New US News Rankings 2023-2024 Forum

[Anonymous User]

Look I mean clerkships are tough to get, but I don't doubt that hypothetical HLS DPW tax guy has as good a chance as similarly situated SLS DPW tax guy.

But what is there to support that other than vibes? What is there to support the idea that the massive gulf in clerkship outcomes is entirely because of self selection. I'm willing to buy self-selection as a partial, but not entire, explanation. This reminds me of the GULC biglaw self selection cope. In fact you can apply it to basically any school - "school x has lower biglaw/clerkship numbers because they just don't want biglaw/clerkship". What you're saying is basically "harvard students dont want bristow or appellate clerkships, they're much more passionate about corporate law". I mean we know HLS students probably are taking on more debt than if those same students went to a lower ranked school in the t-14. Yet they chose H over scholarships despite being able to get corporate law from any other T-14. Why did they do that? Maybe because they wanted something they couldn't get from other T-14s

and I know we're talking about similarly situated i.e. same percentile grades, but just wanted to point out the avg tax guy from SLS is gonna be significantly lower percentile than tax guy from HLS

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

[Anonymous User]

Look I mean clerkships are tough to get, but I don't doubt that hypothetical HLS DPW tax guy has as good a chance as similarly situated SLS DPW tax guy.

But what is there to support that other than vibes? What is there to support the idea that the massive gulf in clerkship outcomes is entirely because of self selection. I'm willing to buy self-selection as a partial, but not entire, explanation. This reminds me of the GULC biglaw self selection cope. In fact you can apply it to basically any school - "school x has lower biglaw/clerkship numbers because they just don't want biglaw/clerkship". What you're saying is basically "harvard students dont want bristow or appellate clerkships, they're much more passionate about corporate law". I mean we know HLS students probably are taking on more debt than if those same students went to a lower ranked school in the t-14. Yet they chose H over scholarships despite being able to get corporate law from any other T-14. Why did they do that? Maybe because they wanted something they couldn't get from other T-14s

and I know we're talking about similarly situated i.e. same percentile grades, but just wanted to point out the avg tax guy from SLS is gonna be significantly lower percentile than tax guy from HLS

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year

[Anonymous User]

Look I mean clerkships are tough to get, but I don't doubt that hypothetical HLS DPW tax guy has as good a chance as similarly situated SLS DPW tax guy.

But what is there to support that other than vibes? What is there to support the idea that the massive gulf in clerkship outcomes is entirely because of self selection. I'm willing to buy self-selection as a partial, but not entire, explanation. This reminds me of the GULC biglaw self selection cope. In fact you can apply it to basically any school - "school x has lower biglaw/clerkship numbers because they just don't want biglaw/clerkship". What you're saying is basically "harvard students dont want bristow or appellate clerkships, they're much more passionate about corporate law". I mean we know HLS students probably are taking on more debt than if those same students went to a lower ranked school in the t-14. Yet they chose H over scholarships despite being able to get corporate law from any other T-14. Why did they do that? Maybe because they wanted something they couldn't get from other T-14s

and I know we're talking about similarly situated i.e. same percentile grades, but just wanted to point out the avg tax guy from SLS is gonna be significantly lower percentile than tax guy from HLS

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year

she could be at cravath

[Anonymous User]

Lots of us are shooting from the hip on this thread. A quick Google search on historic law school rankings is instructive here. For starters—and some of us really need to hear this—"HYS/CCN" is not a truism. Yale has led the pack in almost every assessment ever, but it has historically shared its position with another leading school (most often Harvard). Stanford has been recognized in rankings publications as a top school since the 1980s, but U. Mich. was long considered a mainstay of the top 3/top 4 schools. NYU's rise to the top 6 is relatively recent. Penn's return to the T6 is most accurately described as a comeback, and its current standing at #4 is neither unprecedented nor shocking. U. of Texas was ranked among the top 14 schools throughout the mid-to-late 1900s. See links to journal articles and influential publications that predated U.S. News Report below.

