Why does LS Predictor give me false hope?? Forum

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AP-375

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Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by AP-375 » Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:34 pm

Why does law school predictor give me hope at certain schools when Law School Numbers makes is pretty clear that I don't have a shot?
LSP says I'm at or near the median admissions index score, when LSN shows that no one ever gets in with my numbers.
What am I missing?


AP-375

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by AP-375 » Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:50 pm

Yeah, I've gone over that, and I get that Predictor is imperfect. But it just seems like there is too big of a discrepancy in my chances to be written off as margin of error.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by im_blue » Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:53 pm

Maybe that school admits a lot of splitters (which brings down their median admissions index) but you happen to be just below both medians. Maybe you're a splitter or reverse splitter with a high index but low chance of admission. Index numbers can give you an idea of what range of schools to apply to, but that's about it.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by hipstermafia » Tue Nov 02, 2010 2:05 pm

AP-375 wrote:Yeah, I've gone over that, and I get that Predictor is imperfect. But it just seems like there is too big of a discrepancy in my chances to be written off as margin of error.
LSP is an algorithm designed to model the raw data from LSN. Some schools have gpa/lsat floors that you can see in LSN but aren't necessarily accounted for in LSP. Are you a splitter? LSP is usually not as useful for splitters/urms as it is for 'normal' applicants. Splitters/urms tend to have unpredictable cycles, and there just isn’t enough data out there to make an algorithm super accurate for splitters/urms.

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AP-375

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by AP-375 » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:01 pm

hipstermafia wrote:
AP-375 wrote:Yeah, I've gone over that, and I get that Predictor is imperfect. But it just seems like there is too big of a discrepancy in my chances to be written off as margin of error.
LSP is an algorithm designed to model the raw data from LSN. Some schools have gpa/lsat floors that you can see in LSN but aren't necessarily accounted for in LSP. Are you a splitter? LSP is usually not as useful for splitters/urms as it is for 'normal' applicants. Splitters/urms tend to have unpredictable cycles, and there just isn’t enough data out there to make an algorithm super accurate for splitters/urms.
After a poor showing on the LSAT, I'm suddenly finding myself in the unpleasant world of reverse splitter-dom. That must be the issue that I am encountering.
Thanks for the info.

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romothesavior

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by romothesavior » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:02 pm

LSP is just not that useful. There is nothing to be gleaned from it that you cannot get by looking at LSN.

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JDHopeful

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by JDHopeful » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:04 pm

exactly how accurate it LSN, btw?

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by romothesavior » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:18 pm

JDHopeful wrote:exactly how accurate it LSN, btw?
I'd say very. While you might have a few people lying here and there, it is pretty easy to see where the hard cutoffs are and it shows you the general acceptance chances for LSAT/GPA combos.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by JDHopeful » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:20 pm

nice, thanks... now for the 25/median/75 splits, it says "class of 2009," does that mean the class that entered in 2009, or the class graduating in 2009?

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by romothesavior » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:54 pm

JDHopeful wrote:nice, thanks... now for the 25/median/75 splits, it says "class of 2009," does that mean the class that entered in 2009, or the class graduating in 2009?
What do you mean? They are set up by applicant classes. 2009-2010 would be my class (the current 1Ls) and so forth.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by JDHopeful » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:55 pm

okay, thats what i was asking. thanks for the clarity.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by schnoodle » Tue Nov 02, 2010 4:56 pm

useless. i was "strong consider" at HY and "Accepted" every other school. Yeah, almost.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by The Real Jack McCoy » Tue Nov 02, 2010 5:28 pm

romothesavior wrote:
JDHopeful wrote:exactly how accurate it LSN, btw?
I'd say very. While you might have a few people lying here and there, it is pretty easy to see where the hard cutoffs are and it shows you the general acceptance chances for LSAT/GPA combos.
All this is true but it is worth noting that LSN is clearly a biased sample. It is a small pool of applicants and the sorts of people who use the site are likely to have certain tendencies.

