<p>I’m not comprehending your reply. Are you saying 7,200 is a figure that includes all these levels of degrees, plus professions? If so, I invite you to look at the CDS. I’m mistaken, only the 09-10 reached 7,200+ and the other years were 6,900-7,000 bac degrees.</p>
<p>I agree, though, that many undergrad degree recipients take themselves out of the L-school equation. Vast majority of BS’s, etc. But this isn’t what Haverford’s math was seemingly trying to convey.</p>
<p>Btw, a good graduating school will always have bacs awarded/year > total undergrads/4 or certainly 4.5, or whatever JHaverford used. For instance Stanford has ~ 2K bac degrees/year but 2K*4=8K, more than total undergrads. Another mistake is people getting figures of frosh classes and assuming these are the total of bac degrees awarded each year, esp since Cal has spring enrollees and xfers.</p>
<p>And I was probably more concerned about assuming that all who apply to L-school are from the recent graduating classes. That’s not even near to being true. Therefore, I don’t think taking graduating classes as the bottom figure would ever be accurate.</p>
<p>^^ And keep in mind that in-state tuition at Michigan is high for a public law school. Consider a school like Texas, where in-state COA for the University of Texas Law School is $47,712 per year, or about $30,000 per year less than at Columbia. That’s potentially an extra $90,000 in student loans to attend Columbia, plus three years accrued interest. If you’re a Texas resident planning to stay in Texas, the University of Texas Law School alumni network and placement office probably give you much better access to the Texas bench and bar than Columbia’s alumni network and placement office. So why would you choose Columbia? Now if you wanted to end up in New York or DC, Columbia would be a better bet. But not everyone does.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Sticker CoA is not nearly as big of a deal for the top 14 schools as what some of the previous posts imply. And the state school thing is pretty off base–I think that Berkeley in state may actually be more expensive than Stanford right now, and if it’s not, it will be in a year or two (that’s the most similar comparison–Michigan and UVA are in super cheap CoL areas, so to compare them to a school like Columbia is an apples to oranges comparison).</p></li>
<li><p>“Employed at graduation” stats are total trash. Schools manipulate these like crazy, if not outright lie. In addition, counted in this number are those employed <em>anywhere</em>–you work more than part time at Starbucks and you’re counted in that number. </p></li>
<li><p>If you’re looking for differences in outcomes between schools, not to toot my own horn but probably your best bet is to look at the % of students from a respective school who gets a federal clerkship (or federal appellate clerkship if you wanna see the higher tier). Supreme Court clerkships are a little too much of an insider’s game–and happen a year or more after students graduate from the law school–to be a great indicator, and the numbers are a bit on the small side to get a strong sample. Federal clerkships are super highly desired by law students, incredibly competitive, and are a good career move for virtually every law student, regardless of his or her career goals. You’ll see that there is a pretty significant difference between HYS and CCN on the basis on the # of students doing federal clerkships. </p></li>
<li><p>Partially for the reason of #3, the yield numbers don’t really tell the whole story of these schools–very few people turn down, say, Stanford for, say, Columbia. The reason why the yield numbers are misleading is the size of the schools and the admissions profile of each school. Virtually everyone admitted at Yale is also admitted at Stanford and Harvard. The vast majority of those admitted at Stanford are admitted at Harvard and many are at Yale as well. However, because Harvard is 3x as big as Yale and Stanford, most people at Harvard have NOT been admitted at Yale or Stanford. You end up with a situation where Yale takes 70% of its cross admits with Harvard and Stanford and 95% of its cross admits with other schools and ends up with 80% yield. Harvard takes about 30% of its cross admits with Yale, 50% of its cross admits w/ Stanford, and 95% of its cross admits with other schools and ends up with 67% yield. Stanford takes 30% from Yale, 50% from Harvard, and 95% from other schools and ends up with 48% yield. It gets a bit more complicated when you go down the rung, but you get the picture why the yield numbers–other than for Yale–aren’t super reflective of the desirability of the school. Ask any admissions officer at any top 14 school, and they’ll tell you that HYS lose very few students to other schools but split fairly evenly between themselves, CCN win the battles convincingly with all schools other than HYS but split fairly evenly between themselves…etc.</p></li>
