Yale Law School undergraduate representation Forum

[Peter Griffin]

I know that this is a topic that's extensively covered on this forum, but for the sake of other n00bs like myself, I'm posting the following: http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/p ... lletin.pdf.

See Pg 158.

Total enrollment at YLS: 643
1L + 2L + 3L: 590
Misc (LLM, etc.): 53

Undergraduate Representation
Amherst: 9
Brown: 13
Columbia: 23
Cornell: 7
Dartmouth: 16
Duke: 9
Georgetown: 6
Harvard: 79
MIT: 5
Northwestern: 8
Princeton: 31
Stanford: 37
Swarthmore: 5
UC Berkeley: 16
UCLA: 8
University of Chicago: 8
UPenn: 9
U Michigan: 8
UT Austin: 8
UVA: 10
Wesleyan: 7
Williams: 12
Yale: 78

There are other "top" undergrads represented, but they only sent one or two students so I didn't list them. But isn't this astounding? Maybe not for you veterans.

412/643 (64%) of YLS students hail from 23 schools.
225/643 (35%) of YLS students hail from 4 schools - Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Princeton.

Do you think the demographics are similar at other T14s?

My undergrad (a "top" school in its own right) sent 1 person in the three years covered in the report.

[Objection]

2 people from my previously TTT undergrad. Not bad! There also might be 3 people from it at HLS in the fall.

Represent!

[RVP11]

Do you think the demographics are similar at other T14s.

Definitely not, at least not at UVA from what I've seen of the class of 2011 list.

UVA and W&M both send tons of grads to UVA Law each year, but it's more like ~5 per year from each Ivy, about the same number from most of the top publics, and 1 to 3 from many non-top publics and LACs both top and not. As a public school, UVA seems to have disproportionate representation in its class from public UGs.

Considering Yale's focus on both softs and numbers, it's unsurprising that the top UGs are so well represented there. It's still difficult to figure out how much to attribute to them actually valuing elite UGs over others.

[rabbit9198]

................

[VictoryFord]

i think this is just a case of ridiculously smart people getting into great ugs and then attending a top law school. if you have the gpa/lsat to go to yale you most likely had the gpa/sat to attend one of those schools.

[RVP11]

i think this is just a case of ridiculously smart people getting into great ugs and then attending a top law school. if you have the gpa/lsat to go to yale you most likely had the gpa/sat to attend one of those schools.

I also think there is some boost. The smallest schools in particular can afford to be picky within a set of numbers. This is why Yale, Stanford, Chicago, etc. seem pickier about UG than schools that have bigger classes to fill like Harvard, NYU, GULC, etc.

[neskerdoo]

94 people from Connecticut? That is the weird part... am I missing something?

[Goliadkin_Jr]

94 people from Connecticut? That is the weird part... am I missing something?

yale = regional school?

no, i think they just did the geographic distribution based on location of UG instead of state of residency.

[neskerdoo]

but Mass. only has 30

[Goliadkin_Jr]

yeah, i'm stumped. i checked one of the smaller states and it didn't reconcile either.

maybe the yale undergrads really feel at home in new haven and listed their school addresses as perm on their apps.

[derrick]

I also think there is some boost. The smallest schools in particular can afford to be picky within a set of numbers. This is why Yale, Stanford, Chicago, etc. seem pickier about UG than schools that have bigger classes to fill like Harvard, NYU, GULC, etc.

Absolutely. If you think of a number twins + different UG scenario, it's more than likely. I'd think it would almost certainly come before softs, unless the softs are really amazing.

Despite how much more critical GPA/LSAT is, and despite how confident I am about them, I have always been worried about this particular thing coming back to bite me. My UG isn't bad, but if these are my competitors it's going to be rough.

Maybe I am just Web illiterate, but I've been scouring sites, and can't find similar documents from other schools. If anyone has this info for some others in the T14, or the upper T2s, I'd be much obliged.

[RVP11]

Maybe I am just Web illiterate, but I've been scouring sites, and can't find similar documents from other schools. If anyone has this info for some others in the T14, or the upper T2s, I'd be much obliged.

If you look on most schools' websites, they'll at least have class profiles for the most recent admitted class with a breakdown by UG on the Admissions page.

Here's UVA's: http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/prospe ... lass11.htm

[derrick]

Thanks a lot. Many schools seem to just have the relative number of UGs represented as opposed to a detailed list, though.

[kurama20]

I also think there is some boost. The smallest schools in particular can afford to be picky within a set of numbers. This is why Yale, Stanford, Chicago, etc. seem pickier about UG than schools that have bigger classes to fill like Harvard, NYU, GULC, etc.

I agree, I know people say otherwise, but I think that Y and S are somewhat elitist. That's just too much of a coincidence if you look at the stats. It seems like going to a low ranked school and acing your gpa and lsat are not enough for these schools. You cannot tell me that they couldn't find more top applicants from decent undergrads like Georgia Tech, UNC, Wake Forest, Georgia , Florida, etc. They obviously down right prefer top schools.\; and frown upon those outside of the top 20 or so.

