<p>I attend an Ivy and spoke to a pre-law advisor today, assuming that he would really know what he was talking about (considering how much I paid to be here).</p>
<p>When I expressed my understanding that law school admissions is mostly numbers-driven, and that leadership/activities/academic rigor were valued less importantly, the guy gave me a weird look and said no, that's wrong, I don't know where you got that. He went on and on about how it doesn't matter what activities you do, as long as you show that you've committed to it for a long time and get a leadership position. But he made it seem like this was a really important part of your application, and that it could easily offset your scores/grades, and that this was especially the case at the top law schools. </p>
<p>He also seemed to scoff at the importance of the LSAT's (he said something like, "it's definitely wrong to think it's all about your numbers, especially your LSAT's <em>rolling of eyes</em>") </p>
<p>So now I'm confused. Everything I've read online has repeatedly said that your LSAT/GPA are VERY significant factors because there are so many applicants that it's hard to judge people based on non-numerical factors. But the pre-law advisor is telling me the exact opposite: basically that law school admissions is the same as undergrad college admissions, which I found to be arbitrary at times. </p>
<p>I know no one knows exactly what goes on in the admissions office, but could anyone give me some insight?</p>
<p>I think you know the answer...his advice is just wrong.
If you are at one of the Ivys with a law school, go talk to their admissions office directly.</p>
<p>They say that to humanize the law school admissions process. Often extra curricular activities are used to separate two candidate that have similar numbers. Although having a few extra curricular activities outlined, or one that stands out is good and will give your application attention, however having none listed will definitely raise eyebrows. Also, remember there are a few schools that treat GPA/LSAT/extra curriculars on roughly the same level as one another. And then there are a few schools that like to read personal statements, to separate the ones they are interested in, after exhaustively weeding out the low GPA/LSAT applicants.</p>
<p>Are you in a special category of some sort--e.g., URM, disabled military vet or cop? If so, it's possible that the adviser didn't feel comfortable saying "In your case, some law schools may be willing to overlook a LSAT which is a bit weak." </p>
<p>Otherwise, anyone who rolls their eyes at how important the LSAT is ill-informed. </p>
<p>LSs don't judge people by the numbers because of the number of appliications. They judge them that way because so many of the things that matter in undergrad admissions are irrelevant. Sports teams are strictly intramural. No LS cares how good the student orchestra or glee club is--though some have them. Harvard Law doesn't really have to worry about geographic diversity and it doesn't help as much as it does in undergrad admissions to be from Alaska or Mississippi. There's no need to try to balance academic interests--everyone is going to study law. </p>
<p>The other stuff matters--especially at Yale and Stanford. Some LSs weigh LSAT more heavily than others. Some emphasize personal statements more. Some consider the rigor of your courses more. Northwestern weighs work experience more than any of the others in the top 14. </p>
<p>But, the LSAT score probably accounts for about 40-50% of the result and at some LSs, it's probably 60%. </p>
<p>Unless you are an unusual candidate--and most college seniors aren't--getting into a law school really is 80% about the numbers. Having the numbers in and of itself won't get you into a top LS if you did nothing but study for 4 years, but without the #s, your odds aren't good.</p>
<p>Agree with jonri. Perhaps the advisor was giving some sort of party line that makes the process sound more humane than it is, but the things he highlighted are more often than not tie breakers. Just imagine that there was a "wink wink" while he was saying it.</p>
<p>Your pre-law advisor is a bit more correct than others suggest.
"Applicants tend to think the LSAT trumps all other factors, but it counts less than you think. It counts differently for different applicants, depending what else is in your file. ...less than 40 percent of applicants to Harvard Law School with the top score were actually admitted. For those denied, the other aspects of their files were not particularly strong, or the application raised questions for the committee. At the same time, there were substantial numbers of people with much lower scores admitted on the strength of other factors."
"The LSAT is considered valid only for predicting success in the first year of law school."
The advice offered from other CCers in posts above does, however, apply to many law schools outside of the Top 15 or so, especially with respect to state university law schools. A high LSAT score will get one admitted to lower ranked law schools.
My knowledge & experience leads me to agree with your Ivy League pre-law advisor although all of the posts in this thread are accurate (except Post #2, in my experienced opinion)--just not comprehensive.