Late 19th/Early 20th Century
As Henderson et al. note, the "elite" schools were Yale, Harvard, Penn, and Columbia[/b], but they were not individually ranked: https://ilj.law.indiana.edu/articles/7- ... derson.pdf (for a summary of the findings, see https://www.abajournal.com/news/article ... s_rankings)

1970s and 1980
Dean of Pepperdine Law School notes that the first modern law school ranking was published in 1975 (Yale, Northwestern, and Columbia were tied for #1; U. Mich. and Penn were tied for #4; NYU was #49): https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blo ... law_s.html

A couple other rankings in the 1970s (Cartter Report and Blau-Margulies Reputational Survey), courtesy of Brian Leiter of U. Chicago Law: https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/ ... er_la.html

Gourman's, another influential predecessor to U.S. News, had Harvard #1, U. Mich. #2, Yale #3, U. Chicago #4, Berkeley #5, Stanford at #6 in 1980: https://www.jstor.org/stable/828215

1990-2022
The U.S. News era of rankings. https://www.top-law-schools.com/law-school-ranking.html

7Sage provides an interesting (if unrevealing) visual of U.S. News rankings from 2010 onwards: https://7sage.com/top-law-school-rankings/

In conclusion: with few exceptions, the schools currently belonging to the T14 have been in that category for most of rankings history, but their individual rank within the T14 has always been in (slow-moving) flux.

[Anonymous User]

Lots of us are shooting from the hip on this thread. A quick Google search on historic law school rankings is instructive here. For starters—and some of us really need to hear this—"HYS/CCN" is not a truism. Yale has led the pack in almost every assessment ever, but it has historically shared its position with another leading school (most often Harvard). Stanford has been recognized in rankings publications as a top school since the 1980s, but U. Mich. was long considered a mainstay of the top 3/top 4 schools. NYU's rise to the top 6 is relatively recent. Penn's return to the T6 is most accurately described as a comeback, and its current standing at #4 is neither unprecedented nor shocking. U. of Texas was ranked among the top 14 schools throughout the mid-to-late 1900s. See links to journal articles and influential publications that predated U.S. News Report below.

Late 19th/Early 20th Century
As Henderson et al. note, the "elite" schools were Yale, Harvard, Penn, and Columbia[/b], but they were not individually ranked: https://ilj.law.indiana.edu/articles/7- ... derson.pdf (for a summary of the findings, see https://www.abajournal.com/news/article ... s_rankings)

1970s and 1980
Dean of Pepperdine Law School notes that the first modern law school ranking was published in 1975 (Yale, Northwestern, and Columbia were tied for #1; U. Mich. and Penn were tied for #4; NYU was #49): https://taxprof.typepad.com/taxprof_blo ... law_s.html

A couple other rankings in the 1970s (Cartter Report and Blau-Margulies Reputational Survey), courtesy of Brian Leiter of U. Chicago Law: https://leiterreports.typepad.com/blog/ ... er_la.html

Gourman's, another influential predecessor to U.S. News, had Harvard #1, U. Mich. #2, Yale #3, U. Chicago #4, Berkeley #5, Stanford at #6 in 1980: https://www.jstor.org/stable/828215

1990-2022
The U.S. News era of rankings. https://www.top-law-schools.com/law-school-ranking.html

7Sage provides an interesting (if unrevealing) visual of U.S. News rankings from 2010 onwards: https://7sage.com/top-law-school-rankings/

In conclusion: with few exceptions, the schools currently belonging to the T14 have been in that category for most of rankings history, but their individual rank within the T14 has always been in (slow-moving) flux.

This guy headers

[Anonymous User]

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year
[/quote]

she could be at cravath
[/quote]

If I were magna at HLS I probably would be very disappointed if I ended up at CSW

[Anonymous User]

Look I mean clerkships are tough to get, but I don't doubt that hypothetical HLS DPW tax guy has as good a chance as similarly situated SLS DPW tax guy.

