Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes? Forum

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CanadianWolf

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by CanadianWolf » Fri Aug 27, 2010 7:23 pm

If I understand, the OP's point is that size matters.

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ResolutePear

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by ResolutePear » Fri Aug 27, 2010 7:55 pm

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Hoopster

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by Hoopster » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:08 pm

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by Hoopster » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:09 pm

My dad's a V5 partner and he said school size makes no difference. It's how the students are being taught that matters to him. If he had to choose, he'd rather hire all 200 Yalies than the top 200 from HLS. But that's just him. The other partners don't feel quite as strongly.

Guess which school I'm at. :wink:

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ResolutePear

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by ResolutePear » Fri Aug 27, 2010 8:12 pm

Hoopster wrote:My dad's a V5 partner and he said school size makes no difference. It's how the students are being taught that matters to him. If he had to choose, he'd rather hire all 200 Yalies than the top 200 from HLS. But that's just him. The other partners don't feel quite as strongly.

Guess which school I'm at. :wink:
Oh! Let's play a game. Tell me if I'm getting warmer or colder!

...Cornell?

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YSS

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by YSS » Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:17 pm

Hoopster wrote:My dad's a V5 partner and he said school size makes no difference. It's how the students are being taught that matters to him. If he had to choose, he'd rather hire all 200 Yalies than the top 200 from HLS. But that's just him. The other partners don't feel quite as strongly.

Guess which school I'm at. :wink:
well V5-V10 firms are dominated by Harvard and Columbia grads.....I'm pretty sure they would also favor their schools like you dad does his

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by YSS » Fri Aug 27, 2010 9:22 pm

abl wrote:HYS students aren't interchangeable. However, it's also not true that Harvard students are "better" than Stanford students. All three schools have a fair amount of self-selection, and on top of that, have fairly different admissions profiles. A student who is straight out of Princeton and hasn't done much interesting other than score a 179 on the LSAT and gotten a 4.0 GPA will have the best chance at Harvard, followed by Yale and Stanford. A student who served in the Navy for five years between undergrad and law school and is a concert violinist with a 168 and 4.0 from Michigan undergrad will probably have the best chance at Stanford followed by Yale and then Harvard. A Swarthmore grad who's published a best-selling novel with a 180 and a 3.6 might have the best shot at Yale. It's unlikely that any of these students will be admitted to all three, and it is unlikely that any of these students will be admitted/rejected by exactly the same schools. Is one student "better" than the others? In the eyes of each of the respective admission adcoms, of course! But which one is better? I'm sure HYS won't agree, and I doubt people in this board would either (personally I'm the most impressed by the Navy guy/gal, but I am sure there are people who will fall into each camp).

Pointless discussions of which student is "better" aside, I think there is very little question that HYS all have the strongest application pools and are very strongly preferred by applicants, which gives these schools their pick of the top candidates applying to law schools every year. Moreover, I think few would argue that for the vast majority of the most selective legal positions, having HYS on your resume makes a difference (as compared to even CCN). Would this be the case still if Harvard had only 200 students or Stanford had only 15? Most likely. But discussions of that sort are silly; Harvard has 550 students, Yale has 200 and Stanford has 180. This is part of the character of each of these schools, and it affects the way they operate as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Each has its own rather distinct culture, and each has its own set of (subtle) strengths and weaknesses. What school of the three is "better" is going to depend far more on the individual applicant than on the school's ranked prestige or student body profile, as all three are so similar to be practically indistinguishable on numerical factors. If you're lucky enough to have a decision, visit and see for yourself.

don't know about "most impressive"......that's highly subjective

but without a doubt the kid with the 4.0 and 179 is the smartest

give me pure intelligence over some guy who saved orphans in Bangladesh

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by Hoopster » Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:16 pm

YSS wrote:
Hoopster wrote:My dad's a V5 partner and he said school size makes no difference. It's how the students are being taught that matters to him. If he had to choose, he'd rather hire all 200 Yalies than the top 200 from HLS. But that's just him. The other partners don't feel quite as strongly.

Guess which school I'm at. :wink:
well V5-V10 firms are dominated by Harvard and Columbia grads.....I'm pretty sure they would also favor their schools like you dad does his
When it comes to the Yalies, it's largely self-selection. Many of them don't care about biglaw. According to my father and his partners, biglaw firms, especially those in NYC, as a general rule wish more YLS students would show interest in them. When you think about it, usually only a third of the class look to go into biglaw upon graduation - that's only 70 on average. That puts me in the minority. Consequently, the pool of YLS graduates seeking biglaw positions is very small compared to HLS and CLS, schools that are far more biglaw-centric.

