<p>Out of MIT, Stanford, Yale, and Dartmouth, which would provide the best preparation for Harvard or Yale Graduate School in Law? I know people always say it doesn't matter what you major in as an undergrad, but would it be wiser to go to an easier school (not MIT)so you can get a higher GPA? What about professor recommendations? Are there statistics on the percentage of law school acceptances comparing these schools? Also, is it harder to get into yale Law school if you go there for undergrad? Thank you for taking the time to read and answer these questions!</p>
<p>Let's see - in 2003, 19% of Yale prelaws who applied to Yale Law got in. 27% of Yale prelaws who applied to Harvard Law got in. </p>
<p>I have spoken at length about the importance of grades in the law school admission process. Ariesathena has as well. We maintain that to maximize your chances of getting into a top law school, you want to go to wherever you can get the highest grades, all other things being equal of course.</p>
<p>"We maintain that to maximize your chances of getting into a top law school, you want to go to wherever you can get the highest grades, all other things being equal of course."</p>
<p>Hey - at the risk of sounding idealistic and old-fashioned, why not go to the place where you think you'll get the best education? If you do that and work hard, the grades will take care of themselves. And I have to believe that law school admissions officers are savvy enough to know that a B+ at some schools - Swarthmore and the University of Chicago come to mind - means more than an A- at most places.</p>
<p>Yeah, but law schools are stat whor"s. Doesn't the avg gpa affect their rankings?</p>
<p>You would think that law school admissions officers are savvy enough to notice the difference. But the fact is, law school adcoms at the elite law schools get thousands upon thousands of applications every year and don't have time to carefully read and parse every app. All of them use a system of numerical screens to sort the apps into piles, and if your app is placed in a low pile, you are very unlikely to get admitted. You want your app to be placed in the best pile possible in order to maximize your chances of getting admitted. </p>
<p>And I would say that it is indeed idealistic to think that you should go to the place where you will get the best education. It sure sounds good. That's the way it should be. Unfortunately, that's not the way it is. The fact is, like it or not, admissions to the elite law schools is a game. After all, there are plenty of places where you can work as hard as a dog and still get poor grades - certain schools whose names end in the words "Institute of Technology" immediately come to mind.<br>
I'm sure ariesathena will be chiming in here shortly with her story.</p>
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<p>The fact is, like it or not, admissions to the elite law schools is a game.</p>
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<p>Yes, it is, but it is not a game where the rules differentiate between institutions like Stanford and Yale. There's no question that grads of elite colleges are given more GPA wiggle room than Podunk State grads, but I've never seen any evidence that they favor one of HYPSMC over others.</p>
<p>When you're deciding among schools of this caliber, then, what's going to matter to law schools is your GPA -- and you are FAR more likely to have a good GPA if you feel happy and at home at college. So choose among these based on that.</p>
<p>I never said that the rules differentiated between places like Stanford or Yale. However, there does seem to be a marked difference between HYPS and MC. I would contend, and I'm sure others here would agree that, all things being equal, going to one of the Institutes is not the best place to go if you want to maximize your chances of getting into an elite law school. Again, I'm sure ariesathena has a lot to say about this.</p>
<p>And again, I would point to the fact that you can feel very happy and home at a place like MIT or Caltech, and end up with a terrible GPA anyway. That's just a simple fact of the Institutes. Contrast that with a place like Stanford where it is almost impossible to get truly bad grades, even if you don't like the place. It's nice and idealistic to say that you will get the best grades in a place where you feel happiest. Sadly, the truth of the matter is far more complex.</p>
<p>Okay...</p>
<p>The best advice anyone can give you is to go to the college that you would choose even if law school were not a consideration. Reality is that all of your choices are excellent schools and you can get into a top law school from any of them.</p>
<p>If you want statistics, while I can't give you an internet site that specifically says so (partly because I'm not willing to waste time searching for one), reality is that if you want to go to Harvard or Yale Law, the best odds of getting in are for graduates of Harvard or Yale College. There are 189 one Ls (first year law students) at Yale this year and 22 went to Yale College. So, forget the idea that going to Yale College is going to hurt you. It won't. There are years in which there are more Harvard than Yale grads in the Yale 1L class. Please remember that there are usually 300-400 more students in each Harvard College class than in a Yale graduating class. Statistically, I don't think there's ever been a year in which Yale College didn't come up at the top of the chart in terms of percentage of applicants accepted among colleges from which 20 or more students applied to Yale Law.</p>