<li><p>Law school’s regional, but much less so for HYS than for other schools. I’m sure that there are Yale caliber students at Stanford, but less certain that this would hold true for Chicago (and doubt that it does for Michigan). Sure, there are probably a handful of students at any given top 10 law school that woulda made it to the final stage at Yale, but that’s not the same as being admitted. Given the low bar of applying to many law schools, and the high value of a Yale/Stanford/Harvard degree, I have trouble believing that there are many students who are truly of that caliber who don’t throw their name into the hat, if only to use an acceptance as leverage for a bigger scholarship at their choice regional school. The main reason why there are Yale-caliber students at SLS is not primarily b/c it’s on the west coast (although it likely contributes to the number at SLS), but b/c SLS is in virtually every way a peer school to Yale. The biggest differences have to do with the structures of the programs (quarters and dual degrees for SLS, a mind-boggling amount of academic flexibility for YLS).</p></li>
</ol>
<p>This isn’t true for law schools because the law school admissions council does keep track of all applications. That’s why the LSAC site linked earlier is able to list the number of LS applicants for each of the feeder schools. It compiles the data itself; it doesn’t get it from the feeder schools. The LSAC returns this data to UG schools. So, the UG schools DO know how many of their students and alums apply to law school, the average number of applications and the average number of acceptances–they get this info from LSAC. </p>
<p>I know a lot of people who got into YLS and chose not to attend. Note that while YLS has the highest yield rate, 1 of 5 accepted choose not to attend. Some decide not to attend LS at all, but others do attend other law schools. There are lots of reasons for this. Among Harvard College grads admitted to YLS, only about 50% choose YLS–or at least that was the case about 5 years ago. (This is one reason why there are more Yale College than Harvard College grads in YLS. If the yield for both colleges were the same, that might not be the case.) </p>
<p>Princeton doesn’t do as well as H or Y in LS admissions in part because engineers constitute a higher percentage of its students and a lower percentage of engineers apply to LS.</p>
<p>I suspect that one reason the big public Us tend not to do as well in YLS admissions is that YLS weights LORs more heavily than most law schools. At some state Us, it’s hard to get to know a prof well enough to get a good LOR. </p>
<p>Also, don’t read the tea leaves too much from these stats. The numbers change quite a bit from year to year, especially for LACs. You might have a class with 4 people from a particular LAC. They graduate and the numbers suddenly look a lot worse.</p>
<p>Boalt, UVA and Michigan are great law schools but you can count on one hand the number of students enrolled there that are HYS caliber bclintonk.</p>
<p>^^^^I bet I can do the same thing in regards to Duke law students as well by using your logic and lack of evidence. I can guarantee you, without any evidence, that there are quite a number of students at all of these programs that are at the HYS caliber. Not everyone who is qualified will be accepted into the very top programs. It’s just the way it is.</p>
Where in the world did that come from? Yes, the same could be said for Duke. But you’re wrong about “Not everyone who is qualified will be accepted” since law school admissions is very numbers-driven. If you get a 173+ on the LSAT and a 3.9+ GPA, you’re almost assured at any law school besides Yale barring and unforeseen personal circumstances.</p>
<p>I was just complimenting Duke on having a fine law school with excellent students. I figured they should be included in this discussion as well, since you never seem to not include Michigan in your never ending attempt to downgrade it as an academic institution. </p>
