Top Law Schools

From the ASWs I've attended, the folks I see on here and meet casually in real life, I was surprised that many do NOT come from the cream o'the crop undergrad places. Why is this? I found this to be a relief, but I'm still surprised. I cannot speak for HYS from direct experience, but I'm assuming the same make-up holds true for them...?

FYI I've always been discouraged about this. I remember thinking in high school "If I don't go to a T10 UG, I'll never get in anywhere decent for grad school"

But does HYS, for instance, have more prestigious UGs represented? I'm assuming law school make-up is more likely to include top people from decent institutions, not necessarily Princeton or wherever. I'd wager that you might even be screwed over by attending HYP if you're not supreme with your GPA.

It really ran the gamut at Stanford's ASW. I met a LOT of students from Yale, Stanford, Brown, and Harvard; lots of kids from fairly prestigious LACs (Vassar, Swarthmore, etc.), and the great publics. I also met a lot of folks from places like UTEP, Louisiana-Monroe, Nevada-Reno, and other schools not considered "top tier." It seemed that most of the folks who were coming straight from UG were from the top undergrads.

CordeliusX wrote:From the ASWs I've attended, the folks I see on here and meet casually in real life, I was surprised that many do NOT come from the cream o'the crop undergrad places. Why is this? I found this to be a relief, but I'm still surprised. I cannot speak for HYS from direct experience, but I'm assuming the same make-up holds true for them...?

FYI I've always been discouraged about this. I remember thinking in high school "If I don't go to a T10 UG, I'll never get in anywhere decent for grad school"

But does HYS, for instance, have more prestigious UGs represented? I'm assuming law school make-up is more likely to include top people from decent institutions, not necessarily Princeton or wherever. I'd wager that you might even be screwed over by attending HYP if you're not supreme with your GPA.

Could be, as there is some serious grade inflation at quite a few Ivies http://gradeinflation.com/

LSAT is a fair game, at the end of the day.

But at the ASWs I attended, there were still more people coming from top undergrads. That may very well have to do with the higher LSAT performance by the student bodies at those schools.

Kretzy wrote:It really ran the gamut at Stanford's ASW. I met a LOT of students from Yale, Stanford, Brown, and Harvard; lots of kids from fairly prestigious LACs (Vassar, Swarthmore, etc.), and the great publics. I also met a lot of folks from places like UTEP, Louisiana-Monroe, Nevada-Reno, and other schools not considered "top tier." It seemed that most of the folks who were coming straight from UG were from the top undergrads.

What is Brown? The sidekick school to the other ivy league schools?

$1.99 wrote:

Kretzy wrote:It really ran the gamut at Stanford's ASW. I met a LOT of students from Yale, Stanford, Brown, and Harvard; lots of kids from fairly prestigious LACs (Vassar, Swarthmore, etc.), and the great publics. I also met a lot of folks from places like UTEP, Louisiana-Monroe, Nevada-Reno, and other schools not considered "top tier." It seemed that most of the folks who were coming straight from UG were from the top undergrads.

What is Brown? The sidekick school to the other ivy league schools?

That's what folks in Colorado seem to think, but I met more kids from Brown than any school but Yale. They must be doing something right...

Kretzy wrote:

$1.99 wrote:

Kretzy wrote:It really ran the gamut at Stanford's ASW. I met a LOT of students from Yale, Stanford, Brown, and Harvard; lots of kids from fairly prestigious LACs (Vassar, Swarthmore, etc.), and the great publics. I also met a lot of folks from places like UTEP, Louisiana-Monroe, Nevada-Reno, and other schools not considered "top tier." It seemed that most of the folks who were coming straight from UG were from the top undergrads.

What is Brown? The sidekick school to the other ivy league schools?

That's what folks in Colorado seem to think, but I met more kids from Brown than any school but Yale. They must be doing something right...

Absolutely, it's called grade inflation. Brown has the highest GPA listed on this site: --LinkRemoved--

Northwestern's ASW was like a Big Ten reunion.

A lot of the nations brightest minds don't go to Ivy league schools.

I found that I was pretty out-of-place in terms of undergrad representation at the HLS ASW. I definitely got a few weird looks for my mediocre state school here and there, but I definitely didn't feel out of place around the people. There were a LOT of HYPS undergrads though.

im_blue wrote:

Kretzy wrote:

$1.99 wrote:

Kretzy wrote:It really ran the gamut at Stanford's ASW. I met a LOT of students from Yale, Stanford, Brown, and Harvard; lots of kids from fairly prestigious LACs (Vassar, Swarthmore, etc.), and the great publics. I also met a lot of folks from places like UTEP, Louisiana-Monroe, Nevada-Reno, and other schools not considered "top tier." It seemed that most of the folks who were coming straight from UG were from the top undergrads.

What is Brown? The sidekick school to the other ivy league schools?

That's what folks in Colorado seem to think, but I met more kids from Brown than any school but Yale. They must be doing something right...

