can be backed up by Internet data.
crankyoldman: anyone who claims to know a ton of things about a subject also needs personal experience with the subject to be a compelling proponent about the subject. Who would you trust in a discussion of football: someone who just watches the NFL on TV or an experienced NFL athlete? That’s the issue here.
And if you want Internet data, look at the last page:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/law-school/8786-harvard-yale-law-gpa-lsats-p19.html
This completely backs up my position:
- Going to a first-rate college gives you a slight edge in law school admissions.
- While GPAs/LSAT scores are extremely important, there is a range that could result in admission, and meeting a GPA/LSAT cutoff alone is not determinative of admission or rejection.
In short: it’s not true that having a GPA and LSAT score above a law school’s alleged “cutoff” will automatically get you in, and failing to get those numbers will automatically get you rejected. Undergrad college name and other factors also play a role, however small.
First, we’ve all got wayyy too much time on a Saturday but…
Ok, I’ll bite-it’s your theory that personal anecdotal evidence from HLS in the mid-90s(no specific date supplied) would inform decision making today? And that only someone who attended HLS over 20 years ago is a suitable source of information today?
And regarding expertise: Earl Weaver was one of the sharpest major league baseball managers ever; he never played a minute in MLB. Neither Bill Bellichik nor Pete Carroll played a minute in the NFL-so are they unqualified to render an opinion about who makes an NFL team? Or who should play? Or who should even be on the squad?
crankyoldman, my views should certainly be discounted to reflect my status with HLS. However, my posts aren’t just “personal anecdotal evidence from HLS in the mid-90s”; they’re (1) current data plus (2) personal experiences (which are somewhat current, as I go to alumni events and hear the school talk about current admissions practices, and meet current students who talk about them). Demosthenes’ posts are just (1) Internet data but not (2). You need both (1) and (2) to paint a whole picture.
@HappyAlumnus
That’s what mystifies me, too, if it were GPA and LSAT only why would the Ivies have 20% of the Yale class? Does @Demosthenes49 believe that this is because there is rampant grade inflation at the Ivies, because that would be only thing to explain what’s going on. And that’s why the scattergrams demos refers us to every time he writes seem very suspect to me. There’s something missing there.
Maybe even more skewed than I thought at least at Yale. Yale Daily News reported 4 years ago that a first year studied her facebook and found that 25% of YLS class came from Harvard or Yale, and 50% from an Ivy or Stanford. How does that square with the theory that undergrad institution doesn’t matter at all?
http://yaledailynews.com/blog/2011/04/18/up-close-tracing-the-elite-law-cycle/
A bit more research yielded this too. From YLS Bulletin, which is official. It confirms that roughly half of Yale’s enrollment comes from Ivies or Stanford. 291 out of roughly 600 person enrollment. I don’t see how based on this information that you can conclude that what undergrad institution you attended is irrelevant to law school admissions, unless you posit that these elite schools inflate their grades more than other schools.
http://www.yale.edu/printer/bulletin/htmlfiles/law/law-school-students.html
Harvard Law is similar, according to this list of 3 year enrollment from ten years ago. That’s 733 out of an enrollment of approximately 1650 or 44.4%.