Assume same major and LSAT score.
Thanks for the input.
3.8 at Univ. of Oklahoma.
However, if you’re trying to decide between Duke and Univ. of Oklahoma, I’d choose Duke. If you pick classes that you like and are good at, you’ll have the same GPA at either school.
Thanks for your comment. I’m not convinced one could pull off the same GPA at those schools. Duke’s talent pool is deep. Smaller population of strong talent at a typical state school. Thanks again.
Duke indeed is full of super-bright people, but in my experience, if you like a subject and have a strong work ethic, you’ll make As no matter where you go. I went to a small liberal arts college and majored in a topic that I liked, studied my tail off and got As. I then went to an Ivy for law school and cross-registered in in the undergrad college and took a class in the same field as my undergrad major. It was a topic that I liked, and I studied and got an A. The Ivy had a much larger talent pool than my undergrad school but I got As in both places in that field.
Plus if you get into Duke, Duke lets you in because Duke is confident that you can do the work. When I got into my Ivy for law school, at first I was in a complete panic because I figured that everyone there was super-smart and more talented than I was. They certainly were, but the school wouldn’t have let me in if it thought that I couldn’t do the work. I made it through fine.
That’s a big gulf in GPA. You’d have to be very cavalier to get a 3.3 in a humanities major at Duke. A 3.5-3.6 at Duke is attainable and would carry more weight in my opinion. Also, you would likely get a higher LSAT score coming out of Duke.
@NerdyChica: Law schools care what the ultimate GPA is, not where it came from. They’re ranked by GPAs, not institutions. I also see no reason to think choice of undergrad would in any way affect LSAT scores.
Person in questions is interested in some combination of philosophy, math / econ. Not particularly easy majors / minors. how would this impact your view. I just can’t believe that a 3.8 in these areas at Duke is just as achievable as it is at Univ. of Oklahoma…I could be wrong. That is why I’d like to hear input from others. Thanks!
I am not sure if this article can directly relate to law school admissions, but it is an interesting read about PhD admissionscommittees. One takeaway is that prestige of undergraduate college combined with high GPA is very important.
@riverboat - the article does not relate to law school admissions. The book in question focuses on Ph.D. programs, and law school admissions are much more transparent/quantifiable than admission to elite grad school programs. Though I’m willing to believe that undergrad prestige might be a tipping factor in some instances, GPA and LSAT are by far the most significant factors regarding admission at selective law schools. Work experience is also considered, more heavily at some law schools than at others.
@NerdyChica - In 2008 (the last year for which I could find the data), the average LSAT score for students who graduated from Duke was 163; the average score for students who graduated from OK was 152. (These aren’t the average scores required for admission at Duke’s or OK’s law schools; they’re the average scores of students from each school who took the LSAT).
I think this is likely the result of students at Duke being stronger test takers to begin with (CR/ Math SAT 25th/75th percentiles of 1360-1550) than students at OK (1060/1340 - comparing Math and CR only since OK doesn’t count the Writing score). But to the OP - a 3.8 from OK **with an LSAT of 170-plus ** won’t keep you out of a T14 school, but a 3.3 from Duke with the same score certainly could.
^ You’d probably be admitted to NU or Cornell with those numbers coming out of Duke.
Not for LS, it would not. They are laser-focused on rankings, and a 3.6 is in the bottom quartile for most of the T14, and more importantly, below the median for all.
Bingo! It is the same reason that HYP undergrads have the highest mean LSAT scores. They only accept excellent test takers into Harvard College, for example.
You assume that the students at Duke would just magically be better than at OU. While it is true that at OU will have a lot of kids that are just there to make B’s and party, they will also have more students than at Duke that are there to make top grades because they are a public university with thousands of students. They may also have some older students who are typically GPA killers for the rest of the class. You will have to work hard at Duke to make A’s. You will have to work hard at OU to make A’s. Go to the school that is best to help you achieve your career goals keeping in mind the cost.
Duke undergrad is one of the top feeder schools to Ivy League law schools; in my law school class, I believe that Duke was just behind HYP in the number of students that it sent to my law school. I don’t think that we had anyone from U. of Oklahoma, which probably sends a handful of students at most to the Ivies (in part due to geography, culture, etc.).
OP, if you want the brightest future, go to Duke. It’s very prestigious and, as I’ve said, if you get in, you can do the work, period, and if there is a subject that you like a lot, you’ll be good at it and you’ll make As in it. If you love a subject, while you might have to study a lot (I sure did, regardless of subject), it’ll come naturally to you and the As will flow, regardless of where you go.
If there are classes that you don’t think that you can get As at Duke in (things far outside your major that you don’t like), then take those in the summer at U. of Oklahoma, or even do junior year abroad with U. of Oklahoma and take the easier classes then. Plus if you change your mind about your future career, which happens a lot of times, you’ll be glad you went to Duke.
