Yale Law School

Article by Jeff Lee, Stanford University (YLS '10)

Since US News began ranking schools, Yale Law School has always held the #1 position, and for good reason: it is unanimously considered one of the preeminent centers of legal studies in the world, and while its closest rivals at Harvard and Stanford also offer formidable prestige and their own array of career opportunities, Yale Law has remained a distinctive institution in many ways. It has graduated both Bill and Hillary Clinton, President Ford, and Supreme Court Justices Clarence Thomas and Samuel Alito. Famed for its abolition of standard grades in the 1960s and the lowest ratio of students to faculty in the country, Yale Law has also earned equal notoriety for its supposed "scholarly" bent and its legendary admissions process.

Yale Law School - Admissions and Tuition

Yale is one of the smallest law schools in the top tier, and also admits the least students in the nation due to its exceedingly high yield rate--over four in five admits will choose to attend. Admissions to Yale Law School can be considered the most competitive in the country based on the school's 6.5% admit rate alone. The oft-cited 25th to 75th percentile ranges for admissions run around 3.79-3.96 (GPA) and 168-175 (LSAT). These numbers are comparable to or slightly higher than those posted at Harvard and Stanford Law, but (especially in comparison to the former) misleading as Yale's student body is one of the smallest in the top tier and its yield rate is one of the highest. Out of over 4,000 applications each year, Yale admits some 250+ students to fill approximately 185 seats in each incoming class. Applicants are encouraged to look at the official table for 2003-2005, which shows the admissions trend over the last three years. Even with a GPA above 3.75 and an LSAT above 175, which places an applicant above the 99.5% percentile of the general pool, a staggering 257 of 439 applicants were rejected over the three years represented. On the flip side, an average of 3 students who had scored below 160 on the LSAT was admitted per year, although an average of 937 students with comparable scores were rejected each year; proof nevertheless that the admissions committee considers all applicants with no cutoff.

Yale Law School Admissions - The 12-Point System
Given the forbidding aura around its admissions process that inevitably follows from this raw data, Yale Law has been remarkably open about how it conducts its selection process, which has not changed significantly since current Dean of Admissions Megan Barnett (since replaced by Asha Rangappa) took over from James Thomas. The process differs significantly from that of many other top schools, particularly in its involvement of the law school's faculty and its overt use of numerical scoring. Of the over 4,000 applications that are received, about 90 of the top applicants are sent on for final review by the Faculty Admissions Committee chair (essentially a "free ride" to admission). The rest of the hopefuls are divided into two groups, with some 800-1,000 applications separated for consideration in the "first round." These applicants are reviewed by three randomly chosen faculty members, who score each application from 2 to 4. It was reported in 1999 that each of the first two faculty readers receives 80 applicants, giving a 4 to the top quarter, 3 to the second quarter, and 2 to the bottom half. If two faculty members give consecutive 2s, an applicant is rejected; the remaining files go on to a third member of the faculty, who scores 2-4 equally. A score of 12 is guaranteed admission (and the vast majority of 11s as well) while the remainder go into further review.

Despite the Admissions Office's candor regarding how it chooses future Yale students, many applicants and counselors regard Yale Law as a game of chance, with some outstanding "x-factor" necessary to stand out beyond the requisite LSAT/GPA combination. In particular, the constraint of 250 words for the main essay, which has gained some infamy (in comparison to the standard two-page allowance by most schools) has led many to the conclusion that the ability to demonstrate ideas and personality effectively in such a short personal statement is essential to an applicant's chances of survival. It is also theorized that, with the school's famous academic slant, those candidates already possessing advanced degrees, published work and research, or similar achievements enjoy a significant advantage.

Yale Law School - Curriculum and Academics

Yale Law School has had a strong reputation for being an unusually academics-oriented school: a disproportionate number of its graduates does go on to further scholarly pursuits, and it is generally seen as an incubator for future legal professors (versus the corporate lawyer stereotype of Harvard Law or the intellectual property/tech lawyers of Stanford). Nevertheless, Yale is also significantly represented in the top legal markets of every major city, with many hiring partners jumping at the chance to bring a Yale Law graduate into private practice; in this respect the reputation the school has in some circles for being "too theoretical for practicing law" may be counterbalanced by the relative scarcity of its graduates.