BTW, my father didn't go to YLS. So it isn't about favoritism but pragmatism and which LS is more likely to give his firm positive ROI based on the hirings over the years.

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moopness

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by moopness » Fri Aug 27, 2010 10:57 pm

YSS wrote:
abl wrote:HYS students aren't interchangeable. However, it's also not true that Harvard students are "better" than Stanford students. All three schools have a fair amount of self-selection, and on top of that, have fairly different admissions profiles. A student who is straight out of Princeton and hasn't done much interesting other than score a 179 on the LSAT and gotten a 4.0 GPA will have the best chance at Harvard, followed by Yale and Stanford. A student who served in the Navy for five years between undergrad and law school and is a concert violinist with a 168 and 4.0 from Michigan undergrad will probably have the best chance at Stanford followed by Yale and then Harvard. A Swarthmore grad who's published a best-selling novel with a 180 and a 3.6 might have the best shot at Yale. It's unlikely that any of these students will be admitted to all three, and it is unlikely that any of these students will be admitted/rejected by exactly the same schools. Is one student "better" than the others? In the eyes of each of the respective admission adcoms, of course! But which one is better? I'm sure HYS won't agree, and I doubt people in this board would either (personally I'm the most impressed by the Navy guy/gal, but I am sure there are people who will fall into each camp).

Pointless discussions of which student is "better" aside, I think there is very little question that HYS all have the strongest application pools and are very strongly preferred by applicants, which gives these schools their pick of the top candidates applying to law schools every year. Moreover, I think few would argue that for the vast majority of the most selective legal positions, having HYS on your resume makes a difference (as compared to even CCN). Would this be the case still if Harvard had only 200 students or Stanford had only 15? Most likely. But discussions of that sort are silly; Harvard has 550 students, Yale has 200 and Stanford has 180. This is part of the character of each of these schools, and it affects the way they operate as well as their advantages and disadvantages. Each has its own rather distinct culture, and each has its own set of (subtle) strengths and weaknesses. What school of the three is "better" is going to depend far more on the individual applicant than on the school's ranked prestige or student body profile, as all three are so similar to be practically indistinguishable on numerical factors. If you're lucky enough to have a decision, visit and see for yourself.

don't know about "most impressive"......that's highly subjective

but without a doubt the kid with the 4.0 and 179 is the smartest

give me pure intelligence over some guy who saved orphans in Bangladesh
If you value pure intelligence, I'd say the 3.6 180 is the "smartest". GPA isn't as indicative of intelligence as much as it is work ethic. And I'm not too sure someone who gets into Yale would be rejected from Stanford. I dunno, I've always thought of Stanford as Yale-light

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tinman

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by tinman » Sat Aug 28, 2010 2:19 am

Just about to start 2L year at Yale ... after seeing the way the interviews are going this year, I finally see the true advantage of Yale. It's super easy to get a big law job from Yale (I have a V25 offer already, and I'm just starting the callback process). And I think it's much easier to get clerkships, become a professor, etc.

Law school can be brutal, even at Yale. But it's less brutal here, I think. It seems all you really need is 1H out of 3 or 4 classes (that's all the grades we have before firms hire for 2L summer) to be set up to get a good job. And we can choose our classes, so you can take one or two classes that you really enjoy and/or think you can do well in. I wrote two papers. I did well on them because I cared about them. If I had to take four issue-spotting exams (or ~10 by the end of first year as I think is the case at H or S), I'm not confidant that I would have rocked first year (people are crazy smart at all these top schools). But I'm proud of what I've done before law school, and I'm proud of how I have spent my time during law school. At Yale you can have interview success without beating my classmates in anything. In sum, maybe the top ten or twenty percent of students can distinguish themselves better at H or S. But I'm glad that neither I nor my interviews know whether I am in the top twenty percent at Yale. I'm glad that my transcript does not detract from my pre-LS successes or from my impression in interviews. I think at most other schools (including H and S), even with the same pre-LS resume, I either would have to have become a psycho-gunner studier who reveled in beating his classmates on inane exams (in which case I would likely have the exact same options I have now) or I would have had my ass handed to me by the psycho-gunners (in which case I think I would be screwed for top firm jobs, etc). I'm glad I've had to suffer neither fate.

