In a few posts from previous years, I’ve seen multiple comments about WashU not placing many students into top law schools. Can any current students and/or alums comment on this? This is really my one hold up with WashU (other option is Hopkins).
It’s going to be hard to get a solid answer on this because pre-law doesn’t have the structure that pre-med does, by nature of the fact that there isn’t really a required core set of classes.
By that I mean I can only think of 3 people who ever told me that they were pre-law. All are now in law school (well, one has already graduated). 2 of the 3 had full rides to T20 schools.
But that’s a small small group. I can easily name 2 dozen people in med school right now without thinking too hard.
Tl;dr: it’s a small sample size so I don’t think you’re going to get much input.
A few years ago when I was visiting, I remember seeing something that listed the names of the law schools where WashU students were either admitted or matriculated. (As a law school graduate myself, the information caught my eye). I don’t remember numbers, but I do remember thinking that there were a good number of acceptances to Harvard Law. I suggest that you call admissions tomorrow and ask to be put in contact with the pre-law office, which probably has that information.
My son is a senior at Wash U and we believe it is a fabulous school. He was accepted at several great law schools and was offered a free ride at some schools, including Wash U. He will be attending one of the so-called T14 (Top 14) schools in the fall. I don’t think you should pick an undergrad school on the basis of law school acceptance statistics (not that they are bad at Wash U, I don’t know what they are at any school). Law school’s rely very heavily on your LSAT and GPA. If you look at the threads under Law Schools on College Confidential you will see that most posters say that schools don’t care how easy your major was or where you went to school: they are just looking at the GPA (and LSAT which presumably will be the same wherever you go to undergrad). My son even asked his pre-law adviser whether going to a harder school was taken into account; he didn’t get a clear answer probably because there is no definitive answer - it could matter sometimes but often will not. What we have actually wondered is if you would be better off going to an “easier” school to get a higher GPA. I generally would advise against that because you still want to get a great undergrad education and you don’t really know that your GPA would be higher at a different school. But the bottom line is that not choosing Wash U because of some perceived inability to admit large numbers to good law schools does not make any sense. Again, take a look at the threads under Law Schools.
I wanted to mention further that I noticed today that NYU and Michigan law schools both say on their websites the the competitiveness of the undergraduate school IS taken into account in admission. Wash U should certainly be viewed as competitive for that purpose. But my original advice stands: a school does not really “get you into a good law school.” That is mostly based on your GPA and LSAT.