HLS or SLS? Forum

(Rankings, Profiles, Tuition, Student Life, . . . )
AtticusJimbo

New
Posts: 27
Joined: Tue Aug 31, 2010 3:51 am

Re: HLS or SLS?

Post by AtticusJimbo » Mon Apr 23, 2012 12:37 am

Blessedassurance wrote:
AtticusJimbo wrote: On that note, then, isn't Harvard something of a hospice for Yale rejects? To my understanding, the selectivity gap between Yale and Harvard is greater than that between Harvard and Chicago. Congratulations on your admission to HLS, but I hope you're prepared to be going to a school mostly composed of people who would've rather gone somewhere else. And that'll be the case no matter where you go, unless it's Yale. Certainly it'll be the case at NYU, where I'm headed, and certainly I'd have rather gone to Yale, but I feel reasonably well adjusted to that reality.
I'm sorry I hurt your feelings but I'm not one of those go-where-you'll-be-happy-let's-all-hug-and-sing-kumbaya types. I prefer cool heads over warm hearts. Discounting the fact that your assessment is inaccurate, hypothetically, it wouldn't bother me if my classmates would rather be somewhere else. People make the H v Y v S, H v Y, H v S, S v Y decision(s) all the time and people choose H,Y or S for a variety of reasons. Others go wherever they get in, some like it, some don't. In fact, Stanford has the lowest yield rate amongst the three but nobody professing sanity (or the semblance thereof) would conclude extrapolatory superiority based on shit that doesn't matter, except on TLS.

The whole irony is the fact that the preponderant sum of all the puppy-saving, PI-obsessed, competition-free, Médecins Sans Frontières-wannabe, happy-pilled masses are going to end up in BigLaw anyways.

Re: Selectivity. Y and H (and to a certain extent S) choose from the same pool. Yes, Yale is going to be more selective, their class is less than half the size of Harvard's class. Chicago, with its tiny class, still has to offer Ruby's to poach from the Holy Trinity. I understand they couldn't get enough people to take the Ruby's last year. Leiter's selective statistics bullshit concerning clerkship and academia has been discounted on this site and others. I can't find the link.

In a nutshell, HYS are interchangeable.
People have reasons for choosing one over the other(s). It's a personal choice. HYSUchi isn't a thing, in fact, it's blasphemous. Chicago is however, a great, admirable institution. The silly trolling is unnecessary and counter-productive.
It's great that your tone's a lot more agreeable in this post, yet I really don't think that the bolded is true. H vs. S is a legitimate question/decision (personally I'd take S in a flash, but that's my own preference and not meaningful on a larger scale - but the OP should definitely choose SLS IMO :wink: ). H vs. Y is much less so, and the numbers bear this out. There's a reason why Y's yield is over 80%. If you get in, you pretty much don't turn it down. And I'd bet that just about every single (if not literally every single) Y admit also had at least one of H, S, Hamilton, or Ruby also to choose from.

I dunno, I don't have any vested interest in Yale trolling, I just have the strong perception that it isn't YHS but Y HS (and I'm hardly alone in this boat).

User avatar
Blessedassurance

Gold
Posts: 2091
Joined: Mon Jun 27, 2011 3:42 pm

Re: HLS or SLS?

Post by Blessedassurance » Mon Apr 23, 2012 2:21 am

AtticusJimbo wrote: It's great that your tone's a lot more agreeable in this post, yet I really don't think that the bolded is true. H vs. S is a legitimate question/decision (personally I'd take S in a flash, but that's my own preference and not meaningful on a larger scale - but the OP should definitely choose SLS IMO :wink: ). H vs. Y is much less so, and the numbers bear this out. There's a reason why Y's yield is over 80%. If you get in, you pretty much don't turn it down. And I'd bet that just about every single (if not literally every single) Y admit also had at least one of H, S, Hamilton, or Ruby also to choose from.

I dunno, I don't have any vested interest in Yale trolling, I just have the strong perception that it isn't YHS but Y HS (and I'm hardly alone in this boat).
The omg-Yale-is-greater-than-everything-and-nobody-turns-it-down is a TLS thing, which has the capacity to turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy, at least for TLS-ers. Note how almost no one on TLS questions Yale's employment figures, because "it's Yale". Yield and competitiveness are not very informative. You can design the admissions process to maximize yield. You can select people who have a very high probability of attending if admitted (see Yale's process of selection). Stanford has a less than 50% yield (roughly), I doubt anyone would read too much into it. There are various rankings (each with its own faults) that rank Harvard above Yale and Stanford. An example is the Lawyers/Judges assessment. Even the peer-whatchamacallit part of the USNWR has H above Y and S (who are in a tie), if I remember correctly. I stand corrected, I really don't read the stuff since I find them generally meaningless. Which one of the three one decides to go, is largely a matter of personal choice (considering aid from all three are - all things equal- roughly within the same range). People have specific reasons for choosing Yale or Harvard or Stanford. All three have their strengths and weaknesses and people have different goals and tastes. First world problems, really. The point of my post was to object to Chicago's unnecessary trolling not to split hairs between hys. I have nothing useful for the OP, except to go wherever he/she wants. These threads are largely a futile exercise in genitalia-measuring designed to take us on a path from nowhere to nothing.

Twit

New
Posts: 65
Joined: Wed Mar 21, 2012 7:53 pm

Re: HLS or SLS?

Post by Twit » Mon Apr 23, 2012 11:21 am

Blessedassurance wrote:The omg-Yale-is-greater-than-everything-and-nobody-turns-it-down is a TLS thing, which has the capacity to turn into a self-fulfilling prophesy...
So much on TLS is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and so is a lot in the legal world: "Harvard is for Big Law," "Yale is for academia/clerkships," "Stanford is for laid back people." By saying these things, people believe them, and then those schools attract those 0L's.

Round and round it goes.

Geneva

Silver
Posts: 1013
Joined: Tue Nov 22, 2011 1:32 am

Re: HLS or SLS?

Post by Geneva » Wed Apr 25, 2012 8:24 pm

Twit wrote:
Blessedassurance wrote:
So much on TLS is a self-fulfilling prophecy, and so is a lot in the legal world: "Harvard is for Big Law," "Yale is for academia/clerkships," "Stanford is for laid back people." By saying these things, people believe them, and then those schools attract those 0L's.

Round and round it goes.
So true! Also, the monetary wealth of YLS makes it virtually impossible for Stanford to surpass it on US News rankings. At SLS ASW, a student asked a prof "how do you account for Yale's yield?" The prof responded w/o missing a beat "US News and World Report"

Want to continue reading?

Register now to search topics and post comments!

Absolutely FREE!


Post Reply

Return to “Choosing a Law School”