Re: Why do soft factors matter so little for LS admissions?
Posted: Thu Apr 21, 2011 9:58 am
I asked him what the book was about in another thread but never heard back. I'm still curious Taxguy...
Law School Discussion Forums
https://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/
https://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=153842
The University of Phoenix.czelede wrote:
This one is my favorite.
And also, would be curious to see WHERE this kid went to b-school.
I wonder why his softs didn't help that much...taxguy wrote: For what it's worth, my son completely bombed the LSAT with a high score of 146. He does, however, have very strong work experience with all kinds of recommendations and awards. He also has written one of the strongest personal statements I have ever seen. We shall see how these soft factors will play out. If the soft factors do have a positive affect, I will publish this on this forum. Honestly, I am not very optimistic.
Don't you know? He bombed the GMAT too and graduated valedictorian. TaxguyJr is destined for the top of his class in law school too.Flips88 wrote:From another thread as well:I wonder why his softs didn't help that much...taxguy wrote: For what it's worth, my son completely bombed the LSAT with a high score of 146. He does, however, have very strong work experience with all kinds of recommendations and awards. He also has written one of the strongest personal statements I have ever seen. We shall see how these soft factors will play out. If the soft factors do have a positive affect, I will publish this on this forum. Honestly, I am not very optimistic.
duh, he worked for an accounting firm and was loved by the partners.czelede wrote:This one is my favorite.Mce252 wrote:Sorry, your softs are mediocre at best. Let me share my son's softs.
First, he is a CPA and garnered good scores for each part.
Second, he is a CFP
Third, he worked for the IRS and got an award for his work
Fourth: he worked for an accounting firm and was loved by the partners and got a very strong recommendation
Fifth: he is working on a book and has some chapters written
Sixth: He started a fraternity in college and was an officer
Seventh: He played intermural college sports and was on the Ultimate Frisbee team
Finally, despite completely bombing the GMAT he graduated valedictorian from a grad business program.
OH yes, he has a guaranteed job offer once he graduates from law school. Now in my opinion, these are GREAT soft factors.
These are his son's softs that he posted in another thread.
Taxguy - Does your son know that you spend a good amount of time in an online forum talking about his life?
And also, would be curious to see WHERE this kid went to b-school.
Taxguy, Jr.czelede wrote:Don't you know? He bombed the GMAT too and graduated valedictorian. TaxguyJr is destined for the top of his class in law school too.
I think the bolded part is pretty bs.saladfiend wrote:US News and World Report rankings is the credited response. Median LSAT and GPA aren't actually worth that much, but they are worth enough that schools care about them a lot. They are the only variables that admissions offices can really control. I suppose that by creating a large waiting list, the admissions office could massage the acceptance rate also. If you look at the medical school ranking methodology, MCAT and GPA are worth much, much less. Medical schools care a lot more about "soft" factors, though I'm not sure how much US News has to do with it.
Methodology (from their site)
A. Quality Assessment (weighted by .40)
A(1). Peer Assessment Score (.25)
A(2). Assessment Score by Lawyers/Judges (.15) [btw, very low response rates for these surveys]
B. Selectivity (weighted by .25)
B(1). Median LSAT Scores (.125)
B(2). Median Undergrad GPA (.10)
B(3). Acceptance Rate (.025)
C. Placement Success (weighted by .20):
C(1). Employment Rate at Graduation (0.04)
C(2). Employment Rate at 9 mos. (0.14)
C(3). Bar Passage Rate (.02)
E. Faculty Resources (weighted by .15):
E(1). Expenditures Per Student (0.1125)
E(2). Student/Faculty Ratio (.03)
E(3). Library Resources (.0075)
thunderflesh wrote:I think that the value of softs is overvalued by most, but perhaps a little undervalued on TLS. I say this because I think that my softs got me into Columbia (sort of).
