Top Law Schools

URM, 1L, currently at a high ranked T3 (under 105) but I really have my heart set on transferring. Harvard is my dream school but I realize that it is a stretch. Do I have a shot at the T14 or T1? I realize softs don't matter as much and grades are way more important, but I have suffered great hardship if that helps at all. Transferring out is a huge motivation for me to make spectaular grades my 1L year and I'm under the assumption that crazier things have happened. I plan to submit my apps on the first day that each school I'm applying to opens up their transfer pools to get a better shot. I'm workin like crazy to reach my goal. If anyone has any advice or insight on 1L grades, class rank, transferring to Harvard, T14, T1, or in general please let me know. Any wise words would be much appreciated. Thanks.

My word to you is to wait until you have at least a semester under your belt. Odds are you're going to be the median student, just as a matter of math, so thinking about the T14 may be just a tad premature.

Is it possible? Yes. T3 students occasionally transfer to HLS.

As for whether you, personally, have a chance -- there is no way to know until you get your grades. You will need to be at or near the top of your class. As for other schools, the estimates given in this post are pretty accurate: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 27&t=82937

concurrent fork wrote:Is it possible? Yes. T3 students occasionally transfer to HLS.

As for whether you, personally, have a chance -- there is no way to know until you get your grades. You will need to be at or near the top of your class. As for other schools, the estimates given in this post are pretty accurate: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 27&t=82937

But is it possible? I think "occasionally" would need some defining. You really need to be #1 at a T2 to have even a slight chance at HLS so I can't imagine anyone from a Tier 3 getting in (barring something ridiculous like co-authoring the bible). Maybe once every few years? Perhaps VW can weigh in on this.

T14 is more realistic. I mean, nothing is really realistic until you have grades but I'm pretty sure some T14 schools take from the third tier; I think Michigan takes a few every year and I know there at least 2 at CLS. You really need top 1% though.

Get an A in every single class. Then HLS will be within the realm of possibility. No use in surmising on here about it. Go out and do it.

quiver wrote:But is it possible?

Yes -- I can think of at least one off the top of my head. Obviously it's rare, but if it motivates OP to work harder then power to him/her.

I transferred TTT to T14 this year. My impression is that softs can hurt you if bad, but are otherwise totally irrelevant. I think HLS is next to impossible from TTT unless you maybe have something that is truly uniquely impressive in your app. Even if you absolutely crush 1L, your transfer app at HLS is going to be compared with people who did the same but at much better schools.

But T14 is definitely possible if you crush 1L grades hard enough.

concurrent fork wrote:

quiver wrote:But is it possible?

Yes -- I can think of at least one off the top of my head. Obviously it's rare, but if it motivates OP to work harder then power to him/her.

You know someone who went from a Tier 3 to HLS? Was there anything else significant in his/her application or was it merely on grades alone? Like thrillerjesus, I'm skeptical that someone can do it purely on grades without the aid of some independent, superlative credential.

thrillerjesus wrote:I transferred TTT to T14 this year. My impression is that softs can hurt you if bad, but are otherwise totally irrelevant. I think HLS is next to impossible from TTT unless you maybe have something that is truly uniquely impressive in your app. Even if you absolutely crush 1L, your transfer app at HLS is going to be compared with people who did the same but at much better schools.

But T14 is definitely possible if you crush 1L grades hard enough.

Be student #1 in your 1L class at the end of the year and then worry about if you can get in or not. That's the first step.

quiver wrote:

concurrent fork wrote:

quiver wrote:But is it possible?

Yes -- I can think of at least one off the top of my head. Obviously it's rare, but if it motivates OP to work harder then power to him/her.

You know someone who went from a Tier 3 to HLS? Was there anything else significant in his/her application or was it merely on grades alone? Like thrillerjesus, I'm skeptical that someone can do it purely on grades without the aid of some independent, superlative credential.

I have no idea, but he/she didn't have any olympic medals or anything AFAIK. Since T2/T3 schools are constantly in flux, why would the adcomm auto-reject a #1 student just because their school's US News rank is >100 in a given year?

Once again, this is all a very pointless discussion. Given your position, it is essentially a prerequisite that you be among the very top, if not THE top student in your class. You have yet to take a single exam, or receive a single grade. For all we know, you will be nothing but a median student. Given that it is absolutely necessary for you to get straight A's in order to even have a CHANCE at a school like Harvard, sitting around on the internet worrying this is merely wasted time that could have been put toward studying. So go study and get those A's. Before that, don't waste time thinking about it.

kaiser wrote:Once again, this is all a very pointless discussion. Given your position, it is essentially a prerequisite that you be among the very top, if not THE top student in your class. You have yet to take a single exam, or receive a single grade. For all we know, you will be nothing but a median student. Given that it is absolutely necessary for you to get straight A's in order to even have a CHANCE at a school like Harvard, sitting around on the internet worrying this is merely wasted time that could have been put toward studying. So go study and get those A's. Before that, don't waste time thinking about it.

