Achieving median @ T13 vs top 1/3rd at UT Forum

[phokie]

The cycle is still in play so not ready to seek specific advice on choosing a school. Stats are 3.98 gpa, 174 lsat. Undergrad at t15 in TX and other significant TX ties. Have been admitted to 4 schools thus far (UT, NYU, Duke and Vanderbilt) with really nice scholarship offers (hopefully initial) at UT and NYU. Still waiting on admission decisions from 3 other T13 schools and scholarship decisions from Duke and Vanderbilt. Really uncertain as to ultimate type of law to practice, but really want TX biglaw out of school. I would also really like to attend UT Law but am a bit skittish given the employment differentials I’ve read about all over TLS and having researched the ABA job statistics for each school I’ve applied. The consensus on TLS and from the actual job stats seem to show that top 1/3rd at UT for biglaw/fed clerkships is the “safe” cutoff for initial job offers versus median at most of the T13. If that is true, is it not also true that achieving both “safe” cutoffs is roughly equal given the overall GPA and LSAT differences between UT and the T13?

[cavalier1138]

The best arguments for attending UT over a T13 school would be (1) trying to get Texas biglaw without significant ties and/or (2) a significantly better scholarship at UT. You have Texas ties, and you're getting great scholarship offers across the T13. So there really isn't any good reason for you to be considering UT (and definitely isn't a good reason to still be looking seriously at Vanderbilt).

But to answer your main question: No, you cannot count on it being easier to get to the top third of UT's class than to land at median at any given T13. There are exceptions to every rule, but you can basically sleepwalk into median at the T13 because of how big the median bands are. That's not going to be true of the top third at UT. And if you're in the group of people that end up below median at a T13, you certainly weren't going to crack the top third at UT.

TL;DR Don't bother with UT. Take your lowest-cost highest-ranked T13 offer (based on your numbers, I would predict you land one of the named full scholarships at CCN) and run.

[The Lsat Airbender]

Everything Cav said is right.

To answer your precise question: LSAT/GPA correlate with 1L grades to some extent, but 1) the difference between UT's medians and most T13 schools' isn't very large and 2) there's still a ton of uncertainty (at least 50%, IIRC) in the LSAT/GPA > grades relationship. So you can't assume that the 67th percentile at one school equivalent to the 50th percentile at a slightly higher-ranked school; it's not that dramatic nor consistent of an effect.

Also, the difficulty of moving up the grading curve is nonlinear:

Staying out of the bottom 10% is mostly a matter of paying attention in class and writing coherent essays. Getting up to median is but more of the same: understand what the professor teaches, have a solid outline, do practice exams, and execute on test day.

In order to break into the top [fraction] of the class, however, you to beat out a bunch of prepared and motivated people who want the same thing. "Good enough" is no longer good enough. So it's a bit unpredictable in addition to being objectively harder.

[HelloWorld919]

Getting a TX Biglaw job with TX ties from a T6 @ median is like shooting fish in a barrel. You'd have basically no competition, especially at NYU/CLS. I'd take the T6 money you are probably going to get over UT, perhaps unless UT is completely free.

[phokie]

Thank you for the responses. I'll will continue to mull things over and wait until all admission decisions are in and scholarship money is finalized.

[CanadianWolf]

You have received great advice in this thread.

Based on your numbers (3.98 GPA & 174 LSAT), your current options will be irrelevant when the cycle is complete assuming that you have applied to all or almost all of the Top 14 law schools.

[bajablast]

Go to the cheapest t13 school you get into; though UVA/Duke (and of course YHS) might get a little more play in Texas, that might be because of selection bias - t13 with your ties, Texas big law should be no problem

[hookem7]

Echo the above that good advice has been delivered in this thread. Just be patient OP, you are going to have much better options available than UT.

[Pneumonia]

Yeah I would take UT and Vandy off the table here other than for scholarship negotiation purposes. You should get admitted to most of the rest of the T14, including H. But you can start negotiating scholarships now, especially for Duke.