Stanford v. Harvard? Forum

[Lmao Zedong]

i feel confident that H has on balance a stronger class from a pure academic/intellectual standpoint. which is a huge draw for me. stanford's [strike]numerical admission profile[/strike] LSAT median is comparatively unimpressive, lagging behind even CLS. granted, in exchange SLS has a very high "softs median," and so you'll find more people who have more impressive accomplishments in the real world, and perhaps have more interesting stories to tell. but from a raw intellect standpoint it seems the typical HLS student is on a higher level. and at this point in my life that's a bigger selling point to me

HLS in a heartbeat if i had the choice

Fixed. Stanford's GPA numbers are at least equal to Harvard's and better than any other school's except Yale (and way better than Columbia's).

i dunno, i feel like overall S and C's numerical profiles are comparable. LSP certainly has them pretty neck and neck, with higher-GPA profiles favoring SLS admission and vice-versa. a 3.8/175, for example, shows a marginally stronger position numerically within SLS's matriculating class by their LSP-estimated "index" than in CLS's class by their actual index

[CardinalRules]

For me, SLS. Couple of reasons:

I like the small class size, though I went to a fairly small UG and dropping from 500 to 160 in a class will probably be a bit of a shock.

I like the quarter system (in theory): it lets you spend an entire 10-week period on a clinic if you'd like, and take more classes overall. I think the ability to take classes in other departments around Stanford is easier than doing the same at HLS.

SLS also has great placement rates for those who want to go into legal academia. Dean Kramer mentioned that SLS has the highest placement rate of any law school (Yale included) for aspiring academics over the past few years.

I think either school will open plenty of doors, and anyone choosing between both is in an amazing position.

I absolutely agree on the quarter system, which helped me experiment with a lot more courses during undergrad. (Chicago also has a quarter system, for those who are interested.)

The small-class size is a slight disadvantage for me, since I like to be able to "escape" from my classmates sometimes, but it's not a huge problem.

[crackberry]

If you believe that LSAT score correlates strongly with "raw intellect," then your reasoning makes sense.

i do believe that.
specifically in the context of people with very high GPAs (as is the case at both schools) i'd bet there's a particularly strong correlation. here you have a self-selecting group of people who are high classroom achievers and (likely) very hard workers. if you're ending up at H or S, it's a pretty good bet you did everything you could to max out your LSAT score. nobody's taking the LSAT carelessly and ending up in HYS, or at least i'd suspect that's quite rare. so you have people hitting their LSAT ceilings, some of which are significantly higher than others. you can train yourself to the test, but strong cognitive capacity certainly is a necessary condition for a very high LSAT score

Eh, I don't know about this. I think the argument that someone who gets a 173 somehow has more intellectual horsepower or whatever than someone who gets a 171 is sort of ludicrous. Sure, I understand the attractiveness of the 173 vs. the 171 in the context of U.S. News, but I hardly think two missed questions on the LSAT can be used to differentiate between the intellectual tendencies of two otherwise similar people.

I think you could just as easily make the argument that 173 straight from UG is no more capable from an intellectual standpoint than 171 with a few years' work experience, especially if that work experience is of the intellectually stimulating variety.

[Lmao Zedong]

If you believe that LSAT score correlates strongly with "raw intellect," then your reasoning makes sense.

i do believe that.
specifically in the context of people with very high GPAs (as is the case at both schools) i'd bet there's a particularly strong correlation. here you have a self-selecting group of people who are high classroom achievers and (likely) very hard workers. if you're ending up at H or S, it's a pretty good bet you did everything you could to max out your LSAT score. nobody's taking the LSAT carelessly and ending up in HYS, or at least i'd suspect that's quite rare. so you have people hitting their LSAT ceilings, some of which are significantly higher than others. you can train yourself to the test, but strong cognitive capacity certainly is a necessary condition for a very high LSAT score

Eh, I don't know about this. I think the argument that someone who gets a 173 somehow has more intellectual horsepower or whatever than someone who gets a 171 is sort of ludicrous. Sure, I understand the attractiveness of the 173 vs. the 171 in the context of U.S. News, but I hardly think two missed questions on the LSAT can be used to differentiate between the intellectual tendencies of two otherwise similar people.

