Top Law Schools

I browsed through some of the stats on LSN and found that some number of ppl got rejected despite having a much higher LSAT/GPA than the median of the schools the applicant applied to. Why does this happen? Is it b/c of the soft factors (WE, LOR)? Is it mainly b/c of writing a poor PS? Maybe a bad interview?

If it's all about numbers (like most of us here hear about), why do those with good numbers get rejected?

Not saying it's the reason for all of them, but there's something called "yield protection". Schools are judged partly on how many of the applicants they accept actually end up attending the school. This is called "yield percentage". If a school gets an applicant with numbers that are significantly higher than the numbers for a typical attending student, they may go ahead and deny the student, assuming she's going to get accepted somewhere better and go there instead.

It's called yield protection. For US News ranking purposes, it's better for a school to reject applicants who will probably be accepted to better schools with $$, so as to lower acceptance rate and preserve matriculation rate, than to accept them and have its offer turned down.

ETA: Scooped

Edit: double post

heythatslife wrote:It's called yield protection. For US News ranking purposes, it's better for a school to reject applicants who will probably be accepted to better schools with $$, so as to lower acceptance rate and preserve matriculation rate, than to accept them and have its offer turned down.

ETA: Scooped

Does that mean that poor softs (if there is such a thing), poor PS, and poor etc are less influential than the yield protection policy for those rejections on high number applicants?

roranoa wrote:
REALLY? But what if that applicant doesn't?!

But since law school admissions is numbers-driven to a great extent, as you mentioned, even the schools can tell these candidates will be admitted to schools higher up the rung. But the applicants in question can signal to the school that they would seriously consider attending, through optional essays for example, to reduce the chance that they'd be subject to YP.

roranoa wrote:
Does that mean that poor softs (if there is such a thing), poor PS, and poor etc are less influential than the yield protection policy for those rejections on high number applicants?

I'm sure it is possible to mess up your PS and resume so badly that a school would reject you despite having a high LSAT/GPA combo, but those cases would be the exception rather than the norm for explaining the rejections at the upper end. And while good softs can be a minor boost, schools generally don't penalize applicants for the lack of them (with the notable exception of Yale and Stanford, where the competition is very strong).

Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

It might be interesting to look at LSN data from previous cycles, find a "good" candidate who was dinged by a school and then look at that candidate's profile to see where they ended up attending. If it's often the case that they were accepted (and chose to attend) a significantly higher-ranked school, that might be enlightening.

SPerez wrote: Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

Hypothetically, how bad of a C&F issue does someone have to have to be denied at TTT with a 3.5/170

Are we in the felony range or class 1-3 misdemeanor range?

Some of it is just randomness I guess. I was rejected from a school where I was right at the median GPA and 10 points above the median LSAT. Got into a lot of higher-ranked schools (HYS and CCN tiers), so maybe it was yield protect, but I was living just a few miles from the campus and wrote a pretty focused personal statement so who knows.

Also realize that troll accounts exist on lsn they're basically in the form of 2.2 143 accepted to Yale, or 178 3.97 rejected from everywhere

SPerez wrote:Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

What are some reasons other than YP why someone with high numbers be rejected?

How do law schools judge ones character? I mean of course you judge it from their PS and resume but what are some examples that would be seen as "bad" character or fitness?

Timing and poorly thought apps might play a part as well. If you are targeting the T14 and send a safety application (or one just for FA negotiation) to a lower T50, in February, without carefully proofreading your application/essays, Adcoms know what's up and might not want to waste thier time/scholarship pool.

No one wants to be someone's afterthought.

kartelite wrote:Some of it is just randomness I guess. I was rejected from a school where I was right at the median GPA and 10 points above the median LSAT. Got into a lot of higher-ranked schools (HYS and CCN tiers), so maybe it was yield protect, but I was living just a few miles from the campus and wrote a pretty focused personal statement so who knows.

