Is Yale really that good? Forum

[introversional]

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2005/ ... ticism-of/

"The report attributed Yale Law School's success to its "freewheeling" and "anarchic" approach to teaching."

lol

[WhatSarahSaid]

The methodology behind the rankings makes them kind of self-perpetuating. Get all the data you can and then use those to decide where you want to go to school.

Personally, I want to go to a school that I can write lots of sonnets about post-graduation. Do you know how hard it is to rhyme "Columbia" with anything? Luckily, "Yale" rhymes with tons of words, making it far and away the best school for me.

[notanumber]

OK, honest answer:

It's primarily a combination of the USNews metrics favoring small schools with lots of money, the strong "numbers" of Yale's incoming class, and the strong reputation and placement power of YLS in the legal world.

YLS structures their pedagogy in a way that is a bit different from other schools, but not substantially so and not in any way that impacts their USNews ranking.

Being ranked #1 in a trashy magazine does not make YLS the 'best' school. There are several law schools that could credibly claim the title of 'best #1 law school ever.'

Also, they fund press junkets to St. Tropez.

[d34d9823]

Being ranked #1 in a trashy magazine does not make YLS the 'best' school. There are several law schools that could credibly argue that they are the 'best.'

This is true, and I actually think Harvard's reputation is better (see the recent hiring partner survey, for example). That said, Yale is by far the best at placing students into prestigious positions, which is what all of us care about.

[FiveSermon]

Being ranked #1 in a trashy magazine does not make YLS the 'best' school. There are several law schools that could credibly argue that they are the 'best.'

This is true, and I actually think Harvard's reputation is better (see the recent hiring partner survey, for example). That said, Yale is by far the best at placing students into prestigious positions, which is what all of us care about.

And Yale is much more difficult to get into.

[paratactical]

Being ranked #1 in a trashy magazine does not make YLS the 'best' school. There are several law schools that could credibly argue that they are the 'best.'

This is true, and I actually think Harvard's reputation is better (see the recent hiring partner survey, for example). That said, Yale is by far the best at placing students into prestigious positions, which is what all of us care about.

Harvard's rep is better among hiring partners because Harvard grads actually want to work at biglaw firms. Yale grads get to be educators, clerks, whatever the hell they want, and don't often opt to go the firm route. HTH.

[cern]

Think of it like hogwarts, man. Easy to be skeptical and make fun of, but if you ever got the invitation, your perspective may drastically change.

Also, employment prospects are what they are, you've got Yale on the resume (read: you're a wizard).

[d34d9823]

Being ranked #1 in a trashy magazine does not make YLS the 'best' school. There are several law schools that could credibly argue that they are the 'best.'

This is true, and I actually think Harvard's reputation is better (see the recent hiring partner survey, for example). That said, Yale is by far the best at placing students into prestigious positions, which is what all of us care about.

Harvard's rep is better among hiring partners because Harvard grads actually want to work at biglaw firms. Yale grads get to be educators, clerks, whatever the hell they want, and don't often opt to go the firm route. HTH.

Maybe, but Harvard also places impressively well for having such a huge class.

[Attorney]

If you want a serious answer... HYS obviously only compete with each other. So lets look at why Y comes out on top of H and S in these rankings.

vs. Harvard: Yale keeps its enrollment at around 195 per class, compared to 560 at Harvard. This allows it to keep its numbers higher in comparison. If YLS was as large as HLS, there's no way Yale could remain more, or even as, selective as Harvard.

vs. Stanford: Yale, like Harvard, makes admissions mostly a numbers game. If you have a 3.8/180, you are pretty much guaranteed to get into both H (100%) and Y (80%). At S (40%), however, there are no guarantees. Ever. They take more time in reading the applications at SLS, and they'll dip into lower LSATs there even while rejecting people with perfect scores.

TL;DR version: US News cares about numbers, and H and Y care about numbers more than S. Making S automatically the #3 in the rankings. Between H and Y, it's much easier for Y to reach higher numbers as a result of keeping their class size ridiculously tiny in an effort to stave off the 8000 lb. gorilla of the law industry (HLS), at least in rankings. Doesn't help much in networking though!

[TurtlesAllTheWayDown]

Think of it like hogwarts, man. Easy to be skeptical and make fun of, but if you ever got the invitation, your perspective may drastically change.

Also, employment prospects are what they are, you've got Yale on the resume (read: you're a wizard).

HogwarTTTs is just wizard mill. The real magicians are the ones who figured out how to get into Yale.

[vanwinkle]

From the "muslims next door" thread:

--ImageRemoved--
Don't stalk people across threads.

Oh, and don't stalk people across threads and then report that person's posts. It encourages a mod to read the thread and notice what you did.

Hopefully, everyone can stop arguing about who's a troll. That's the kind of thing that might get more people warnings and bans if it keeps happening.

[CanadianWolf]

Yale spends approximately $150,000 per law student per year which is significantly above all other law schools.

[showNprove]

re: Yale vs. Harvard

Yale's incoming class is slightly better, Harvard's reputation (e.g., USNWR assessment surveys) is slightly better, they place equally into academia straight out of school, Harvard places much better into biglaw, and Yale places much better into every other sector of employment--including clerkships, government, and public interest.

