Few Princeton Students in Law School? Forum

[09042014]

Acing high school is a lot easier than college work.

Then why don't more people do it and go to better schools?

I went to a big research (ostensibly middling though probably perceived a bit better) university and I've got to say, in the 1000 level classes, people were idiots. Most of my friends from freshmen year were posterchildren for a mediocre mind. (Note: I didn't get into HYP; hell, I didn't apply to HYP. My debt-averseness was insane. I'm wasn't paying sticker for fucking Cornell, and I took the money and ran.) Example: I'm not good a biology. The way I took tests in AP bio was something akin to eenie-meenie. I didn't even open the book past the second week of school. And then I set the curve in a 100+ person intro bio class in college. I'm sorry, this is not indicative of my science abilities, but of the idiocy of my classmates.

Now I'm not saying that there aren't dumbasses at ivies. 50% of the class is athletes, legacies, and some URMs (blahAAblahdebateblahwompwomp). But that other 50%... well, if the people I've met in law school (and beyond) are any indication (and there's a chance that they're not, since I guess CLS attracts a certain breed), then they're way smarter than the people in my UG.

(Although there is something to be said for people who do well out of big schools. Chances are, they didn't go there because they did poorly in high school, at least SAT-wise. They probably took the money too.)

For many reasons, like debt aversion or even cultural reasons. In my suburban HS only 1 person applied to Ivy league schools. Middle class midwesterns want their kids to go to their flagship state school.

My point wasn't that there is no difference between top school students and everyone else on average. But that just gaining admissions to a top school doesn't make one a success.

College admissions are about what shitty clubs you joined, how well you wrote book reports from ages 14-17, and the SAT. Plenty of talents people are weeded out, plenty self select, but most importantly many lazy losers are let in.

I'm not saying there is no aggregate difference. But there are a lot of terrible fucking students at the Ivy league. Less than other schools, definitely.

[09042014]

Most Ivy League LSAT takes can't hit 165, and are, therefore, functionally retarded.

[JG Hall]

Acing high school is a lot easier than college work.

I went to a big research (ostensibly middling though probably perceived a bit better) university and I've got to say, in the 1000 level classes, people were idiots. Most of my friends from freshmen year were posterchildren for a mediocre mind. (Note: I didn't get into HYP; hell, I didn't apply to HYP. My debt-averseness was insane. I'm wasn't paying sticker for fucking Cornell, and I took the money and ran.) Example: I'm not good a biology. The way I took tests in AP bio was something akin to eenie-meenie. I didn't even open the book past the second week of school. And then I set the curve in a 100+ person intro bio class in college. I'm sorry, this is not indicative of my science abilities, but of the idiocy of my classmates.

Why did you have to go that far down for UG money? Lots of decent UGs like USC and UT give half or full rides for National Merit Finalists.

Was supposed to go to full scholly to Tulane, then it ended up underwater. Scramble for anywhere else I got a full ride after that. (I ended up with a shitload of half+ schollies, but refused to go to bitchy UGs with an inferiority complex, e.g. GW, NYU, etc. I got 0 financial aid since my parents made way too much money for assholes who weren't going to pay my tuition. In retrospect I probably made the wrong decision, but at least now I have 0 UG debt... and I don't think I would've gotten a different job for the summer had I gone to a Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth, so I guess it's a wash in the end.)

PS - Please don't quote this. I'll probably delete it later.

[HamDel]

Acing high school is a lot easier than college work.

I went to a big research (ostensibly middling though probably perceived a bit better) university and I've got to say, in the 1000 level classes, people were idiots. Most of my friends from freshmen year were posterchildren for a mediocre mind. (Note: I didn't get into HYP; hell, I didn't apply to HYP. My debt-averseness was insane. I'm wasn't paying sticker for fucking Cornell, and I took the money and ran.) Example: I'm not good a biology. The way I took tests in AP bio was something akin to eenie-meenie. I didn't even open the book past the second week of school. And then I set the curve in a 100+ person intro bio class in college. I'm sorry, this is not indicative of my science abilities, but of the idiocy of my classmates.

