It doesn't matter where you went for UG! Forum

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ArealG

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It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by ArealG » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:47 pm

Law schools don't care! I went to West Chester University in Pennsylvania. It's one of the best universities in the area. I'm applying to law school and for the hell of it I looked at some of the rankings on US News and Report. I guess if you went to Harvard or Yale, the admissions might say hmmm, but otherwise there's no way they care! In fact, to be a lawyer you gotta have street smarts, so I got an education that's as good as any college or universities for 8 Gs a year, so won't the law schools think that's street smarts? A fourth, in some cases one fifth the skrilla for the same education!

I mean why would people waste money on an expensive school when it doesn't help them get into grad school or get a job? I mean I looked at a bunch of schools, some of them I've never heard of! If the LSAT scores and GPA (which are the ONLY two things law admissions look at, right? Besides URM). They won't care if a person went to Emory or Rice or, on the liberal art side, places that I've really never heard of (WTF is Pomona? Oberlin? Bates? Colgate? - a college named after TOOTHPASTE?) That can't mean anything to anbody except I paid waaaay to much to go to a school because it sounds like a Star Wars character. My local U is the same in the eyes of the admissions board. Amirite?

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by BruceBarr » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:51 pm

ArealG wrote:Law schools don't care! I went to West Chester University in Pennsylvania. It's one of the best universities in the area. I'm applying to law school and for the hell of it I looked at some of the rankings on US News and Report. I guess if you went to Harvard or Yale, the admissions might say hmmm, but otherwise there's no way they care! In fact, to be a lawyer you gotta have street smarts, so I got an education that's as good as any college or universities for 8 Gs a year, so won't the law schools think that's street smarts? A fourth, in some cases one fifth the skrilla for the same education!

I mean why would people waste money on an expensive school when it doesn't help them get into grad school or get a job? I mean I looked at a bunch of schools, some of them I've never heard of! If the LSAT scores and GPA (which are the ONLY two things law admissions look at, right? Besides URM). They won't care if a person went to Emory or Rice or, on the liberal art side, places that I've really never heard of (WTF is Pomona? Oberlin? Bates? Colgate? - a college named after TOOTHPASTE?) That can't mean anything to anbody except I paid waaaay to much to go to a school because it sounds like a Star Wars character. My local U is the same in the eyes of the admissions board. Amirite?

You saved my life with this thread.

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englawyer

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by englawyer » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:51 pm

true for law school, but not universal by any measure. good luck trying to get a wall st banking job from a TTT 8)

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by sluguy14 » Fri Feb 19, 2010 3:53 pm

Nope, go to HYP or enjoy TTT and the homelessness that follows.

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Rednorthstar

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by Rednorthstar » Fri Feb 19, 2010 4:19 pm

I'm not on admissions, so I really don't know, but look at the people hiring from law school, especially Biglaw. I've heard this so many times that I think maybe Lambchop's singing it because it's the song that never ends - Law firms want presitige so they hire primarily from the T14 or top 10% of lower ranked schools because they are presitigious and they know they have good odds of getting a smart candidate. A more presitigous school is much harder to get into, they filter their applicant pool via GPA and SAT to get strong students, so I would imagine that the fact that a student already met those criteria gives that student with a top tier non-ivy an edge, espcially with a lower ranked law school. Once again though, I'm not an admission officer so this is just guesswork.

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gossipgirl

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by gossipgirl » Fri Feb 19, 2010 4:23 pm

UG is not a significant factor at all, BUT it is a small factor that can change your admissions decisions. How do I know this is true?

I go to a non-HYP ivy. My career services has a list of schools people get into every year and what numbers they had. I compared these stats to LSN and for EVERY school, the "cutoffs" are much lower for my school than what we can tell on LSN. Students at my school outperform their LSN projections every time.

Of course this may not be worth paying 150k for, BUT UG does count a bit.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by bceagles182 » Fri Feb 19, 2010 4:27 pm

ArealG wrote:Law schools don't care! I went to West Chester University in Pennsylvania. It's one of the best universities in the area. I'm applying to law school and for the hell of it I looked at some of the rankings on US News and Report. I guess if you went to Harvard or Yale, the admissions might say hmmm, but otherwise there's no way they care! In fact, to be a lawyer you gotta have street smarts, so I got an education that's as good as any college or universities for 8 Gs a year, so won't the law schools think that's street smarts? A fourth, in some cases one fifth the skrilla for the same education!

I mean why would people waste money on an expensive school when it doesn't help them get into grad school or get a job? I mean I looked at a bunch of schools, some of them I've never heard of! If the LSAT scores and GPA (which are the ONLY two things law admissions look at, right? Besides URM). They won't care if a person went to Emory or Rice or, on the liberal art side, places that I've really never heard of (WTF is Pomona? Oberlin? Bates? Colgate? - a college named after TOOTHPASTE?) That can't mean anything to anbody except I paid waaaay to much to go to a school because it sounds like a Star Wars character. My local U is the same in the eyes of the admissions board. Amirite?

