Top Law Schools

I see that a lot of URM's with low LSAT scores getting into very prestigious schools. Are their numbers not calculated in the USNWR for medians, or is URM presence such a big part of the metric for ranking that it negates the low lsat scores? I'm just curious because I was reading Howard's profile, and I'm very surprised that they are not ranked higher.

Their scores are factored in just like everyone else's, and there is no diversity boost in the rankings. Schools just like to have diverse classes, and do their best to get them without hurting medians too much.

Tiago Splitter wrote:Their scores are factored in just like everyone else's, and there is no diversity boost in the rankings. Schools just like to have diverse classes, and do their best to get them without hurting medians too much.

hmmm...I never gave schools that much credit for having any benevolence. I'm glad they can at least ignore rankings in certain cases for the sake diversity, that is pretty awesome of them.

mattviphky wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:Their scores are factored in just like everyone else's, and there is no diversity boost in the rankings. Schools just like to have diverse classes, and do their best to get them without hurting medians too much.

hmmm...I never gave schools that much credit for having any benevolence. I'm glad they can at least ignore rankings in certain cases for the sake diversity, that is pretty awesome of them.

Some schools care about keeping the 25th percentile GPA and LSAT numbers looking strong but there is enough room below the 25th to admit URMs, legacies, splitters, etc. to keep from seriously affecting the published numbers.

How does timing influence URM cycles? Does a URM that turns an app in early have a significant advantage over one that just makes deadline?

Geneva wrote:How does timing influence URM cycles? Does a URM that turns an app in early have a significant advantage over one that just makes deadline?

Yes, but this is true for everyone. Turning in an app early is always more advantageous than late.

Remember the mathematics of medians. You can accept 24% of the class with all 130s and 2.0s and fill the rest of the class with 170s/3.8s and the 25th/median/75th would all be 170s/3.8s. In fact, I would argue that it is easier to fill <25% of the class with lower numbers and then use those with higher numbers for the 25th/median/75th calculus.

ETA:
Besides establishing the <25% bound, <25% of the entering class does not affect the 25th/median/75th whatsoever. Law schools don't take any sort of numbers hit by accepting URMs/legacies/those w/ lower numbers etc. as long as they keep it less than 25% of the class

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lsatcrazy wrote:Their scores count, and schools take a numbers hit so that they can claim they are increasing "diversity".

Someone's mad.

bk187 wrote:

Geneva wrote:How does timing influence URM cycles? Does a URM that turns an app in early have a significant advantage over one that just makes deadline?

Yes, but this is true for everyone. Turning in an app early is always more advantageous than late.

Right, I'd just be curious to see the degree to which it matters for different sectors of the applicant pool. For example, someone well above a school's 75th percentile for both LSAT and GPA with strong softs will probably still have a good chance at acceptance and money (for most schools outside of T5, that is). I wonder if the early submission advantage is weaker or stronger for URMs than for non-URM applicants.