Agreed. I have sat on many committees awarding scholarships, other funding, job candidates, etc. and honestly, it just comes down to luck sometimes. The people reading hundreds of applications are only human. Sometimes a committee would love a particular applicant and strongly advocate for them, and then a very similar applicant would come up for deliberation some other day and nobody was feeling it, or the people who would have strongly advocated for the applicant were late to the meeting because they were getting lunch, or we just had too many of the same kind of applicant already. With law school it is mostly about your numbers, but once you make it into review it is in the hands of regular people.

this is pretty lame as far as xylocarp call-out threads go

roranoa wrote:

SPerez wrote:Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

What are some reasons other than YP why someone with high numbers be rejected?

How do law schools judge ones character? I mean of course you judge it from their PS and resume but what are some examples that would be seen as "bad" character or fitness?

It means the person has some kind of criminal history or disciplinary history (like cheating on an exam in college). It's not some kind of subjective assessment like "this person didn't do enough volunteer activities." It means specific bad acts in the past.

If someone reminds me in about a month I will do a blog on this -- in a sort of rank order fashion.

barkschool wrote:

SPerez wrote: Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

Hypothetically, how bad of a C&F issue does someone have to have to be denied at TTT with a 3.5/170

Are we in the felony range or class 1-3 misdemeanor range?

The answer in law school is always "it depends." It could be all sorts of things, really. And it doesn't really even correlate with felony/misdemeanor categories.

There's the "Pattern" folks, i.e. multiple drug/alcohol offenses with the last one being recent. Every year we have someone who gets a DUI or pot possession charge during the spring, which most adcoms I've known REALLY don't like because it took place when the person KNEW they were applying to law schools, had already answered the C&F questions, etc. Classic "doesn't get it" behavior. Law school is stressful and can exacerbate substance abuse problems so I can see schools being very hesitant to admit someone that appears to have a problem and is not addressing it.

Then there's student safety things like sexual assault, domestic abuse, assault, etc. This could even include non-criminal offenses, i.e. discipline by a university. Schools don't want someone in their building they think might be a danger to others.

Honesty and integrity are HUGE so anything with academic dishonest, cheating, etc. will get a hard look. I've seen a revoked acceptance for this kind of thing.

Then there's just those i file under "Weirdness-General". The totality of the file can sometimes just scream odd, unstable, or someone that will generally be a pain in the ass for staff and faculty their entire time in law school. Never had one that bad, but I remember once I received a totally random 170+/3.5+ app from outside of Texas. Person had been out of school about 3 years, score was 4 years old, not really sure what the person had been doing during that time, nothing in the application or essay said anything about Why Law? let alone why Texas. The whole app came off as being a gigantic flake to me. The person could have gone to a top law school for free at any point in the previous 3 years and didn't. I saw the person never showing up or withdrawing after a month or so. In that situation, I would waitlist and see what the person does. My waitlist letters specifically encourage people to submit "Why us?" essays. If they submit then I know they're serious. Never had one like this respond. For me it's not so much YP, but more me not really wanting to waste my time.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

roranoa wrote:

SPerez wrote:Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

What are some reasons other than YP why someone with high numbers be rejected?

How do law schools judge ones character? I mean of course you judge it from their PS and resume but what are some examples that would be seen as "bad" character or fitness?

It means the person has some kind of criminal history or disciplinary history (like cheating on an exam in college). It's not some kind of subjective assessment like "this person didn't do enough volunteer activities." It means specific bad acts in the past.

But could it be something like "oh this guy barely stayed 3 months at one job for the past 3 jobs he had. He must be flaky and immature. No law school for him!"

roranoa wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

roranoa wrote:

SPerez wrote:Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

What are some reasons other than YP why someone with high numbers be rejected?

How do law schools judge ones character? I mean of course you judge it from their PS and resume but what are some examples that would be seen as "bad" character or fitness?