You were right up until you said that going to a good undergrad doesn't help you get a job after college. It doesn't help future lawyers, but it certainly helps people in pretty much every other profession to get a better job.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by flyingpanda » Fri Feb 19, 2010 5:06 pm

Not everyone knows they're going to law school before they go to college....

ArealG

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by ArealG » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:05 pm

You were right up until you said that going to a good undergrad doesn't help you get a job after college. It doesn't help future lawyers, but it certainly helps people in pretty much every other profession to get a better job.
Yo dawg, I guarantee you that, at least around here, a West Chester Degree will get you a lot farther than a degree from, say Bowdoin or Grinnel or some other place only the US News and Reports have ever heard of. Local employers are gonna say what is that? And it'll mean less than my West Chester degree. Now if they said Swathmore they probably heard of it. But only because it's local. Know what I mean?

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James Bond

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by James Bond » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:06 pm

ArealG wrote:Law schools don't care! I went to West Chester University in Pennsylvania. It's one of the best universities in the area. I'm applying to law school and for the hell of it I looked at some of the rankings on US News and Report. I guess if you went to Harvard or Yale, the admissions might say hmmm, but otherwise there's no way they care! In fact, to be a lawyer you gotta have street smarts, so I got an education that's as good as any college or universities for 8 Gs a year, so won't the law schools think that's street smarts? A fourth, in some cases one fifth the skrilla for the same education!

I mean why would people waste money on an expensive school when it doesn't help them get into grad school or get a job? I mean I looked at a bunch of schools, some of them I've never heard of! If the LSAT scores and GPA (which are the ONLY two things law admissions look at, right? Besides URM). They won't care if a person went to Emory or Rice or, on the liberal art side, places that I've really never heard of (WTF is Pomona? Oberlin? Bates? Colgate? - a college named after TOOTHPASTE?) That can't mean anything to anbody except I paid waaaay to much to go to a school because it sounds like a Star Wars character. My local U is the same in the eyes of the admissions board. Amirite?
Hah,

My shitty PASSHE school >>>> Your shitty PASSHE school

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by Yimbeezy » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:07 pm

ArealG wrote:
You were right up until you said that going to a good undergrad doesn't help you get a job after college. It doesn't help future lawyers, but it certainly helps people in pretty much every other profession to get a better job.
Yo dawg, I guarantee you that, at least around here, a West Chester Degree will get you a lot farther than a degree from, say Bowdoin or Grinnel or some other place only the US News and Reports have ever heard of. Local employers are gonna say what is that? And it'll mean less than my West Chester degree. Now if they said Swathmore they probably heard of it. But only because it's local. Know what I mean?
Asher? Is that you?

ArealG

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by ArealG » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:10 pm

^^

--LinkRemoved--

That's cuz W is the last in alphabetical order! :P

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by r6_philly » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:22 pm

ArealG wrote:Law schools don't care! I went to West Chester University in Pennsylvania. It's one of the best universities in the area.
This is not true. While I chose WCU for monetary reasons, it is not one of the best in the area. But there is Nova, St. Joe's, La Salle, Temple, Penn, Drexel, Haverford, Bryn Mawr, Swarthmore, U of DE, etc... If you want to be a teacher in PA it is absolutely one of the best but anything else, I am not so sure.
That can't mean anything to anbody except I paid waaaay to much to go to a school because it sounds like a Star Wars character. My local U is the same in the eyes of the admissions board. Amirite?
Maybe name doesn't mean much, but what aobut career services and alumni network? WCU doesn't have much to offer compare to other schools.

Don't get me wrong, I love the school. But I feel I am getting about as much as my tuition is worth. If I had paid 30k I would expect more. But I think at a good private U, you do get more.

When it comes to admissions board, I am not so sure. The median LSAT is 148 at WCU. GPA is 3.35. If you are ranked middle of your class it is not going to be very impressive. I don't know if it is going to impact me much since I am 1st in class but I don't know if I will be viewed as comparable to someone who is first at many of the other schools I listed.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by 98234872348 » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:27 pm

--ImageRemoved--

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by r6_philly » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:32 pm

James Bond wrote:
Hah,

My shitty PASSHE school >>>> Your shitty PASSHE school
which one? what department?

