Fordham vs. William and Mary Forum

[scrappydoo716]

Alright I've heard your arguments re: grades and I completely understand the amount of work and luck it takes for something like that to happen, but my question was more of a hypothetical dealing with whether it is worth giving up being high in a class at William & Mary where I have a scholarship to transfer into a t14 school and probably become more of a middle of the pack student.

In all likelihood you won't make grades good enough to do that, so don't worry about it.

As I said the question was dealing with hypotheticals

[rad lulz]

Alright I've heard your arguments re: grades and I completely understand the amount of work and luck it takes for something like that to happen, but my question was more of a hypothetical dealing with whether it is worth giving up being high in a class at William & Mary where I have a scholarship to transfer into a t14 school and probably become more of a middle of the pack student.

In all likelihood you won't make grades good enough to do that, so don't worry about it.

As I said the question was dealing with hypotheticals

This is like saying should I hypothetically break up w my gf to copulate w Tori Black?

[scrappydoo716]

Alright I've heard your arguments re: grades and I completely understand the amount of work and luck it takes for something like that to happen, but my question was more of a hypothetical dealing with whether it is worth giving up being high in a class at William & Mary where I have a scholarship to transfer into a t14 school and probably become more of a middle of the pack student.

In all likelihood you won't make grades good enough to do that, so don't worry about it.

As I said the question was dealing with hypotheticals

This is like saying should I hypothetically break up w my gf to copulate w Tori Black?

Look if there's one thing I understand by reading this forum it's that my chances are next to none but I would still like an answer to my question.

[empyreanrrv]

Depends what market you are looking at, what T14, how much scholarship at WM, what time of law you want to practice, etc. If you want biglaw in Boston, have 5k a year at WM and can transfer to Harvard then yea, that makes sense. If you have a full scholarship to WM and want to be a public defender in Virginia, it probably doesn't make sense to transfer to Georgetown.

[stillwater]

Alright I've heard your arguments re: grades and I completely understand the amount of work and luck it takes for something like that to happen, but my question was more of a hypothetical dealing with whether it is worth giving up being high in a class at William & Mary where I have a scholarship to transfer into a t14 school and probably become more of a middle of the pack student.

In all likelihood you won't make grades good enough to do that, so don't worry about it.

As I said the question was dealing with hypotheticals

This is like saying should I hypothetically break up w my gf to copulate w Tori Black?

is that your next move lulz?

[rad lulz]

is that your next move lulz?

Is there a 90% chance I will not be the 10% of people that hook up w Tori, or are my chances higher because of my above-median LSAT

[ajr]

Generally a lot of BS on this thread and forum about how everyone has a 15% chance of being in the top 15% etc. from some people who claim to know everything about everything. My take is that barring some oddities, past performance is the best predictor of future performance. LSAT and UGPA alone don't summarize your past performance very well. For e.g. only you know how competitive your UG was and how much effort you put into your LSAT. Besides -- remember that there will be many people in your school who gave up going to better schools. You need to compete with all of them.

Having said all of that, I would warn you against your transfer strategy even if you do manage to transfer from the East Coast to the West. Chances are that your CA odds at 2L OCI won't improve much just because you transferred.

[guano]

Generally a lot of BS on this thread and forum about how everyone has a 15% chance of being in the top 15% etc. from some people who claim to know everything about everything. My take is that barring some oddities, past performance is the best predictor of future performance. LSAT and UGPA alone don't summarize your past performance very well. For e.g. only you know how competitive your UG was and how much effort you put into your LSAT. Besides -- remember that there will be many people in your school who gave up going to better schools. You need to compete with all of them.

So, what are you saying?

[ajr]

Generally a lot of BS on this thread and forum about how everyone has a 15% chance of being in the top 15% etc. from some people who claim to know everything about everything. My take is that barring some oddities, past performance is the best predictor of future performance. LSAT and UGPA alone don't summarize your past performance very well. For e.g. only you know how competitive your UG was and how much effort you put into your LSAT. Besides -- remember that there will be many people in your school who gave up going to better schools. You need to compete with all of them.

So, what are you saying?

You can better predict your own performance in law school than just LSAT+GPA will tell you by asking yourself some questions about the circumstances of your LSAT and GPA. But this prediction has its errors too, errors that may be significant when it comes to transferring, so you can't count on transferring.

But where you'll be in class is nowhere close to random.

[enigmabk]

And say per some chance I do receive those grades (top 15% or so) then is the risk worth it?

