Top Law Schools

I'm having trouble figuring out how Maryland has such a high yield. According to the current data on LSAC's site (which I believe is for the class of 2011), Maryland accepted 577 students, 306 of which chose to attend. That's a 53% yield which seems quite high, especially for a school ranked in the 40's (it's higher than Stanford's yield). As far as I know Maryland doesn't throw around tons of scholarship money. I'm almost positive that its not for lack of applicants, since I believe they generally receive 4000+ applications (though that is based on older data). The class of 2009 had a 39% yield, which is much lower, but still relatively high. Is the 53% yield simply a function of an admissions mistake, e.g. admitting too many students (they already cut their acceptances from 690 for the class of 2009 to 570 for the class of 2011)?

Their high yield and low acceptance rate makes me quite nervous about my chances.

they also claim to have a very high selectivity rate...like only 10% acceptance or something. It's simple...they're probably cooking the books.

ZXCVBNM wrote:they also claim to have a very high selectivity rate...like only 10% acceptance or something. It's simple...they're probably cooking the books.

But number of applications and number of acceptances are pretty hard numbers to "cook," without blatantly lying. Can we not even trust raw admissions data anymore?

They may just have a very talented admissions staff. In theory, the perfect scenario is a 100 percent yield and an acceptance rate equal to the number of spots available. The closer you are to these numbers, the better. Yet Maryland wasn't exactly expecting such a high yield last year if I recall correctly.. so that's interesting.

YP?

Geist13 wrote:I'm having trouble figuring out how Maryland has such a high yield. According to the current data on LSAC's site (which I believe is for the class of 2011), Maryland accepted 577 students, 306 of which chose to attend. That's a 53% yield which seems quite high, especially for a school ranked in the 40's (it's higher than Stanford's yield). As far as I know Maryland doesn't throw around tons of scholarship money. I'm almost positive that its not for lack of applicants, since I believe they generally receive 4000+ applications (though that is based on older data). The class of 2009 had a 39% yield, which is much lower, but still relatively high. Is the 53% yield simply a function of an admissions mistake, e.g. admitting too many students (they already cut their acceptances from 690 for the class of 2009 to 570 for the class of 2011)?

Their high yield and low acceptance rate makes me quite nervous about my chances.

I believe that a lot of people apply to this group:
Georgetown
George Washington
William and Mary
Washington and Lee
University of Maryland
George Mason
American
University of Baltimore


A lot of people apply to this group are working professionals (i.e. they have work experience) and they want to be near DC (Because that's where they want to work).

So therefore, they send out applications to all of these schools and then decide based on their acceptances/scholarship money.

Obviously more people will be accepted to say the schools ranked lower than Washington and Lee than not.

In case you didn't know, many of these schools have LSAT ranges that are relatively clustered together.

However, each school can only accept so many people (so they fight for high LSAT's and GPA's)

But a lot of people would rather go to a law school that's accessible from the DC metro system (all of the above) than to go somewhere else (thus, if they are rejected from other programs ranked higher, or receive no scholarship money from them - they go to Maryland).

Reasons for this include wanting to work in DC or to be near DC.

Yet most of the more informed students know that if you want to work in DC - very high grades are key to break into DC (not the location of the school in relation to DC).

To talk about your other question, 99.999% of all law schools have a formula based on past application cycles that predicts how many people are going to accept offers - so schools may send out multiple offers at once but are only anticipating 50% or less of the offers being accepted.

However, the cycle that just past had ultra high offer acceptance rates (i.e. U of Miami over enrolling and offering people money to wait a year)

And it essentially screwed the formulas schools were using.

Aberzombie1892 wrote:
But a lot of people would rather go to a law school that's accessible from the DC metro system (all of the above) than to go somewhere else (thus, if they are rejected from other programs ranked higher, or receive no scholarship money from them - they go to Maryland).

Maryland's law school is located in downtown Baltimore rather than College Park though and the MARC Train is terrible for commuting.

Edit: Not to say you don't have good points.

This is a guess, and I could be wrong because I haven't even looked to see if they offer it, but does Maryland have a binding early decision? My Liberal Arts undergrad with is T2 gets about 2500 applications, accepts 1000 and 750 attend. We keep the high selectivity and insane yield by accepting something like 60% binding ED candidates and then heavily using our waitlist.

How many times can you say YP?

dresden doll wrote:How many times can you say YP?

According to LSN, it is definitely not YP; only one 167+ and one 162+/3.3+ were not accepted last year.