Was supposed to go to full scholly to Tulane, then it ended up underwater. Scramble for anywhere else I got a full ride after that. (I ended up with a shitload of half+ schollies, but refused to go to bitchy UGs with an inferiority complex, e.g. GW, NYU, etc. I got 0 financial aid since my parents made way too much money for assholes who weren't going to pay my tuition. In retrospect I probably made the wrong decision, but at least now I have 0 UG debt... and I don't think I would've gotten a different job for the summer had I gone to a Cornell/Brown/Dartmouth, so I guess it's a wash in the end.)

PS - Please don't quote this. I'll probably delete it later.

Inferiority complex maybe? I don't believe you would have gotten into an Ivy, or that you had a full ride at Tulane but "then it was underwater." The Tulane kids left for one semester and were back by spring, we had a bunch of them on my campus. If you had a full ride you would have been able to take it beginning in January. I think you're just a loser who didn't get into very good schools (probably waitlisted at NYU and GW even) who incessantly tries to prove to everyone that he's on their level. Based on these assumptions, I think you are a douche.

[JG Hall]

Inferiority complex maybe? I don't believe you would have gotten into an Ivy, or that you had a full ride at Tulane but "then it was underwater." The Tulane kids left for one semester and were back by spring, we had a bunch of them on my campus. If you had a full ride you would have been able to take it beginning in January. I think you're just a loser who didn't get into very good schools (probably waitlisted at NYU and GW even) who incessantly tries to prove to everyone that he's on their level. Based on these assumptions, I think you are a douche.

You're right. I clearly wasn't smart enough to get into NYU/GW. CLS must be a fluke.

Congrats on being so much cooler than me, btw.

[HamDel]

Inferiority complex maybe? I don't believe you would have gotten into an Ivy, or that you had a full ride at Tulane but "then it was underwater." The Tulane kids left for one semester and were back by spring, we had a bunch of them on my campus. If you had a full ride you would have been able to take it beginning in January. I think you're just a loser who didn't get into very good schools (probably waitlisted at NYU and GW even) who incessantly tries to prove to everyone that he's on their level. Based on these assumptions, I think you are a douche.

You're right. I clearly wasn't smart enough to get into NYU/GW. CLS must be a fluke.

Congrats on being so much cooler than me, btw.

Not about smarts friend - you were (and obviously still are) very immature, so you probably fucked up high school badly at first and were unable to leave your flyover state. This makes me happy, because it has left you with a lifetime of well deserved self consciousness.

[JG Hall]

Inferiority complex maybe? I don't believe you would have gotten into an Ivy, or that you had a full ride at Tulane but "then it was underwater." The Tulane kids left for one semester and were back by spring, we had a bunch of them on my campus. If you had a full ride you would have been able to take it beginning in January. I think you're just a loser who didn't get into very good schools (probably waitlisted at NYU and GW even) who incessantly tries to prove to everyone that he's on their level. Based on these assumptions, I think you are a douche.

You're right. I clearly wasn't smart enough to get into NYU/GW. CLS must be a fluke.

Congrats on being so much cooler than me, btw.

Not about smarts friend - you were (and obviously still are) very immature, so you probably fucked up high school badly at first and were unable to leave your flyover state. This makes me happy, because it has left you with a lifetime of well deserved self consciousness.

I'm not from middle America, but at least being a slacker in high school taught me how to hyphenate. I wish you the best of luck with what has obviously blossomed into a mature, amiable existence.

[Unemployed]

Now I'm not saying that there aren't dumbasses at ivies. 50% of the class is athletes, legacies, and some URMs (blahAAblahdebateblahwompwomp). But that other 50%... well, if the people I've met in law school (and beyond) are any indication (and there's a chance that they're not, since I guess CLS attracts a certain breed), then they're way smarter than the people in my UG.

Don't forget that those people were, for the most part, slackers at their respective UG's. CLS is a haven for those who coasted through an Ivy, graduated somewhere in the middle, then aced the LSAT. The truly smart/diligent ones are at YLS and HLS.