But what is there to support that other than vibes? What is there to support the idea that the massive gulf in clerkship outcomes is entirely because of self selection. I'm willing to buy self-selection as a partial, but not entire, explanation. This reminds me of the GULC biglaw self selection cope. In fact you can apply it to basically any school - "school x has lower biglaw/clerkship numbers because they just don't want biglaw/clerkship". What you're saying is basically "harvard students dont want bristow or appellate clerkships, they're much more passionate about corporate law". I mean we know HLS students probably are taking on more debt than if those same students went to a lower ranked school in the t-14. Yet they chose H over scholarships despite being able to get corporate law from any other T-14. Why did they do that? Maybe because they wanted something they couldn't get from other T-14s

and I know we're talking about similarly situated i.e. same percentile grades, but just wanted to point out the avg tax guy from SLS is gonna be significantly lower percentile than tax guy from HLS

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

Yes that's I meant, sorry for the confusion. Someone who does corp from H will on average be higher ranked at H than a someone who does corp from S will be ranked at S. So your anecdote is totally consistent with that

[Anonymous User]

The “are Yale and Stanford (and Chicago?) a cut above HLS because of clerkship numbers” debate is only happening on TLS. No one else thinks of Harvard as lesser (or, frankly, of Columbia as lesser than Chicago) outside these forums on that basis. Harvard just has more students.

obviously not among laypeople or probably corporate practitioners but clerkship numbers are widely known and arguably the key metric in the elite litigation world. The Chicago/Columbia gap in lit outcomes is a good example of that; they’re pretty similar except that Chicago has a much better clerkship program and thus better representation in government, appellate groups, and lit boutiques even though it’s much smaller.

For those curious, the appellate groups at Kirkland, Latham, Jones Day, and Sidley (just to take four major ones with easily navigable filters) have 12 lawyers from Columbia, 45 from Chicago, and 56 from HLS

This is a huge W for Chicago, considering the class size difference.

You kids can continue coping about your debt from fancy Harvard. Meanwhile lowly Chicago has better elite results. I'm sorry we're starting to notice it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen appellate hype on this board. Is that still attractive to litigators a few years out of law school? Seems more like a special taste (like being a prof).

Are we now pretending that academia is not a prestigious outcome?

Depends on what you are doing (and where) in academia. Not all academia is the same. Would you want to be an assistant prof teaching contracts and property at Stetson U for 125K per year while cranking away at student-reviewed articles that get seven independent non-student internet clicks over the course of several years? Probably not. There are some sweet jobs at universities, but these are few. The number of talented people who self-select from academia is a few orders of magnitude larger than those interested in academia. Perhaps appellate is the same - high barriers to entry due to low numbers of jobs, but with a corresponding low interest in the general talent population. What field would be more prestigious to you, one where 10,000 people are interested in it, and there are only 1,000 slots, or a field where 1,000 people are interested in it and only 50 slots?

I mean not all legal academics are geniuses but the arg that biglaw appellate, boutiques, and academia actually aren’t highly selective outcomes compared to NYC corporate or w/e is top-tier content

[Anonymous User]

Don't Ruby's get a bunch of institutional support that normal Chicago students don't get? I remember seeing stats a few years back that showed a huge % of UChi SCOTUS clerks were former Ruby recipients.

Like of course the Rhodes scholar that Chicago poaches from Yale with a Ruby is going to have great outcomes out of law school. But that has zero connection to Chicago, they would do well at any other T6.

Almost as if UChicago has a mini Yale class within the school that is distinct from the rest.

Nah, that’s mostly just marketing for the program, Rubys at the top of the class get great clerkships and Rubys at median don’t get clerkships, and I’ve noticed no correlation between the Ruby and SCOTUS (which nowadays mostly just depends on grades plus Fed Soc). Unlike at many schools there’s not really a way to duck your grades at Chicago. The “institutional support” is just that you get an assigned faculty mentor and an invitation to a fancy dinner once a year.