It means the person has some kind of criminal history or disciplinary history (like cheating on an exam in college). It's not some kind of subjective assessment like "this person didn't do enough volunteer activities." It means specific bad acts in the past.

But could it be something like "oh this guy barely stayed 3 months at one job for the past 3 jobs he had. He must be flaky and immature. No law school for him!"

No. "Character & Fitness" is a term of art in law school admissions that refers specifically to criminal and academic offenses.

Others stuff like you mentioned might be considered by some individual at any given school, but that kind of thing would not be included within the definition of "C&F" as it is used on TLS and in law school admissions.

MikeSpivey wrote:If someone reminds me in about a month I will do a blog on this -- in a sort of rank order fashion.

I'll remind you

SPerez wrote:

roranoa wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

roranoa wrote:

SPerez wrote:Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

What are some reasons other than YP why someone with high numbers be rejected?

How do law schools judge ones character? I mean of course you judge it from their PS and resume but what are some examples that would be seen as "bad" character or fitness?

It means the person has some kind of criminal history or disciplinary history (like cheating on an exam in college). It's not some kind of subjective assessment like "this person didn't do enough volunteer activities." It means specific bad acts in the past.

But could it be something like "oh this guy barely stayed 3 months at one job for the past 3 jobs he had. He must be flaky and immature. No law school for him!"

No. "Character & Fitness" is a term of art in law school admissions that refers specifically to criminal and academic offenses.

Others stuff like you mentioned might be considered by some individual at any given school, but that kind of thing would not be included within the definition of "C&F" as it is used on TLS and in law school admissions.

Thanks for the constant reply!

Then how serious do you think the example mentioned above would seem in your opinion? (for T14 schools)

SPerez wrote:Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

I am sure it is not quite as big as some on here state, but it is pretty hard* for me to ignore the fact that (despite applying everywhere in T14) HCCNP (3-7) accepted me and VMBDNCG (8-14) rejected me. And there are lots of other examples of people with similar patterns. It is hard for me to believe that the lower schools found something wrong with my application that the higher schools ignored.

SPerez wrote:

roranoa wrote:

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

roranoa wrote:

SPerez wrote:Because it's not literally "ALL" about the numbers. 80%? 90? Sure. But not 100%.

I don't think YP is as big of a thing as people on TLS make it out to be, but I also wouldn't say that it doesn't happen.

Also, don't forget about character and fitness issues.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law

What are some reasons other than YP why someone with high numbers be rejected?

How do law schools judge ones character? I mean of course you judge it from their PS and resume but what are some examples that would be seen as "bad" character or fitness?

It means the person has some kind of criminal history or disciplinary history (like cheating on an exam in college). It's not some kind of subjective assessment like "this person didn't do enough volunteer activities." It means specific bad acts in the past.

But could it be something like "oh this guy barely stayed 3 months at one job for the past 3 jobs he had. He must be flaky and immature. No law school for him!"

No. "Character & Fitness" is a term of art in law school admissions that refers specifically to criminal and academic offenses.

Others stuff like you mentioned might be considered by some individual at any given school, but that kind of thing would not be included within the definition of "C&F" as it is used on TLS and in law school admissions.

Don't you think it's kind of racist to reject people because of criminal histories?

lacrossebrother wrote:

SPerez wrote: No. "Character & Fitness" is a term of art in law school admissions that refers specifically to criminal and academic offenses.

Others stuff like you mentioned might be considered by some individual at any given school, but that kind of thing would not be included within the definition of "C&F" as it is used on TLS and in law school admissions.

Don't you think it's kind of racist to reject people because of criminal histories?

Only if you assume that the majority of law school applicants with criminal histories are of one particular race and that, of those, the majority that are denied because of their criminal histories are also of that race.

The overwhelming majority of applications who do have something to report only have a single Minor in Possession of Alcohol (or less commonly pot) or Public Intoxication charges, which are pretty much never fatal to an application.

Dean Perez
Texas Tech Law