The difference is not nearly as big as the historical US News rankings would imply. The difference is almost solely money spent per student.

IMO, if you want to be a lawyer, go to Harvard; if you want to be a legal academic, go to Yale.




Edited for clarification.

[notanumber]

If you want a serious answer... HYS obviously only compete with each other. So lets look at why Y comes out on top of H and S in these rankings.

vs. Harvard: Yale keeps its enrollment at around 195 per class, compared to 560 at Harvard. This allows it to keep its numbers higher in comparison. If YLS was as large as HLS, there's no way Yale could remain more, or even as, selective as Harvard.

vs. Stanford: Yale, like Harvard, makes admissions mostly a numbers game. If you have a 3.8/180, you are pretty much guaranteed to get into both H (100%) and Y (80%). At S (40%), however, there are no guarantees. Ever. They take more time in reading the applications at SLS, and they'll dip into lower LSATs there even while rejecting people with perfect scores.

TL;DR version: US News cares about numbers, and H and Y care about numbers more than S. Making S automatically the #3 in the rankings. Between H and Y, it's much easier for Y to reach higher numbers as a result of keeping their class size ridiculously tiny in an effort to stave off the 8000 lb. gorilla of the law industry (HLS), at least in rankings. Doesn't help much in networking though!

YLS and SLS have dramatically different application procedures (centralized v. decentralized). It's nonsensical to presume that SLS takes more time reading applications or that their lower median gpa/lsat is a function of a more holistic review process.

Also, the GPA/LSAT isn't want makes for the big difference in USNews rankings. It's the money.

[bk1]

I'll give a serious response with only minimal snark:

OP your tin foil hat is screwed on way too tight. You seriously think foul play is involved? What exactly is Yale doing? Bribing the survey responders? Lying about their numbers to USNWR? Colluding with those who put together the rankings? What?

[Attorney]

^^

[d34d9823]

they place equally into academia

ಠ_ಠ

[Fresh]

they place equally into academia

ಠ_ಠ

Enter Professor Brian Leiter. Leiter, who is a professor at the Univerity of Chicago, compiles detailed statistics on the leading producers of law professors in the country. You can view his most recent rankings of the institutions producing the most law professors here, which includes only people who have graduated from law school since 1995 (thereby providing the most current snapshot of legal academic talent). If you look closely at the tables, you'll notice a few things:

1. In absolute numbers, Yale is in a league of its own, placing more graduates since 1995 -- by a huge margin -- in both the top 43 law schools and the top 18 law schools than any other law school in the nation.

2. Accounting for its size (the "per capita" number), Yale is in a different universe when it comes to law teaching placement. You can look at it like this: Yale graduates in the last decade and a half have been over four times as successful in landing law teaching positions at the top 18 law schools as graduates of Harvard, Stanford, and Chicago; roughly twenty times as successful in landing such jobs as graduates of Columbia, Berkeley, and Virginia; and about forty times as successful in getting these jobs as graduates of NYU, Northwestern, and Michigan.

3. Almost every school on the list has hired more graduates of Yale than its own. (For a separate but related topic on this point, see this post.)

[showNprove]

they place equally into academia

ಠ_ಠ

Straight out of school, I meant. Both schools place 0.5% of their students into academia straight out of school, according to the employment data collected by U.S. News.

Of course, most professors clerk first, and most clerks come from Yale.

[charliebrownwn]

Inspired by a similar thread, I'd like to ask whether or not Yale is really that good. What has kept #1 Yale Law #1 for so long? What (and how) are they teaching that other law schools aren't?

Yale has been ranked number one in the country by USNWR in every year in which the magazine has published law school rankings.

To me, that reeks of some pervasive, traditional bias, as well as other foul play. Is Yale really that good, and if so, why?

The Los Angeles Lakers have won 5 titles in the past ten years while my Dallas Mavericks have won none.

To me, that reeks of some pervasive, traditional bias, as well as other foul play.

Fun Fact: As many different teams won an NBA Championship in the 1970s as did in the 1960s, 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s combined.

[abitaman6363]

Yale spends approximately $150,000 per law student per year which is significantly above all other law schools.

Is this true? Where did you pull this from?

[ResolutePear]

Is Yale really that good?

No, it's better. Don't you dare disrespect it by classifying it as.. "that good."

[powerlawyer06]

Skull and Bones.

I've already said too much.

/thread.

TITCR

[stylishlaw]

WTF RANDOM THREAD NECROMANCY

[bk1]

Yale spends approximately $150,000 per law student per year which is significantly above all other law schools.

Is this true? Where did you pull this from?

I responded to the thread you made on this same topic here: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 1&t=152886

The only public place I have seen the data (2010) is in the second graph here:

http://money-law.blogspot.com/2009/08/h ... t-way.html

And here (I believe) is the 2011 data:

http://money-law.blogspot.com/2010/12/z ... n-law.html

So the overhead expenditures per student for Yale comes out to 6.15 though I'm not entirely sure what that number means. Someone in another thread said that all the T14 spend more $ than they take in and I wouldn't be surprised by that considering that these schools have low student/faculty ratios and top law school professors are making 250k-300k on average.