So I saw an article about UCI in today's California Bar Journal. I've been hearing quite a bit about the school.

In the article, it stated that the school wasn't even accredited yet, how does a law school go about getting accredidation? Also, what do you think it's rankigns will be? The dean says he's confident they'll make it into the Top 20; however, I'm thinking they'll probably be aroud higher 30's with Davis.

There's quite a bit that goes into accreditation. The ABA has a website that lists all of the standards; peruse at your own boredom.

http://www.abanet.org/legaled/standards/standards.html

Generally, a school has to have competent teachers who are teaching well-structured courses. I believe over 75% of the student population must pass the bar within 3 years after graduation. Other issues such as expenditures, facilities, faculty, extracurriculars, etc. are all taken into account.

As for where UCI will be ranked, who knows. Last year they put up Top 20 numbers. TLS CW is that they won't be able to sustain those numbers and will probably become a mid-30s school like UCD and UCH. I am a bonafide UCI fan and I think they will be able to break the T30 upon entering the rankings and will be a Top 20 within 5-10 years after that.

They have a very small entering class, suggesting to me that they took a normal entering class from a 30-40 school and just accepted the top third or so. If they're going to be a normal school, they're probably going to need to start accepting a broader entering class, meaning their admissions standards will not be at the same level long-term. But if they are only planning on having 60 students per incoming class, then perhaps they could keep those numbers.

Next year's class at UCI will have between 60-100 students, although they are willing to stay at 60 in order to maintain the student quality. The year after they are aiming for 80-120, then 100-140, etc. until each class is around 200.

This year's class can probably all count on getting something between a full scholarship on the high end to about 50% on the low end. No official announcement has been made or anything, and that's not a guarantee at this point, but I can say that's at least the intent of the administration.

They're gonna do whatever they can to make sure the medians they got for the inaugural class don't decrease.

Do they mail out viewbooks? I didn't see a link anywhere on their site...

I'm not really sure, but if you email the Dean of Students/Director of Admissions (vortiz@law.uci.edu) I'm sure she could tell you.

They don't mail out viewbooks at all, the idea being that all of the information in a viewbook is already on the website (+ extra information, pictures, etc.)

Will the LSAT/GPA numbers be the same for next years class? Any thoughts?

If you don't mind, what were last years numbers?

all of last year's information: http://law.uci.edu/about_the_inaugural_class.html

Thanks calapp09 for all the info. Much obliged!