UC Irvine Law acceptance rate released: LOWER THAN YALE'S

[bigben]

Also, I wonder if they rejected people with super high numbers to yield protect. They must have chosen their range very carefully.

I think it's clear that they engaged in "yield protection," but not by choosing a range of numbers. They seem to have literally narrowed it down to a group of people who were committed or feigned commitment to attending the school, and just chose the highest numbers out of that crowd. Everyone else was dinged.

No. They accepted everyone with 164+ in the beginning of the cycle. Then later they started looking at GPAs too because they got even more applications.

Does "beginning of the cycle" mean just the first week? It just seems impossible that accepting all 164+ would result in 110 total acceptances out of 2,741 apps and a median of 167. They must have gauged an applicant's interest in the school and factored that into admissions decisions.

[Arrow]

I agree. It is very likely they did some yield protect. With an average of 167, I bet a good portion of people who were 175+ were dinged (who likely would have gone to solid T14's).

I wonder what kind of a curve they will have too. I bet it won't be too bad since I am sure they will want all of their students to get jobs. With 70 people though, that could be a rough curve. I think it is also interesting that these 70 people will all probably be taking the same classes all throughout their law school career. They will probably be super close and bond like crazy.

[Danteshek]

I agree. It is very likely they did some yield protect. With an average of 167, I bet a good portion of people who were 175+ were dinged (who likely would have gone to solid T14's).

I wonder what kind of a curve they will have too. I bet it won't be too bad since I am sure they will want all of their students to get jobs. With 70 people though, that could be a rough curve. I think it is also interesting that these 70 people will all probably be taking the same classes all throughout their law school career. They will probably be super close and bond like crazy.

I'm guessing a lot of people who could have been near the top at a place like Loyola will be at the bottom of their class at UCI.

[awesomepossum]

I agree. It is very likely they did some yield protect. With an average of 167, I bet a good portion of people who were 175+ were dinged (who likely would have gone to solid T14's).

I wonder what kind of a curve they will have too. I bet it won't be too bad since I am sure they will want all of their students to get jobs. With 70 people though, that could be a rough curve. I think it is also interesting that these 70 people will all probably be taking the same classes all throughout their law school career. They will probably be super close and bond like crazy.

there's a flip side to that....if you don't like the people in your class or if there are even a few people that are toolboxes, it's hard to escape them.

[adonai]

Is anyone else irritated at the fact that UCI Law is getting higher average numbers than they deserve? It sort of angers me yet makes me happy at the same time because it increases competition amongst schools for students in that range i.e. UCLA USC (if only a bit). I'm guessing this would be a slight benefit for those who actually apply to these schools and really intend to matriculate. I guess I am just weird.

[JJim1919]

Is anyone else irritated at the fact that UCI Law is getting higher average numbers than they deserve? It sort of angers me yet makes me happy at the same time because it increases competition amongst schools for students in that range i.e. UCLA USC (if only a bit). I guess I am just weird.

A 3.65/167 would give irvine almost the same entering class stats as UCLA. It is pretty crazy that in its first year of existence Irvine is on par with UCLA/Vandy and Texas. If Irvine can keep this up, maybe they will be the school that breaks the T14. After all, the rankings tend to favor small class sizes and with that faculty...

[dresden doll]

Is anyone else irritated at the fact that UCI Law is getting higher average numbers than they deserve? It sort of angers me yet makes me happy at the same time because it increases competition amongst schools for students in that range i.e. UCLA USC (if only a bit). I guess I am just weird.

A 3.65/167 would give irvine almost the same entering class stats as UCLA. It is pretty crazy that in its first year of existence Irvine is on par with UCLA/Vandy and Texas. If Irvine can keep this up, maybe they will be the school that breaks the T14. After all, the rankings tend to favor small class sizes and with that faculty...

I think the stats are on par with Texas, USC and Vandy, not so much UCLA. 3.6 is a little on the low side for a GPA lover like UCLA. However, while the stats are certainly amazing, lets not forget that they're offering a free ride to entering students and that tuition scholarships are going a particularly long way given current economy.

Re: class size, I highly doubt they'll keep it at 60 for very long. It'll probably expand to the size of a regular smaller school circa 190-200 people. If they do end up keeping up with their stats without offering full rides to everyone, I will be truly impressed.

Also, I don't think they'll be ranked for another year or two so current stats aren't going to mean anything unless they can keep them up until after they're accredited and ranked. Just my two cents.

[geoanthem]

Does anyone know what the stats of other recent first year classes have been at new law schools? Just wondering.