Blatant anti-Stanford trolling.

IMO Stanford is a haven for diligent and interesting people who couldn't hack it on the LSAT - therefore, they are not THE cream of the crop. Of course, my assessment has nothing to do with getting rejected 2 years ago.

[whymeohgodno]

IMO Stanford is a haven for diligent and interesting people who couldn't hack it on the LSAT - therefore, they are not THE cream of the crop. Of course, my assessment has nothing to do with getting rejected 2 years ago.

You realize the difference between a 170 and a 172 is like one or two questions at max? That's like a single guess gone wrong or right. I wouldn't read too much into it. Once you reach a certain point there just isn't much you can tell by the LSAT score. Maybe if Harvard and Yale had a median LSAT of 176 with Stanford having 170 that would be a different story...

[NayBoer]

Acing high school is a lot easier than college work.

I went to a big research (ostensibly middling though probably perceived a bit better) university and I've got to say, in the 1000 level classes, people were idiots. Most of my friends from freshmen year were posterchildren for a mediocre mind. (Note: I didn't get into HYP; hell, I didn't apply to HYP. My debt-averseness was insane. I'm wasn't paying sticker for fucking Cornell, and I took the money and ran.) Example: I'm not good a biology. The way I took tests in AP bio was something akin to eenie-meenie. I didn't even open the book past the second week of school. And then I set the curve in a 100+ person intro bio class in college. I'm sorry, this is not indicative of my science abilities, but of the idiocy of my classmates.

PS - Please don't quote this. I'll probably delete it later.

My brother was at Tulane during the hurricane. He just ended up going to another school for a semester. You probably could have arranged that. You're right about GW, though. I did my undergrad there. It's Georgetown's little brother with a better metro stop. And GW throws a fucking parade when it breaks top 50.

[HamDel]

My brother was at Tulane during the hurricane. He just ended up going to another school for a semester. You probably could have arranged that. You're right about GW, though. I did my undergrad there. It's Georgetown's little brother with a better metro stop. And GW throws a fucking parade when it breaks top 50.

That's exactly why I think this guy's little story sounds like a huge load of bullshit.

I also think he's crazy to make these outrageous claims about GW, and especially about NYU. How is it that GW, ranked 51st, is so bad it's not worth attending for even a substantial scholarship when it is tied with Tulane? Also, NYU might not be quite as prestigious as Columbia but it's certainly got a lot going for it. The b school, arts school, math, poli sci, art history, and philosophy departments at NYU are among the very top in the world, so I'm not sure if they have the little brother syndrome quite as much as this guy claims. It's like saying you would never attend Tufts or Brandeis because they are in the same town as Harvard and MIT, it doesn't make a lot of sense.

[Wade LeBosh]

Inferiority complex maybe? I don't believe you would have gotten into an Ivy, or that you had a full ride at Tulane but "then it was underwater." The Tulane kids left for one semester and were back by spring, we had a bunch of them on my campus. If you had a full ride you would have been able to take it beginning in January. I think you're just a loser who didn't get into very good schools (probably waitlisted at NYU and GW even) who incessantly tries to prove to everyone that he's on their level. Based on these assumptions, I think you are a douche.

You're right. I clearly wasn't smart enough to get into NYU/GW. CLS must be a fluke.

Congrats on being so much cooler than me, btw.

So you're smart BECAUSE you go to CLS? Getting into a great school doesn't make you smart. It means you know how to do homework and take tests (standardized and for class). It also means you probably have a good work ethic, doesn't make you smart though.

If you want to prove you're smart, maybe you should start by not bragging about how smart you are. It just makes you look dumb.

[im_blue]

IMO Stanford is a haven for diligent and interesting people who couldn't hack it on the LSAT - therefore, they are not THE cream of the crop. Of course, my assessment has nothing to do with getting rejected 2 years ago.

You realize the difference between a 170 and a 172 is like one or two questions at max? That's like a single guess gone wrong or right. I wouldn't read too much into it. Once you reach a certain point there just isn't much you can tell by the LSAT score. Maybe if Harvard and Yale had a median LSAT of 176 with Stanford having 170 that would be a different story...