If I win the lottery, is buying a ticket worth the risk?

There's an 85% chance that you won't be in the top 15%.

lol

[guano]

Generally a lot of BS on this thread and forum about how everyone has a 15% chance of being in the top 15% etc. from some people who claim to know everything about everything. My take is that barring some oddities, past performance is the best predictor of future performance. LSAT and UGPA alone don't summarize your past performance very well. For e.g. only you know how competitive your UG was and how much effort you put into your LSAT. Besides -- remember that there will be many people in your school who gave up going to better schools. You need to compete with all of them.

So, what are you saying?

You can better predict your own performance in law school than just LSAT+GPA will tell you by asking yourself some questions about the circumstances of your LSAT and GPA. But this prediction has its errors too, errors that may be significant when it comes to transferring, so you can't count on transferring.

But where you'll be in class is nowhere close to random.

it's not random, but it's not predictable. You may think your UG classes were harder than your classmates, but you could be wrong. You may think you underperformed your LSAT, but, still no way of knowing. When people above both 75% scores fail to make median, and others who slipped in off the waitlist are grading onto law review, when slackers get good grades while the hardest working students end up at the bottom, it's safe to say that a 0L cannot predict their own performance. The actual range in "quality" among students attending a particular school is quite small

[ajr]

And say per some chance I do receive those grades (top 15% or so) then is the risk worth it?

If I win the lottery, is buying a ticket worth the risk?

There's an 85% chance that you won't be in the top 15%.

lol

Are you making fun of TLS math? TLS math says that 99% of us are not going to make a top 1% salary, so we are all doomed brotha.

[ajr]

Generally a lot of BS on this thread and forum about how everyone has a 15% chance of being in the top 15% etc. from some people who claim to know everything about everything. My take is that barring some oddities, past performance is the best predictor of future performance. LSAT and UGPA alone don't summarize your past performance very well. For e.g. only you know how competitive your UG was and how much effort you put into your LSAT. Besides -- remember that there will be many people in your school who gave up going to better schools. You need to compete with all of them.

So, what are you saying?

You can better predict your own performance in law school than just LSAT+GPA will tell you by asking yourself some questions about the circumstances of your LSAT and GPA. But this prediction has its errors too, errors that may be significant when it comes to transferring, so you can't count on transferring.

But where you'll be in class is nowhere close to random.

it's not random, but it's not predictable. You may think your UG classes were harder than your classmates, but you could be wrong. You may think you underperformed your LSAT, but, still no way of knowing. When people above both 75% scores fail to make median, and others who slipped in off the waitlist are grading onto law review, when slackers get good grades while the hardest working students end up at the bottom, it's safe to say that a 0L cannot predict their own performance. The actual range in "quality" among students attending a particular school is quite small

It is closer to perfectly predictable than it is to perfectly random. Maybe not to you, but to someone smart enough who actually undertakes the study.

[guano]

It is closer to perfectly predictable than it is to perfectly random. Maybe not to you, but to someone smart enough who actually undertakes the study.

[ajr]

Generally a lot of BS on this thread and forum about how everyone has a 15% chance of being in the top 15% etc. from some people who claim to know everything about everything. My take is that barring some oddities, past performance is the best predictor of future performance. LSAT and UGPA alone don't summarize your past performance very well. For e.g. only you know how competitive your UG was and how much effort you put into your LSAT. Besides -- remember that there will be many people in your school who gave up going to better schools. You need to compete with all of them.

So, what are you saying?

You can better predict your own performance in law school than just LSAT+GPA will tell you by asking yourself some questions about the circumstances of your LSAT and GPA. But this prediction has its errors too, errors that may be significant when it comes to transferring, so you can't count on transferring.

But where you'll be in class is nowhere close to random.

it's not random, but it's not predictable.

And before you make random statements like this, think for a second about the kinds of things humans have been able to predict. Do you even know how random weather is? There are models to predict even that fairly accurately.

[guano]

where you'll be in class is nowhere close to random.

it's not random, but it's not predictable.

And before you make random statements like this, think for a second about the kinds of things humans have been able to predict. Do you even know how random weather is? There are models to predict even that fairly accurately.

Do you have any idea how much effort, analysis and data goes into those predictions? Compare that to someone making a biased opinion without having a huge chunk of the pertinent data with just a fraction of the time and effort that'd be required to make the prediction you're asking.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to predict, but that for practical reasons a single person cannot make a reasonable prediction considering that person doesn't have the data or the expertise required to make such a prediction

[enigmabk]

And say per some chance I do receive those grades (top 15% or so) then is the risk worth it?

