Best secondary journals at HLS? Forum

[Anonymous User]

To answer OP's actual question, CRCL, JLPP, JOLT tend to be seen as well-run journals.

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

There’s a lot of people at HLS from cal state wherever

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

I wouldn’t put Michigan in that category.

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

No one at Harvard UG learns to write either. The median GPA is over 3.8. The more likely explanation is that LR selections aren't really blind and the selectors on staff are choosing people within their network.

[Anonymous User]

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

[Anonymous User]

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

[Anonymous User]

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

[Anonymous User]

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

?

[Anonymous User]

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

Lol you just outed yourself as having no idea what you’re talking about. Princeton is known for grade deflation. (Plenty of Ivy UGs have inflation, definitely not Princeton.) Seriously, we can acknowledge there’s a difference between great grades at a school like Princeton and great grades at a public flagship.

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

This is actually insane if it’s correct. For the apologists, Chicago’s process is blind write-on/grade-on (not “holistic”) and ends up nothing like this. Plus the summa grads in Chicago’s last four classes went to undergrad at Chicago, Pittsburgh, BYU, Grove City, American, Yale (x2), UCLA, Penn, and Swarthmore; broadly representative of the student body with no obvious trend.

[Anonymous User]

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

I went to an Arizona-level (probably worse) state school. I finished 1L with 5DS/5H, including DS in LRW. When HLR went around to LRW classes advertising the holistic process and offering up “coffee chats” that seemed like half interviews, I felt like the process was basically a crapshoot and wouldn’t be worth a week of my time for the marginal experience. I have two other friends who made ~4.0 grades and chose not to write on as well.

I mostly mean to point out that the process itself sways who even chooses to make the effort. Qualifying takes a lot of additional work right after finals, and there’s not a strong feeling that effort in will equal results out.

[Anonymous User]

Penn’s process is blind for the folks chosen based on grades and writing competition scores, but there is also a separate bucket of people chosen for diversity based on an essay.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

Lol you just outed yourself as having no idea what you’re talking about. Princeton is known for grade deflation. (Plenty of Ivy UGs have inflation, definitely not Princeton.) Seriously, we can acknowledge there’s a difference between great grades at a school like Princeton and great grades at a public flagship.

Princeton doesn't have grade inflation that is as pronounced as other ivies but that doesn't the phenomenon does not exist lol. 40% of students receiving a family grades has got to be some degree of grade inflation

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blo ... ceton.html

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014 ... -reversal/

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/ar ... as/310231/

[Anonymous User]

At Penn, roughly half of Coif didn’t make LR. And more than half of LR didn’t get honors (top 30%)

Not to be too obnoxious, but more than half of LR did get honors this year (30/55). Makes sense given the breakdown between grade-on slots, write-on slots, and personal statement slots.

Penn doesn't even have a single pure grade on slot. And the "writing" competition includes a personal statement and is basically a dumb creative writing exercise. It's not legal writing at all.

In theory, if it’s just based on writing competition, law review membership would say something about legal writing skills even if it didn’t say anything about grades. It’s ridiculous that Penn’s writing competition doesn’t even include *any* legal writing. Just a funny essay based on tiktoks and memes. Way worse than HLR even if you ignore the diversity BS. Penn Law Review only has ~half honors because there’s a correlation between putting effort into figuring out how to do well on the writing competition and putting effort into school generally.

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

This is actually insane if it’s correct. For the apologists, Chicago’s process is blind write-on/grade-on (not “holistic”) and ends up nothing like this. Plus the summa grads in Chicago’s last four classes went to undergrad at Chicago, Pittsburgh, BYU, Grove City, American, Yale (x2), UCLA, Penn, and Swarthmore; broadly representative of the student body with no obvious trend.

Yeah because unlike HYS Chicago is actually a real law school.

[Anonymous User]

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

Lol you just outed yourself as having no idea what you’re talking about. Princeton is known for grade deflation. (Plenty of Ivy UGs have inflation, definitely not Princeton.) Seriously, we can acknowledge there’s a difference between great grades at a school like Princeton and great grades at a public flagship.

Princeton doesn't have grade inflation that is as pronounced as other ivies but that doesn't the phenomenon does not exist lol. 40% of students receiving a family grades has got to be some degree of grade inflation

https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blo ... ceton.html

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2014 ... -reversal/

https://www.theatlantic.com/national/ar ... as/310231/

I bet it’s way higher for A family grades for students in the honors college at Arizona

[Anonymous User]

Judges for sure still care about HLR if they/you are anywhere left of center.

Also, unmentioned insofar but the HLR process is pretty sensitive to UG prestige as well- ~80% of the most recent class went to either an ivy or chicago/stanford. 87% of the people who went to UG at Harvard made HLR. Maybe they are just better but it seems over-represented

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

I think it also needs to be said that a lot of smart people just aren’t huge nerds whose goal at 15 years old is to attend an Ivy. I personally didn’t give a shit about college when I was 14-16 and didn’t have the grades for an Ivy. But I had the ability to pull a 175 with like a month of studying for the LSAT. Top of my class at law school so far too.