As pointed out in an above post, my answer will vary from law school to law school & from candidate to candidate. After all, that is why law schools have admissions officers & admissions committees; otherwise, if stats were all that mattered then computers could do the work of selecting applicants to admit or deny.</p>
<p>What "knowlege and experience" do you have which leads you to believe the pre-law adviser was right?</p>
<p>NOBODY here has argued it's all about the LSAT. In my post, I said that for a college senior with nothing unusual about him/her, the LSAT was going to account for 40-50% of the result and at some schools accounts for as much as 60%. NOTHING in your quotations contradicts that. Nobody has said that if you have the numbers, you'll get in. (In my own experience, many of the folks with high LSATs who get rejected have mediocre grades or took weak majors.) </p>
<p>I made it clear that if there was something unusual about you as a candidate you could in with less than stellar stats. Lots of people who read these boards--or the NYTImes for that matter--know that Elizabeth Wuertzel and Ronan Farrow got into Yale Law with relatively low LSATs. But most people are neither Wuertzel --author of Prozac Nation--or Ronan Farrow--only bio child of Mia Farow and Woody Allen, who graduated from Bard College at 15 or 16 with a gpa above 3.9 but reputedly got a 163 on the LSAT at the age of 14 or 15. (He was encourged to and did take several years off between college and law school.) Farrow has been involved with lots of international public service things. </p>
<p>But anyone who thinks that being a leader in an EC on campus in college is as important as the LSAT for getting into law school is, IMO, just plain wrong. NOTHING in youar quotations says that leadership in a college EC can make up for a weak LSAT. </p>
<p>If you REALLY have evidence that that's true, please cite it or explain the basis for your statement.</p>
<p>It's fair to say the numbers are extremely important everywhere. It's also fair to say they may be important in different ways. </p>
<p>Harvard used to have a formula that they would plug your GPA and LSAT score into, and deny candidates who didn't make that threshhold without further consideration. </p>
<p>Berkeley in those days owuld automatically admit you if you exceeded a particular threshhold.</p>
<p>These threshholds obviously varied from school to school. I don't think it's a complete concidence that the date of my rejection letter from Harvard was the same as the date of my acceptance letters from Northwestern and Berkeley.</p>
<p>At the time, Michigan said that they chose half their class based on "primarily numerical factors," and admitted the other half from a pool of people who were below that numerical threshhold, but above another numerical threshhold. Those who were below that other numerical threshhold were all rejected. </p>
<p>People in that second pool were supposedly evaluated without regard to their numerical factors, and selected based on what else they brought to the table.</p>
<p>In the wake of litigation about the impact of race on law school admissions, it's my impression that admissions committees tend to be a little more vague about how they make these decisions. But if you go to one of those sites that publishes scattergrams of the GPAs and LSAT scores of successful and unsuccessful applicants, it appears that most schools have a numerical threshhold above which they admit nearly everyone, and another below which they reject nearly everyone, and a middle tier with mixed results. Even those schools generally admit a higher percentage of applicants whose numbers put them close to that first threshhold.</p>
<p>jonri: Please read my above post more carefully. I'm sorry, but I don't understand the relevance of the rest of your last post.</p>
<p>OP: Greybeard understands.</p>
<p>"Think of your LSAT and GPA as creating presumptions in favor of, or against, admitting you. The higher your numbers are for any given school, the less impressive the rest of your application has to be, and the greater the presumption is that you will be admitted. In that case, the admissions officer looks to the rest of your file to see if there's a reason not to admit you...." And vice-versa in that lower numbers require a check of your file for reasons to admit you. This law school dean of admissions further states that 15% had numbers so high as to fit in the former category, 15% so low as to fit in the latter category, with the remaining 70% of applicants in the middle & took up most of the admissions officers' time. Common reasons high scorers were rejected: Arrogance, demonstrated disposition to do or say things that may get you kicked out of law school, aging, bitter PhD with little success in real life, blase attitude suggesting that law school is a safety until a better offer comes along.</p>
<p>I guess my other (and much more vague) question is -- if I get say, the mean GPA and LSAT of accepted students at a LS (I'd be thrilled be with anything in the top 14 I guess), and my leadership/activities are decent but by no means extraordinary, I should have a good chance, right?</p>
<p>I do have leadership positions, and I've had/will have jobs and internships and things like that. But I'm not student body president (or president of anything), I'm not a national champion, and I don't have any "hooks" that instantly stand out. Should I still feel confident about my chances at a T14 school as long as I achieve a certain LSAT/GPA?</p>
<p>Take this answer with a cup of salt--remember I'm not claiming to be an expert: </p>
<p>If BOTH your LSAT and GPA are above the 75th percentile at a law school other than Yale, Stanford and Northwestern, and to a lesser extent Harvard, you have no disciplinary history and decent ECs--nothing extraordinary, but okay--plus 2 decent LORs and don't do anything incredibly stupid, you'll get into that LS. </p>
<p>If your LSAT and GPA are both above the median,but below the 75th percentile, the other factors will matter. The letters of rec from profs and your personal statement will be especially important. Work experience will help a bit. At this level, you definitely have a shot, but there are no guarantees. </p>
<p>If you have ONE number above the 75th percentile and the other is above the median, your odds are better still. If you can help the LS boost its LSAT median or gpa median, that's a plus. Our old moderator PSedrish had a daughter who went to Harvard undergrad. She had a 3.2 and 180. She got into Harvard Law and into Michigan, with a Darrow, UMich's top merit scholarship. Obviously, Harvard and Michigan liked that 180. </p>
<p>If you aren't a special case of some sort, you'll need even more to get in if you are below the median for gpa or LSAT because the rankings of law schools are based to a great extent on those medians. The closer you are to the median, the better your odds.