I think you could just as easily make the argument that 173 straight from UG is no more capable from an intellectual standpoint than 171 with a few years' work experience, especially if that work experience is of the intellectually stimulating variety.

i wouldn't make that case in an isolated scenario of one individual vs. another; it's too tenuous and i don't think the correlation is strong enough to make that kind of claim in such a specific case. i would, though, put money down on a class whose median is 173 having, on average, marginally more capable students than a class with a 171 median.

[Stupor]

Even if the average intellect of the two student populations were different, would it matter? Law's not easy, but neither is it physics or math, where an extra bit of intellect may mean the difference between coming up with a brilliant new discovery and failing to. Once you get past the 9x.x percentile, the determinative factor between those students who learn the law well and those who don't is motivation. This factor is measured by GPA, and by this metric, the student populations at YHS are equal.

[Lmao Zedong]

Even if the average intellect of the two student populations were different, would it matter? Law's not easy, but neither is it physics or math, where an extra bit of intellect may mean the difference between coming up with a brilliant new discovery and failing to. Once you get past the 9x.x percentile, the determinative factor between those students who learn the law well and those who don't is motivation. This factor is measured by GPA, and by this metric, the student populations at YHS are equal.

i can pretty much buy that. i'm sorry if i didn't clarify this earlier though: my rationale was that i wanted as smart as possible a peer group just in terms of enjoying being around really smart people. i didn't actually have in mind anything about how well they would perform academically or how competitive the class would be. to be honest (though i shouldn't digress), i have real doubts about whether it's really much more difficult at all to place top 20% at HLS than it is at, say, GULC.

edit: btw by no means is this THE reason i would choose H over S; honestly it's really a minor reason and i suspect any difference between the two classes is quite minimal. it's probably reason number 8-10 or so on my list; i only brought it up because all of the usual considerations were already being discussed/debated

[TheTopBloke]

Wherever Lessig is NOT teaching.

[TheTopBloke]

Harvard: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lloyd_Blankfein
Stanford: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sergey_Brin

Out of the "best of the best", I picture Stanford being full of producers, while Harvard is full of overhead.

Brin seems like an odd choice to bring up when comparing SLS to HLS.

Not if you're interested in intellectual property.

[fortissimo]

delete

[legends159]

Stanford's lower LSAT range provides a good argument to go there. There's less competition.

I highly doubt the correlation of 1-2 LSAT points will make a difference in competition. I don't doubt it is more competitive at HLS but I doubt it's because of the LSAT

[CordeliusX]

Stanford's lower LSAT range provides a good argument to go there. There's less competition.

Harvard's campus is a lot better looking though and I think having a small class size can probably get annoying after awhile.

Can't really agree here. Lower LSAT -by a couple points- equals less competition? Maybe it means people who just didn't quite rifle out the best numbers straight out of the gate... you are assuming the LSAT is completely "beatable" on the first time for the thousands who take it each year. There are bound to be people who either mess up a bit, or simple don't test well. I am skeptical there's really any difference here.

What I am personally surprised about is that you claim H is better looking. Do you mean the law library or buildings? I could see that... I can't imagine a campus being better looking than Palo Alto, on the whole.

The small class size could suck, but you also might form much closer bonds.

Just trying to give my .02

[lawyering]

Stanford's lower LSAT range provides a good argument to go there. There's less competition.

Harvard's campus is a lot better looking though and I think having a small class size can probably get annoying after awhile.

Can't really agree here. Lower LSAT -by a couple points- equals less competition? Maybe it means people who just didn't quite rifle out the best numbers straight out of the gate... you are assuming the LSAT is completely "beatable" on the first time for the thousands who take it each year. There are bound to be people who either mess up a bit, or simple don't test well. I am skeptical there's really any difference here.

What I am personally surprised about is that you claim H is better looking. Do you mean the law library or buildings? I could see that... I can't imagine a campus being better looking than Palo Alto, on the whole.

The small class size could suck, but you also might form much closer bonds.

Just trying to give my .02

palo alto is beautiful, and warm. stanford is impressive. but the one word i'd take from my previous visit there is "sterile." having palm trees planted in a row, in my opinion, feels lacking in character/realness. and you have to drive just to get from one end of the stanford campus to the other.