<p>"If you get a 173+ on the LSAT and a 3.9+ GPA, you’re almost assured at any law school besides Yale barring and unforeseen personal circumstances. "</p>
<p>But we weren’t talking about just any law schools. The discussion was about HYS, the three top law schools in the country. So I guess H and S would be a virtual lock with your comment.</p>
<p>Harvard and Stanford would not be a virtual lock with a 173 and a 3.9. I bet that well more than half of those with similar numbers to that who apply are admitted, but I doubt it’s that close to “virtual lock” territory (which is what, 98%? 95%?).</p>
<p>You are pretty much a lock at Columbia and NYU with 173 and a 3.9, but not at Harvard or Stanford. With regards to Duke, you will find very few students with both 173+ and 3.9+.</p>
<p>You have no basis for that assertion, and the statistics imply otherwise. The 75th percentile LSAT score at Michigan and Virginia is 171; at Boalt it’s 170. That means a full quarter of the class at Michigan and UVA would be in the middle 50% of Yale’s class (middle 50% = 171-176) in LSAT scores, and close to a quarter of the class at Boalt. Similarly on GPA: Michigan’s 75th percentile is 3.85, Boalt’s is 3.87 UVA’s is 3.92. The middle 50% at Yale is 3.81-3.96. That means well over a quarter of the class–perhaps closer to a third–at all three schools would be in the middle 50% GPA range (or higher) at Yale. What we don’t know is how many of those people are in the middle 50% (or higher) in BOTH LSAT and GPA. But consider the size of the class at each school—376 at Michigan, 286 at Boalt, 368 at UVA. That means there are at least 94 1Ls at Michigan, 92 at UVA, and 71 at Boalt with LSATs in Yale’s middle 50% range (or higher); and there are probably upwards of 100 at both Michigan and UVA and perhaps 80 or more at Boalt with GPAs in Yale’s middle 50% range (or higher). I’d be willing to wager that out of the 257 1Ls at those three schools whose LSAT scores are in Yale’s middle 50% range (or higher), there are more than 5 (“count[ing] on one hand”) whose GPAs are also in Yale’s middle 50% range or higher–especially since we know there are about 280 1Ls at the three schools whose GPAs are in that range.</p>
<p>And that’s just talking about the 1L class. Your hyperbolic statement about counting on one hand implies there are not more than 5 across the three classes currently attending those schools.</p>
<p>Look, YLS is a great law school, not doubt about it, it’s got great students, and it’s a rare honor and privilege to be able to attend. But there are many comparable students at other top law schools. The difference is the density of such students The students who comprise the middle 50% at YLS are essentially the same students who comprise the top 10-25% at schools like Boalt, UVA, Michigan, Chicago, and Penn (the latter two having entering class statistical profiles virtually identical to the 3 top publics). And the students who occupy the bottom quartile at Yale would occupy roughly the second quartile at the aforementioned schools.</p>
<p>As for Harvard and Stanford, Harvard’s stats are almost identical to Yale’s, 171-176 LSAT (same as Yale) and 3.78-3.96 GPA (25th percentile 0.03 lower, 75th percentile same). The difference is, there are roughly three times as many identically brilliant students at Harvard. So everything I said about the relationship between Boalt-Michigan-UVA students and Yale students applies equally to Harvard. But it’s also further evidence that YLS students are not so clearly head and shoulders above the rest of the world as you make them out. </p>
<p>Stanford’s class is a bit less impressive. GPA is only a little lower, 3.74-3.94, but the LSATs are markedly lower, 167-173. The 25th percentile LSAT score at Stanford (167) is actually lower than the 25th percentile at Michigan (168); so the middle 50% LSAT-scorers at Michigan (and then some) would also be in the middle 50% at Stanford. UVA is also very close to that mark (166-171). Boalt is slightly lower (162-170), but it’s still likely that the top 40-45% of the class at Boalt in LSAT scores would be in the middle 50% at Stanford. Of course not all those high LSAT-scorers would also have the grades to get into Stanford, but clearly many would. Surely out of the approximately 672 1Ls at the three schools (Boalt, UVA, Michigan) who would be in the middle 50% or higher in LSAT scores at Stanford, there are more than 5 who would also have the grades for Stanford—especially since the top half of the class (or more) at each of the 3 publics has undergrad GPAs that would put them in the middle 50% or higher at Stanford.</p>
