Does undergrad really not matter? Forum

[dontrogerthat]

Yes, I've read threads that say that only undergrad institutions that could help you are schools like Harvard, Princeton, Stanford, MIT, etc.

However, does going to a Top 50ish school like Syracuse or Boston University really look exactly the same as if you went to a school like Shippensburg.

So basically a 3.5 from Shippensburg and a 3.5 from Boston University is exactly the same in admissions committee's eyes? Thanks!

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes. Is there some magical difference between BU and Shippensburg I'm missing?

[dontrogerthat]

Yes. Is there some magical difference between BU and Shippensburg I'm missing?

Well one is a very well respected school and the other is a state school for kids who couldn't get into Temple/Penn state/Pitt.

[hearsay77]

Really doesn't matter. The only way I can see it mattering even a tiny bit is on the grade report the LSAC sends schools you apply to, it tells them your GPA compared to the average GPA at your school.

[CanadianWolf]

Adcomms know the relative quality of undergraduate schools, but USNews only considers matriculated students' LSDAS calculated GPA in their rating & rankings methodology. Law school deans may lose their position if their law school's USNews ranking plummets. Also, many view the LSAT as an equalizer.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Yes. Is there some magical difference between BU and Shippensburg I'm missing?

Well one is a very well respected school and the other is a state school for kids who couldn't get into Temple/Penn state/Pitt.

There are a lot of people who won't know that/won't care. Besides, someone with a good GPA out of Shippensburg has the ability to get a good GPA anywhere.

[dontrogerthat]

Yes. Is there some magical difference between BU and Shippensburg I'm missing?

Well one is a very well respected school and the other is a state school for kids who couldn't get into Temple/Penn state/Pitt.

There are a lot of people who won't know that/won't care. Besides, someone with a good GPA out of Shippensburg has the ability to get a good GPA anywhere.

I'm not talking about a lot of people, i'm talking about adcoms which i'm sure will know. Nonetheless thanks for the input!

[A. Nony Mouse]

All I mean is that I think you're overestimating how much adcoms care about rankings once you get out of the top elite group - there are lots of reasons why incredibly capable people would go to Shippensburg over BU.

[Gucci Mane]

Is there even any evidence that going to a Harvard or a Stanford for undergrad is beneficial for law school admissions?

[CanadianWolf]

Does the LSDAS still calculate mean LSAT scores by undergraduate school ?

Regarding whether or not one's undergraduate institution helps or hurts in the admissions process probably depends upon the source. Anna Ivey of Ivey Consulting (she was the former law school admissions dean for UChicago law school) offers a bit of a convoluted response that concludes with the reminder that all or most law school admissions deans are mindful of USNews' evaluation of GPAs of matriculated students which does not account for one's undergraduate institution. Her argument, however, suggests that attending a top private undergraduate school can hurt due to grade inflation.

[CanadianWolf]

In one aspect, it can be said that attending Harvard or Stanford helps in law school admissions because the mean LSAT score for those schools is high. LSDAS 2008 calculations showed that Harvard undergrads achieved the highest mean LSAT score (166), trailed closely by Yale, Princeton & Pomona (165), followed by Amherst, Williams & Stanford (164).

[03152016]

only the very best and brightest attend bu

i mourn for those poor suckers who attended shippensburg, marked with that scarlet letter

[future!jd12]

.

[hdunlop]

I credit myself for getting into HS and blame my T135 liberal arts UG for no Y. Jokes.

There's a ton of top UGs represented in top law schools because these are the same very smart, driven, well-connected people. Correlation != causation

I'm sure undergrad matters as a tiebreaker or something but I also think a shit UG can actually work in your favor if you're otherwise interesting because they like to list random dumps like mine on those pages of "look at all the places we accept kids from"

[JonTheMandamus]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

[BigZuck]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

Why would adcoms care how well a student will do in law school? Outside of being able to pass the bar, I can't imagine they would care at all.

It's all curved. The same percentage of people will be top 10% no matter how smart or dumb they are comparatively.

[haus]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

What you need to consider, is that there are only a small handful of law schools that have an applicant pool large/deep enough for them to care much beyond the numbers they are trying to game for rankings.

