Law schools whose rankings do not reflect their admission Forum

[khaleesiqueen1]

Hey TLS,

I was looking at the law school rankings and their admission standards and I was wondering;

What law schools are harder to get into than their rankings might suggest? Also, what law schools are easier to get into than their rankings might suggest?

I feel like USC at #20 is an example of a law school that is harder than its ranking may suggest. Any schools in the t14? t20? t50?

[CanadianWolf]

Not in the top 50, but Georgia State University in Atlanta has a low admission rate (about 28%) due to its location & very low tuition cost (under $17,000 per year in-state) plus strong job placement. Another poster shared that the law school has a new building.

[hearsay77]

I'd disagree with that statement about USC. Its just as hard as its ranking would suggest, IMO.

[khaleesiqueen1]

Well, USC is harder to get into than schools ranked higher than itself: Minnesota, Emory and WUSTL; which IMO means its ranking does not reflect its admission difficulty relative to its position to other law schools.

In addition, for instance, if we look at UCLA's and GULC's (full-time) last class profile:

...................UCLA.........GULC
25th GPA.......3.56..........3.51
50th GPA.......3.79..........3.76
75th GPA.......3.90......... 3.84

25th LSAT......163..........163
50th LSAT......167 .........167
75th LSAT......169..........168

All of UCLA's numbers are higher than GULC, which should indicate that UCLA is generally harder to get into than GULC, although GULC is ranked two spots higher.

Thoughts?

[PeanutsNJam]

UCLA and USC are anomalies, because everybody wants to be a sports agent or entertainment lawyer, increasing their demand. Their rank and employment prospects are lower though, because the few sports agent, entertainment law, prestigious transaction/lit, and clerking jobs go to the SLS and Boalt grads, while UCLA and USC grads duel over the left over scraps.

In contrast, the east coast just has more lawyer jobs available. GULC can put grads in DC, NYC, Chicago, and the various secondary markets in that area. For the most part, medians correlate with rankings just fine (they're an integral part of the forumla).

[zhenders]

It's a fallacy to think that the rankings are supposed to perfectly mirror acceptance rates/acceptance numbers. Putting aside the fact that these schools are both regional and serve significantly different markets, these schools are only two places away from each other in the USNWR rankings, and their acceptance differences don't even come close to being statistically significant. The difference between these two schools is less than the deviation we might see between any two years of any one of those.

If you're talking outside the T14 especially, you're going to see sugnificant differences in admissions stats vs. rank, because market served comes into play much more than in the T14 (Edit: scooped by PNJ), which people apply to from everywhere.

What is the particular purpose of your question, mate? Outside of the T14, all strong advice says that going to a school outside the area you intend to practice isn't wisdom -- so I'm curious what your thought process is here. Put another way, if you're choosing between Minnesota and USC, ranking should not be the big question anymore.

[FirmBiz]

George mason comes to mind

[FloridaCoastalorbust]

compared to its rank, uva is easy to get into. so is GULC. and cornell.

[jbagelboy]

Usnwr rank doesnt mean anything except what the numbers they plug in says it means

This is a backwards question. Student "quality" data is already overvalued in the survey

[Moneytrees]

USC, in terms of admissions rigor, is underrated. It's almost as hard to get into as a T14. Which basically means that USC isn't a great option for most people, since if you have USC stats you should be gunning for T14.

Similar situation with UCLA/Vandy. T14 standards of admission despite the much lower job outcome quality.