Does Yale really have an edge over HLS? Forum

[CicerBRo]

I chose HLS over YLS and know quite a few other HLS students who did too. That said, we are the exception and not the rule, but I really don't think the difference is so great to warrant the, like, 4 threads in which this debate is currently raging.

Just make whatever decision you feel best and be comfortable with it. Sheesh.

[yomisterd]

i SWEAR to FUCKING god

mds pls

[arklaw13]

Both are elite. I doubt Yale has much of an edge over Harvard in anything.

Hate to keep beating the academia drum, but Yale does have an edge. If you ever are on the articles committee for a journal you'll realize it's very true. We get an outsized number of submissions from Yale grades, even compared to Harvard grads. If I were to look at the number of articles that make it to the point of being reviewed by the full committee, I would not be surprised if a plurality of the authors graduated from YLS, even considering the fact that HLS is triple the size.

Wouldn't that all the more suggest self-selection? There is nothing stopping Cooley grads from sending you millions of articles.

The question is do you guys give more weight to an YLS grad article?

I personally don't care where they went to school, and I doubt others take it into account. But it's not just the number of articles, it's the number of articles that are good enough to get a strong look from a top 20 journal.

My guess is that this is due to a number of factors, the most likely being that YLS grads have a better shot at getting prestigious fellowships because selection for those takes into account where you went to school, relationships with prominent faculty (of which YLS has a ton), strength of resume (which is bolstered by YLS's huge clerkship boost), etc.

When you get a Climenko, Bigelow, etc., it's a lot easier to start writing articles that have a shot at strong placement, due to the fact that 1) you're basically getting paid to write (and maybe teach a low-effort legal writing class), so workload isn't as much of an issue as people trying to break into academia straight from clerking or biglaw; and 2) you get more help from faculty, which is extremely valuable.

Also, when we're looking at an author who isn't a tenure-track professor, we are going to take a Climenko fellow much more seriously than an associate at a biglaw firm, for the above reasons, and the fact that most articles committees aren't going to be thrilled about going through the editing process with someone who is subject to working 100 hour weeks at a law firm or someone who is currently clerking.

So, at least inasmuch as YLS helps its graduates land prestigious fellowships, which is suspect it does a lot, it gives them a huge edge in academia.

[CicerBRo]

i SWEAR to FUCKING god

mds pls

[CaptainJapan]

Wouldn't that all the more suggest self-selection? There is nothing stopping Cooley grads from sending you millions of articles.

The question is do you guys give more weight to an YLS grad article?

Hi Fred

[Fred Norris]

I'm not sure what I am missing - but as far as I can see there is only one YLS climenko (and two from Stanford). Obviously, Harvard has the plurality.


http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/de ... llows.html

[Hand]

How does the parking situation at Yale compare to that at Harvard?

ETA: asking for a friend

[A. Nony Mouse]

I'm not sure what I am missing - but as far as I can see there is only one YLS climenko (and two from Stanford). Obviously, Harvard has the plurality.


http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/de ... llows.html

Class sizes aren't exactly the same, though.

[Fred Norris]

I'm not sure what I am missing - but as far as I can see there is only one YLS climenko (and two from Stanford). Obviously, Harvard has the plurality.


http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/de ... llows.html

Class sizes aren't exactly the same, though.

Sure - even taking that into account tho, no particular school dominates climenkos and def not YLS.

[A. Nony Mouse]

I'm not sure what I am missing - but as far as I can see there is only one YLS climenko (and two from Stanford). Obviously, Harvard has the plurality.


http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/de ... llows.html

Class sizes aren't exactly the same, though.

Sure - even taking that into account tho, no particular school dominates climenkos and def not YLS.

But Harvard grads may also have some edge in applying for Climenkos, too, since they will presumably already know people involved in the hiring. (To be clear, I don't have any inside information to suggest this is true, and sure, it suggests one edge for Harvard grads re: academia. But I think a lot of this is trying to read the tea leaves of a very small population of law grads going for an even smaller number of jobs.)

[Fred Norris]

I fully agree HLS grads have some edge with Climenkos. SLS grads do not. I understand this is a small sample, but given that when we talk about a YLS edge we are dealing with unicorn stuff, we have small data.