<p>Your hyperbolic statements don’t become true by virtue of the vehemence with which you express them.</p>
<p>The problem is that the numbers only tell part of the story. First, non-HYS schools are well known for taking splitters. Not so much HYS. The classes aren’t quite as comparable as your posts make them out to be. Second, even for those students who do have the numbers, having Yale or Stanford-caliber numbers is a far cry from having an admissions letter from Yale/Stanford. Sure, there are a non-negligible number of students at Penn, Michigan, UVA, etc who have numbers on par with HYS kids, but very few who would have actually been admitted. To get into YS and to a lesser extent H, you have to be the complete package–brilliant numbers, fantastic recs, and usually some pretty darn interesting life experience (Peacecorps, a masters or phd, etc). The top 15% of matriculated students at Michigan didn’t turn down (H)YS to attend Michigan, and you better bet that most of them applied to at least one of HYS.</p>
<p>True, but you can’t just assume that all the enrolled 1Ls at non-HYS schools are “splitters” (which I take to mean high-LSAT/lower-GPA or vice-versa). In the first place there’s a pretty strong positive correlation between LSAT scores and undergrad GPA; not so much that most people with high GPAs also have high LSAT scores, but the other way around—people with high LSAT scores also tend to have high undergrad GPAs. It’s not a perfect correlation, so there will be some “splitters.” But because the correlation is positive and fairly strong, there will be more non-splitters (high-LSAT/high-GPA) than splitters. </p>
<p>What do we know about the LSAT? Well, we know that 128,000 people took it in the U.S. last year. We know that a 171–which would put you at the 25th percentile at Yale or Harvard and just above the 50th percentile at Stanford–represents the 98th percentile of LSAT-takers, which means there were approximately 2560 people with scores of 171 or higher. They didn’t all end up at HYS, which enrolled a total of 946 students. But 1/4 of the students at Yale and Harvard and just over half the students at Stanford had LSAT scores below a 171. That means of the 2560 people scoring 171+, 665, or roughly 1 in 4, ended up at H,Y or S. That leaves 1900 people with LSAT scores of 171+ who didn’t end up at HYS. That’s an awful lot of people. Do you suppose they ALL have low GPAs? Well, that can’t be the case, or we’d have a negative correlation between high LSAT scores and undergrad GPAs.</p>
<p>So let’s just stipulate that all the 171+ LSAT-scorers at Y, H, & S also had GPAs of 3.8+. [This is a heroic and unrealistic assumption, because it would mean the bottom quartile at these schools would be bottom quartile in both LSAT and GPA, which seems deeply unlikely; but I’ll give you the maximum possible number of high-LSAT/high-GPA students at those schools, for the sake of argument). Based on their respective LSAT and GPA medians, the maximum number of high LSAT/high-GPA students at the next group of schools is about 300 at Columbia, 105 at Chicago, and 230 at NYU—again assuming heroically and unrealistically that they have no “splitters” and 100% of their 171+ LSAT-scorers are also high-GPA. So that makes a total of 1300 between Y, H, S, Columbia, Chicago, and NYU. But that means there are still another 1300 or so 171+ LSAT scorers out there. Some of them— a non-trivial number, I would say—have high GPAs. (The number has to be substantial and positive, otherwise we’d have just an even split between high-LSAT/high-GPA and high-LSAT/low-GPA students). So where do they go? Well, to the next tier of schools on the list, which would be Michigan, Penn, Boalt, and UVA. Granted, the percentage of splitters in this group of schools will probably be higher, but it’s nowhere near 100%. I would say there are easily several hundred high-LSAT/high-GPA 1Ls at these schools, i.e., with LSATs and GPAs that are at least as good as the middle 50% at H & Y, and higher than that at Stanford. Relax the heroic and unrealistic assumption that H, Y, S, Columbia, Chicago, and NYU don’t take ANY splitters, and the number of high-LSAT/high-GPA students at Michigan, Penn, Boalt, and UVA goes even higher. Relax the unrealistic assumption that this is all just a single market and things like geographic preference, family ties, personal relationships, and competitive FA/merit awards don’t influence these decisions, even for some of the very best students, and the numbers go even higher.