<p>Sam Lee - yeah, the Boalt ranking is a decade old, with an extremely small sample size</p>
<p>Also, it only looks at the grade inflation within the group of law school applicants, which further makes it less reliable.</p>
<p>I wouldn't assume that Boalt had an extremely small sample size, or that they don't get many applications from the East Coast. </p>
<p>Boalt received over 7,000 applications last year. </p>
<p>Yale posts statistics about where its graduates apply to law school. Boalt received 165 applications from Yale graduates who planned to start law school in 2005 (the most recent year for which Yale has posted these statistics). That compares with 136 Yalies who applied to the University of Virginia, 203 who applied to Penn, 244 who applied to NYU, 253 who applied to Harvard Law School, and 213 who applied to Yale Law School. </p>
<p>I would also add that Boalt probably based its formula on data published by the Law School Admissions Counsel that shows the median LSAT score and the median GPA for every applicant to law school from every college. It was an attempt to weight the GPAs based on varying grading curves, and the "degree of difficulty" concept for students competing against brighter classmates.</p>
<p>Bryn Mawr is said to be very academically intensive but the atmosphere is not too competitive because the honor code prohibits talking about grades.
Some kid joked that even though students at UPenn are allowed to take classes at Bryn Mawr, they never do because classes at Bryn Mawr involve significantly more work than their equivalents at UPenn.</p>
<p>Greybeard, is the average LSAT info available at the site?</p>
<p>I think Caltech and MIT take the cake but if you're looking for maybe "underground" tough schools (haha) I would have to say Georgia Tech and Johns Hopkins</p>
<p>I've heard many stories from friends that GT is so unbelievably hard and that its practically murder (engineering majors). For JHU if your planning on becoming a doctor it's the tuffest road you could take, though you will most likely succeed considering the amount of doctors produced by JHU.</p>
<p>I think many of the elite research schools tend to boast tougher curriculums (and maybe not so great teaching) but at the same time they do turnout many successful graduates.</p>
<p>In the end JHU and GT are the tuffest to me.</p>
<p>Underground tough school would also have to include Purdue, it's notoriously difficult. Engineering and Management esp.</p>
<p>I think difficulty is relative to student ability. The curriculum and grading (i.e. expectations) at a school are modified somewhat so the students who go there will find them challenging but possible. A very challenging second-tier school might be a piece of cake for students at a top-tier school. Furthermore, some top-tier schools are very challenging but almost everybody graduates and almost everybody has a C average or better. Great students rise to the challenges. </p>
<p>How do you know if the grading and curriculum are tough? Is flunking out a measure of difficulty? Then the least selective schools are the most difficult. On the other hand, the most selective schools are generally the most demanding in terms of work load. Yet they graduate at a high rate with good grades.</p>
<p>I think difficulty in grading and curriculum depend more on your major than the school. Engineering, Physics, and CS are tough.</p>
<p>Add pre-med to that. I don't think there's any such thing as an "easy" organic chem class if you're planning to take the MCAT's. Whether you're at an ivy or a state school, if you want to go to med school, you'll be coming across the same challenging material.</p>
<p>Gregory House...enough said about JHU</p>
<p>Dr. House is one tough guy.</p>