[Anonymous User]

Don't Ruby's get a bunch of institutional support that normal Chicago students don't get? I remember seeing stats a few years back that showed a huge % of UChi SCOTUS clerks were former Ruby recipients.

Like of course the Rhodes scholar that Chicago poaches from Yale with a Ruby is going to have great outcomes out of law school. But that has zero connection to Chicago, they would do well at any other T6.

Almost as if UChicago has a mini Yale class within the school that is distinct from the rest.

Nah, that’s mostly just marketing for the program, Rubys at the top of the class get great clerkships and Rubys at median don’t get clerkships, and I’ve noticed no correlation between the Ruby and SCOTUS (which nowadays mostly just depends on grades plus Fed Soc). Unlike at many schools there’s not really a way to duck your grades at Chicago. The “institutional support” is just that you get an assigned faculty mentor and an invitation to a fancy dinner once a year.

Fancy dinners once a quarter (unless they recently changed it). But ya, most of the outcomes are likely just correlation. Rubys generally go to people who also got into HYS and had good credentials. FWIW, I was a Ruby with not great grades in law school but having it on my resume has helped. Full ride + spending money for Chicago is a fantastic outcome and people notice that.

[Anonymous User]

Everyone I know at Georgetown who wanted biglaw got it. The top people get COAs and the bottom people miiight strike out. I defy anyone to tell me it's that different than Columbia. Don't tell me it's a cope

Bottom of the class at CLS doesn't strike out, they end up at like Cadwaladar or Fried Frank

Bottom of class at CLS and UChicago strike out too. I know them.

Can't speak to Chicago cause i don't have personal information, but bottom of the class at CLS absolutely strikes out. My understanding is pre-2008 bottom of the class strikeouts were rare, but even when I was there which was in the bull market, ~5% of people struck out. Have to imagine the percent increases on more down years.

People striking out at these schools probably have some other issue going on e.g. poor social skills, don’t have the best personality, no work experience, no extracurriculars (or too few to make up for worse grades?), no one to vouch for them at the firms they’re interviewing with, etc.

Plenty finish @ bottom but land on their feet because they check other boxes. It’s really not uncommon. Know you were saying that it’s possible, not certain, that people @ bottom will strike out but I think it’s more common for even the folks at the bottom at T6 schools to land biglaw.

Also know at least one person from my school who joined Skadden with straight Bs and B minuses (no family connections); they’re likeable, smart, outgoing and hardworking, just not academic—and that’s okay! TBH, I’d bet on them becoming partner over a great many of their peers who got better grades.

[Anonymous User]

obviously not among laypeople or probably corporate practitioners but clerkship numbers are widely known and arguably the key metric in the elite litigation world. The Chicago/Columbia gap in lit outcomes is a good example of that; they’re pretty similar except that Chicago has a much better clerkship program and thus better representation in government, appellate groups, and lit boutiques even though it’s much smaller.

For those curious, the appellate groups at Kirkland, Latham, Jones Day, and Sidley (just to take four major ones with easily navigable filters) have 12 lawyers from Columbia, 45 from Chicago, and 56 from HLS

This is a huge W for Chicago, considering the class size difference.

You kids can continue coping about your debt from fancy Harvard. Meanwhile lowly Chicago has better elite results. I'm sorry we're starting to notice it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen appellate hype on this board. Is that still attractive to litigators a few years out of law school? Seems more like a special taste (like being a prof).

Are we now pretending that academia is not a prestigious outcome?

Depends on what you are doing (and where) in academia. Not all academia is the same. Would you want to be an assistant prof teaching contracts and property at Stetson U for 125K per year while cranking away at student-reviewed articles that get seven independent non-student internet clicks over the course of several years? Probably not. There are some sweet jobs at universities, but these are few. The number of talented people who self-select from academia is a few orders of magnitude larger than those interested in academia. Perhaps appellate is the same - high barriers to entry due to low numbers of jobs, but with a corresponding low interest in the general talent population. What field would be more prestigious to you, one where 10,000 people are interested in it, and there are only 1,000 slots, or a field where 1,000 people are interested in it and only 50 slots?

