Top Law Schools

I was told recently that attending NYU for undergrad nearly eliminates one's chances of going to NYU law. I would consider the source reliable.

Is this really true? Do they really favor against their undergraduates that much?

No. There are NYU alums every year, and they're probably about as well represented as similarly ranked undergrads.

I heard a similar story that UC Berkeley does not accept its own undergraduates for graduate programs---- also not sure how valid that is.

I would venture to guess that these schools simply don't boost their undergrads (most top law schools don't). That's probably more the case, rather than hurting their chances.

azizi wrote:I heard a similar story that UC Berkeley does not accept its own undergraduates for graduate programs---- also not sure how valid that is.

Well, it's definitely not as a blanket statement. I had a professor who did both her B.A. and her Ph.D. there.

I've also heard stories of UMiami Law turning down its own alumni from undergrad. Completely false. I think this is a common myth among a lot of law schools.

birdlaw117 wrote:I would venture to guess that these schools simply don't boost their undergrads (most top law schools don't). That's probably more the case, rather than hurting their chances.

Except H, rumor is that they let in their own undergrads at a much higher rate than would be expected based on numbers.

At LSAC's New York law school forum, the NYU rep flat out told me this was a false rumor.

If anything I thought it'd be the other way around, with law schools actually preferring students who went to their college for undergrad?

There are good reasons this might occur at NYU. This could occur at a school if 1) the law school is relatively small in size when compared to the undergraduate student body, 2) a large amount of the undergraduate students apply for admission every year, 3) a large portion of those students are numerically qualified for admission, 4) the school has discovered that a relatively high rate of those students end up attending if accepted, and 5) there is a disparity in the "prestige" of the law school compared to that of the undergraduate school and that disparity is in the law school's favor.

The more of those factors that are fulfilled, the more it seems to me that a school would be more likely to ding otherwise numerically qualified students from the undergrad in order to diversify the law school's yield. NYU seems like a perfect candidate for this phenomenon, as it fits all those criteria to a decent degree. The law school has a population of just under 1500 and the undergraduate school has a population of just over 50,000, making the disparity for (1) especially profound.

This makes NYU different from a school such as Washington University, which has a law school population of about 800 but an undergrad population of only 7,000, where proportionally less undergrads are numerically qualified for law school (158 LSAT average; its been said that all the good standardized test takers at Wash U go to med school), and where the undergraduate institution could be described as more "prestigious" than the law school.

By the way I have no idea why I just spent this much time thinking about this when I could have been sleeping....

from what i understand, tons of undergrad usually apply to their school's grad
so the percentage of rejection is higher
but the actual number isn't purposely lower

woo lsat number vs percentage haha

Total Litigator wrote:There are good reasons this might occur at NYU. This could occur at a school if 1) the law school is relatively small in size when compared to the undergraduate student body, 2) a large amount of the undergraduate students apply for admission every year, 3) a large portion of those students are numerically qualified for admission, 4) the school has discovered that a relatively high rate of those students end up attending if accepted, and 5) there is a disparity in the "prestige" of the law school compared to that of the undergraduate school and that disparity is in the law school's favor.

The more of those factors that are fulfilled, the more it seems to me that a school would be more likely to ding otherwise numerically qualified students from the undergrad in order to diversify the law school's yield. NYU seems like a perfect candidate for this phenomenon, as it fits all those criteria to a decent degree. The law school has a population of just under 1500 and the undergraduate school has a population of just over 50,000, making the disparity for (1) especially profound.

This makes NYU different from a school such as Washington University, which has a law school population of about 800 but an undergrad population of only 7,000, where proportionally less undergrads are numerically qualified for law school (158 LSAT average; its been said that all the good standardized test takers at Wash U go to med school), and where the undergraduate institution could be described as more "prestigious" than the law school.

Dude you way overestimated the number of NYU undergrads. It's about 21k.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandrevie ... y/nyu-2785

One reason a school might want to disfavor their undergrads is simply that it creates more potential donors. If the school admits a lot of its own undergraduates they lose opportunities to bring in new students from other schools who may donate after graduation. Not saying this is happening, just that it makes sense.

bdubs wrote:One reason a school might want to disfavor their undergrads is simply that it creates more potential donors. If the school admits a lot of its own undergraduates they lose opportunities to bring in new students from other schools who may donate after graduation. Not saying this is happening, just that it makes sense.

Or it creates more dedicated donors.

This whole thing sounds like urban mythology. The only reason not to accept NYU undergrads is that they're all punks. I should know.

Eh, I just imagine that there's a huge amount of applicants to NYU law that are NYU ug's, and there's NO way a lot of them are getting accepted simply due to math, thus the myths, etc. You have classes of 400-450 people at NYU law. Break down the numbers, and there's no way you have more than 5 or so people per school getting into NYU Law, probably a lot less. Now imagine how many applicants from NYU are applying for the LS, and subtract 5, and that's how many pissed off NYU undegrads are roaming around making up rumors.

ahduth wrote:

bdubs wrote:One reason a school might want to disfavor their undergrads is simply that it creates more potential donors. If the school admits a lot of its own undergraduates they lose opportunities to bring in new students from other schools who may donate after graduation. Not saying this is happening, just that it makes sense.

Or it creates more dedicated donors.

This whole thing sounds like urban mythology. The only reason not to accept NYU undergrads is that they're all punks. I should know.

true... sigh.

NYU Law > NYU undergrad. By far. You need only to take a look at the undergrad medians thread to see why most NYU alumni (myself included) don't meet the criteria to get into NYU Law.

Yeah, there are reasonable explanations above for why NYU might reject a large number of its undergrads, but I know a number of people in my class who also attended undergrad there. I think it's just that they don't give their UGs preferential treatment.

[quote="bdubs] Dude you way overestimated the number of NYU undergrads. It's about 21k.

http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandrevie ... y/nyu-2785 [/quote]

Oops, I was looking at total students (and was still off...).

Also, I think the idea that that NYU undergrads are disadvantaged in applying to NYU is compounded by the fact that many undergrads assume that they have an advantage, so you have a lot more pissed off applicants than there should be... I could see a lot of people going, "Yeah I was a little below median, but I went to undergrad there man!"