Top Feeder Schools to Yale Law and Virginia Law

College Search & Selection
1

<p>YLS Enrollment (2011-12)
<a href="http://www.yale.edu/printer/bulletin/pdffiles/law.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.yale.edu/printer/bulletin/pdffiles/law.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<ol>
<li>Yale: 86</li>
<li>Harvard: 80</li>
<li>Princeton: 39</li>
<li>Stanford: 34</li>
<li>Brown: 22</li>
<li>Penn: 21</li>
<li>Duke: 17</li>
<li>Columbia: 15</li>
<li>Dartmouth: 14</li>
<li>Cal Berkeley: 14</li>
<li>Chicago: 13</li>
<li>Cornell: 13
11, NYU: 13</li>
<li>University of Michigan: 12</li>
<li>Wesleyan: 10</li>
</ol>

<p>Georgetown (huge surprise), Emory, Vanderbilt, CMU, JHU, Rice, Notre Dame, and USC all had less than 5 students represented at YLS. State schools did pretty well with UVA and UNC represented with 9 and 7 students a piece.</p>

<p>The real winners here are the LACs, who even with their significantly smaller class sizes, were still represented at YLS in high single digits or 10 in the case of Wesleyan. Swarthmore had 8, Williams had 6 and Amherst had 5 students listed.</p>

<p>** Virginia Law Total Enrollment (2011-12)**
Class</a> of 2015 Profile</p>

<p>Represented as Top Feeder Schools in all of the Past Three Classes
1. UVA: 92
2. William & Mary: 38
3. Duke: 31
3. Brigham Young University (BYU): 31
5. University of Florida: 24
6. UNC-Chapel Hill: 22
7. University of Georgia: 19</p>

<p>Represented as Top Feeder Schools in at least Two of the Current Classes
8. Vanderbilt: at least 16
9. University of Texas: at least 13
9. Princeton: at least 13
11. UCLA: at least 12
11. Georgetown: at least 12
13. University of Maryland: at least 11
13. GWU: at least 11
13. Virginia Tech: at least 11
16. University of Michigan: at least 9
16. Cal Berkeley: at least 9</p>

<p>Wow, I'm shocked at how regional the representation is at UVA Law! I guess those HYS graduates aren't that interested in going there? Outside of Yale and possibly Stanford, these results show that it doesn't really matter where you get your undergraduate degree.</p>

2

<p>^Northwestern got 9 at YLS and I think it’s a decent number, considering only half of the student body (~4,500) is in the college of arts and sciences. People in the other five specialty schools are significantly less likely to apply for LS and when some of them do apply, their majors are probably looked upon less favorably by the top LS admission such as YLS’.</p>

<p>That said, I think once you go beyond HYPS, the difference becomes less clear among the peer schools. Even for HYPS, a lot has to do with the fact that they got the best freshmen classes to begin with each year. </p>

<p>The BYU number is interesting. It seems like Virginia LS is much more impressed with the 2-yr Mormon mission than Yale LS. In any case, UVA LS numbers seem very much driven by proximity.</p>

3

<p>How many students applied from each of these schools?
Without knowing that, it’s hard to interpret the significance of these numbers …
and even then, you’d really want to know their average LSAT scores and GPAs.</p>

4

<p>RE: tk21769</p>

<p><a href=“http://ucs.yalecollege.yale.edu/sites/default/files/Law_School_Application_Statistics.pdf[/url]”>http://ucs.yalecollege.yale.edu/sites/default/files/Law_School_Application_Statistics.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Yale College alumni enjoy an overall success rate of 25-30 percent in applying to YHS, the premiere law schools.</p>

<p>RE: goldenboy8784</p>

<p>HYS alums realize that UVA costs $275,000+ and three years of one’s life, and that its graduates’ prospects don’t merit such extreme risk.</p>

5

<p>Yikes, adding the UG costs and you are above 500,000 dollars. Adding the costs of a prestigious K-12, and the number hovers around a cool million.</p>