[Arrow]

UCI going to drop at least a little bit right? Without full scholarships for the entering class, I feel like it would be tough to continue to attract certain students. There is no way they can keep giving full 3 year scholarships for another 2 years (that has to be a lot of money even for a public school). Also, eventually they are going to have to hire more faculty and admit more students, so maybe over time LSAT/GPA stats will likely drop and faculty to student ratio will decrease.

This is obviously just my guess, but how do other new law schools generally do (rankings wise)?

I also must say, this definitely increases the competition for UCLA/USC/Loyola/Pepperdine students. It also cannot be good for Southwestern, Whittier, Case Western, and those other schools I can't think of. I guess perhaps the LA market is not as saturated as the NY market?

I am not irritated by their high averages at all. In fact, I kind of expect them to do such a good job with Chemerinsky and the rest of the amazing faculty. They know they have to start out with a bang in this economy, especially when their OCI list doesn't look too appealing (in comparison). Not a lot of big firms are on their OCI list, and it will probably take awhile for them to establish good relationships and for all those downtown folks to be willing to drive down there. Moreover, firms may not want to take risks with a new school or it might not just be worth their time if there is only 70 people.

On the other hand, there are like 20 or so big firms that will be there, which is probably plenty for those 70 people. The bigger question is how many of those 70 they will be hiring.

Overall, I am still jealous and wish I went to UCI. The location, faculty, and full scholarships are simply irresistible.

=P

[wiseowl]

I agree. It is very likely they did some yield protect. With an average of 167, I bet a good portion of people who were 175+ were dinged (who likely would have gone to solid T14's).

I wonder what kind of a curve they will have too. I bet it won't be too bad since I am sure they will want all of their students to get jobs. With 70 people though, that could be a rough curve. I think it is also interesting that these 70 people will all probably be taking the same classes all throughout their law school career. They will probably be super close and bond like crazy.

there's a flip side to that....if you don't like the people in your class or if there are even a few people that are toolboxes, it's hard to escape them.

i agree with awesomepossum. this could be one of the gunnerest classes of all time. a bunch of people bestowed with free education who can confidently look down their noses and say "I turned down Boalt for this!" Nightmare.

[CE2JD]

hell yeah. im from uci! =) go eaters... ZOT ZOT ZOT motha fuckazzzzz

WTF?

[fanfavourite]

hell yeah. im from uci! =) go eaters... ZOT ZOT ZOT motha fuckazzzzz

WTF?

UCI fans say that at their baseball games after strikeouts. Their mascot is the Anteater and apparently that's the noise it makes after eating an ant.

[jmaxgunn]

What's more interesting is the astoundingly high yield percentage: 61%. They must have selected their candidates EXTREMELY carefully.

Couldn't high yield rates be because there was no deposit required to hold a seat? You just tick a box on the form, send it off, then wait for other offers to come in. I'm curious how many of the 68 show up on Day 1.

[Other25BeforeYou]

68 seats? At almost a third the size of Yale (which I believe is the smallest law school in the country?) this school is well-positioned to game a system that is notoriously biased in favor of smaller schools. With so few seats, I guess it makes sense that they were able to nail down a group of people who were committed to attending so that they could ding everybody else. Did they have ED admissions?

I don't know which ABA law school has the fewest students, but some quick research suggests that Cornell is smaller than Yale.

[Yellowcard]

1. Does UCI do rolling admissions?
2. If UCI does not do rolling admissions, does anyone know when the next batch of acceptances/rejections/wait lists is coming?

[T14_Scholly]

hell yeah. im from uci! =) go eaters... ZOT ZOT ZOT motha fuckazzzzz

That sounds about as gay as the "who dat" chant.

[T14_Scholly]

I'm shocked that a school with 70 people per class could have the lowest acceptance rate in the nation. I mean, that just makes no sense. Why can't Harvard accept only 110 people to fill up its class?

[tome]

I'm not fully sure how this works out, but I think rankings take into account previous year's medians alone. And UCI won't be ranked for a couple of years until they get accredited. So I don't see how this year's medians will boost their rankings at all, unless they manage to give them enough of a head start that they're able to maintain what they've got until the accreditation/rankings kick in.

That is fair, but given how much law school applicants are sheep, if they can get a couple of years under their belt of high numbers through offering insane scholarships, then students will simply apply their based on "numbers". Or at least, I am assuming that is the bet the school is taking. Given that they seem to have everything a top school has except history, I give them good odds of pulling it off.

[badwithpseudonyms]

This thread is over a year old, yo.

[bigben]

I just wish that they were going to appear in USNWR sooner so we could enjoy a good laugh when they debut as a Tier 3. In a couple years I won't be paying attention any more.