Anyway, Yale is not really very good in the area of law I want to practice, so I seriously considered going elsewhere for that reason. I also was fortunate enough to have been offered scholarship money (as I am sure many of you on this board will/have been as well), and I thought seriously about that (I am no fortunate son). But more than ever, I'm so glad I came to Yale. I think people would be crazy to go elsewhere (unless, perhaps, all they care about are firms jobs in Cali).

So, I think my point is that I think Yale is the safest choice (of the big three) for most people for many reasons. And I think there are many reasons besides USNWR that should make it people's top choice, especially in this economy.

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by Pip » Sun Aug 29, 2010 12:00 am

YSS wrote:Just looking at the numbers (GPA & LSAT) Harvard and Yale are nearly identical. Then you factor in the fact Harvard has over 2x as many students and it got me thinking about what a stupid factor this is when ranking the PRESTIGE of a school. If Harvard wanted they could literally SMASH Yale numbers wise. One could argue that the top 200 students at Harvard are much better than the top 200 students at Yale. Ranking of a school's prestige shouldn't factor something this arbitrary.
Sorry but your facts are wrong. Harvard's GPA and LSAT numbers are very low compared to other top schools, its the reason they don't even report them. USNews just makes up an estimated number for them.

The reality is I never met a student at Yale that wasn't also accepted to Harvard with they had applied to both.... But I've met lots of Harvard students that weren't accepted to Yale.

You sound like one of those envious students at Harvard that got rejected by Yale... so for that all I can say is sorry, but spouting off nonsense doesn't really help now does it?

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by tikiman6 » Sun Aug 29, 2010 12:13 am

YSS wrote:Just looking at the numbers (GPA & LSAT) Harvard and Yale are nearly identical. Then you factor in the fact Harvard has over 2x as many students and it got me thinking about what a stupid factor this is when ranking the PRESTIGE of a school. If Harvard wanted they could literally SMASH Yale numbers wise. One could argue that the top 200 students at Harvard are much better than the top 200 students at Yale. Ranking of a school's prestige shouldn't factor something this arbitrary.
Technically if you wanted to make a statistically relevant comparison, you would compare Harvard's top x% of students with Yale's top x% of students and then see who was better if you wanted to compare for quality. Since Yale has 613 students to Harvard's 1771. So, while the best 613 students at Yale is all of their students, the Harvard's best 613 are roughly it's best third - it would make sense for those students of Harvard's better. In this case, the best 10% of Yale are it's best 61 students to Harvard's 172.

don't know about "most impressive"......that's highly subjective

but without a doubt the kid with the 4.0 and 179 is the smartest

give me pure intelligence over some guy who saved orphans in Bangladesh
I see this as the overachiever that studied their way into a 179 from something lower. Not smartest, maybe hardest working.

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by skoobily doobily » Sun Aug 29, 2010 12:23 am

Pip wrote: Sorry but your facts are wrong. Harvard's GPA and LSAT numbers are very low compared to other top schools, its the reason they don't even report them. USNews just makes up an estimated number for them.
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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by Hoopster » Sun Aug 29, 2010 1:01 pm

Pip wrote: The reality is I never met a student at Yale that wasn't also accepted to Harvard with they had applied to both.... But I've met lots of Harvard students that weren't accepted to Yale.
I know of one who was accepted to YLS but rejected by HLS. Very unusual, yes, but it has happened. But I doubt he's crying about it, LOL.

tinman made very good points. I'm just not quite as eloquent with the written word as he is. :)

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dbt

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by dbt » Sun Aug 29, 2010 1:05 pm

Whether it's a consequence of size or not, Yale has superior placement in clerkships + firms, and I think this is what really matters. I'm not talking about U.S. News stuff, just the question of what the best law school is.

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The Gentleman

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by The Gentleman » Sun Aug 29, 2010 1:23 pm

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Last edited by The Gentleman on Mon Oct 03, 2011 5:49 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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ResolutePear

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by ResolutePear » Sun Aug 29, 2010 3:00 pm

Whoever follows those rankings deserves to be shot.

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Re: Yale is higher than Harvard because it has smaller classes?

Post by Skyhook » Mon Aug 30, 2010 9:38 pm

Tikiman 6 is obviously right, you have to compare 'top' x% at each school for it to be a fair comparison.
(Simple LSAT question there :wink: )
It it is meaningless to look at 200 students out of 200 vs 200 out of 600.

But the very issue of selectivity is the real crux here.
If Yale wanted to just have a class of 180's students with concomitantly high GPA I'm quite sure they could. Yale has the luxury of choice and it exercises that choice to take a variety of students to make up a diverse class.

Not really sure what OP is trying to get at...

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