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>First, thank you for conceding my central point, that “there are non-negligible numbers of students at Penn, Michigan, UVA, etc who have numbers on par with HYS kids.” No doubt the kinds of soft variables you describe play a role at Y and S; everything I’ve seen says, not so much at H. But so what? Are you saying every applicant who had HYS-caliber numbers but didn’t get in is by definition not qualified? It doesn’t work like that at the undergrad level, and it doesn’t work like that with law schools. YLS and SLS are trying to assemble an interesting and balanced class—just like HYP at the undergrad level. They have the luxury of many well-qualified applicants. Then it’s like choosing from a menu–we’ll take one of these, a couple of these, 3 or 4 of those. They’ll tell you themselves that the people they reject are not being rejected because they’re unqualified, but because they can only take so many, and those not accepted just didn’t fit into their plans. (Though they may tell those who are admitted that they really are the best of the best; but that’s just puffery). </p>
<p>And what about those who have HYS-caliber numbers but don’t even apply to HYS? Are you also writing them off as unqualified? I know you’ll deny this, but I’ve known a number of students with HYS-caliber numbers who didn’t apply to any of those schools, or who did, were accepted, and elected not to attend. Just look at the numbers: 50 admitted students said “No” to YLS, but an even larger number said “No” by not applying; YLS had only 3797 applications, or roughly half the 7574 who applied to HLS where the entering class stats are virtually identical. Meanwhile over at HLS, a whopping 272 admitted students said, “No, thanks.” And they didn’t all go to YLS, either, because the number who turned down HLS is considerably larger than the number who enrolled at YLS. Over at SLS, 199 said “No”—and that’s larger than the number they enrolled. No doubt some turned down S for H or Y, some turned down H for Y or S, and a few turned down Y for H; but not all. I’ll bet non-trivial numbers turned H and/or S down because they got a better financial deal elsewhere, or because they had personal or family reasons to be in some other part of the country .</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Rank speculation on your part. You have absolutely no basis for making either part of that assertion.</p>
<p>Some small nitty points followed by a big point:</p>
<ol>
<li> Many of the 170+ scores come from re-takers.</li>
<li> Many of the 170+ scores never apply to law school.</li>
<li> You’re right that there is almost certainly a correlation between 170+ scores and high GPAs, but what defines a high GPA? If we’re talking about a 3.6 average (A-, and well into top 1/3 territory at most schools), 172/3.6 isn’t going to cut it for HYS. I’m sure there are tons of 3.5+/170+ students, but once you ratchet the GPA up to 3.8 or so your numbers are going to drop pretty significantly.<br></li>
<li> You’re right that to some extent YS (and H) are picking from a broad pool of very well qualified applicants to build a class. But if the top applicants are all as equal as you imply that they were, we’d expect to see a lot of randomness with top six law school admission; the numbers are not that different between Columbia and Stanford, so presumably you’re going to end up with a lot of people in at one but not the other and vice versa. However, in practice, this isn’t what happens-- very few Yale students are rejected from non-HS schools (and very few Yale students have been rejected from HS). Few HS students have been rejected from more than one or two non-HYS schools. Few CCN students have been rejected from more than one or two non-HYSCCN schools. Etc. This is because law school admission isn’t the same class building exercise as undergrad admissions. If Amherst has three fantastic bassoonists at the cost of leaving out a marginally less fantastic percussionist, Amherst’s orchestra will suffer. Therefore, you’ll see Amherst-quality bassoonists rejected at Amherst and in at Harvard. However, if the thirty best applicants to YLS all are published authors, it’s likely that YLS will accept them all. Therefore, you see a pretty significant over-representation of certain extracurriculars at top law schools (Peacecorps, TFA, advanced degrees, etc). Sure, there’s some “class building” that happens, but far, far less than in undergrad. A student that Harvard wants is likely going to be desired by Columbia, Michigan, UVA, etc. And, therefore, even though a lot of applicants “look” similar on paper, you end up seeing a fair amount of consistency with admissions (there will always be a couple people who get into Yale or Stanford but are rejected from Berkeley and Michigan, but it’s a pretty rare occurrence).<br></li>
