Weighing of subjective qualities in T14 law school admission

Graduate School Law School
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<p>how prevalent is it? In undergrad, I felt that non-academic accomplishments and "hooks" played an enormous part in admission. One could still get rejected by every school in the top ten with a 4.0 UW GPA and a 36/2400. I've heard that for law school, a 4.0 GPA with a 180 LSAT is basically a guarantee to get into at least 12/14 of the T14 law schools. Those numbers are not realistic, and I'm not hoping to achieve a 4.0/180, but from what I understand, law schools are not as concerned about the non-academic qualifications of the applicants, right? </p>

<p>For example, if I had a 3.85 and a 174, would it be right to assume that I'll get admitted into a school like Duke or Penn? </p>

<p>I've been reading some of the posts, and people are taking about the necessity of hooks along with great objective stats for HLS and Yale. So would a high-end GPA & LSAT alone not be sufficient for HLS? </p>

<p>Also, continuing on the topic of hooks/non-academic qualifications. What is a hook relative to the law school admissions process? In HS, it was your ECs, awards, race, etc. What matters at the undergrad/law school level? Work experience? </p>

<p>I'm still a freshman, and have a lot of school in front of me, but based on a practice test I took, I'm projecting a fairly high LSAT score and a decent GPA (3.75-3.83). I'd really like to go to Penn; would numbers within or above Penn's median range be enough to get in, or do I have to have some sort of "hook" as well? I ask this because, as many of you know, for undergrad admissions, even if your stats were within the school's median ranges, the chances of a rejection were still fairly high (Harvard's composite ACT avg. is a 31-35, but most students with 31-35s get rejected at Harvard because of subjective criteria or a lack thereof). </p>

<p>Also, how important is the quality of the undergraduate institution? Is a 4.0 at NYU better than a 3.8 at Columbia? The school I go to is fairly rigorous, but is not a top tier university (Brandeis #33). Does this make me a less competitive applicant?</p>

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<p>I’m sure you’ll get more informed answers than mine. But, regarding hooks, I think that work experience, including military service or volunteer service in the Peace Corps or a similarly rigorous program, is a considerable edge. Northwestern’s website, for example, states:

[Admissions:</a> Northwestern University Law School](<a href=“http://www.law.northwestern.edu/admissions/]Admissions:”>http://www.law.northwestern.edu/admissions/)</p>

<p>My d at a T14 school notes that the students with work experience seem to handle the workload without as much complaining. :)</p>

3

<p>fyi -</p>

<p>[Entering</a> Class Profile | Yale Law School](<a href=“http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/profile.htm]Entering”>Profiles & Statistics - Yale Law School) to give you an idea of the breadth of backgrounds ending up there.</p>

<p>[url=&lt;a href=“http://www.law.nyu.edu/admissions/jdadmissions/applicants/admissions_questions/index.htm]NYU”&gt;http://www.law.nyu.edu/admissions/jdadmissions/applicants/admissions_questions/index.htm]NYU</a> Law - Applicants: Admissions Q and A<a href=“great%20links%20to%20answers%20to%20admissions%20questions%20from%20several%20t14%20admissions%20officers”>/url</a></p>

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<p>From what I understand, soft factors are a bigger deal at Yale and Stanford, which have their picks of top students and are choosing among them, and at schools like Northwestern, as frazzled pointed out. </p>

<p>Now, this is going back to the mid-aughts, when I applied to law school, but some schools are much more GPA/LSAT focused than others (and some are GPA schools, some are LSAT schools). William and Mary, for example, asks if you played any varsity sports. Others ask if you’ve won any high-level awards. Some schools looked favourably upon my chem-e degree from an excellent school; others couldn’t care less. </p>

<p>Without starting a firestorm, the numbers indicate that being an under-represented minority is a much, much bigger hook in law school admissions than in undergraduate admissions. Aside from that, however, there’s no real ‘hook’ that will sway the admissions committee one way or another. Or rather, you have to have really distinguished yourself in a certain area for it to come close to overriding GPA/LSAT.</p>

5

<p>Don’t exaggerate. A perfect HS GPA and test scores easily land you in a T10 UG.</p>

<p>Likewise, a 4.33/180 will lock you in at every law school besides YLS and SLS.</p>

<p>A 3.85/174 would make you competitive for admission to HLS.</p>

<p>As an African-American, enjoy a 8-10 point bonus to your LSAT score. As a Mexican-American or Puerto Rican, expect a 5-7 point boost.</p>

<p>Rhodes and Marshall scholars, those with work experience in MBB consulting or BB investment banking can expect to be viewed favorably.</p>

<p>Only HYPS UGs get leeway, so don’t worry about it.</p>

6

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<p>In theory, yes. But not quite in practice. The schools in the middle of the T14 will automatically assume that you are a near-lock for Harvard, so they may WL someone with those numbers, without a strong indication that such person will attend. Penn, Virginia, & Duke, for example, want/need you to demonstrate some love to them, by completing the supplemental essays. (OTOH, with good supplementals, that same student could earn full tuition at one of those schools.) Boalt looks for a bunch of different things than just numbers.</p>

<p>Northwestern prefers 2+ years of work experience, and would likely offer that applicant a spot in the class after next year, so they would defer for a year and work.</p>

<p>That being said, Peace Corps, TFA, & military are great ECs. But ECs matter little, except for Yale and Stanford, and perhaps Chicago – all of the smaller schools.</p>