<p>Prestige is getting expensive! :)</p>

6

<p>kwu, you do realize that the majority of HYS undergraduates aren’t good enough to get into HYS for law school right? They will have to “settle” for other T14 law schools like UVA whether they like it or not if they want a shot at a six figure career. If they couldn’t get into HYS for law school, I doubt the HYS undergraduates that we are talking about would get offers from MBB Consulting or GS/MS/JPM Investment Banking since those options are similarily selective.</p>

<p>At least UVA Law still gets recruited plenty for major law firms that will pay freshly minted Associates upwards of $150,000, albeit they have a lesser shot than if they went to a T6 law school.</p>

7

<p>For UVA it matter where you live more than where you got your undergrad degree. UVA take 30% of its class from state residents and the competition is not near as fierce as for nonresidents. UVA, W&M, and VaTech are top feeders owing to their resident applicants more so than the magic of their brand.</p>

8

<p>I’m always curious what people think the usefulness of such lists will be. Are they thinking the “feeder” schools have some magic that prepares kids better than elsewhere? </p>

<p>I see these lists as little more than a curiosity. Kids that are ambitious enough to select and be admitted to a top LAC will do well 4 years later when applying to a top law program. But they would have been just as successful in law admissions had they gone to State.</p>

9

<p>

</p>

<p>Yes, a rigorous, competitive education that prepares one to think critically and creatively, and a distinctive social experience that prepares one to mingle comfortably among the highest strata of society.</p>

10

<p>That’s good data, linked in #4 above, for Yale College.
Now we just need similar data for all 67 other undergraduate institutions that “feed” students into YLS. Only then can we begin to compare admit rates for students with similar GPAs and scores. </p>

<p>Presumably the admission people know what they’re doing, so students from all 68 feeders arrive prepared.</p>

11

<p>

</p>

<p>Oh, they know what they’re doing, alright. It’s pretty well documented that, except at Yale and Stanford, what the law school admissions people do is straightforward. If your GPA and LSAT are both above their target figure for this year’s median, you’re probably in. If your GPA and LSAT are both below their targets, you’re definitely out. If your LSAT is above and your GPA is below their target, or vice versa, then it’s pretty much a crapshoot, because at that level they need to pair applicants to keep both medians in balance; whether you get in is going to depend a lot on dumb luck and the school’s overall admit rate. They don’t care where you went for undergrad. It’s purely by the numbers, because the US News rankings have an even tighter stranglehold on law schools than on undergraduate colleges. (If you don’t believe me, ask anyone who works in a law school; I have a number of close friends who do, and they all say the same thing).</p>

<p>It’s different at YLS and SLS because they get tons of the best qualified applicants and they have small classes to fill, so they can be more choosy. But even Harvard Law School, with a class roughly 3 times the size of Yale or Stanford, is reputedly almost entirely numbers-driven at this point.</p>

<p>There are two reasons Harvard and Yale place so many of their grads in top law schools. First, most of the people who do extremely well on the LSAT also did extremely well on the SAT; so the undergrad student body at a Harvard or a Yale, composed almost entirely of top SAT scorers, is going to produce a large number of top LSAT scorers (though even at Harvard and Yale, most LSAT-takers don’t get scores that are strong enough to get into top law schools). Second, grade inflation at schools like Harvard and Yale means a lot of students are going to graduate with high GPAs. Not everyone will have a high GPA, of course. Latest figures I’ve seen for Harvard and Yale show an average GPA around 3.5, as compared to about 3.3 at Princeton, notorious for grade deflation. Now a 3.5 from Harvard or Yale won’t get you into a top law school, unless it comes with a LSAT score above 175 or so, i.e., in the extremely high range; but even then, you’re probably not looking at YHS, more likely a law school in the #8 to #15 range. But the applicant with a 3.9 from Podunk State is generally going to do better in the law school admissions game than the 3.5 from Harvard, other things (especially LSAT scores) equal.</p>