The most obvious is that there is going to be a bias towards acceptances. For instance, for a school like Harvard, I think that green area in the upper right corner would have more rejections (proportionally) if it reflected the total population. A lot of people don't like reporting that they did worse than other applicants with similar numbers. Just a theory based on who is most likely to use LSN and who is most likely to report. But it is clear that some people just "disappear" once their cycle starts going bad.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by whymeohgodno » Tue Nov 02, 2010 5:38 pm

The Real Jack McCoy wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
JDHopeful wrote:exactly how accurate it LSN, btw?
I'd say very. While you might have a few people lying here and there, it is pretty easy to see where the hard cutoffs are and it shows you the general acceptance chances for LSAT/GPA combos.
All this is true but it is worth noting that LSN is clearly a biased sample. It is a small pool of applicants and the sorts of people who use the site are likely to have certain tendencies.

The most obvious is that there is going to be a bias towards acceptances. For instance, for a school like Harvard, I think that green area in the upper right corner would have more rejections (proportionally) if it reflected the total population. A lot of people don't like reporting that they did worse than other applicants with similar numbers. Just a theory based on who is most likely to use LSN and who is most likely to report. But it is clear that some people just "disappear" once their cycle starts going bad.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by AP-375 » Tue Nov 02, 2010 6:46 pm

The Real Jack McCoy wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
JDHopeful wrote:exactly how accurate it LSN, btw?
I'd say very. While you might have a few people lying here and there, it is pretty easy to see where the hard cutoffs are and it shows you the general acceptance chances for LSAT/GPA combos.
All this is true but it is worth noting that LSN is clearly a biased sample. It is a small pool of applicants and the sorts of people who use the site are likely to have certain tendencies.

The most obvious is that there is going to be a bias towards acceptances. For instance, for a school like Harvard, I think that green area in the upper right corner would have more rejections (proportionally) if it reflected the total population. A lot of people don't like reporting that they did worse than other applicants with similar numbers. Just a theory based on who is most likely to use LSN and who is most likely to report. But it is clear that some people just "disappear" once their cycle starts going bad.
For this reason you'd have to lean towards trusting LSP, which uses admissions indexes, which aren't skewed by faulty data samples, such as in LSN. Or is the data from LSP taken mainly from LSN?

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by im_blue » Tue Nov 02, 2010 6:49 pm

AP-375 wrote:
The Real Jack McCoy wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
JDHopeful wrote:exactly how accurate it LSN, btw?
I'd say very. While you might have a few people lying here and there, it is pretty easy to see where the hard cutoffs are and it shows you the general acceptance chances for LSAT/GPA combos.
All this is true but it is worth noting that LSN is clearly a biased sample. It is a small pool of applicants and the sorts of people who use the site are likely to have certain tendencies.

The most obvious is that there is going to be a bias towards acceptances. For instance, for a school like Harvard, I think that green area in the upper right corner would have more rejections (proportionally) if it reflected the total population. A lot of people don't like reporting that they did worse than other applicants with similar numbers. Just a theory based on who is most likely to use LSN and who is most likely to report. But it is clear that some people just "disappear" once their cycle starts going bad.
For this reason you'd have to lean towards trusting LSP, which uses admissions indexes, which aren't skewed by faulty data samples, such as in LSN. Or is the data from LSP taken mainly from LSN?
LSP uses LSN data.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by Grizz » Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:08 pm

Your snark factor pleases me.

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Ragged

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by Ragged » Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:19 pm

rad law wrote:
Your snark factor pleases me.
red law wants more pics

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by Grizz » Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:21 pm

Ragged wrote:
rad law wrote:
Your snark factor pleases me.
red law wants more pics
There was a first set? Sorry I missed it.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by Ragged » Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:23 pm

rad law wrote:
Ragged wrote:
rad law wrote:
Your snark factor pleases me.
red law wants more pics
There was a first set? Sorry I missed it.
I meant the avatar being the first, assuming thats of self.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by romothesavior » Tue Nov 02, 2010 8:54 pm

whymeohgodno wrote:
The Real Jack McCoy wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
JDHopeful wrote:exactly how accurate it LSN, btw?
I'd say very. While you might have a few people lying here and there, it is pretty easy to see where the hard cutoffs are and it shows you the general acceptance chances for LSAT/GPA combos.
All this is true but it is worth noting that LSN is clearly a biased sample. It is a small pool of applicants and the sorts of people who use the site are likely to have certain tendencies.