No doubt that Duke is awesome, but someone who can get into Duke, can likely get a full ride from OU. Essentially free vs. $65k/yr is a tough call for many.
Hi everyone,
Thanks very much for all of the comments. This is very interesting to me. A few thoughts / questions:
I have to believe that if one has the credentials to be admitted to a Duke, assuming he/she puts in the effort, that person would have to be in the top 10%, e.g., of an average state school like OU. While such a school is so large that it’s bound to have some elite students, the lion’s share aren’t in the Duke category. So if one’s goal is to attend a competitive law school or any medical school, it would seem that the safest route would be to go to OU and excel and prep like crazy for LSAT or MCAT.
BUT, there are obviously tons of students who attend a top undergrad institution and go on to top law / med schools. I just wonder how many of those that enroll at a Duke have buyer’s remorse later when they can’t get the 3.8 they need to get into Cornel Law, when a high school classmate at Univ. of Kansas (who turned down Duke) nails a 3.8 and ends up at Cornell or in medical school?
This is a tough call. While I do understand the argument being made that attending Duke will pay off if one opts not to attend law school, I question how much the argument holds. Aside from Investment Banking, elite private equity, or McKinsey type consulting, most employers (including Fortune 500, Big 4) won’t care so much that an applicant attended an elite school. So I’m having a hard time with this one, though I get the point. Some hiring managers would rather hire from the local university in fact, so there is a flip side.
This brings me to the major selection question. If one’s passion is physics, is one harmed by majoring in physics at Duke and earning a 3.2, rather than majoring in political science and getting a 3.6 at Duke? I also understand the argument that the more you like a subject, the more likely you are to do well in it, but to quote a basketball coach “Hard stuff is hard”. Physics is just harder than political science. In other words, do law schools grant “major forgiveness” along with “I went to Duke” forgiveness? Or is it almost purely a numbers game?
Also, how is your analysis impacted if we substituted Lehigh, Hamilton, or Colby (just examples) in place of Duke? These are great schools with strong student bodies. But I bet you 99 out of 100 folks on the street have never heard of these schools, and most hiring managers outside of their respective regions haven’t either. Grad and law school admissions officers will know about them, but I wonder how much extra weight they’d carry over an average state school (as compared to Duke)?
I also understand the money argument but assume that away for now.
Not purely, but close. A tippy to school like Duke on your transcript will count for a tie-breaker, when the other stuff is somewhat equal.
You don’t need a 3.8 to get into Cornell Law. A 3.6+17x LSAT will do just fine.
@LennyBoy, “the safest route” is to go to a school such as Duke and have top grades and LSAT scores. That’s what most students at top law schools do.
Where you go to college DOES matter. It may matter only a little bit–for example, a law school admissions officer might just note where you go in order to determine what your GPA “really” means (a 3.8 in basketweaving at Podunk U. is not the same as a 3.8 in astrophysics at Other U. or a 3.8 in economics at Duke, and admissions officers look at your major and school to figure it out).
If you go to OU, you will not have the same peer pressure and faculty assistance, both of which will push you into a better law school, that you’d have at Duke.
However, a 3.2 at Duke (or even at MIT), or even a modestly higher GPA at a top school, would still pretty much disqualify you from a good law school, so if the choice is between a 3.8 at OU and a 3.2 at Duke, pick OU.
It really is overall a silly question, and a stupid way to choose where you would go to college. It is not possible to predict that you will get a 3.3 at Duke nor is it possible to say that the same person would achieve a 3.8 at Oklahoma. There is grade inflation in certain bands of grades at Duke that you can’t account for, and you are probably underestimating the quality of students at the top of OU. Anyone who tells you a B at Duke is the equivalent of an A at Oklahoma is blowing smoke. My cousin got into Columbia but decided (with pressure by his father) to go to a mediocre state school in Pennsylvania (not even a flagship campus) based on the assumption that he would be top of his class and get better grades at the state school, all in a bid to improve his chances to get into med school. He flunked out because he was surrounded by stupid stoners and he himself became one and descended to their level. Don’t make the same mistake, and choose the best college on the merits of what’s right for you right now rather than its possible effect on future pie-in-the-sky plans for law school.
This concept can also apply to selective/high ranked medical schools or other selective/high ranked professional schools.
Just wanted to point out that if you go to a mediocre college, you won’t necessarily be sharpened and ready for a top-tier grad program.
When I went from a ratty high school to a good LAC, and then from there to an Ivy for law school, the first year at each “better” place was a shock, and I wasn’t really prepared as well as I’d have been if I had gone to an equivalent school beforehand. Each “shock” year was a year when my GPA wasn’t as good as it became, and so those “shock” years had costs that carried forward (affecting anything that is grades-based, such as grad school applications, jobs, etc.).
Go to Duke. You’ll be surrounded by top-tier people who will push you to succeed. If you find a program of study that you like, and if you apply yourself, you’ll get As anywhere. I actually got better grades at my Ivy grad school than I did at my ratty high school, for example.