I mean not all legal academics are geniuses but the arg that biglaw appellate, boutiques, and academia actually aren’t highly selective outcomes compared to NYC corporate or w/e is top-tier content

TLS people love to quote SLS or YLS selectively rates as gospel for prestige but when it comes to employment selectivity rates minds are blown that the same metric puts boutiques to shame and elevates the Akins of the world. Of course the reply would be that it doesn’t take into account GPA but so then neither does the YLS 8% selectivity number - it’s just a raw number against other raw numbers as a prestige proxy.

[Anonymous User]

obviously not among laypeople or probably corporate practitioners but clerkship numbers are widely known and arguably the key metric in the elite litigation world. The Chicago/Columbia gap in lit outcomes is a good example of that; they’re pretty similar except that Chicago has a much better clerkship program and thus better representation in government, appellate groups, and lit boutiques even though it’s much smaller.

For those curious, the appellate groups at Kirkland, Latham, Jones Day, and Sidley (just to take four major ones with easily navigable filters) have 12 lawyers from Columbia, 45 from Chicago, and 56 from HLS

This is a huge W for Chicago, considering the class size difference.

You kids can continue coping about your debt from fancy Harvard. Meanwhile lowly Chicago has better elite results. I'm sorry we're starting to notice it.

It’s been awhile since I’ve seen appellate hype on this board. Is that still attractive to litigators a few years out of law school? Seems more like a special taste (like being a prof).

Are we now pretending that academia is not a prestigious outcome?

Depends on what you are doing (and where) in academia. Not all academia is the same. Would you want to be an assistant prof teaching contracts and property at Stetson U for 125K per year while cranking away at student-reviewed articles that get seven independent non-student internet clicks over the course of several years? Probably not. There are some sweet jobs at universities, but these are few. The number of talented people who self-select from academia is a few orders of magnitude larger than those interested in academia. Perhaps appellate is the same - high barriers to entry due to low numbers of jobs, but with a corresponding low interest in the general talent population. What field would be more prestigious to you, one where 10,000 people are interested in it, and there are only 1,000 slots, or a field where 1,000 people are interested in it and only 50 slots?

I mean not all legal academics are geniuses but the arg that biglaw appellate, boutiques, and academia actually aren’t highly selective outcomes compared to NYC corporate or w/e is top-tier content

Exactly this. You’re more than welcome to think the Stetson gig is a shitty job, but that doesn’t mean it’s not actually really hard to get (and therefore “prestigious” given the qualifications you need to have). This 10,000 ppl interested v 1000 ppl interested thing is just silly.

[Anonymous User]

TLS people love to quote SLS or YLS selectively rates as gospel for prestige but when it comes to employment selectivity rates minds are blown that the same metric puts boutiques to shame and elevates the Akins of the world. Of course the reply would be that it doesn’t take into account GPA but so then neither does the YLS 8% selectivity number - it’s just a raw number against other raw numbers as a prestige proxy.

Yes because we're looking at the strength of the applicant pool. HLS does not have a stronger applicant pool than SLS or YLS, if anything it has a weaker one. Yet it has a higher acceptance rate. Even if the stats of HLS students are the same as at SLS or YLS, it's still less selective because for any given LSAT and GPA combo, you are less likely to get into SLS and YLS than HLS. Clearly SLS and YLS are more selective but not in terms of LSAT and GPA. In other words they are more selective than HLS on metrics other than LSAT and GPA

I guess Kellogg hansen or gupta wessler could have a comparable "acceptance rate" compared to skadden but the applicant pool is much stronger and though there you could look at the average stats of an associate there as well.