<p>But (LISTEN UP, PLEASE) it's still true that it's all about fit. There are young women who would be <em>stars</em> at Wellesley who won't be at Harvard or Yale College. That's not because they are not bright enough to succeed at Y or H, but because of other factors. They may have grown up in a small, crime-free town. New Haven--a city I really, really like--might be too overwhelming for them. They might really enjoy the suburban campus of Wellesley. Getting on the bus once a week to visit MIT on the "expletive deleted, but it rhymes with truck" truck might be bad enough. They might be willing to speak out in a class which only has a couple of males--from what I understand, most Wellesley classes do--but not willing to do so in a class that's 50/50 male/female. So, there are certainly young women who would do so well at Wellesley that they have a chance of getting into Yale or Harvard Law, who wouldn't do well enough at Yale or Harvard College to do so. In truth, I admit that if my 17 year old self had tried to go to college in New Haven or Boston, I don't think I would have done very well. I just wasn't ready to cope with New Haven's green or Harvard Square when I was 17. </p>
<p>I may not be explaining this well..but..here are some things I believe to be true.</p>
<p>Almost every law school with an affliated university is more inclined to accept its students. It's not because of any conscious policy. It is because in the "middle" stack, letters of recommendation matter and a letter of rec written by a prof at that institution praising the applicant is more likely to be taken seriously because he's known. A letter of recommendation from someone you know always is weighted more heavily than one from someone you don't know. </p>
<p>When you are applying to law schools, there are these "zones." If you can pull off 175+ on the LSAT and a 3.9 for a gpa, you're better off applying to Yale Law from Yale College. However, should you end up with a 3.3 and a 165 from Yale College, you're not going to get into Yale Law--unless you've got some other "extra." At that point, you'll be pulling out your hair screaming "Why didn't I go to UChicago?!!!" With those stats, Yale Law is unlikely, but UChicago--one of the top 6 law schools in the US--is still a reach. You'd be more likely to get in if you were a UChicago undergrad than a Yale undergrad with the same stats...or even a slightly lower gpa. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that the crystal ball is cloudy. Forget all about law school. Choose the college where you think is the best "fit" for you. </p>
<p>Adding frosting to the cake, my favorite law student has a good friend who chose Harvard or Yale...trying to be a bit vague here..rather than MIT because of MIT's reputation as a hard grading school. He's abysmal at foreign languages..and both Harvard and Yale have foreign language requirements. (MIT does not.) He aced math and science, but foreign language is a different story. He graduated sine (without) honors due to the grades he got in his required foreign language courses. I'm sure he would have gotten honors at MIT. </p>
<p>So, follow your heart!</p>
<p>~Musings from the resident 1L:</p>
<p>...or girls who would despite the Socratic environment, the competition, and the way that law school has everyone in tears at some point or another. </p>
<p>Remember that Legally Blonde scene where Elle gets on her fuzzy pink phone and calls her friends? That's probably the second most accurate picture of law school in the entire movie, with the first being that day in Civ Pro where she gets humiliated and then tossed out of class. </p>
<p>Not saying that Wellesley girls would not be prepared for law school - they might be more prepared if they are used to asserting themselves in class. Despite this, Socratic can be brutal, intimidating, and there are always enough people to volunteer when you have the wrong answer (and, sadly, it's usually men who volunteer, though I'll confess to being an exception...). Harvard can be intimidating, especially for those who are used to always being at the top and realize that they are now out-gunned. </p>
<p>Another consideration when choosing any college: what percentage of grads go on to more schooling? If I'm not mistaken, most Harvard grads to law or medicine, with a smaller number for Ph.D. or masters. Yale might have higher numbers, but that is pure speculation. My alma mater has 80% going on to grad or professional school within 5 years, which is one of the highest in the country. </p>
<p>I mention this as another aspect of "fit." My friends who are not planning on law, medical, or graduate school do feel somewhat left out, as nearly everyone else in the group is going on to more schooling or preparing for that. If a lot of grads go on to law school, that can be a plus: law schools have more familiarity with the quality of the students; perhaps better pre-law advising; the chance to go through the process with your undergrad friends; and better networking. (Maybe it's just me, but I doubt that there is much of a competition issue with schools of that caliber: if one H grad is good, two or five or ten might be better.) Personally, I really like being able to help friends through the law school admissions process, being able to talk to those who are at other schools and compare notes, and even to talk to the med students and complain about the work.</p>
<p>Jonri, if you're talking about your H/Y friend possibly graduating with honors from MIT, I'm 100% absolutely positive that this would never have happened. Of this I am more sure than the sky is blue. </p>
<p>How can I know that? Simple. There is no such thing as graduating from MIT with honors. MIT does not award degrees with honors designations. The MIT administration has publicly stated that simply earning a degree from MIT is enough of an honor. </p>
<p>I would also point out that while it is of course true that some people would do better at Wellesley than at H or Y, the converse is also true. I can think of several reasons why this might be, the simplest one being that a person who is unused to a single-sex environment might find Wellesley to be jarring. Other people may find Wellesley is simply too small of an environment. I obviously agree that fit is an important criterion, but the notion of fit can cut both ways.</p>
<p>thank you everyone for your input!</p>