<p>Keil, you are conflating several issues.</p>
<p>Top law schools look for two main factors-- undergrad GPA and LSAT scores. There are charts available on the internet that are highly predictive of law school admissions that show results using a grid compiled entirely of these two factors.</p>
<p>After that, in some degree of importance, come professors recommendations, “other factors” (growing up in a homeless shelter, first generation college grad, etc.), name of your undergrad, work experience, and essays. Some schools put more emphasis on these than others, but not a single law school in the country claims to weight these factors more than the big two- LSAT score and GPA.</p>
<p>So the presence of so many students at top law schools from elite undergrads proves one thing and one thing only-- the high SAT scores and HS GPA which got a kid into an elite undergrad school is reasonably predictive (but not perfectly predictive) of that same kids performance in college and on subsequent standardized tests e.g. LSAT.</p>
<p>There are always anomalies- kids from Yale who end up at Suffolk Law, and of course kids from Southern Connecticut State college who end up at Columbia Law. If you are a student at a non-elite undergrad school with top grades and top LSAT score, barring some bizarre factor (like your essay is unreadable and your professors think you are an obnoxious twit) you have a solid chance of getting into the schools your numbers would predict- regardless of where you earned your undergrad degree.</p>
<p>So the preference you observe is not a preference-- it is a statistical reality that there are more kids at Princeton or Yale who end up with top LSAT scores than kids at Southern CT State. (as you would expect by looking at the mean SAT scores of all three of these institutions.)</p>
<p>Is there a “fudge factor” used in law school admissions? Yes- but it is observable on the margins. A kid who grew up on an Indian reservation can get into a top school with slightly lower LSAT scores. A kid who majored in Engineering at Cornell can get into a top school with a slightly lower GPA (or so the rumor goes-- I’m happy to be proven wrong.) And a 30 year old who scored a 178 on the LSAT’s and took 8 years to get a BA from a college nobody ever heard of while he or she was working full time and supporting a disabled parent is likely to be looked at generously during admissions (as long as there is ample evidence that the kid has the academic chops.)</p>
<p>But these are exceptions. So all things considered, top law schools may be filled with grads from top undergrads, but that reflects the admissions standards of those schools, and not a preference for grads of those schools.</p>