True.

concurrent fork wrote:

quiver wrote:

concurrent fork wrote:

quiver wrote:But is it possible?

Yes -- I can think of at least one off the top of my head. Obviously it's rare, but if it motivates OP to work harder then power to him/her.

You know someone who went from a Tier 3 to HLS? Was there anything else significant in his/her application or was it merely on grades alone? Like thrillerjesus, I'm skeptical that someone can do it purely on grades without the aid of some independent, superlative credential.

I have no idea, but he/she didn't have any olympic medals or anything AFAIK. Since T2/T3 schools are constantly in flux, why would the adcomm auto-reject a #1 student just because their school's US News rank is >100 in a given year?

I completely agree that nobody would be rejected simply because their school is >100 in a given year. But because those schools are lower down on the totem pole, entry into HLS will be relatively more difficult. The same goes for someone in a school in T1 vs. someone in a school in T2. It's not the tier that matters, it's the relative position of the schools; that's why it's easier to get in (rank-wise) from a T14 than from a T2.

quiver wrote:

concurrent fork wrote:Is it possible? Yes. T3 students occasionally transfer to HLS.

As for whether you, personally, have a chance -- there is no way to know until you get your grades. You will need to be at or near the top of your class. As for other schools, the estimates given in this post are pretty accurate: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 27&t=82937

But is it possible? I think "occasionally" would need some defining. You really need to be #1 at a T2 to have even a slight chance at HLS so I can't imagine anyone from a Tier 3 getting in (barring something ridiculous like co-authoring the bible). Maybe once every few years? Perhaps VW can weigh in on this.

If I weigh in, it should start by noting that concurrent fork knows as much about transferring to HLS as I do, and is probably much smarter than I am.

quiver wrote:

concurrent fork wrote:

quiver wrote:But is it possible?

Yes -- I can think of at least one off the top of my head. Obviously it's rare, but if it motivates OP to work harder then power to him/her.

You know someone who went from a Tier 3 to HLS? Was there anything else significant in his/her application or was it merely on grades alone? Like thrillerjesus, I'm skeptical that someone can do it purely on grades without the aid of some independent, superlative credential.

People really seem to misunderstand what it takes to stand out or be accomplished. There are many kinds of "superlative credentials" out there. Not everyone who has accomplished something remarkable has won a Nobel Prize or an Olympic medal for it. It depends both on how your experiences shaped you as a person and how you present them in your application.

Everything, including what is a "superlative" accomplishment, is relative. You just need to be able to provide the right context. What if someone told you that "going to law school", in itself, was a superlative achievement for them? You'd probably dismiss them outright, especially since this forum is full of people who could go to law school if they wanted to.

But then you'd miss out on that person's story. Would it matter if no one in their family had ever graduated college before? If this person were literally the first, both in their family and from their high school, to ever go to law school? If, despite all that, their grades were still good enough to be worth the transfer app fee?

Generally, most people will need more than "I went to law school and did well, and that's amazing" in their transfer PS. Personally, I did have more... but not by much. What's superlative can be entirely relative, and can come from work experience, or anything you had to work hard to earn.

It's true that you need more than just grades to transfer up, but it's not so simple defining what that "more" is. I've the pleasure of knowing a number of HLS transfers from a range of schools. None have Nobel prizes, but they all have great stories.

Can we all agree, nevertheless, that co-authoring the bible is a sufficient soft ?

vanwinkle wrote:It's true that you need more than just grades to transfer up, but it's not so simple defining what that "more" is.

This is really all I was saying, while adding that the "more" from a lower school would have to be greater than the "more" from a higher school. That said, I will of course defer to VW and concurrent fork.

CanadianWolf wrote:Can we all agree, nevertheless, that co-authoring the bible is a sufficient soft ?

YLS would be unimpressed.

Yale just wants it in 250 words or less.

quiver wrote:I completely agree that nobody would be rejected simply because their school is >100 in a given year. But because those schools are lower down on the totem pole, entry into HLS will be relatively more difficult. The same goes for someone in a school in T1 vs. someone in a school in T2. It's not the tier that matters, it's the relative position of the schools; that's why it's easier to get in (rank-wise) from a T14 than from a T2.

Agreed -- all I meant to convey is that HLS is not necessarily unreachable from one of the schools clustered around 100.

CanadianWolf wrote:Yale just wants it in 250 words or less.

Nice. Well played.