With respect to Bristow Fellows, Yale is tied with UVA in recent years. SLS is near Yale.

I don't think its retarded - and you haven't suggested this but others have - to question the YLS edge as being anything other than self selection.

It just looks more and more like law bro science when u actually look for data.

[lefthandofdarkness]

I fully agree HLS grads have some edge with Climenkos. SLS grads do not. I understand this is a small sample, but given that when we talk about a YLS edge we are dealing with unicorn stuff, we have small data.

With respect to Bristow Fellows, Yale is tied with UVA in recent years. SLS is near Yale.

I don't think its retarded - and you haven't suggested this but others have - to question the YLS edge as being anything other than self selection.

It just looks more and more like law bro science when u actually look for data.

rly bro?

[nothingtosee]

I'm not sure what I am missing - but as far as I can see there is only one YLS climenko (and two from Stanford). Obviously, Harvard has the plurality.


http://www.law.harvard.edu/academics/de ... llows.html

Don't wanna be petty but
http://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/directory/11396/Bell
http://hls.harvard.edu/faculty/director ... Richardson

[RunnerRunner]

I fully agree HLS grads have some edge with Climenkos. SLS grads do not. I understand this is a small sample, but given that when we talk about a YLS edge we are dealing with unicorn stuff, we have small data.

With respect to Bristow Fellows, Yale is tied with UVA in recent years. SLS is near Yale.

I don't think its retarded - and you haven't suggested this but others have - to question the YLS edge as being anything other than self selection.

It just looks more and more like law bro science when u actually look for data.

To this point though, most Bristow Fellows are hyper-competitive applicants who were also applying to be SCOTUS clerks. I'm guessing Yale doesn't dominate Bristow because its applicants to that fellowship also often get SCOTUS and choose that over Bristow. Speaking of which, SCOTUS is a "unicorn" area in which Yale empirically dominates (not just bro science), placing a crazy amount of grads relative to its class size, and I don't think that you can attribute that to self-selection since it seems that anyone who has a shot at SCOTUS would want it. That said though, I don't think you're stupid to question the edge, and there certainly isn't anything you can do from Yale that is closed off to you coming from Harvard. If Harvard is a good fit for you go and never look back, it's an opportunity lots of people would kill for!

[PeanutsNJam]

Make 2 dating profiles in NYC. Make them completely identical save for the fact that one is a YLS graduate, and the other a HLS graduate. Analyze results. Settle the debate. Celebrate with cake.

[starry eyed]

Make 2 dating profiles in NYC. Make them completely identical save for the fact that one is a YLS graduate, and the other a HLS graduate. Analyze results. Settle the debate. Celebrate with cake.

yea but this kind of thing only impresses studious sallies, not the hot basic b-tches

[PeanutsNJam]

Make 2 dating profiles in NYC. Make them completely identical save for the fact that one is a YLS graduate, and the other a HLS graduate. Analyze results. Settle the debate. Celebrate with cake.

yea but this kind of thing only impresses studious sallies, not the hot basic b-tches

idk man, after Suits, I think the hot basic b-tches might be going for the HLS bros. YLS still ttt I guess

[Longtimecoming19]

YLS doesn't have any edge whatsoever over HLS. In fact, HLS has an advantage over YLS in every field that interests you. You clearly know this since you are so assertive in questioning all the bro science out there about the superiority of YLS, which is just nonsense. Now you can go spend three years HLS and not feel bad about not getting into YLS.

[Cicero76]

Everyone in this thread is the absolute worst. I guess that includes me now.

[InterArma]

Graduated from HLS. Had a lot of friends at YLS. My personal experience: the edge that YLS has in academia is largely "self-selection," though not quite in the way you mean. A lot of people at HLS were career-gunning for something in politics or policymaking. Comparatively few people were interested in going into academia. The ratio was flipped on its head among my acquaintances from YLS. I don't know if its harder to get an academic position out of HLS than it is out of YLS, or harder to get certain "political"/policymaking positions out of YLS than HLS, but I suspect that the difference is negligible and it mostly has to do with the different aspirations of the respective student bodies.