</ol>
<p>We all make assumptions in our arguments. My assumptions are based off of first-hand experience. Are you in law school now?</p>
<p>But that’s not inconsistent with my argument in the least. Look, suppose there’s a pool of around 1200 to 1500 or so “most highly qualified” candidates. They’re not all in Yale’s applicant pool, but many are. Yale picks off 255 of them, and all but 50 enroll. Harvard makes offers to 833 of them (including substantial overlap with the Yale admits, but Harvard is working with an applicant pool twice the size of Yale’s so it’s undoubtedly offering some “most highly qualifieds” who aren’t even on Yale’s radar screen); H lands 561 of them, with 272 going elsewhere (many of the cross-admits to Yale or Stanford, some to other schools for financial or personal reasons, some opting not to attend law school). Stanford makes offers to 379 of them (including substantial overlap with the Y and H admits) and being just slightly lower in the pecking order lands less than half of those it offers, losing many of the cross-admits to Y and H, and some to other schools for financial or personal reasons. But Stanford, stats-wise, has a lower percentage of the “most highly qualified” in its 1L class; the “most highly qualified” who attend Stanford are those who 1) didn’t get offers from Y or H, or 2) didn’t apply to Y or H, preferring S as their #1 choice, or 3) got offers from Y, H, or both, but elected Stanford for financial or personal preference reasons. Stanford is also working with a smaller applicant pool and has fewer of the “most highly qualified” to choose from because there are some Northeasterners who want to stay in the Northeast and will apply to Y, H, Columbia, NYU, Penn, etc. but not to Midwestern or Western schools; and there are some Midwesterners who will apply to Y, H, Chicago, Michigan, Northwestern, etc; they’ll shoot for Y and H but failing that will stay in the Midwest. Other Midwesterners in the “most highly qualified” group who will NOT apply to H, Y, or S, preferring to stay in the Midwest for geographic preference reasons. (The member of my family who applied, was accepted, and attended YLS would have been in this group, until he figured out that the quirky way YLS does its financial aid actually made it cheaper to attend Y than Chicago, as I mentioned upthread). </p>
<p>That’s all perfectly consistent with Y admits also getting acceptances from H, S, and everywhere down the pecking order they apply; with H admits getting acceptances everywhere else but Y, because H is taking 3 times as many from the “most highly qualified” pool as Y; and with most S admits getting acceptances from every school they apply to down the pecking order. But by the time you get to CCN, a smaller percentage of the entering class are coming from that “most highly qualified” pool; some from that group have been picked off by Y, H, or S, and some don’t even apply to one or more of the CCN schools—some of the Midwesterners will apply to Chicago but not Columbia or NYU, some Northeasterners will apply to Columbia and/or NYU but not Chicago, some Westerners will apply to HYS then Boalt but not CCN, and so on. But the CCN admits will also mostly get acceptances from schools further down the pecking order–the “most highly qualified” because they’re members of a dwindling pool of “most highly qualified” who will get acceptances everywhere except Y (because it’s got far more to choose from than it can offer), H (same dynamic, but slightly less choosy because it’s got a bigger class to fill), S (similar, but also because it’s got a tiny class and likes to think of itself as quirky, introducing an element of randomness to the process); and the CCN admits who aren’t in the “most highly qualified” pool are in the “next most highly qualified” and schools below them in the pecking order will find them attractive and make them offers. By the time you get to the Michigan-Penn-Boalt-UVA level (still in the top 10, mind you), any applicant from the “most highly qualified” pool