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<p>~90% a numbers game; 50% LSAT, 50% GPA (LSAT is typically more important for top law schools, since high GPAs are more common given the fact that there are 3000 undergrad colleges, with 3000 vals, 3000 sals…). Unless you are at HYPS, which may get a small bonus point or two, no other plusses for undergrad.</p>

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<p>Frazzled: Would something like teach for america fall in that category?
unbelievablem: Thanks for the links, very informative.
ariesathena: That’s actually pretty comforting; I wanted a more objective admissions process. If soft factors (anomalies aside) usually don’t override GPA/LSAT, that’s awesome. thanks (:
kwu: You’d be surprised. My HS val had a 4.0 UW, 4.93 W, and a 36 composite ACT score. He was rejected by HYPS, Penn, and UChicago. It was a pretty big surprise to all of us. While perfect GPA/test scores significantly raise your chances of admission at a T10 UG school, it doesn’t “easily land” you there. The point was that soft factors were overemphasized; there are plenty of examples of people with objectively lower scores who got in because of soft factors. Also as far as the extra points, I know it’s not an exact science, but do you think there’s an Asian penalty, so to speak? Although the tidbit about UG rigor is comforting.
bluebayou: thanks for the analysis. “But ECs matter little, except for Yale and Stanford, and perhaps Chicago – all of the smaller schools.” I hope so!</p>

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<p>The academic literature has documented an Asian penalty of roughly 75 SAT points (out of 2400) relative to Whites at the undergraduate admissions level.</p>

<p>From an old post of mine, now somewhat edited:

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<p>bluedevilmike says in post #8:

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<p>Could you provide a cite to that literature?</p>

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<p>“Asian American applicants face a loss equivalent to 50 SAT points” (on the old 1600 scale).</p>

<p>Thomas J. Espenshade & Chang Y. Chung, The Opportunity Cost of Admission Preferences at Elite Universities, SOC. SCI. Q. 86:293 (2005), available
<a href=“http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf[/url]”>http://www.princeton.edu/~tje/files/Opportunity%20Cost%20of%20Admission%20Preferences%20Espenshade%20Chung%20June%202005.pdf&lt;/a&gt; (last accessed Jan. 13, 2013).</p>

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<p>“Removing consideration of race would have little effect on white students, the report concludes, as their acceptance rate would rise by merely 0.5 percentage points. Espenshade noted that when one group loses ground, another has to gain – in this case it would be Asian applicants. Asian students would fill nearly four out of every five places in the admitted class not taken by African-American and Hispanic students, with an acceptance rate rising from nearly 18 percent to more than 23 percent.”</p>

<p>[Princeton</a> University - Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment](<a href=“Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment”>Ending affirmative action would devastate most minority college enrollment)</p>

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<p>Complete your anecdote. At which institution is your HS Val currently enrolled?</p>

<p>Applying to just one lower Ivy would have been a stupid decision, and UChicago attracts a self-selecting pool of candidates.</p>

<p>A law school education costs $300,000, and drops in medians threaten an institution’s standing and therefore its desirability to prospective matriculates, such that “T10” schools have adopted desperate measures, throwing vast sums of money at 3.0/170s. </p>

<p>With respect to Asian ethnicity, I’ll only speculate that one fares fine as an Asian woman, since this allows admissions to kill the minority and gender birds with one stone, and WASP and Jewish BigLaw partners all burn with Yellow Fever.</p>

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<p>Thanks, bluedevilmike, for providing sources in posts 10 and 11 for your assertion in post 8 that Asians face a penalty of 75 SAT points relative to whites. Looking at these sources, it appears that the penalty is due to preferences given to minorities, not due to a preference given to whites. Do away with the preferences for minorities, and the available spaces would shift largely to Asians. It is not clear to me why Asians would be the predominant beneficiaries, but in any event it seems clear that these sources do not say that whites are preferred over Asians in the application process.</p>

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<p>Well, Asian candidates are admitted at the rate you’d expect of white candidate with SAT scores 50 points (out of 1600) lower. I suppose that whether you’d call this a “preference” or not depends on how you’re using the word.</p>

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<p>I will point out that colleges want to build a class: they want an orchestra, a track team, school paper, a cappella groups, a theatre troupe, a baseball team, etc. They also need to balance their majors, so they do not have 200 French majors when they usually have thirty. That explains a lot of UG admissions - how SATs and GPA are not the overriding factors. Law schools, however, want an academically strong class, a good Law Review, and, well, kids who will get federal clerkships. Hence LSAT and GPA being the biggest factors.</p>

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<p>Correction: Law schools want to maintain a high US News ranking, hence LSAT and GPA are essentially the only factors.</p>

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<p>Law schools should be ranked based on a more comprehensive matrix to include but not limited to:</p>

<ul>
<li>Employment in legal sector post graduation</li>
<li>Average income of graduate (regardless of what sector they pursue post graduation)</li>
</ul>

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<p>Are you saying HYPS UGs get leeway at all law schools or just HLS? </p>

<p>I ask because my 3.1 (LSAC GPA) at Yale (2.98 GPA) pretty much bars me from all T14.</p>

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<p>^ Former Pres. Bush (the son) was a Yale grad and couldn’t get into UT Austin law way back when. He did get into HBS later.</p>

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<p>At all law schools.</p>

<p>I disagree.</p>

<p>Given the collapsing number of LSAT-takers and high-scorers, law school applicants, I wager you would be competitive for admission to Penn, Michigan, Virginia, Duke, Cornell, Georgetown, and Northwestern with a 3.1/172 from Yale; to Columbia, Chicago, and NYU if you had a 175+; possibly, to Harvard with a 177+.</p>

<p>It’s gotten that bad.</p>