Top Law Schools

Consensus on TLS is to assume that you will be median at whatever school you go to. But I don't think this is necessarily true. Should the same kid really have the same rank at Columbia (170-174) as Cornell (166-168)- very relevant when thinking about taking a scholarship at a lower school. Especially interested to hear from current law students how they placed in their class relative to their numbers.

I know LSAC has done studies on this stuff but I am wondering what it is like at the top schools where scores are only separated by a couple of questions.

Thanks

search function.

This was just debated like a week ago.

BigLaw_Lit wrote:Consensus on TLS is to assume that you will be median at whatever school you go to. But I do think this is necessarily true. Should the same kid really have the same rank at Columbia (170-174) as Cornell (166-168)- very relevant when thinking about taking a scholarship at a lower school. Especially interested to hear from current law students how they placed in their class relative to their numbers.

I know LSAC has done studies on this stuff but I am wondering what it is like at the top schools where scores are only separated by a couple of questions.

Thanks

Assuming you mean "don't" rather than "do", yes. The LSAT is a crappy predictor of actual ability in law school. That said, someone who was diligent enough to get a 175 is probably going to do "better" (in terms of sheer class rank) at Cooley than at Berkeley. The problem is, of course, that class ranking doesn't matter nearly as much as the school itself -- you'd much rather be a median student at Berkeley than a top 10% student at Cooley. And the former is significantly more likely.

The difference between Cornell and Columbia is a single logic game or a bad breakup right before the LSAT. Not really a great predictor of comparative success.

Clearly wrote: search function.

This was just debated like a week ago.

They debated about Harvard and SMU I am wondering about schools closer together. Anyone in a law school where they are above or below both medians have an opinion.

There's something to be said for being a naturally good test taker who didn't have to work very hard to get a 170+. But even that doesn't necessarily correlate to lawl school exams. Assume you'll be median.

One of my favorite TLS moments was on that thread where some URM kid got into UVA with a middle 150's score, and people were telling him not to go because he was too stupid. Turns out he ended up in the top 10% of his class.

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The LSAT has a correlation of about 0.43 (moderate) with 1L grades, within a particular school. It does have predictive value, but it doesn't determine what your grades will be. Someone who is expected to finish at median at Columbia is statistically expected to finish around top 40%-ish at somewhere like Cornell.

As has been noted many times, employment prospects fall off much faster than predicted rank. Someone who is median at UVA might be the top incoming student at W&M. But being the top student only predicts you to finish top 25-30%, which means you will probably not do well enough to get a good outcome.

Also, with the people whose undergrad GPAs I know, there was essentially no correlation with law school GPA.

Holly Golightly wrote:Also, with the people whose undergrad GPAs I know, there was essentially no correlation with law school GPA.

Well, there is some correlation. It's ranged between 0.35 and 0.44, depending on the year. Again, not what you would call a strong correlation, but also not insignificant either.

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

Holly Golightly wrote:Also, with the people whose undergrad GPAs I know, there was essentially no correlation with law school GPA.

Well, there is some correlation. It's ranged between 0.35 and 0.44, depending on the year. Again, not what you would call a strong correlation, but also not insignificant either.

This interests me. May I ask where that data comes from? Is that for a specific school?

I looked for it but the only source I found was from a 2010 study which showed a range of .09 to .45 with a median of .28. Assuming we're discussing the UGPA alone.

Lavitz wrote:

Monochromatic Oeuvre wrote:

Holly Golightly wrote:Also, with the people whose undergrad GPAs I know, there was essentially no correlation with law school GPA.

Well, there is some correlation. It's ranged between 0.35 and 0.44, depending on the year. Again, not what you would call a strong correlation, but also not insignificant either.

This interests me. May I ask where that data comes from? Is that for a specific school?

I looked for it but the only source I found was from a 2010 study which showed a range of .09 to .45 with a median of .28. Assuming we're discussing the UGPA alone.

My fault. The 0.44 is not accurate, as it's based on LSAC's estimate of correlations within an applicant pool rather than a matriculant pool (which they've calculated at 0.28 for the 2010 cycle mentioned). It makes sense that the correlation would be larger within an applicant pool (which has, presumably, a wider range of GPAs than the matriculant pool), but those estimates are not relevant to the question being posed here. Sorry about the mix-up.