[RVP11]

I agree, I know people say otherwise, but I think that Y and S are somewhat elitist. That's just too much of a coincidence if you look at the stats. It seems like going to a low ranked school and acing your gpa and lsat are not enough for these schools. You cannot tell me that they couldn't find more top applicants from decent undergrads like Georgia Tech, UNC, Wake Forest, Georgia , Florida, etc. They obviously down right prefer top schools.\; and frown upon those outside of the top 20 or so.

There's no way we can be sure. Maybe a ton more 3.9+/175+ people come from HYPS than all the top publics combined. We don't really know.

"Acing" your GPA and LSAT IS enough at all three of HYS 99% of the time. 4.0/180s don't struggle to get into Yale.

[markymark]

I know that this is a topic that's extensively covered on this forum, but for the sake of other n00bs like myself, I'm posting the following: http://www.law.yale.edu/documents/pdf/p ... lletin.pdf.

See Pg 158.

Total enrollment at YLS: 643
1L + 2L + 3L: 590
Misc (LLM, etc.): 53

Undergraduate Representation
Amherst: 9
Brown: 13
Columbia: 23
Cornell: 7
Dartmouth: 16
Duke: 9
Georgetown: 6
Harvard: 79
MIT: 5
Northwestern: 8
Princeton: 31
Stanford: 37
Swarthmore: 5
UC Berkeley: 16
UCLA: 8
University of Chicago: 8
UPenn: 9
U Michigan: 8
UT Austin: 8
UVA: 10
Wesleyan: 7
Williams: 12
Yale: 78

There are other "top" undergrads represented, but they only sent one or two students so I didn't list them. But isn't this astounding? Maybe not for you veterans.

412/643 (64%) of YLS students hail from 23 schools.
225/643 (35%) of YLS students hail from 4 schools - Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Princeton.

Do you think the demographics are similar at other T14s?

My undergrad (a "top" school in its own right) sent 1 person in the three years covered in the report.

and you forgot two big schools:

Emory sent 5 and Notre Dame sent 7. So add 12 more... 424/643 = 66%

[snotrocket]

More or less the same profile appears when you look at Harvard's undergrad representation as well, so this is not just a feature of small elite schools. Harvard no longer publishes this sort of breakdown, apparently. Just 12 schools account for 50% of those enrolled at HLS. And 37 schools that sent three or more students per year to HLS account for 75% of the student body. Only 82 schools have an average of at least one student per year enrolled. The other 172 schools with any students at all sent less than one per year. There were a total of 254 schools represented in the HLS student body for the 2006-07 academic year. To put that in rough perspective, U.S. News claims that they collected data from "more than 1,400" colleges and universities to compile the 2009 Best Colleges rankings. Make of it what you will.

--ImageRemoved--

[observationalist]

Do you think the demographics are similar at other T14s.

Definitely not, at least not at UVA from what I've seen of the class of 2011 list.

UVA and W&M both send tons of grads to UVA Law each year, but it's more like ~5 per year from each Ivy, about the same number from most of the top publics, and 1 to 3 from many non-top publics and LACs both top and not. As a public school, UVA seems to have disproportionate representation in its class from public UGs.

Considering Yale's focus on both softs and numbers, it's unsurprising that the top UGs are so well represented there. It's still difficult to figure out how much to attribute to them actually valuing elite UGs over others.

Vandy has the same sort of breakdown as UVA... a whopping 112 UGs were represented out of 193 students in my class. Just 17 schools had 3 or more grads -- Auburn, Cornell, Columbia, G-town, Georgia Tech, Harvard, Princeton, Chicago, UF, UGA, Illinois, Maryland, UNC, ND, UVA, Vandy and Yale. With the exception of Vandy (there are 19 Double-Dores in my class), no UG had more than 7 represented (Duke).

That said, the number of states represented is similar for many private nationally-ranked schools, with perhaps less geographic diversity at schools tending to feed a particular market (i.e. NU or Cornell).

[atleastimhoping]

The information about Harvard is somewhat comforting.

[westbayguy]

Yale as of 2009-10 (620 Students) Top feeders are pretty constant from year to year

