Top Law Schools

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Stanford and Yale are pretty mysterious and sometimes EC do seem to come into play. Doesn't sound like you've got anything on your resume that's going to count for much, so it's going to come down to your numbers, just like 99% of law school applicants. Your lack of ECs isn't likely to matter at most schools (aside from Yale and Stanford).

Score in the low 170s and you're good for CCN, mid-170s and you're good for Harvard.

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CyanIdes Of March wrote:

Swimp wrote:Stanford and Yale are pretty mysterious and sometimes EC do seem to come into play. Doesn't sound like you've got anything on your resume that's going to count for much, so it's going to come down to your numbers, just like 99% of law school applicants. Your lack of ECs isn't likely to matter at most schools (aside from Yale and Stanford).

Score in the low 170s and you're good for CCN, mid-170s and you're good for Harvard.

What scares me about Harvard is I've seen some w/ my GPA and a 179 get declined. I'm wondering if that's because they didn't have the ECs they needed or if they just submitted badly thought out applications in general.

The thing is: it's unlikely that you're going to be able to answer that question without tracking the people down and asking them yourself. And, in any event, trying to predict your outcome based on outliers makes no sense. Look at the general trend and ignore outliers to have the best sense of your chances.

Good point. I just wanted to establish that it wasn't necessarily common knowledge that everyone accepted had killer EC's at Harvard and CCN. I know Y and S are pretty GPA and EC heavy schools, wasn't sure about Harvard though.

Thanks for the help!

CyanIdes Of March wrote:Good point. I just wanted to establish that it wasn't necessarily common knowledge that everyone accepted had killer EC's at Harvard and CCN. I know Y and S are pretty GPA and EC heavy schools, wasn't sure about Harvard though.

Thanks for the help!

From what I've come to understand, CCN admission is almost wholly a numbers game barring any significant application screwups. Chicago somewhat less so than Columbia and NYU because of its smaller class size.

I believe Harvard is largely numbers based (very high numbers obviously) due to its large class size, but I also remember reading that a significant portion (>50%) of Harvard's class these days has had at least 2 years of work experience prior to matriculation.

You also have to remember that the kinds of softs that would boost an application in any noticeable way are quite out of the ordinary. In other words, anything you do on the side while in college (clubs, volunteering, etc.) is unlikely to help except, at best, on the margins.

As a disclaimer, I have no firsthand experience with admissions to these schools; this is just what I've come to know through the research that I've done.

CyanIdes Of March wrote:

Swimp wrote:Stanford and Yale are pretty mysterious and sometimes EC do seem to come into play. Doesn't sound like you've got anything on your resume that's going to count for much, so it's going to come down to your numbers, just like 99% of law school applicants. Your lack of ECs isn't likely to matter at most schools (aside from Yale and Stanford).

Score in the low 170s and you're good for CCN, mid-170s and you're good for Harvard.

What scares me about Harvard is I've seen some w/ my GPA and a 179 get declined. I'm wondering if that's because they didn't have the ECs they needed or if they just submitted badly thought out applications in general.

Their 179 probably wasn't their first time writing. Probably had a 160 or something that got averaged in.