If you're below the 25th percentile, you are unlikely to get in unless you are a URM or unusual in some way. </p>
<p>Please remember that I am talking about typical college seniors or kids (to me) with 1-2 years of work experience.</p>
<p>Note: The law school deans quoted in my above two posts are from the law school dean of admissions for 18 years at Harvard Law School & previously was the law school dean of admissions at NYU Law School for 16 years. The other law school dean was the former dean of admissions for The Univ. of Chicago Law School.</p>
<p>Note too that not one of them said that leadership in a college EC was as important as LSAT and/or gpa and could make up for them--which is what the pre-law adviser reportedly said.</p>
<p>jonri: You are wrong. All I can do is ask that read my above posts more carefully. And, by the way, both do write that. I don't know where your opinions come from, but I respect them even though I & top law school deans of admissions disagree with your points of view.</p>
<p>There's no point in continuing to argue, CW, but I (a) do not think I'm wrong and (b) do not think that anything I've posted conflicts with any of the quotations you've posted. </p>
<p>There are some real "story cases" at top law schools. I've met some of them. But they are usually not non-URMs who are undergrads at Ivies applying directly to law school. The idea that a leadership position in a college EC can make up for gpa and/or LSAT is laughable. It really is. That was what I disagreed with. </p>
<p>And, I'm still waiting to know what the "experience" you've had with top law schools is--and I don't consider reading snippets to be "experience."</p>
<p>I'm going to say this as nicely as possible...your adviser is a complete moron.</p>
<p>It is pretty much a numbers game for everyone (except those who are URM and/or those with unique ECs like the Peace Corps).</p>
<p>The LSAT probably accounts for 65-70% of your admissions. Not kidding either. </p>
<p>A high LSAT can make up for a low GPA (I've known 174, 2.7s get into a T-14), but a high GPA can NEVER make up for a low LSAT. Thus the LSAT weeds for the idiots who cannot take standardized tests. A high GPA is much easier to obtain. Also, majors don't really matter, and unfortunately for those of us who went to rigorous undergrads, your undergrad institution does not matter either. It is seriously a numbers game.</p>
<p>ECs are only there simply to make it look like you weren't some bookworm tool in undergrad...that you had other hobbies. As long as you have a couple that you seem to express interest in and perhaps can write a PS about, they are all you need. ECs do not really matter, unless you do something insane like the Peace Corps. </p>
<p>If you want, with certainty, to get into at least one national school (national schools are the Top 14 schools), you probably need at least a 168 on your LSAT, regardless of how high your GPA is.</p>
<p>^^ I think you're overstating the case a bit. My LSAT score was a bit below the cutoff you describe, and my GPA was good--I came straight through from college and I'm now a 3L at a top 10 school. One of my good friends here had an amazing GPA (and a masters from a very good school) had a 169 but a 4.0...she got a full merit scholarship to my school, and was accepted at another T14 too. </p>
<p>Another friend is applying this year after 3 years of work experience. Her GPA is exceptional but her LSAT is only a 159. While she hasn't heard back from all the T14 schools she applied to yet, and was waitlisted at a few, she's been getting into schools where her LSAT is definitely below the median. </p>
<p>None of us were URMS. So I think in these cases the GPA definitely can make up for the LSAT--but only to an extent.</p>
<p>^ Admissions are getting more rigorous and competitive each year, especially with the new "retake LSAT accepted" bogus by LSAC. </p>
<p>I believe most Top 14 schools upped their LSAT median by 1 point last cycle. When you applied it was less competitive. (Even non T-14 schools like UCLA upped their median LSAT from 166 to 168 for this year's entering class. Schools like Michigan and UVA now have medians of 169, 170 and 25th percentiles of 167.)</p>