Institutions Represented
One student from each institution unless otherwise indicated
Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Freiburg [Germany] (2)
Albion College
American University (5)
American University of Beirut [Lebanon]
Amherst University (4)
Aristoteleio Panepistimio Thessalonikis [Greece]
Arizona State University (5)
Arkansas State University
Athinisin Ethnikon Kai Kapodistriakon Panepistimion [Greece]
Baylor University
Biola University
Birmingham-Southern College
Bob Jones University
Boston College (2)
Bowdoin College
Brandeis University (2)
Brigham Young University (5)
Brown University (21)
Bryn Mawr College (2)
California State University
Calvin College
Carleton College
Carnegie Mellon University
Chulalongkorn University [Thailand]
City University of New York [Bernard Baruch College]
City University of New York [City College]
City University of New York [Herbert Lehman College]
Claremont McKenna College
Colgate University (2)
College of the Holy Cross
Colorado College
Columbia University (22)
Columbia University [Barnard College]
Concordia University [Canada]
Cornell University (10)
Creighton University
Dartmouth College (15)
Dickinson College
Duke University (14)
East China University of Political Science and Law [People’s Republic of China]
Emory University (3)
Fordham University (4)
Fudan University [People’s Republic of China]
George Washington University (2)
Georgetown University (7)
Gettysburg College
Gonzaga University
Gordon College
Grinell College
Hampton University
Harvard University (76)
Harvey Mudd College
Hebrew University of Jerusalem [Israel]
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf [Germany]
Hillsdale College
Howard University (2)
Indiana University (2)
Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris [France]
Johns Hopkins University (6)
Kalamazoo College
Kyoto University [Japan]
Leopold-Franzens Universität Innsbruck [Austria]
London School of Economics and Political Science [United Kingdom]
Louisiana State University (2)
Loyola College [Maryland]
Loyola Marymount University
Loyola University [Illinois]
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
McGill University [Canada] (2)
Middlebury College (3)
Millsaps College
Minnesota State University
Montclair State College
Morehouse College
Morgan State University
Mount Holyoke College (2)
Nanjing University [People’s Republic of China]
National Law School of India University [India] (2)
National Taiwan University [Taiwan] (2)
National University of Ireland [Ireland]
New York University (7)
Northwestern University (8)
Oberlin College (2)
Ohio State University
Peking University [People’s Republic of China]
Pennsylvania State University
Pepperdine University
Pomona College (3)
Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile [Chile]
Pontificia Universidade Católica do Rio de Janeiro [Brazil]
Princeton University (27)
Rice University (2)
Rutgers, State University of New Jersey (2)
Saint John’s University [New York]
Sarah Lawrence College (2)
Scripps College
Seattle University
Smith College
Sookmyung Women’s University [Republic of Korea]
Spelman College
Stanford University (35)
State University of New York at Buffalo
Swarthmore College (7)
Taylor University
Tel Aviv University [Israel] (2)
Touro College
Trinity Christian College
Trinity University [Texas]
United States Naval Academy
Universidad Católica de Córdoba [Argentina]
Universidad Complutense de Madrid [Spain]
Universidad de los Andes [Colombia]
Universidad Nacional de La Plata [Argentina]
Universidad Panamericana [Mexico]
Universidade de Lisboa [Portugal]
Universidade de São Paulo [Brazil]
Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul [Brazil]
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore [Italy]
University of Alabama
University of Alberta [Canada]
University of Arkansas
University of Asmara [Eritrea]
University of Calgary [Canada]
University of California at Berkeley (12)
University of California at Irvine
University of California at Los Angeles (9)
University of California at Santa Barbara
University of Cambridge [United Kingdom] (2)
University of Cape Town [South Africa]
University of Chicago (12)
University of Colorado
University of Connecticut
University of Denver
University of Florida (4)
University of Georgia (3)
University of Iowa (2)
University of Kansas (2)
University of Mary Washington (2)
University of Maryland (2)
University of Massachusetts
University of Miami (2)
University of Michigan at Ann Arbor (9)
University of Missouri (2)
University of North Carolina at Asheville
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (5)
University of North Texas
University of Notre Dame [Indiana] (3)
University of Oklahoma
University of Oregon (3)
University of Ottawa [Canada]
University of Oxford [United Kingdom]
University of Pennsylvania (14)
University of Pittsburgh (2)
University of Redlands
University of Rochester
University of Saint Andrews [United Kingdom]
University of Southern California (5)
University of Tennessee
University of Texas at Austin (6)
University of Texas at Dallas
University of the Philippines [Philippines]
University of Tokyo [Japan]
University of Toronto [Canada] (2)
University of Tulsa
University of Virginia (3)
University of Washington (3)
University of Western Australia [Australia]
University of Wisconsin at Eau Claire
University of Wisconsin at Madison (3)
University of Witwatersrand [South Africa]
Vanderbilt University (3)
Vassar College
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Wake Forest University
Washington and Lee University (4)
Washington University [Missouri] (8)
Wellesley College (6)
Wesleyan University (7)
Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster [Germany]
Whitman College (2)
Williams College (4)
Wuhan University [People’s Republic of China]
Yale University (87)
Yeshiva University
Yonshei University [Republic of Korea]
Total institutions, 185

[2014]

My UG is on the fairly short list at both Yale and Harvard!
Too bad I have no shot

[09042014]

My UG is on the fairly short list at both Yale and Harvard!
Too bad I have no shot

Not necessarily. They take plenty of people from shitty undergrads. It's just that people who can score 173+ on the LSAT usually could have gone to good undergrad schools.

[whymeohgodno]

My undergrad isn't even on the list. Oh well. Not like I'm wasting money to apply and get rejected to Yale anyways.

[r6_philly]

I don't think my undergrad has ever been on that list. Makes me wanna ask my grad school to allow me to complete a second bachelors that'd bump me to the front of the list

[The Real Jack McCoy]

I don't think my undergrad has ever been on that list. Makes me wanna ask my grad school to allow me to complete a second bachelors that'd bump me to the front of the list

I suspect most recent degree is most important anyways (though I realize your joking...)