That's a significant difference in the aggregate. A 173 is top 1.0% (HY median) and a 170 is top 2.5% (Stanford), so the 173+ pool is only 40% as large as the 170+ pool. The difference is even larger at the 75th percentile: 176 = top 0.4% vs 172 = top 1.4%, which makes the top 1/4 of HY more than 3 times more selective by LSAT than S.

[r6_philly]

Does anyone know the probability distribution for each numerical value of the score range? I feel that toward the tails the test is much more inaccurate making anything beyond 99% or so really bad indicators statistically. I think repeater data supports this.

[ahduth]

Does anyone know the probability distribution for each numerical value of the score range? I feel that toward the tails the test is much more inaccurate making anything beyond 99% or so really bad indicators statistically. I think repeater data supports this.

No, but this is what whyme is arguing anecdotally - does my 173 really mean i'm that much smarter than someone with a 172? No one with an ounce of common sense would really say that unless we'd both proven out those scores thousands of times (which I guess is similar to what you're asking for with these probability distributions). But as im_blue points out, it's another chokepoint for HYS and then CCN to cut people out of their admit pools. So 173 is a lot better than 172, and a lot worse than 174, silly as that is.

[AreJay711]

Does anyone know the probability distribution for each numerical value of the score range? I feel that toward the tails the test is much more inaccurate making anything beyond 99% or so really bad indicators statistically. I think repeater data supports this.

No, but this is what whyme is arguing anecdotally - does my 173 really mean i'm that much smarter than someone with a 172? No one with an ounce of common sense would really say that unless we'd both proven out those scores thousands of times (which I guess is similar to what you're asking for with these probability distributions). But as im_blue points out, it's another chokepoint for HYS and then CCN to cut people out of their admit pools. So 173 is a lot better than 172, and a lot worse than 174, silly as that is.

Well, you have LSAT and GPA to account for so it isn't quite as bad. They do have to use something to make distinctions between applicants though.

[094320]

..

[James Bond]

lol @ NYU not being a top school just because Columbia happens to be in the same city, and Princeton is too busy putting out Bankers and CEO's to worry about BigLawl

[UnitarySpace]

So you're smart BECAUSE you go to CLS? Getting into a great school doesn't make you smart. It means you know how to do homework and take tests (standardized and for class). It also means you probably have a good work ethic, doesn't make you smart though.

If you want to prove you're smart, maybe you should start by not bragging about how smart you are. It just makes you look dumb.

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM. I think there's a pretty strong correlation between the people who can do the aforementioned and people who are smart.

[mrmangs]

Hm, from my observation of ppl I know at my flagship state school and my Ivy I will say this:
1) On average, people at the Ivy are smarter, though I know plenty of brilliant ppl at my flagship, and a lot of really dumb people here. Just saying, on average.
2) Most, though certainly not all, of our recruited athletes don't deserve to be here and never would have been admitted without the severe lowering of admissions standards that they receive--their academic abilities are incredibly underwhelming, members of some particular teams are rather boorish, and they add little to nothing to the community. Most of the sports games are woefully unattended.
3) Grade inflation is rampant and you can't explain away the high GPAs just with the caliber of students who go here. If you're not in a hard science, it's really not that difficult.
4) The legacies I know are actually rather bright. One of my best friends here is a double legacy and she impresses me. The boost they get is that while normal applicants get looked at twice, they get looked at a third time---so it helps when borderline, but the boost is minimal compared to other possible boosts.

+1

[094320]

..

[sundance95]

You're right about GW, though. I did my undergrad there. It's Georgetown's little brother with a [strike]better[/strike] metro stop.

FTFY, and can confirm the above as a fellow Colonial.

We had a number of Tulane kids at GW for a semester after Katrina. They all returned the next semester. JG Hall definitely could have done it if he wanted to and now gets to have an UG inferiority complex until he decides to get the fuck over it. Wouldn't say he isn't smart-just that he's a whiny bitch.

