Top Law Schools

So I am going to make a few presuppositions and make a case for picking a lower ranked school if you are Biglaw or bust.

I am going to presuppose that the LSAT is highly correlated with first year grades (controversial and empirically shaky). I am also going to presuppose that first year grades correlate very highly with Biglaw placement (less controversial).

Given those two presuppositions, it may make sense to pick a non-T14 school over a T14 school. Here's the theory: Imagine a prospective law school applicant got into both USC and NYU with a 170 on their LSAT.

In NYU (2011), 40% of graduates got into Biglaw. (48% if Article III clerkships are included). 170 is the 25th percentile for the LSAT in NYU. Following the above mentioned presuppositions, the applicant would not be able to get into a Biglaw.

In USC (2011), 33% of graduates got into Biglaw (35% if Article III clerkships are included). 170 is well above USC's 75th percentile for the LSAT. Following the above mentioned presuppositions, the applicant would be able to get into Biglaw.

Yes I understand that the LSAT is a weak predictor of law school, but I am more interested in the question of whether or not it would be beneficial to pick a lower ranked school on purpose. Is there something to be said for being first in a village than second in Rome?

Thoughts?

This is srsly retarded

My thought is that your writing style is fucking insufferable. The answer to your question is "no."

X

You've convinced me.

I am going to presuppose that the LSAT is highly correlated with first year grades (controversial and empirically shaky).

Yes I understand that the LSAT is a weak predictor of law school,

This sounds like a great plan. good luck, brother!

Bildungsroman wrote:This sounds like a great plan. good luck, brother!

I endorse this wholeheartedly. Wish I was smart enough to think of this!

sunynp wrote:

I am going to presuppose that the LSAT is highly correlated with first year grades (controversial and empirically shaky).

Yes I understand that the LSAT is a weak predictor of law school,

OP has managed to fuck up question-begging. This is surreal.

Revolutionary!

Since the LSAT is only a marginally useful predictor of law school success you will probably on average do better than students with a worse LSAT than you. However, when you go to a lesser ranked school with only so many spots on the BigLaw bus, you could easily be passed by several "anomalies" in your class who outperform their LSAT. Not to mention that at 170 there will probably 10+ people at or better than your score at whatever school you go to assuming you don't end up at a total shit hole and only a partial one. So you are probably going to get beat by the majority of the 171-180's as well as the overachieving 165s and pretty soon you are looking at like 25th or worse percentile which is shaky position.

Or you could go to the best school at the best price you get into and have a little more safety.

Go to Florida Coastal you will be #1!!!

I am going to presuppose that the LSAT is highly correlated with first year grades (controversial and empirically shaky).

IF you make that assumption, then that is a logical conclusion. You should only go to schools where your scores are above the 75th percentile.

If everyone did this (and you progress this to the Nth degree) everyone will go to Cooley or Ava Maria and no one would go to Yale.
I'll take one for the team and go to Yale (you owe me a beer)

This is true if the LSAT were 100% predictive of 1L grades. But typical estimates suggest the correlation to be roughly R=0.7. What does that mean? Say you have a law school class composed of a normal sampling of LSAT takers. You would expect someone who got a 170, which is two standard deviations above the mean LSAT, to end up one standard deviation above the mean 1L GPA (0.7^2 * 2). That's roughly the top 15% mark. But someone who got a 167, which is only a bit under two standard deviations above the mean LSAT, would end up just a bit under one standard deviation above the mean 1L GPA, probably roughly at the top 20% mark.

The basic point is that the difference between 167 and 171 LSAT median is very small, even if we assume the LSAT is highly predictive of 1L grades.