[Anonymous User]

I’m not at Harvard but this makes sense to me in a competition that’s actually focused on writing skills. Many students with inflated grades from rando schools never learned to write.

There is no meaningful difference between someone with a 4.00 at Harvard or Yale and a person with a 4.00 at Michigan or Duke lol

Their outcomes are sure as hell different

That was kinda my point lol. The outcomes sure are dif but there probably isn't a meaningful gap between the writing abilities or intelligence of someone who excelled at Michigan vs Harvard or Yale.

Also, there aren't really that many people at HLS who got 4.00s as an underwater basket weaving major at Lindenwood University. Seems like most people who went to publics went to strong flagships

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, is there? The difference between Zona and Princeton might very well reflect class based access gaps and not an intelligence gap. English majors are not curved at either school and Princeton has notable grade inflation.

But also, this isn't really the gap between Arizona and Princeton. There's only 2 ppl at HLS from Arizona. It's more about the places like UVA, Michigan, and UCLA. About 70 current HLS students went to those 3 schools, but only 2 people from those schools got on HLR. About 25 current HLS students went to Yale and 17 of them are on HLR.

I think it also needs to be said that a lot of smart people just aren’t huge nerds whose goal at 15 years old is to attend an Ivy. I personally didn’t give a shit about college when I was 14-16 and didn’t have the grades for an Ivy. But I had the ability to pull a 175 with like a month of studying for the LSAT. Top of my class at law school so far too.

I think lack of access also pretty relevant. I went to a shitty public school in a midwestern town with less than 50k people. One person went to an ivy (Cornell) in the decade prior to my 4 years there. There just wasn't the infrastructure in place to reliably get people to a T20 undergrad, much less so the ivies or Stanford/Chicago. Not that it mattered, my family couldn't have afforded it anyways. I did well, went to a top public, did well there and then graduated magna at a T6.

Plenty of reasons smart people might not go to an ivy.

[Laserguy213]

As former EIC/ME of a secondary at HLS, I think the general consensus of replies are correct. JLPP will hamstrign you for liberals, CRCL will get you laughed at in most conservative chambers. JOLT and HBLR have tons of money, so more swag/stuff like that.

I'd recommend working backwards if there is a particular position you want on the masthead because being a mere journal member doesn't really matter (as long as you have some extracurricular going on). Ie, if you want to be EIC, go to a small journal. If you want to work on a certain policy issue, go to that journal. If you want to work with congresspeople, do JOL. Etc. Besides that, i'd say there's very little variation among HLS journals as far as professional development goes.

[Anonymous User]

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, maybe, in that maybe it is easier for an English major at U of A to get a 4.0 than an English major at Princeton (really not sure how you measure that, but fine, let's assume it). But it being easier to get that GPA at U of A on average doesn't mean that someone with the U of A 4.0 wouldn't also be capable of getting a 4.0 at Princeton. Lots of *really* smart people go to their local flagship school not because they couldn't have gone to an Ivy and excelled, but due to cost/class expectations/culture/lack of exposure to other options. So if the U of A 4.0 is *such* a walk in the park, not everyone who earns one is getting into HLS on the strength of their GPA alone; the U of A 4.0 people at HLS are the ones who *also* excelled on the LSAT and got glowing recommendations and wrote good essays.

Which is to say, if Harvard undergrad and other Ivies are that overrepresented on HLR, it's not because they are inherently so much smarter/better writers than the state school kids who made it to HLS.

[Anonymous User]

Does any school other than Penn have a writing competition with a “creative” essay based on memes and tiktoks among other sources?

[Anonymous User]

There’s a big difference between a 4.0 in English at the University of Arizona and at Princeton

I mean, maybe, in that maybe it is easier for an English major at U of A to get a 4.0 than an English major at Princeton (really not sure how you measure that, but fine, let's assume it). But it being easier to get that GPA at U of A on average doesn't mean that someone with the U of A 4.0 wouldn't also be capable of getting a 4.0 at Princeton. Lots of *really* smart people go to their local flagship school not because they couldn't have gone to an Ivy and excelled, but due to cost/class expectations/culture/lack of exposure to other options. So if the U of A 4.0 is *such* a walk in the park, not everyone who earns one is getting into HLS on the strength of their GPA alone; the U of A 4.0 people at HLS are the ones who *also* excelled on the LSAT and got glowing recommendations and wrote good essays.

Which is to say, if Harvard undergrad and other Ivies are that overrepresented on HLR, it's not because they are inherently so much smarter/better writers than the state school kids who made it to HLS.

Or maybe Ivy grads just are better and the numbers-oriented admissions process puts them at a disadvantage relative to their true merit. At my T6, the Ivy grads are way overrepresented in honors and awards.

[Anonymous User]

Which secondary journal is best at Penn?