How much does your undergrad matter Forum

[jkhalfa]

It doesn't matter except that HYPS+MIT/Caltech may get a small boost.

Look at the UGs in Harvard's latest class. There are a lot of mid-tier and no-name schools there (including mine)

http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/ ... grads.html

[jbagelboy]

Anyone have statistics on what percent of HYS classes are from Ivy+SM? I remember reading somewhere that 1/3 of YLS is HY undergrad and over 50% of their class is IVY+Stanford UG.

this is a pretty stupid line to draw, since schools like hopkins, caltech, duke, pomona, williams ect. are more difficult to get into/more rigorous/some might say more prestigious than some schools that participate in the Ivy sports league like Cornell and Dartmouth. For example, Cornell admitted 16.6% of applicants last year; Columbia and Yale admitted just north of 7%. See http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandrevie ... iversities.

Just to give an example, for Columbia Law, someone back in september calculated that based on the Facebook group, which constituted over 90% of the entering class, at least 35% of the entering class had attended an Ivy undergrad specifically. If you made a composite of schools of "Ivy" type caliber, and broad strokes (I'm somewhat repulsed by this ranking/prestige marker bullshit but oh well), I'm including the most competitive (by admissions standards) LAC's and the top 15 or so private universities, you'd get upwards of 75% of the class. The remainder are primarily composed of notable state universities, i.e., berkeley, ucla, michigan, chapel hill, virginia, madison, or foreign schools - Oxford, McGill, ect. Harvard is substantially similar (from their c/o 2016). I have no idea about yale or stanford specifically but I imagine they aren't far off.

[cotiger]

(I'm somewhat repulsed by this ranking/prestige marker bullshit but oh well)

oh don't lie, we all know you love it.

though it may be something of a hatefuck scenario

[Splitter1415]

I believe where you attended undergrad matter at least a little bit. Don't people at top undergrads receive better education? My spouse just made a comment that my A is only worth a B at his institution. I go to one of the worst undergrad institutions in NYC and the school sends some people to T-14 every year, though.

[cotiger]

My spouse just made a comment that my A is only worth a B at his institution.

Divorce.

[aboutmydaylight]

Anyone have statistics on what percent of HYS classes are from Ivy+SM? I remember reading somewhere that 1/3 of YLS is HY undergrad and over 50% of their class is IVY+Stanford UG.

this is a pretty stupid line to draw, since schools like hopkins, caltech, duke, pomona, williams ect. are more difficult to get into/more rigorous/some might say more prestigious than some schools that participate in the Ivy sports league like Cornell and Dartmouth. For example, Cornell admitted 16.6% of applicants last year; Columbia and Yale admitted just north of 7%. See http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandrevie ... iversities.

Just to give an example, for Columbia Law, someone back in september calculated that based on the Facebook group, which constituted over 90% of the entering class, at least 35% of the entering class had attended an Ivy undergrad specifically. If you made a composite of schools of "Ivy" type caliber, and broad strokes (I'm somewhat repulsed by this ranking/prestige marker bullshit but oh well), I'm including the most competitive (by admissions standards) LAC's and the top 15 or so private universities, you'd get upwards of 75% of the class. The remainder are primarily composed of notable state universities, i.e., berkeley, ucla, michigan, chapel hill, virginia, madison, or foreign schools - Oxford, McGill, ect. Harvard is substantially similar (from their c/o 2016). I have no idea about yale or stanford specifically but I imagine they aren't far off.

I'm not trying to make any kind of argument, I'm just curious. I think people have made reasonable cases before that HYP get a noticeable bump so someone is drawing the line somewhere.

[jkhalfa]

I believe where you attended undergrad matter at least a little bit. Don't people at top undergrads receive better education? My spouse just made a comment that my A is only worth a B at his institution. I go to one of the worst undergrad institutions in NYC and the school sends some people to T-14 every year, though.

I don't think any adcoms actually bother adjusting GPAs for school rigor, unless maybe the candidate was borderline and from a UG with notorious grade inflation/deflation.

Accounting for major would be much more sensible (e.g., favor a chemical engineering 3.5 to a political science 3.7), but they don't seem to do that either.

[kartelite]

Outside of a couple super elite schools with bad grade deflation ( Chicago, Princeton) it doesn't matter at all.