My numbers certainly qualified me for admission, and if my LSAT was just 1 or 2 points lower, I probably wouldn't have gotten in. But my numbers definitely didn't guarantee me admission. Many people with better numbers than me were denied/held/reserved, and my softs--while not exceptional--were fairly unique, and I worked very hard on my personal statement (much more than anyone else I've spoken to who applied for the Class of 2014).
In brief: soft factors will almost never make up for inadequate numbers. Your numbers will put you into one of three categories: Yes, No, or Maybe. But for the group that falls within "Maybe", it is softs that can turn that into a Yes or a No. And the schools for which your numbers make you a "Maybe" are (usually) the schools you should be targeting.
Numbers are definitely the most important part of your app, but I think it's very misleading for people to go around saying "softs don't matter", even if they're being a little hyperbolic.
Completely agree with this. You basically need to have known you wanted to go to med school for 4 years before you apply, because the good ones want so much research and extracurricular activities on your resume. Med school admissions is definitely way more holistic than law school admissions in that sense.Flips88 wrote:I think the bolded part is pretty bs.saladfiend wrote:US News and World Report rankings is the credited response. Median LSAT and GPA aren't actually worth that much, but they are worth enough that schools care about them a lot. They are the only variables that admissions offices can really control. I suppose that by creating a large waiting list, the admissions office could massage the acceptance rate also. If you look at the medical school ranking methodology, MCAT and GPA are worth much, much less. Medical schools care a lot more about "soft" factors, though I'm not sure how much US News has to do with it.
Methodology (from their site)
A. Quality Assessment (weighted by .40)
A(1). Peer Assessment Score (.25)
A(2). Assessment Score by Lawyers/Judges (.15) [btw, very low response rates for these surveys]
B. Selectivity (weighted by .25)
B(1). Median LSAT Scores (.125)
B(2). Median Undergrad GPA (.10)
B(3). Acceptance Rate (.025)
C. Placement Success (weighted by .20):
C(1). Employment Rate at Graduation (0.04)
C(2). Employment Rate at 9 mos. (0.14)
C(3). Bar Passage Rate (.02)
E. Faculty Resources (weighted by .15):
E(1). Expenditures Per Student (0.1125)
E(2). Student/Faculty Ratio (.03)
E(3). Library Resources (.0075)
Also, anecdotally, I have a couple friends that applied to med schools. One got denied almost everywhere because he had zero extracurricular activities during UG. My other friend, who volunteers all over the place and does a ton of stuff on campus from student groups to research, got into Duke which is a top 5 program for medical research and his MCAT was only 92%ile. Interviewing is also mandatory and you have to foot the bill (or at least my friend did).
IMO, med school app process>>>>law school app process
I think it's also because it's hard to tell when soft factors, essays, etc. are the distinguishing factor for acceptance (or the reason for rejection). With numbers it's a lot easier to establish a pattern.d34dluk3 wrote:TLS definitely undervalues softs. The reason for this is that the # of people who actually have softs that distinguish them is much smaller than the # of people who have softs that are essentially identical to most of the other applicants.
These are my favorites. I keep picturing Will Ferrell doing a superman dive to catch the 'disc'.czelede wrote:This one is my favorite.Mce252 wrote:Sorry, your softs are mediocre at best. Let me share my son's softs.
First, he is a CPA and garnered good scores for each part.
Second, he is a CFP
Third, he worked for the IRS and got an award for his work
Fourth: he worked for an accounting firm and was loved by the partners and got a very strong recommendation
Fifth: he is working on a book and has some chapters written
Sixth: He started a fraternity in college and was an officerSeventh: He played intermural college sports and was on the Ultimate Frisbee teamFinally, despite completely bombing the GMAT he graduated valedictorian from a grad business program.
OH yes, he has a guaranteed job offer once he graduates from law school. Now in my opinion, these are GREAT soft factors.
These are his son's softs that he posted in another thread.
Taxguy - Does your son know that you spend a good amount of time in an online forum talking about his life?
And also, would be curious to see WHERE this kid went to b-school.