If I win the lottery, is buying a ticket worth the risk?

There's an 85% chance that you won't be in the top 15%.

lol

Are you making fun of TLS math? TLS math says that 99% of us are not going to make a top 1% salary, so we are all doomed brotha.

that is why most of us are law school hopefuls right?
the guy who posted is @ t14 also fwiw

[ajr]

where you'll be in class is nowhere close to random.

it's not random, but it's not predictable.

And before you make random statements like this, think for a second about the kinds of things humans have been able to predict. Do you even know how random weather is? There are models to predict even that fairly accurately.

Do you have any idea how much effort, analysis and data goes into those predictions? Compare that to someone making a biased opinion without having a huge chunk of the pertinent data with just a fraction of the time and effort that'd be required to make the prediction you're asking.

I'm not saying that it's impossible to predict, but that for practical reasons a single person cannot make a reasonable prediction considering that person doesn't have the data or the expertise required to make such a prediction

I agree. I was being too harsh. It is not wise to try to predict. Well, at least not for the purpose of transferring. But it is certainly not random, and you can do a fair evaluation by being honest.

[guano]

I was being too harsh. It is not wise to try to predict. Well, at least not for the purpose of transferring. But it is certainly not random, and you can do a fair evaluation by being honest.

you're again contradicting yourself. But, again, I disagree with the bolded. Now, if you're honest about not putting in the work, then yes, you can predict you won't do well. But, you can't figure that you had a tougher UG, had to suffer distractions through the LSAT and chose a lower ranked school with scholarship, so you'll end up at the top of the class.

[ajr]

I was being too harsh. It is not wise to try to predict. Well, at least not for the purpose of transferring. But it is certainly not random, and you can do a fair evaluation by being honest.

you're again contradicting yourself. But, again, I disagree with the bolded. Now, if you're honest about not putting in the work, then yes, you can predict you won't do well. But, you can't figure that you had a tougher UG, had to suffer distractions through the LSAT and chose a lower ranked school with scholarship, so you'll end up at the top of the class.

That's not what I meant by being honest. I meant even if you just use LSAT and GPA, go at least one step beyond. Is your GPA from a competitive major and UG (this is not so hard to guess)? Did you take the LSAT multiple times with a lot of work - if you did - are you willing to put in the same amount of work in LS? If the answers are yes - it is definitely more likely that above median LSAT+GPA will put you above median barring unforeseen circumstances.

Just from knowledge, I can tell most people at the top of my class and also at other schools I know were initially admitted to better schools. Just a few exceptions.

[timbs4339]

I was being too harsh. It is not wise to try to predict. Well, at least not for the purpose of transferring. But it is certainly not random, and you can do a fair evaluation by being honest.

you're again contradicting yourself. But, again, I disagree with the bolded. Now, if you're honest about not putting in the work, then yes, you can predict you won't do well. But, you can't figure that you had a tougher UG, had to suffer distractions through the LSAT and chose a lower ranked school with scholarship, so you'll end up at the top of the class.

That's not what I meant by being honest. I meant even if you just use LSAT and GPA, go at least one step beyond. Is your GPA from a competitive major and UG (this is not so hard to guess)? Did you take the LSAT multiple times with a lot of work - if you did - are you willing to put in the same amount of work in LS? If the answers are yes - it is definitely more likely that above median LSAT+GPA will put you above median barring unforeseen circumstances.

Just from knowledge, I can tell most people at the top of my class and also at other schools I know were initially admitted to better schools. Just a few exceptions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Optimism_bias

[guano]

Just from knowledge, I can tell most people at the top of my class and also at other schools I know were initially admitted to better schools. Just a few exceptions.

in my old section, there was a person admitted off the waitlist who got an A+ and top 10% overall, while there was another who turned down a much better school and ended up at median.

Think of NFL players. For every Payton Manning there's a Ryan Leaf. For every Tim Couch there's a Tom Brady.

Sure, if you're willing to work your butt off and you were above both medians, there's a good chance that you'll be above median. But there's also a chance you won't be.

[Aroldis105]

Who gives a fuck?

[guano]

Who gives a fuck?

ajr

[Aroldis105]

Who gives a fuck?

ajr

Then fuck you ajr