They need only report the GPA, for ranking (which is all that most schools care about) a 3.8 from the Rocky BoBo school of typewriter maintenance looks exactly the same as a 3.8 from Harvard.

You might get a infentesiable bump if you come from a well respected school which the law school has not yet accepted someone from for that given class so they can add it to their brag page, but if you want to go to a top school, they will already have several applicants from most of the big name schools.

[03152016]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

this is sensible
that's not how it works in real life tho

[03152016]

lots of data points on lawschoolnumbers if you don't believe me

[JonTheMandamus]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

Why would adcoms care how well a student will do in law school? Outside of being able to pass the bar, I can't imagine they would care at all.

It's all curved. The same percentage of people will be top 10% no matter how smart or dumb they are comparatively.

I guess what I meant by success was basically making it through the law school's program and not dropping out somewhere.

[Hikikomorist]

In one aspect, it can be said that attending Harvard or Stanford helps in law school admissions because the mean LSAT score for those schools is high. LSDAS 2008 calculations showed that Harvard undergrads achieved the highest mean LSAT score (166), trailed closely by Yale, Princeton & Pomona (165), followed by Amherst, Williams & Stanford (164).

Are you suggesting that the education provided at those schools had a lot to do with the higher average scores? I would think a far more reasonable interpretation is that those schools attract high scorers on the SAT, who then tend to be high scorers on the LSAT. I'm incredibly skeptical that the UG one attends actually does anything at all for one's LSAT performance.

[BigZuck]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

Why would adcoms care how well a student will do in law school? Outside of being able to pass the bar, I can't imagine they would care at all.

It's all curved. The same percentage of people will be top 10% no matter how smart or dumb they are comparatively.

I guess what I meant by success was basically making it through the law school's program and not dropping out somewhere.

At any worthwhile law school it's pretty tough to get even a C range grade. Failing out is next to impossible.

[JonTheMandamus]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

What you need to consider, is that there are only a small handful of law schools that have an applicant pool large/deep enough for them to care much beyond the numbers they are trying to game for rankings.

They need only report the GPA, for ranking (which is all that most schools care about) a 3.8 from the Rocky BoBo school of typewriter maintenance looks exactly the same as a 3.8 from Harvard.

You might get a infentesiable bump if you come from a well respected school which the law school has not yet accepted someone from for that given class so they can add it to their brag page, but if you want to go to a top school, they will already have several applicants from most of the big name schools.

You make a very good point. Maybe I'm being a bit optimistic about adcomms wanting to diversify their classrooms with quality students. Either way I'd be down for brewskies with Rocky BoBo.

[JonTheMandamus]

I don't think a blanket statement can answer your question, but I think undergraduate matters to a degree. Adcomms can look at what school you went to and what major you have, and look at their previous alumni who had similar stats as you to make a decision about whether or not you would be a good fit/whether you could likely succeed. Every undergraduate institution is unique. There are top 50 undergraduate programs that inflate grades. There are others that don't. Some schools are more reputable for networking and others for their rigorous academic curriculum. What matters most is not how your school compares to another school. What matters is how you compare to your peers at the same institution from previous years. You shouldn't underestimate how much data adcomms have collected over the years, and how useful that can be for them to figure out where to place applicants.

Example: Person A has a 3.5 from johndoe school. Previous students from johndoe school with 3.5 gpa did poorly at law school X. Person B has a 3.1 from a T20 undergraduate school and is in a major where students typically struggle to maintain a high gpa. Previous students from this school became highly successful at law school X. Adcomms will take student B. It isn't the prestige of a T20 undergraduate that causes them to take student B. It's that this school has a track record of giving them excellent students, who prove they can do well even if they have a low gpa.

That's my two cents. I'm just a 0L chipping in.

Why would adcoms care how well a student will do in law school? Outside of being able to pass the bar, I can't imagine they would care at all.

It's all curved. The same percentage of people will be top 10% no matter how smart or dumb they are comparatively.

I guess what I meant by success was basically making it through the law school's program and not dropping out somewhere.

At any worthwhile law school it's pretty tough to get even a C range grade. Failing out is next to impossible.

Damn. Well I took a shot at it. Y'all make a good point.

[CanadianWolf]

@Hikkomorist: No. There are several factors which contribute. You've pointed out one. I was just trying to answer a question posed above.