Top Law Schools

thelawz09 wrote:There are 768 U Chicago applicants with LSN profiles. Last year U Chicago had 5,400 applicants.

For Georgetown, the ratio is 1,296 to 11,649.

You get the picture. For most schools, the sample size is about 10% of the total number of applicants.

Two questions:

1) How is the pool of applicants who post their stuff on LSN different than the overall pool of applicants--in general? Younger? More obsessive? Worse grades? Better chances?
2) Does Law School Numbers provide a reasonably accurate measurement of what your chances are?

thelawz09 wrote:1) How is the pool of applicants who post their stuff on LSN different than the overall pool of applicants--in general? Younger? More obsessive? Worse grades? Better chances?
2) Does Law School Numbers provide a reasonably accurate measurement of what your chances are?

thelawz09 wrote:There are 768 U Chicago applicants with LSN profiles. Last year U Chicago had 5,400 applicants.

For Georgetown, the ratio is 1,296 to 11,649.

You get the picture. For most schools, the sample size is about 10% of the total number of applicants.

Two questions:

1) How is the pool of applicants who post their stuff on LSN different than the overall pool of applicants--in general? Younger? More obsessive? Worse grades? Better chances?
2) Does Law School Numbers provide a reasonably accurate measurement of what your chances are?

thelawz09 wrote: 2) Does Law School Numbers provide a reasonably accurate measurement of what your chances are?

Desert Fox wrote:
Polls that fairly accurately predict the presidential election only poll 1200 people out of 120,000,000 voters.

jks289 wrote:

thelawz09 wrote:There are 768 U Chicago applicants with LSN profiles. Last year U Chicago had 5,400 applicants.

For Georgetown, the ratio is 1,296 to 11,649.

You get the picture. For most schools, the sample size is about 10% of the total number of applicants.

Two questions:

1) How is the pool of applicants who post their stuff on LSN different than the overall pool of applicants--in general? Younger? More obsessive? Worse grades? Better chances?
2) Does Law School Numbers provide a reasonably accurate measurement of what your chances are?

I think it gives you a general idea of admission trends. Of course it will miss the outliers, which is what I think lots of people are looking for. The one long shot that got in and means maybe they get in too. If anything LSN reaffirms what most of us already know; Above both medians is safety, between is target, and if you are below one 25% you need to be above the other 75% to have a fighting chance, and URM get different thresholds. I think for this cycle especially, last years graphs are going to be less useful, due to the massive increase in applications.

r6_philly wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:
Polls that fairly accurately predict the presidential election only poll 1200 people out of 120,000,000 voters.

This is misleading. If you use LSN to predict what percentage of applicants get admitted/denied vs the whole pool then LSN would be fairly representative. Because election polls only have 2 outcomes regardless of factors. It does not show the chance of being elected for any candidate who isn't being polled about. It isn't a good comparison.

Sorry for nitpicking

beesknees wrote:I think LSN is a good tool for applicants to determine what their targets are (around medians), what their safeties are (above medians), and what their reaches are (below medians). Of course its not a sure-fire way to predict someone's cycle, but from my own experience, its pretty damn accurate (in that my cycle played out exactly as I expected it to). It also gives you a good ballpark for how much money you ***could*** get with your numbers (not that you will, because I know there are a lot of bitter people out on the Michigan thread).

Whoever brought up the soft factors, I'd just like to say that LSN doesn't reflect it because, unless you won a Nobel Peace Prize or something, neither will your cycle reflect your "awesome" softs that you think you have. Yes there are exceptions, but those people tend to be, well, exceptional. For the average applicant who was involved in college, LSN gives a good idea of what to expect.

Desert Fox wrote:.
That being said, LSN is not extremely accurate. There are false data points, and it totally ignores most soft factors.

What LSN is useful for is determining where a schools cut offs are. You can look at UChi and see that below 3.4 there be dragons. You can also tell that below 3.7 and below 169 you are almost definitely out.

So look at the chart, and if you see a bunch of green near your number, you are probably in. If you see all red, you are probably out.

Where LSN is bad is the areas where there are acceptances waitlists, and rejections all in one area. If you see 5/10 applicants with your numbers getting in, that doesn't mean you have a 50-50 shot.