[Anonymous User]

TLS people love to quote SLS or YLS selectively rates as gospel for prestige but when it comes to employment selectivity rates minds are blown that the same metric puts boutiques to shame and elevates the Akins of the world. Of course the reply would be that it doesn’t take into account GPA but so then neither does the YLS 8% selectivity number - it’s just a raw number against other raw numbers as a prestige proxy.

Yes because we're looking at the strength of the applicant pool. HLS does not have a stronger applicant pool than SLS or YLS, if anything it has a weaker one. Yet it has a higher acceptance rate. Even if the stats of HLS students are the same as at SLS or YLS, it's still less selective because for any given LSAT and GPA combo, you are less likely to get into SLS and YLS than HLS. Clearly SLS and YLS are more selective but not in terms of LSAT and GPA

I guess Kellog hansen or gupta wessler could have a comparable "acceptance rate" compared to skadden but the applicant pool is much stronger and yeah you could look at the average stats of an associate there as well.

In a fantasy world. The strength of admitted applicants is not published, only attending applicants. And the strength of rejected applicants has never, in any world, ever been published. Given that only 4% of YLS applicants attend and have their stats published, you lack any knowledge of the other 96%. And of course nearly everyone who applies to Yale also applies to Harvard but it’s definitely not the other way around as seen by the Harvard pool nearly double the size of the Yale pool (I think, don’t quote me on that). It’s a stupid game admissions officers and University marketing departments play.

[Anonymous User]

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year

she could be at cravath
[/quote]

If I were magna at HLS I probably would be very disappointed if I ended up at CSW
[/quote]

Yeah if you are top 1-2% at HLS and you decline to clerk, then I hope you either ended up at WLRK or are just a complete genius. Otherwise, you wasted way too much time studying for no benefit. WLRK is literally the only corporate firm that is selective and prestigious in the same way as litigation boutiques or DC appellate practices, which is what most top students are gunning for in my experience. Like top 1/3 at Penn can get you corporate at Cravath.

[Anonymous User]

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year

she could be at cravath

If I were magna at HLS I probably would be very disappointed if I ended up at CSW
[/quote]

Yeah if you are top 1-2% at HLS and you decline to clerk, then I hope you either ended up at WLRK or are just a complete genius. Otherwise, you wasted way too much time studying for no benefit. WLRK is literally the only corporate firm that is selective and prestigious in the same way as litigation boutiques or DC appellate practices, which is what most top students are gunning for in my experience. Like top 1/3 at Penn can get you corporate at Cravath.
[/quote]

The bulk of this is right but the Penn thing is wrong lol

[Anonymous User]

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year

she could be at cravath
[/quote]

If I were magna at HLS I probably would be very disappointed if I ended up at CSW
[/quote]
Why? It's the most prestigious firm in the most important market

[CondescendingLiberal]

Friendly reminder that Stanford and Harvard are peer schools.

[Anonymous User]

TLS people love to quote SLS or YLS selectively rates as gospel for prestige but when it comes to employment selectivity rates minds are blown that the same metric puts boutiques to shame and elevates the Akins of the world. Of course the reply would be that it doesn’t take into account GPA but so then neither does the YLS 8% selectivity number - it’s just a raw number against other raw numbers as a prestige proxy.

Yes because we're looking at the strength of the applicant pool. HLS does not have a stronger applicant pool than SLS or YLS, if anything it has a weaker one. Yet it has a higher acceptance rate. Even if the stats of HLS students are the same as at SLS or YLS, it's still less selective because for any given LSAT and GPA combo, you are less likely to get into SLS and YLS than HLS. Clearly SLS and YLS are more selective but not in terms of LSAT and GPA

I guess Kellog hansen or gupta wessler could have a comparable "acceptance rate" compared to skadden but the applicant pool is much stronger and yeah you could look at the average stats of an associate there as well.

And of course nearly everyone who applies to Yale also applies to Harvard but it’s definitely not the other way around as seen by the Harvard pool nearly double the size of the Yale pool (I think, don’t quote me on that). It’s a stupid game admissions officers and University marketing departments play.