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by r6_philly » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:32 pm

mistergoft wrote:--ImageRemoved--
It's ok, it is going to turn into which PA state school is worse hopefully :lol:

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by Mickey Quicknumbers » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:43 pm

r6_philly wrote: It's ok, it is going to turn into which PA state school is worse hopefully :lol:
Upenn is exempt from that discussion purely because they got JoePa

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by bloodonthetracks » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:44 pm

ArealG wrote:
so I got an education that's as good as any college or universities for 8 Gs a year, so won't the law schools think that's street smarts? A fourth, in some cases one fifth the skrilla for the same education!

I mean why would people waste money on an expensive school when it doesn't help them get into grad school or get a job? I mean I looked at a bunch of schools, some of them I've never heard of! If the LSAT scores and GPA (which are the ONLY two things law admissions look at, right? Besides URM). They won't care if a person went to Emory or Rice or, on the liberal art side, places that I've really never heard of (WTF is Pomona? Oberlin? Bates? Colgate? - a college named after TOOTHPASTE?)
1) Just because you went to a cheap college not mean you got the same education as someone who went to another college. This is a ridiculous point.

2) The vast majority of people don't view their entire undergraduate experience as a mere stepping stone for grad school. Honestly, what percent of future law students do you think were certain that they were going to law school when they were a freshman in UG?

3) Your paltry familiarity with liberal arts colleges does not reflect anything on law school admissions committees. Every adcomm at a T-14 knows the quality of Pomona, Oberlin, Bates, Colgate, and numerous other great, small schools.

4) UG is a soft factor in one's application. I'm not saying it's a game-changer, but it matters a little bit (nobody knows how much exactly). If you think it doesn't matter at ALL, then you are deluding yourself.
Last edited by bloodonthetracks on Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:57 pm, edited 4 times in total.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by r6_philly » Fri Feb 19, 2010 8:49 pm

adh07d wrote:
r6_philly wrote: It's ok, it is going to turn into which PA state school is worse hopefully :lol:
Upenn is exempt from that discussion purely because they got JoePa
That'd be Penn State, not UPenn. (I see why people are saying UPenn isn't a great ivy since many presume it is a state school)

Penn State also is NOT a state university, it is "state-related" public university (they only receive partial funding from the state). We go to smaller fully state funded/controlled universities.

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Mickey Quicknumbers

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by Mickey Quicknumbers » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:08 pm

r6_philly wrote:
adh07d wrote:
r6_philly wrote: It's ok, it is going to turn into which PA state school is worse hopefully :lol:
Upenn is exempt from that discussion purely because they got JoePa
That'd be Penn State, not UPenn. (I see why people are saying UPenn isn't a great ivy since many presume it is a state school)

Penn State also is NOT a state university, it is "state-related" public university (they only receive partial funding from the state). We go to smaller fully state funded/controlled universities.
*smacks forehead*, it's a joke my friend.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by r6_philly » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:17 pm

adh07d wrote:
r6_philly wrote:
adh07d wrote:
r6_philly wrote: It's ok, it is going to turn into which PA state school is worse hopefully :lol:
Upenn is exempt from that discussion purely because they got JoePa
That'd be Penn State, not UPenn. (I see why people are saying UPenn isn't a great ivy since many presume it is a state school)

Penn State also is NOT a state university, it is "state-related" public university (they only receive partial funding from the state). We go to smaller fully state funded/controlled universities.
*smacks forehead*, it's a joke my friend.
need to use more emoticons! jokes don't always come through on the internets since not everyone on the internets is so s-m-r-t.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by Amelie » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:19 pm

.
Last edited by Amelie on Sat Mar 06, 2010 12:15 am, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by ArealG » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:31 pm

3) Your paltry familiarity with liberal arts colleges does not reflect anything on law school admissions committees. Every adcomm at a T-14 knows the quality of Pomona, Oberlin, Bates, Colgate, and numerous other great, small schools.
Yeah, I'm sure the T14s know the rankings inside out. But I bet you the committee at Temple or Drexel or Seton Hall or something like that looks at Pomona or Oberlin or Bates or whatever and say, 'What's that? Some no-name whatever school. NEXT!'

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by r6_philly » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:35 pm

ArealG wrote:
3) Your paltry familiarity with liberal arts colleges does not reflect anything on law school admissions committees. Every adcomm at a T-14 knows the quality of Pomona, Oberlin, Bates, Colgate, and numerous other great, small schools.
Yeah, I'm sure the T14s know the rankings inside out. But I bet you the committee at Temple or Drexel or Seton Hall or something like that looks at Pomona or Oberlin or Bates or whatever and say, 'What's that? Some no-name whatever school. NEXT!'
ummmm, Temple and Drexel and Seton Hall is going to look at West Chester and say "teacher's college?" I visted Temple with the school group and I didn't think the Admission lady was very impressed with our school.

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Re: It doesn't matter where you went for UG!

Post by ArealG » Fri Feb 19, 2010 9:46 pm

^ Nuttin but love for Rammy baby!

Seriously? What are you waiting for?

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