is an automatic admit; they’ll lose a fair percentage of them to HYSCCN but there are still, by my estimate, several hundred to go around, people with credentials virtually indistinguishable from the people who make up the bulk of the entering class at HYS, and a smaller but still substantial fraction of the entering class at CCN. At Michigan-Penn-Boalt-UVA the "most highyl qualified will make up an even smaller fraction of the class—maybe a quarter, maybe as little as 10%. But those are still significant numbers Some will not have applied to HYS. Some will have applied & been rejected from one or more of HYS—not because they were unqualified, but because those schools get more “most highly qualified” applicants than they have seats for. Some will have been accepted at one or more of HYS and decided not to attend for financial or personal preference reasons (though likely not Y because the stats say only 1 in 5 turns Y down).</p>
<p>I maintain there’s a hierarchy among these law schools not because the Yale admits are so clearly superior to everyone else. Statistically the top 75% at Yale are indistinguishable from the top 75% Harvard admits, and the top 2/3</p>
<p>You’ve missed my point. I’ve conceded that there are non-negligible numbers of Michigan matriculants who are statistically indistinguishable from an average Yale student. But, that’s only part of the equation. My point is that there’s a lot more to an application than just that–Yale, Stanford, and to a lesser extent Harvard get almost all of the 3.8/170+ students with interesting backgrounds/outstanding recs… CCN, Michigan, UVA, UPenn, etc get a fair share of 3.8/170+ students, but generally miss out on the statistically top students who are also strong in other areas. Thus, what distinguishes an average Yale (Stanford/Harvard) student from a top Michigan (UVA/Berkeley) student is not his or her undergrad GPA and LSAT, but the other parts of the application. </p>
<p>And maybe our disagreement is that you don’t think those other parts of the application are important. I think they’re much more important.</p>
<p>Here’s the rest of my post, which I accidentally sent before completing (post #95):</p>
<p>I maintain there’s a hierarchy among these law schools not because the Yale admits are so clearly superior to everyone else. Statistically the top 75% at Yale are indistinguishable from the top 75% at Harvard, and the top 65% at Stanford, and the top 50% at Columbia, and the top 35% at Chicago, and the top 10-25% at Michigan and Penn, and on down the line. But it’s that dwindling pool of the “most highly qualified” as you go down the pecking order that does the work here. At Yale’s level, it’s an embarrassment of riches; they can be as quirky as they want in admissions, because they have an ample pool to choose from. Harvard can’t be quite as picky because it’s got far more seats to fill, but it still has no trouble filling them, leaving plenty of “most highly qualified” for Stanford. By the time you get to CCN the pool is starting to diminish. But the stats suggest there are still quite a few left for Penn-Michigan-Boalt-UVA, where the “most highly qualified” make up a smaller percentage of the class. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Totally agree that being a bassoonist won’t help anyone get into law school, and law schools don’t do the same kind of class-building as undergraduate colleges do. As best I can tell, most law schools don’t concern themselves with this much at all, apart from having diversity and legacy preferences, and perhaps a small “tip” for graduates of their own university’s undergrad colleges. YLS is an exception. It sees itself as quirky; it fancies itself both an intellectually vibrant place and at the same time a finishing school for the elite of the nation’s public service elites, qualities that in its view set it apart from all other law schools. It also fancies itself above the numbers-grubbing that defines law school admissions elsewhere, and it can afford to entertain that conceit because the numbers work so relentlessly in its favor: with a tiny class, a large and extremely well qualified applicant pool, a seemingly secure perch atop the law school rankings, and an 80+% yield, it can pick and choose from among the most highly qualified applicants, searching out those it feels will contribute most to the intellectual vibrancy and/or public service bona fides of the school. But if your only qualifications are a perfect 4.0 undergrad GPA and a 174 LSAT, you probably won’t be admitted. That doesn’t mean those who do get in are “more qualified.” It just means that by YLS’s subjective criteria, they’re a better fit. Stanford may seek some of that same quirkiness, but its overall applicant pool isn’t quite as strong.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>LOL. Let’s just say I’m long past that stage of my life, but I have both professional responsibilities and close personal ties that put me in a position to know a lot about law schools and the law school admissions game.</p>