How do you not realize that larger applicant pool tends to mean weaker applicant pool. Once again, HLS is not sending its best folks

Essentially, the people who apply because of marketing are on average weaker than the people who would apply without marketing

[Anonymous User]

TLS people love to quote SLS or YLS selectively rates as gospel for prestige but when it comes to employment selectivity rates minds are blown that the same metric puts boutiques to shame and elevates the Akins of the world. Of course the reply would be that it doesn’t take into account GPA but so then neither does the YLS 8% selectivity number - it’s just a raw number against other raw numbers as a prestige proxy.

Yes because we're looking at the strength of the applicant pool. HLS does not have a stronger applicant pool than SLS or YLS, if anything it has a weaker one. Yet it has a higher acceptance rate. Even if the stats of HLS students are the same as at SLS or YLS, it's still less selective because for any given LSAT and GPA combo, you are less likely to get into SLS and YLS than HLS. Clearly SLS and YLS are more selective but not in terms of LSAT and GPA

I guess Kellog hansen or gupta wessler could have a comparable "acceptance rate" compared to skadden but the applicant pool is much stronger and yeah you could look at the average stats of an associate there as well.

And of course nearly everyone who applies to Yale also applies to Harvard but it’s definitely not the other way around as seen by the Harvard pool nearly double the size of the Yale pool (I think, don’t quote me on that). It’s a stupid game admissions officers and University marketing departments play.

How do you not realize that larger applicant pool tends to mean weaker applicant pool. Once again, HLS is not sending its best folks

Essentially, the people who apply because of marketing are on average weaker than the people who would apply without marketing

It’s Yale that does the marketing (and Harvard and all schools) to drive up applications to increase the “selectivity.” They all strive to maximize applications so they can brag that they rejected 92% of the pool or 80% of the pool. Also, there is no correlation between pool size and strength, unless you believe that the small pools that apply to Appalachia Law or UDC Law or any other unknown school are hiding some secret strength.

[Anonymous User]

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year

she could be at cravath

If I were magna at HLS I probably would be very disappointed if I ended up at CSW

Yeah if you are top 1-2% at HLS and you decline to clerk, then I hope you either ended up at WLRK or are just a complete genius. Otherwise, you wasted way too much time studying for no benefit. WLRK is literally the only corporate firm that is selective and prestigious in the same way as litigation boutiques or DC appellate practices, which is what most top students are gunning for in my experience. Like top 1/3 at Penn can get you corporate at Cravath.
[/quote]

The bulk of this is right but the Penn thing is wrong lol
[/quote]

Penn thing is absolutely correct as of 2022 OCI

[Anonymous User]

You'd be surprised, actually. I graduated HLS way above magna cum laude cutoff but wasn't interested in lit so never pursued a clerkship. I know several others who graduated magna who also went to do corp and passed on clerkships, including someone who was rank #2-10 of the whole class.

How do you have time to post on TLS when WLRK keeps you all billing 3k hours a year

she could be at cravath

If I were magna at HLS I probably would be very disappointed if I ended up at CSW

Yeah if you are top 1-2% at HLS and you decline to clerk, then I hope you either ended up at WLRK or are just a complete genius. Otherwise, you wasted way too much time studying for no benefit. WLRK is literally the only corporate firm that is selective and prestigious in the same way as litigation boutiques or DC appellate practices, which is what most top students are gunning for in my experience. Like top 1/3 at Penn can get you corporate at Cravath.

The bulk of this is right but the Penn thing is wrong lol
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Penn thing is absolutely correct as of 2022 OCI
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Top 1/4 is good enough for Cravath corporate at Mich so this is quite believable

[Anonymous User]

Who cares, best firm is best firm

[Anonymous User]

Is there really anyone that wants to clerk who would rather be median + fed soc at chicago than median + fed soc at H?