Absolutely, it's called grade inflation. Brown has the highest GPA listed on this site: --LinkRemoved--

Yes, Brown (Av. GPA: 3.61) and Yale (Av. GPA: 3.51) http://gradeinflation.com/yale.html
Most suitable for Stanford Law.

violinst wrote:
Yes, Brown (Av. GPA: 3.61) and Yale (Av. GPA: 3.51) http://gradeinflation.com/yale.html
Most suitable for Stanford Law.

And Yale Law

The SLS ASW had people from all over (although I didn't meet any other Cal students ). I did meet a disproportionally high number of HYPS grads, though.

There are about 210 people on the YLS class of 2013 facebook group, and I'd estimate that 90% of them are from an Ivy, elite public (like Berkeley), or elite LAC. There are a huge number of people from Yale and Harvard. Yale and Harvard alone might make up 30% of the facebook group.

At Boalt I perceive that about 50% of my classmates come from an Ivy, Stanford or Berkeley. No idea if this perception is accurate.

tomhobbes wrote:There are about 210 people on the YLS class of 2013 facebook group, and I'd estimate that 90% of them are from an Ivy, elite public (like Berkeley), or elite LAC. There are a huge number of people from Yale and Harvard. Yale and Harvard alone might make up 30% of the facebook group.

Yeah, that's pretty nuts. There are a ton of Dookies in there as well.

ConMan345 wrote:

violinst wrote:
Yes, Brown (Av. GPA: 3.61) and Yale (Av. GPA: 3.51) http://gradeinflation.com/yale.html
Most suitable for Stanford Law.

And Yale Law

Well, for Yale Law, you at least need to work your butt off to get a high LSAT score, hence a fairer game.

violinst wrote:
Yes, Brown (Av. GPA: 3.61) and Yale (Av. GPA: 3.51) http://gradeinflation.com/yale.html

Wow, I guess I don't have much conception of what grade inflation actually looks like...jeepers.

In any event, I didn't meet nearly any unimpressive folks this weekend. I don't much care how they got into SLS, but I'm pretty excited to be taking classes with them.

violinst wrote:

ConMan345 wrote:

violinst wrote:
Yes, Brown (Av. GPA: 3.61) and Yale (Av. GPA: 3.51) http://gradeinflation.com/yale.html
Most suitable for Stanford Law.

And Yale Law

Well, for Yale Law, you at least need to work your butt off to get a high LSAT score, hence a fairer game.

Hmm, this seems to be a bit of a shaky conclusion.

Seemed like a lot of "top publics" at UVA's ASW -- tons of UVA grads, plenty of W&M grads, some people from UCLA, UMCP, UFL, etc. That said, there was a healthy contingent of Ivy grads as well.

OneKnight wrote:Seemed like a lot of "top publics" at UVA's ASW -- tons of UVA grads, plenty of W&M grads, some people from UCLA, UMCP, UFL, etc. That said, there was a healthy contingent of Ivy grads as well.

Interesting, I was wondering where my classmates are going. I was the only W&Mer at Chicago's ASW, which was not surprising. For the most part the people I met didn't display any sort of pattern; they were pretty all over the place. I would have thought there would have been more uniformity.

The worst was this guy who had silk-screened for himself a "top dawg" shirt, and the back said "#1 GPA in XYZ College graduating class"... and I later learned that he was getting requests from other students there for their own shirts.

Psyche.

ConMan345 wrote:

violinst wrote:

ConMan345 wrote:

violinst wrote:
Yes, Brown (Av. GPA: 3.61) and Yale (Av. GPA: 3.51) http://gradeinflation.com/yale.html
Most suitable for Stanford Law.

And Yale Law

Well, for Yale Law, you at least need to work your butt off to get a high LSAT score, hence a fairer game.

Hmm, this seems to be a bit of a shaky conclusion.

I know what you mean.

CordeliusX wrote:The worst was this guy who had silk-screened for himself a "top dawg" shirt, and the back said "#1 GPA in XYZ College graduating class"... and I later learned that he was getting requests from other students there for their own shirts.

Psyche.

Jokes on him, they still end up at the same school.

Desert Fox wrote:Northwestern's ASW was like a Big Ten reunion.

A lot of the nations brightest minds don't go to Ivy league schools.

The majority of people here seem to have gone to either T20 private schools, equivalent LACs, or top state schools. Lot's of NU, Duke, USC, UCLA, UNC, etc. Then on either side you've got a few people who went to HYPS, and a few people who went to CSU or the like.

I have a pretty good sense of the elite privates, but can someone explain the category of top publics to me (for the purposes of being understood as a "prestigious UG")? It is used quite a bit, but seems like it is a nebulous category. Part of the problem, I think, is that there are a lot of large public research universities, which are elite in some areas of research, but which are quite liberal in general admissions. I mean, I know Berkeley and Michigan are in there, and directional state schools aren't. But how many publics are we talking about? Top 5? 10?

februaryftw wrote:I have a pretty good sense of the elite privates, but can someone explain the category of top publics to me (for the purposes of being understood as a "prestigious UG")? It is used quite a bit, but seems like it is a nebulous category. Part of the problem, I think, is that there are a lot of large public research universities, which are elite in some areas of research, but which are quite liberal in general admissions. I mean, I know Berkeley and Michigan are in there, and directional state schools aren't. But how many publics are we talking about? Top 5? 10?

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