The curriculum of Yale Law is one of the most debated subjects among prospective applicants to the top law schools in the U.S. Yale abolished grades in the 1960s after student unrest, and while there are no strict GPAs or letter grades, there is (contrary to popular belief) a system of evaluation in place. The first term of classes is taken pass/fail; afterwards, class performance is evaluated on a scale of honors/pass/low pass/no pass. The result: no class rankings and far less pressure than most other top law schools, but also a fairly unconventional transcript that more than one employer has found difficult to gauge. Yale also has a highly flexible curriculum: only the first semester of classes is set in stone, versus the first year for most law schools. Keeping with the spirit of the school's grading system (or lack thereof), admission to the Yale Law Journal (the flagship review) is considered far easier than attaining comparable positions at other top schools.

Yale Law School - Legal Specialties

The faculty at Yale, as at any other top tier law school, includes some of the most influential legal scholars and "movers-and-shakers," from Akhil Amar to Guido Calabresi and Amy Chua; like Kathleen Sullivan of Stanford and Elena Kagan of Harvard, Dean Harold Koh has long been considered a potential (Democratic) appointee to the Supreme Court. Yale Law produces an unusually high number of academics and has emphasized its commitment to the public interest. Although at one point it was famed for economics and commercial-related studies, the Law School has since become more strongly associated with constitutional, environmental, and comparative law, as well as a number of other areas that go outside the usual areas of private practice. While many leading competitors, particularly Harvard, Columbia, and Stanford, enjoy a stronger name association with corporate and commercial practice, Yale Law is undisputably supreme in terms of placing its students into judicial clerkships and academic positions. Despite the intense competition for federal clerkships among the top law students of the country, a staggering 40% of Yale graduates go on to clerk after graduation, a number which has no comparison with any other school.

Yale Law School - Quality of Life

The extremely small size of Yale Law brings with it the expected advantages and disadvantages of a school whose entire student body could be conceivably fit into a single dormitory in another campus. Students are said to know virtually every other member of the Yale Law community by the end of their first year, but the larger university population also provides extended social opportunities. Although having New Haven as a college town is popularly considered a drawback for prospective Yale students, the school makes an effort to provide escort and shuttle services, and the town provides relatively inexpensive housing (dorms are an option, but extremely limited in number). Students generally give the law school campus high marks, particularly the Sterling Law Building with its cathedral-like architecture. Law students, however, must share a gym with the rest of the university--albeit the second largest in the world.

Yale Law School Employment Prospects

Yale Law School offers an excellent career placement service, and its name alone opens doors in countless fields. The school is the undisputed leader in producing legal academics, with the educational background and assessment systems giving graduates a major leg-up in the highly competitive teaching market. While the school is famed for its ability to place students into judicial clerkships, a significant number of alumni go on to practice "biglaw." There is a significant representation of Yale alumni at not only top-tier corporate firms in New York but also famed litigation and boutique firms in D.C. and southern California. Several hundred name-brand firms from every major legal market actively recruit the 180+ graduates of each class, and the consensus is that each student takes far more time figuring out what area he or she wants to go into than actually pursuing a job in that field. Indeed, current "Yalies" tell us that the most elite corporate law firms in the United States extend comparable numbers of offers to students during the annual OCI recruiting process, but to a pool of applicants that is far smaller than at most competing schools. A great deal of the worry actually appears to come from the employers' side, due to the limited number of students to recruit--a number made even smaller by both the significant percentage of students that will not go into private practice, and the fact that over a third will defer firm jobs for at least a year after graduation to clerk.

Contact Information
Yale Law School Admissions Office
P.O. Box 208329
New Haven, CT 06520-8329

Phone: 203 432-4995
Email: admissions.law@yale.edu