Top Law Schools

I am trying to finish up my thesis, and I created this chart with data collected from the ABA 509's



The numbers are 2015 enrollment data and 2015 census bureau projections for the national comparison with Hispanic at 16.3% and AA at 13.1%

hope you find it interesting.

I wonder what the correlation is between this split and that between the median scores between said groups and each perspective school for LSAT and GPA.

LSN would have you think its comparable.

Didn't realize only hispanics and blacks are minorities.

kingpin101 wrote:Didn't realize only hispanics and blacks are minorities.

Lol sorry, this chart is specific to my thesis and I am only studying those two groups for several reasons. When I have time I could update it for you to include other minority groups.

Cool & informative chart. I love this kind of stuff. Thanks for sharing, cdotson!

Thanks for sharing!! If this is going in your thesis you might want to change it to "Berkeley"

LOLMich I still love you even though your school has as much African American representation as a country music festival.

The relatively even distribution below the national average confuses me, to be honest. I don't understand why at least one t-14 can't hit 13% black students, for instance. Columbia couldn't chip off another 5% from Penn and NYU?

Feeling every bit of that 4.7% at Boalt, lol. It's like being back in Klan country, only with more asian kids.

I would love if T14s differentiated between US-born Latinos and (almost entirely) white-passing, wealthy students coming from South America. I've heard a couple brown folks at Harvard and Columbia complain about this a ton, but I wonder what the actual breakdown is.

texcellence wrote:I would love if T14s differentiated between US-born Latinos and (almost entirely) white-passing, wealthy students coming from South America. I've heard a couple brown folks at Harvard and Columbia complain about this a ton, but I wonder what the actual breakdown is.

+1. I couldn't agree more. I went to a top UG that i believe was ~9% hispanic, but i've heard numbers thrown out that only like 1/3 were actually US born and raised. There are a lot of issues with doing this though. First, how would you truly know? A lot of these wealthy Latin Americans are born in the US (Miami) so they're American Citizens. After being born here they will typically go back to their country, attend an American school (or British/French), and then many times come back to the US for high school (Miami again lol. Though a few NY, LA, and boarding schools) and attend college here. The issue is that there are some hispanics who come from poor backgrounds that had similar movements throughout childhood and then attended a top high school on scholarship/finaid.

The second issue is that schools probably do not give a fuck. Its in their best interest to admit these types of hispanics as they on average have higher test scores, are more likely to pay full tuition and not need financial aid, are more likely to have rich parents who donate to the school, all while still checking off that oh so important Hispanic/Latino box.

Lastly, this also opens up the whole should socio-economic status be more important than race w.r.t. AA debate. The black community at top schools also have a large percentage of wealthy people who benefit largely from AA as well, however from my own personal experience this percentage is much large for the hispanic communities at these schools.

Flokkness wrote:Feeling every bit of that 4.7% at Boalt, lol. It's like being back in Klan country, only with more asian kids.

Thats extremely low. Smh

Great chart and also very startling to see the sub 5%-ers.

Iam3hunna wrote:

Flokkness wrote:Feeling every bit of that 4.7% at Boalt, lol. It's like being back in Klan country, only with more asian kids.

Thats extremely low. Smh

It's okay because we have critical mass, which provides an excellent fascimile of "diversity."

Flokkness wrote:

Iam3hunna wrote:

Flokkness wrote:Feeling every bit of that 4.7% at Boalt, lol. It's like being back in Klan country, only with more asian kids.

Thats extremely low. Smh

It's okay because we have critical mass, which provides a fascimile of "diversity."

I don't think they care that much, otherwise some school would have at least double digits for AA %s and would be willing to distinguish more finely on "Hispanic" to make sure they are truly getting folks from non-privileged backgrounds. I think the numbers are where they are because they are the numbers the various powers that be can live with...not too low as to cause a crisis or embarrassment and not so high as to make anyone uncomfortable.