No ED either, I would have seriously considered applying ED if there was.

What part of the LSAC site are you getting those numbers from?

b.j. wrote:What part of the LSAC site are you getting those numbers from?

http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchRes ... =admission

Geist13 wrote:

b.j. wrote:What part of the LSAC site are you getting those numbers from?

http://officialguide.lsac.org/SearchRes ... =admission

Hmm. On one of those official sheets that you can download when the application to Maryland pops up, different numbers come out. I wonder what the discrepancy is. Is it simply newer information?

Hopefullawstudent wrote:They may just have a very talented admissions staff. In theory, the perfect scenario is a 100 percent yield and an acceptance rate equal to the number of spots available. The closer you are to these numbers, the better. Yet Maryland wasn't exactly expecting such a high yield last year if I recall correctly.. so that's interesting.

+ 1

I don't see why it's weird they have high yield.

Yea I am not sure why this is a big deal. Maryland has a strong reputation for being regional, thus people who apply there most likely want to be there. Thats a strong reason to go.

I would say there are so many other schools serving the same market that only locals apply to maryland - for example, as an OOS, I never thoughy about it. I got waivers from and applied to w and l, last time w and m, gulc, gw, american, gmu, and uva. That pretty much covers it for someone not from the area - with all of those, plus t14 competing for the market, 1) I never even hear of/think about md, 2) couldn't see moving across the country to go to a school that is beneath all of these rankings wise, with a better liklihood of working in md than dc maybe.

So getting mainly locals applying, those who don't get into one of the above schools or who wants to work in md is prob pretty likely to accept. Fwiw, I don't really recall much tls talk about applying to the school or the school in general, unlike all of the others mentioned.

You couldn't pay me enough to move back to my home city...

LSATfromNC wrote:You couldn't pay me enough to move back to my home city...

Maryland exists outside Baltimore...

ruleser wrote:I would say there are so many other schools serving the same market that only locals apply to maryland - for example, as an OOS, I never thoughy about it. I got waivers from and applied to w and l, last time w and m, gulc, gw, american, gmu, and uva. That pretty much covers it for someone not from the area - with all of those, plus t14 competing for the market, 1) I never even hear of/think about md, 2) couldn't see moving across the country to go to a school that is beneath all of these rankings wise, with a better liklihood of working in md than dc maybe.

So getting mainly locals applying, those who don't get into one of the above schools or who wants to work in md is prob pretty likely to accept. Fwiw, I don't really recall much tls talk about applying to the school or the school in general, unlike all of the others mentioned.

GMU, American, and Maryland are all located within a few spots of each other. In fact, Maryland is one spot ahead of American in the latest US News rankings. I can see how the others might be superior choices because they are more competitive, especially UVA, but why would American and GMU be such better choices than Maryland?

LawandOrder wrote:

LSATfromNC wrote:You couldn't pay me enough to move back to my home city...

Maryland exists outside Baltimore...

ORLY, lies!

I will live close to where ever I attend school. I don't want to commute more than 15 minutes or so and I don't want to live in B-more, so I didn't apply. But to each their own.

it has a high yield because a bunch of people apply, find out it's actually in Baltimore, and withdraw before a decision is rendered.

wiseowl wrote:it has a high yield because a bunch of people apply, find out it's actually in Baltimore, and withdraw before a decision is rendered.

If I somehow get in and go there, do you think it's a good idea to watch all seasons of "The Wire" before the semester starts?

b.j. wrote:

wiseowl wrote:it has a high yield because a bunch of people apply, find out it's actually in Baltimore, and withdraw before a decision is rendered.

If I somehow get in and go there, do you think it's a good idea to watch all seasons of "The Wire" before the semester starts?

Doing so is a good idea irrespective of applying, getting in, attending, visiting Baltimore, and just about anything else. It's just good.

yeff wrote:

b.j. wrote:

wiseowl wrote:it has a high yield because a bunch of people apply, find out it's actually in Baltimore, and withdraw before a decision is rendered.

If I somehow get in and go there, do you think it's a good idea to watch all seasons of "The Wire" before the semester starts?

Doing so is a good idea irrespective of applying, getting in, attending, visiting Baltimore, and just about anything else. It's just good.

Considering how much I like a good TV show, you'd think I would have seen it by now, but no. And considering that I still have the same three movies from Netflix that I got before July 4, you'd think I'd stop wasting my money, send the old movies (only one of which I watched all the way through, by the way) in, and then the DVDs of that show. But again, no.