Princeton - grade deflation? I remember reading an article when I was in high school that chastised Princeton for its grade inflation. I still recall the average GPA there, 3.42.

[jbagelboy]

Outside of a couple super elite schools with bad grade deflation ( Chicago, Princeton) it doesn't matter at all.

Princeton - grade deflation? I remember reading an article when I was in high school that chastised Princeton for its grade inflation. I still recall the average GPA there, 3.42.

ya but avg GPA at Harvard and Brown is like 3.75 lol. 3.42 is hella deflated these days

[Splitter1415]

How do you know if your school inflates or deflates grades?

[jbagelboy]

How do you know if your school inflates or deflates grades?

some schools develop reputations for grade inflation or deflation. there are also studies:

http://www.gradeinflation.com

notice that a school like Harvard features a very high grade inflation over time, and princeton has far lower than average. Also see the chart at the bottom for princeton having 2nd to lowest among that sample after wellesley

for the notorious Harvard case: http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/eco ... -to-fix-it

[cotiger]

How do you know if your school inflates or deflates grades?

You'll see where you stand when you get your LSAC report.

But again, it's not something you can change, and it would only have a minor effect anyway, so it shouldn't affect any decisions on where you should apply.

So don't worry about it.

[kartelite]

How do you know if your school inflates or deflates grades?

The official methodology is to let X = 3.5 - 0.5 * min(100, school's US News Ranking)/100. If X < school's average GPA, there is grade inflation. If X > school's average GPA, there is grade deflation.

ETA: said inflation twice.

[kartelite]

Outside of a couple super elite schools with bad grade deflation ( Chicago, Princeton) it doesn't matter at all.

Princeton - grade deflation? I remember reading an article when I was in high school that chastised Princeton for its grade inflation. I still recall the average GPA there, 3.42.

ya but avg GPA at Harvard and Brown is like 3.75 lol. 3.42 is hella deflated these days

Yeah I was in high school in the late 90s haha. FWIW I would have killed for a 3.42 gpa after my sophomore year of HS, so 3.42 looked hella high.

[Splitter1415]

Thanks for the explanations. My school doesn't seem to publish the average GPA, so there's no way to tell.

[cotiger]

.

[cotiger]

Thanks for the explanations. My school doesn't seem to publish the average GPA, so there's no way to tell.

Again, wait for your LSAC report. All will be revealed.

[Splitter1415]

I'm scared to see the report. I know two people from my school who are at Yale now and they had below 3.5. I'll be sure to report back next year how my GPA from one of the worst schools affects my cycle.

[aboutmydaylight]

I'm scared to see the report. I know two people from my school who are at Yale now and they had below 3.5. I'll be sure to report back next year how my GPA from one of the worst schools affects my cycle.

You personally know 2 people at your school who are at YLS with below a 3.5 from what you consider "one of the worst schools"?

[MistakenGenius]

Post removed.

[UnicornHunter]

Bob Jones University

Cannot believe this is the name of a real school

Cannot believe someone hasn't heard of BJU before. If you think their name is crazy, you should hear about their policy on interracial dating.*



*To be fair, the policy was lifted in 2000.... after a media uproar.

[Splitter1415]

I go to one of the worst schools in NYC. I'm not kidding. One of those guys didn't get into any other T6 except for NYU, so I thought it was weird. He had a high LSAT score and was an amazing writer, though. I was very close to this guys, but don't know much about the other one. You can probably guess which school I go to if you look at the Yale Law website.


I don't think my spouse was joking. I've received comments like this from the people I went to community college with many times. Some of them transferred to good schools. Every time I am like "I have to write paper for every single class. There's so much to read!" They are like "Do you know what it's like here? Your class isn't that hard!"

[victory]

How do you know if your school inflates or deflates grades?

For Princeton, they attach a letter "explaining" their grade deflation policy to every transcript they send.

[Clearly]

Grade inflation might address this deference.

[ScottRiqui]

Thanks for the explanations. My school doesn't seem to publish the average GPA, so there's no way to tell.

Again, wait for your LSAC report. All will be revealed.

Is the average on the LSAC report school-wide, or just limited to the students who took the LSAT? Also, do you have any idea if a report received today would have the current average, or the average when you graduated? My school's average on my LSAC report was ~3.1, which seems pretty low, but that might have been the average from 20+ years ago.