I know I don't really know what it's like inside a T-14 adcomm, but I would love to just have a shot at recruiting students of color. If I were at Harvard, maaaannnn, I swear not a single brown person I wanted would be depositing anywhere other than H. I'd get 'em. Calls, stalking, emails, facebook friend requests, TLS posting, I'd get 'em.

fliptrip wrote:I know I don't really know what it's like inside a T-14 adcomm, but I would love to just have a shot at recruiting students of color. If I were at Harvard, maaaannnn, I swear not a single brown person I wanted would be depositing anywhere other than H. I'd get 'em. Calls, stalking, emails, facebook friend requests, TLS posting, I'd get 'em.

A former Harvard adcomm works with Spivey. I would be interesting to hear her take on minority recruitment at HLS or generally.

fliptrip wrote:

Flokkness wrote:

Iam3hunna wrote:

Flokkness wrote:Feeling every bit of that 4.7% at Boalt, lol. It's like being back in Klan country, only with more asian kids.

Thats extremely low. Smh

It's okay because we have critical mass, which provides a fascimile of "diversity."

I don't think they care that much, otherwise some school would have at least double digits for AA %s and would be willing to distinguish more finely on "Hispanic" to make sure they are truly getting folks from non-privileged backgrounds. I think the numbers are where they are because they are the numbers the various powers that be can live with...not too low as to cause a crisis or embarrassment and not so high as to make anyone uncomfortable.

Those numbers are low enough they should be ashamed, not just embarrassed. Maybe I shouldn't comment because I'm not URM but those numbers are horrifyingly low. They should do better. I agree that they all seem to be lacking in motivation. Maybe they are all too worried about their medians and not enough about diversity.

fliptrip wrote:I know I don't really know what it's like inside a T-14 adcomm, but I would love to just have a shot at recruiting students of color. If I were at Harvard, maaaannnn, I swear not a single brown person I wanted would be depositing anywhere other than H. I'd get 'em. Calls, stalking, emails, facebook friend requests, TLS posting, I'd get 'em.

As long as Dean Fliptrip showed me the money I'd be there

.

Michigan step ur game up

joeant wrote:Those numbers aren't surprising. And I say that as a first-generation lower-middle-class Hispanic law student. There are many reasons other than racism that may explain those numbers--chief among them is the lack of qualified Hispanic and black applicants. As a total aside, does anyone know of a way of pulling lsat data that details how different groups perform and how many times they take the lsat on average? Specifically, I'd like to find out whether retake attempts, on average, increase lsat scores, and how many times certain groups take the lsat on average. This is entirely irrelevant to the thread, I know, but it would be interesting to see if one reason blacks and Hispanics do no score well on standardized test--and are thus underrepresented at top-tier law schools--is because they don't have an incentive to take it more than once.

Interesting, but generally they do have as much incentive as anyone else don't they? I'm assuming the dominating feature of minority applications is still LSAT score (i.e., URMs at Harvard average roughly ~5 points better on the LSAT than URMs at Michigan; quite the assumption, but why should it be any different?)

Then again, the fact that URM LSAT medians aren't published might make it more of a black box, supporting your theory.

Redacted because, Jesus Christ. Didn't intend to raise a ruckus.

joeant wrote:Those numbers aren't surprising. And I say that as a first-generation lower-middle-class Hispanic law student. There are many reasons other than racism that may explain those numbers--chief among them is the lack of qualified Hispanic and black applicants. As a total aside, does anyone know of a way of pulling lsat data that details how different groups perform and how many times they take the lsat on average? Specifically, I'd like to find out whether retake attempts, on average, increase lsat scores, and how many times certain groups take the lsat on average. This is entirely irrelevant to the thread, I know, but it would be interesting to see if one reason blacks and Hispanics do no score well on standardized test--and are thus underrepresented at top-tier law schools--is because they don't have an incentive to take it more than once.

Probably still racism, but on another note - what is the standard for qualification? If having a high LSAT/GPA was so indicative of 1L performance then why don't high scorers go to lower tiered schools and become rank 1 of their class? I'm pretty sure that there are enough Hispanics and Blacks that do well enough on the LSAT (proving that they are capable) to not have minority representation 60% below the national average. Lets face it..past a certain score the LSAT is not a measure of competence...its just used to differentiate between high scorers (and factors such as luck, confidence, test taking skills come into play).

.