The most obvious is that there is going to be a bias towards acceptances. For instance, for a school like Harvard, I think that green area in the upper right corner would have more rejections (proportionally) if it reflected the total population. A lot of people don't like reporting that they did worse than other applicants with similar numbers. Just a theory based on who is most likely to use LSN and who is most likely to report. But it is clear that some people just "disappear" once their cycle starts going bad.
I dunno if I buy that. For one thing, it is not that small of a pool. Some schools have 1,000 points of data or more each year. Second of all, most applicants apply to safeties, targets, and reaches, which means they are going to have a mixture of acceptances, waitlists, and rejections. So there may be a bias, but I don't think it is as pronounced as you two make it seem.

Also, why do people use LSN? Just to get a general idea of how competitive they are and what kind of money they can expect. LSN is GREAT for that, far better than any other resource.

Look at this graph and tell me what the magic LSAT score is: http://washu.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (167)
Look at this one and tell me if this school takes many splitters: http://vanderbilt.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (No)
Does this school even have a 1L class, or did they waitlist and YP everyone and their moms?: http://uva.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (No 1Ls)

LSN always gets knocked for being "biased" and too small of a sample size, but neither of those are really true.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by The Real Jack McCoy » Tue Nov 02, 2010 9:16 pm

romothesavior wrote:
I dunno if I buy that. For one thing, it is not that small of a pool. Some schools have 1,000 points of data or more each year. Second of all, most applicants apply to safeties, targets, and reaches, which means they are going to have a mixture of acceptances, waitlists, and rejections. So there may be a bias, but I don't think it is as pronounced as you two make it seem.

Also, why do people use LSN? Just to get a general idea of how competitive they are and what kind of money they can expect. LSN is GREAT for that, far better than any other resource.

Look at this graph and tell me what the magic LSAT score is: http://washu.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (167)
Look at this one and tell me if this school takes many splitters: http://vanderbilt.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (No)
Does this school even have a 1L class, or did they waitlist and YP everyone and their moms?: http://uva.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (No 1Ls)

LSN always gets knocked for being "biased" and too small of a sample size, but neither of those are really true.
The problem isn't small sample size in itself. The problem is that it isn't a random distribution.

And it is pretty clear that the sample is, in fact, biased. You only have to look at the LSN medians vs. school medians to see that.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by whymeohgodno » Tue Nov 02, 2010 9:23 pm

The Real Jack McCoy wrote:
romothesavior wrote:
I dunno if I buy that. For one thing, it is not that small of a pool. Some schools have 1,000 points of data or more each year. Second of all, most applicants apply to safeties, targets, and reaches, which means they are going to have a mixture of acceptances, waitlists, and rejections. So there may be a bias, but I don't think it is as pronounced as you two make it seem.

Also, why do people use LSN? Just to get a general idea of how competitive they are and what kind of money they can expect. LSN is GREAT for that, far better than any other resource.

Look at this graph and tell me what the magic LSAT score is: http://washu.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (167)
Look at this one and tell me if this school takes many splitters: http://vanderbilt.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (No)
Does this school even have a 1L class, or did they waitlist and YP everyone and their moms?: http://uva.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats/0910/ (No 1Ls)

LSN always gets knocked for being "biased" and too small of a sample size, but neither of those are really true.
The problem isn't small sample size in itself. The problem is that it isn't a random distribution.

And it is pretty clear that the sample is, in fact, biased. You only have to look at the LSN medians vs. school medians to see that.
For some schools though where the LSAT+GPA medians cross it's goes from yellow/green to almost all green.

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Re: Why does LS Predictor give me false hope??

Post by romothesavior » Wed Nov 03, 2010 9:03 pm

The Real Jack McCoy wrote:The problem isn't small sample size in itself. The problem is that it isn't a random distribution.

And it is pretty clear that the sample is, in fact, biased. You only have to look at the LSN medians vs. school medians to see that.
All I can say to this is that my cycle went pretty much exactly as LSN told me it would, and it did the same for almost every other person I know. I think the only time an applicant's experience doesn't match up is when you have something great or something terrible in your background (criminal record, great work experience, etc.) or you had something in your application that blew away the committee, and those are usually the random red dots in the midst of green or the random green in the midst of red.

I also don't really understand your second point. I haven't seen much disparity between the medians. Wash U is a great example. Their median is 167, and the wall of green is also a 167. According to the graphs from the last two years, they also take applicants with sub-167s if they have a 3.8+ GPA. Based on their GPA/LSAT medians, that's about what one would expect. Of course every school evaluates candidates differently, but it seems that the graphs are what one would expect based on the medians.

I do find it hard to disagree with you since I love Jack McCoy though. :lol:

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