<p>There’s no evidence that there’s any value added to attending a prestigious undergraduate institution when it comes to law school admissions, unless it’s actually easier to get good grades at such a school, which many people dispute. Once upon a time it was different; law schools were clubbier places, law school admissions was more “holistic,” the Ivies clearly favored their own, and law school admissions officers at non-Ivy law schools were impressed by that shiny nameplate. No more; those days are long gone.</p>

<p>That’s not to denigrate the quality of undergraduate education at Harvard or Yale, and there are lots of good reasons to get a good undergraduate education. But the notion that the quality of your undergraduate education or the prestige of the brand will get you into a top law school is not one of them.</p>

12

<p>Jeez Yale College places well. Those numbers are crazy.</p>

13

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14

<p>This only reinforces my previews belief that Berkeley undergrad is on par with the “lower Ivies”, a little better than Cornell, and HYPS are a cut above the rest.</p>

15

<p>^I hope you don’t have a Berkeley education behind your thoughts RML. Berkeley places more students (despite being absolutely massive) so it therefore must be on par with the lower ivies, right? That’s complete rubbish when you consider far more pre-law applicants apply from Berkeley relative to the other ivies. The acceptance rate of Berkeley applicants to the top 14 tell a completely different story:</p>

<p><a href=“https://career.berkeley.edu/law/LawStats.stm[/url]”>https://career.berkeley.edu/law/LawStats.stm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>All Berkeley admits have GPAs and LSATs way above the mean of the top 14 law schools (even accounting for mixing and matching) - this is a poor showing.</p>

16

<p>

</p>

<p>Law school admissions are rather simple: gpa+lsat, with the latter at least half of the admissions points. Thus the most selective undergrad Unis and LACs will place well by definition, since they only accept students into their undergrads who are excellent test takers.</p>

<p>Williams, Amherst, and top LACs should be on the list, and highly on a per capita basis (since they don’t offer engineering, business and other ‘vocational’ majors). </p>

<p>Berkeley should also do well since it has more top test scorers (in total) than Harvard!</p>

17

<p>^It also matters how many applicants are applying. While Georgetown is surprising (give its law school emphasis), JHU and Rice do not have a large number of pre-law students (despite having selectivity and test scores roughly on par with the lower ivies).</p>

<p>JHU’s data is seen below:</p>

<p><a href=“Pre-Professional Advising | Student Affairs”>Pre-Professional Advising | Student Affairs;

<p>Assuming common applicants to the top 14, JHU only has roughly 30 (yes, just 30) applicants a year to the top 14 law schools. We can therefore infer almost nothing about its pure placement numbers.</p>

18

<p>I guess I’m missing why Georgetown is a “surprise”. IMO, GU does not have a pre-law focused undergrad – it’s more liberal arts, with special programs like SFS & Biz.</p>

<p>

[quote]
It also matters how many applicants are applying. [/qutoe]</p>

<p>Of course, size matters but ONLY for the tippy top schools because those are the ones with the tippy-top test takers. Arizona State may have 60,000 undergrads which could conceivably apply to HYS law, but their odds are extremely low since ASU doesn’t have a bunch of high test-takers. Thus, the mass of ASU applicants have nearly zero chance at the high LSAT score required for HYS law. In contrast, HYS and AWS have, what 25% of their class with 800’s?</p>

19

<p>These are enrolled numbers. It’s more interesting to compare admit numbers, especially for applicants from colleges with top law schools.</p>

20

<p>If you observe JHU’s data bluebayou, you’ll see that the applicants to the top 14 are largely self selected (with few exceptions, there is are ostensible higher applicant averages for the more selective schools). I wouldn’t be surprised if the Harvard Law applicants from Arizona State have comparable LSAT + GPA numbers. What’s more interesting is how much allotment the law schools give in terms of LSAT and GPA. If Cornell for instance gets 30% admitted to Harvard Law with the same admitted LSAT and GPA numbers as Berkeley applicants, then that says A LOT more than just pure placement numbers.</p>