Oh, and before you reply JG, getting into CLS doesn't disprove the fact that you are a whiny bitch. Enjoy Columbia.

[AreJay711]

Hm, from my observation of ppl I know at my flagship state school and my Ivy I will say this:
1) On average, people at the Ivy are smarter, though I know plenty of brilliant ppl at my flagship, and a lot of really dumb people here. Just saying, on average.
2) Most, though certainly not all, of our recruited athletes don't deserve to be here and never would have been admitted without the severe lowering of admissions standards that they receive--their academic abilities are incredibly underwhelming, members of some particular teams are rather boorish, and they add little to nothing to the community. Most of the sports games are woefully unattended.
3) Grade inflation is rampant and you can't explain away the high GPAs just with the caliber of students who go here. If you're not in a hard science, it's really not that difficult.
4) The legacies I know are actually rather bright. One of my best friends here is a double legacy and she impresses me. The boost they get is that while normal applicants get looked at twice, they get looked at a third time---so it helps when borderline, but the boost is minimal compared to other possible boosts.

Why in the world would Ivies lower admissions standards to enable the worst D1 sports teams in the country? That's a lose-lose.

I KNOW, right? There's a rule that they can't be more than a standard deviation below the average in test scores, but that's still a standard deviation below. Our teams suck too much for anyone to really care beyond one or two specific games---people I know in the band say they're usually the only people who show up. Yet they lower admissions standards for them! I don't get it.

It's because they bring unique perspectives to the school... duh lol.

The Ivies aren't scholarship though are they? They have to provide something to make up for that. I loved Gtown but I sure as hell wasn't paying 40K+ to work my ass off on their team. Now Harvard on the other hand might have been a different story. Also, football and basket athletes in every school are typically dumb.

[BrownBears09]

Hm, from my observation of ppl I know at my flagship state school and my Ivy I will say this:
1) On average, people at the Ivy are smarter, though I know plenty of brilliant ppl at my flagship, and a lot of really dumb people here. Just saying, on average.
2) Most, though certainly not all, of our recruited athletes don't deserve to be here and never would have been admitted without the severe lowering of admissions standards that they receive--their academic abilities are incredibly underwhelming, members of some particular teams are rather boorish, and they add little to nothing to the community. Most of the sports games are woefully unattended.
3) Grade inflation is rampant and you can't explain away the high GPAs just with the caliber of students who go here. If you're not in a hard science, it's really not that difficult.
4) The legacies I know are actually rather bright. One of my best friends here is a double legacy and she impresses me. The boost they get is that while normal applicants get looked at twice, they get looked at a third time---so it helps when borderline, but the boost is minimal compared to other possible boosts.

Why in the world would Ivies lower admissions standards to enable the worst D1 sports teams in the country? That's a lose-lose.

Double quoted for ignorance. It is completely apparent that neither of you have any idea what you're talking about.

[mrmangs]

Hm, from my observation of ppl I know at my flagship state school and my Ivy I will say this:
1) On average, people at the Ivy are smarter, though I know plenty of brilliant ppl at my flagship, and a lot of really dumb people here. Just saying, on average.
2) Most, though certainly not all, of our recruited athletes don't deserve to be here and never would have been admitted without the severe lowering of admissions standards that they receive--their academic abilities are incredibly underwhelming, members of some particular teams are rather boorish, and they add little to nothing to the community. Most of the sports games are woefully unattended.
3) Grade inflation is rampant and you can't explain away the high GPAs just with the caliber of students who go here. If you're not in a hard science, it's really not that difficult.
4) The legacies I know are actually rather bright. One of my best friends here is a double legacy and she impresses me. The boost they get is that while normal applicants get looked at twice, they get looked at a third time---so it helps when borderline, but the boost is minimal compared to other possible boosts.

Why in the world would Ivies lower admissions standards to enable the worst D1 sports teams in the country? That's a lose-lose.

Double quoted for ignorance. It is completely apparent that neither of you have any idea what you're talking about.

Athlete at Brown?