<p>I think maybe we’re not so much in disagreement about how the process works, as in how we describe it. I don’t think “those other parts of the application” are unimportant. I just think the criteria YLS is using to make the final call among otherwise equally qualified candidates are not so much additional qualifications as what I would call “fit factors.” And I think describing them as qualifications is the same category mistake some people make at the undergraduate level. People who are admitted to HYP as undergrads often get swollen heads, thinking the fact that they got in while someone with virtually indistinguishable credentials didn’t means that they were the most qualified. I say no; in choosing between two equally qualified candidates, the school chose the one that was the best fit in building an interesting and diverse class (diverse not just racially but in terms of skills, talents, interests, socioeconomic backgrounds, cultural backgrounds, etc). The other person might have been equally qualified but they had already admitted 3 just like her and adding a fourth would make the class less diverse. That’s not a qualification, that’s a fit factor. </p>
<p>YLS doesn’t use the same fit factors as Yale undergrad, but it does use fit factors. It may decide one year to accept the academic whiz kid who is also a critically acclaimed published poet over the equally accomplished academic whiz kid who published a well-received paper in mathematics because it thinks the poetry will add more to the school’s intellectual vibrancy than will the math. But the next year it may choose an academic whiz kid who published a well-received paper in the field of genomics over another academic WK/poet because the poetry front is already covered by last year’s poet, and someone on the faculty is thinking about developing a course on law-and-genomics. It doesn’t mean one is better qualified, only that one is a better fit in the context of that year’s class, the classes already there, faculty interests, and so on. Fit factors, not qualifications.</p>
<p>“Quirky” isn’t the right word for admissions at Yale. Also, I’m not sure that you totally understand the law school hierarchy.</p>
<p>First, “quirky” implies that Yale is unpredictable, that it takes applicants that other schools don’t want. That’s far from the truth. You’re right that Yale can choose among the best students to take those who are the best <em>AND</em> the most interesting. I wouldn’t call that quirky–all of the top law schools, to some extent, are willing to bend their standards to get interesting applicants. Yale just has the luxury of being able to make most of its choice about how interesting a candidate is (of course, this choice is only made after basically everyone who doesn’t have a 3.8/170 is cut from the pile). </p>
<p>Second, Yale is not the only school that does this. Stanford has a very similar admissions process as Yale and a very similar matriculated student profile. The main admissions differences between Stanford and Yale is that (a) Yale’s applicant pool is a little stronger, and (b) Yale wins somewhere between 2/3s-3/4s of the cross-admit battles. Therefore, while Yale and Stanford both end up with similarly accomplished/interesting matriculants, Yale scoops up far more of the numerically stellar people who are also interesting (which forces Stanford to dip a little further down to get an interesting class). Harvard, on the other hand, is far more purely numbers-driven (which makes sense, given Harvard’s size). It’s not that Yale gets first dip, Harvard gets second, and Stanford gets third–last I heard from a friend in HYS admissions, Stanford was winning the cross-admit battle with Harvard (although the numbers are pretty close to 50-50). </p>
<p>My main point stands, however–there may be chunks of the class at Columbia who are statistically indistinguishable from chunks of the class at Yale, but this doesn’t make them the same.</p>