[Nom Sawyer]

Stanford's lower LSAT range provides a good argument to go there. There's less competition.

Harvard's campus is a lot better looking though and I think having a small class size can probably get annoying after awhile.

Can't really agree here. Lower LSAT -by a couple points- equals less competition? Maybe it means people who just didn't quite rifle out the best numbers straight out of the gate... you are assuming the LSAT is completely "beatable" on the first time for the thousands who take it each year. There are bound to be people who either mess up a bit, or simple don't test well. I am skeptical there's really any difference here.

What I am personally surprised about is that you claim H is better looking. Do you mean the law library or buildings? I could see that... I can't imagine a campus being better looking than Palo Alto, on the whole.

The small class size could suck, but you also might form much closer bonds.

Just trying to give my .02

Small Class = stifling... who wants to go to a Summer camp for 3 years long?????


ok not serious here, but still i do like HLS's larger class size

[crackberry]

Harvard's campus is a lot better looking

(Clearly 100% subjective but) WRONG.

[nycparalegal]

Stanford Law produced Max Baucus. Harvard Law produced Barack Obama.

Just throwing it out there.

[sfdreaming09]

Stanford Law produced Max Baucus. Harvard Law produced Barack Obama.

Just throwing it out there.

+1. Ohh how much I despise Baucus.

[Kretzy]

Stanford Law produced Max Baucus. Harvard Law produced Barack Obama.

Just throwing it out there.

+1. Ohh how much I despise Baucus.

+2. But Stanford Law produced Sandra Day O'Connor. Harvard Law produced Mitt Romney.

And, in the book, Stanford Law educated Elle Woods. Jussayin'.

[fortissimo]

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[crackberry]

Harvard's LSAT range is pretty much on par with Yale's. The range scares me. Those people in that range are academically more competitive, unless they retook the LSAT twice or whatever.

This is an outrageous comment. First of all, "academically competitive" is a very ambiguous term, one that could mean both good and bad things. Also saying HLS students are "smarter" than SLS students is like saying that Hemingway is a better writer than Fitzgerald. The schools (and the students who attend them) are different enough that a comparison is inherently stupid, and even if there IS a difference, it is so minute as to be virtually immeasurable. Why would anyone pick SLS over HLS if the latter were so much better than the former? Yet it happens all the time.

I mainly meant the campus' buildings. I am not a fan of Spanish architecture. However, the campus itself is pretty bland. It's pretty much just one large flat grassy area with palm trees. Harvard's campus has more variety in architecture, has some gothic buildings, and isn't as flat. Both are excellent schools (obviously) and in the top in the nation, but I think Harvard's campus just looks better.

Again, this is totally, 100% subjective. There is no objective reality here. To call Stanford's campus "flat" compared to Harvard's is totally absurd though - now that is objective.

[fortissimo]

delete

[crackberry]

This is going to be an agree-to-disagree situation. I do not think that Harvard students are "more academically inclined" than Stanford students simply because they got, on average, two additional questions right on one four-hour test. That seems to be a ludicrous argument.

[DoubleChecks]

man, if you guys were me, this would be such an easy problem

i have 2 equally smart (though distinctly so) friends who happen to each represent HLS/SLS

haha if you knew the 2 of them, you'd know what i was thinking (hard to put into words), but one gives me the feel of what a SLS student would be, and the other what a HLS student would be

once again, both equally smart but may go about it...no, feel different about it -- just comes down to which friend you like hanging out with more haha

[sfdreaming09]

This is going to be an agree-to-disagree situation. I do not think that Harvard students are "more academically inclined" than Stanford students simply because they got, on average, two additional questions right on one four-hour test. That seems to be a ludicrous argument.

I agree with you that a few questions on the LSAT does not--in any way--differentiate people based on intelligence. But, I think the difference in median LSAT scores is 3 points, which probably correlates to 4 questions.

[lawyering]

i don't think there is any such thing as a "typical" SLS student vs. a "typical" HLS student. if there is, i'm pretty sure wherever i go, i'll be atypical

[DoubleChecks]

i don't think there is any such thing as a "typical" SLS student vs. a "typical" HLS student. if there is, i'm pretty sure wherever i go, i'll be atypical

maybe not, but atmosphere and feel, atmosphere and feel lol