+1 For those who are saying TLS underestimates softs, just take a look at the strict floors almost every school has for GPA and LSAT on LSN. besides, as many have pointed out, you can't fake a 170 but you can certainly put "3 years of leadership in xyz club where we raised 30,000 for xyz charity" and law schools will never know if it's true.czelede wrote:I think it's also because it's hard to tell when soft factors, essays, etc. are the distinguishing factor for acceptance (or the reason for rejection). With numbers it's a lot easier to establish a pattern.d34dluk3 wrote:TLS definitely undervalues softs. The reason for this is that the # of people who actually have softs that distinguish them is much smaller than the # of people who have softs that are essentially identical to most of the other applicants.
But I do agree with the thought that softs really only matter in the margins, when you're in the "maybe" category.
TBF, later in that thread he said his son was CAPTAIN of the ultimate frisbee teamRooney wrote:These are my favorites. I keep picturing Will Ferrell doing a superman dive to catch the 'disc'.czelede wrote:This one is my favorite.Mce252 wrote:Sorry, your softs are mediocre at best. Let me share my son's softs.
First, he is a CPA and garnered good scores for each part.
Second, he is a CFP
Third, he worked for the IRS and got an award for his work
Fourth: he worked for an accounting firm and was loved by the partners and got a very strong recommendation
Fifth: he is working on a book and has some chapters written
Sixth: He started a fraternity in college and was an officerSeventh: He played intermural college sports and was on the Ultimate Frisbee teamFinally, despite completely bombing the GMAT he graduated valedictorian from a grad business program.
OH yes, he has a guaranteed job offer once he graduates from law school. Now in my opinion, these are GREAT soft factors.
These are his son's softs that he posted in another thread.
Taxguy - Does your son know that you spend a good amount of time in an online forum talking about his life?
And also, would be curious to see WHERE this kid went to b-school.
This probably as close to the truth as you can get with a generalization. Softs, essays, etc., definitely play a substantive role in the admissions process. For example take a look at the differences in my cycle in comparison with that of another LSN account with the same exact GPA/LSAT numbers (that account was removed recently, but take my word for it):Mce252 wrote:thunderflesh wrote:I think that the value of softs is overvalued by most, but perhaps a little undervalued on TLS. I say this because I think that my softs got me into Columbia (sort of).
My numbers certainly qualified me for admission, and if my LSAT was just 1 or 2 points lower, I probably wouldn't have gotten in. But my numbers definitely didn't guarantee me admission. Many people with better numbers than me were denied/held/reserved, and my softs--while not exceptional--were fairly unique, and I worked very hard on my personal statement (much more than anyone else I've spoken to who applied for the Class of 2014).
In brief: soft factors will almost never make up for inadequate numbers. Your numbers will put you into one of three categories: Yes, No, or Maybe. But for the group that falls within "Maybe", it is softs that can turn that into a Yes or a No. And the schools for which your numbers make you a "Maybe" are (usually) the schools you should be targeting.
Numbers are definitely the most important part of your app, but I think it's very misleading for people to go around saying "softs don't matter", even if they're being a little hyperbolic.
I think a lot of adcoms are like a tuning fork about softs. Something has to hit them just right to make a difference. Every school is going to be different.
athenian wrote: I think soft factors, if compelling and unique enough, can push you from being a "maybe" to a "yes" at some schools. Heck, maybe the quailty of my involvement in extra-curriculars made my low GPA a bit more forgiveable. But, soft factors won't get you into schools that you aren't already capable of getting into on numbers alone.
taxguy wrote:soft factors represent at most 2-4 points on the LSAT.
Taxguy, I totally feel you on this. I won a few awards from my school by going drinking with the head of my department and babysitting her kids. That should definitely be worth 2-4 points. I can haz 174 plz?taxguy wrote:As for evaluation of softs, they can be proven. If someone wins awards, he can submit copies of the award certificates. If someone achieves top grades somewhere, there is a transcript. If there are any certifications, they are easy to prove. If you think like a prosecuting attorney, you can usually prove most soft factors, which is not a bad thing to do.