KissMyAxe wrote:LurkerTurnedMember wrote:KissMyAxe wrote:
This is stupid... Unless YLS and HLS have completely different makeups of class (and spoiler alert, they don't, although admittedly YLS students are smarter, harder working, funnier, nicer, and better looking than their HLS counterparts), then this is absolutely ridiculous. Yes, there are some obscenely wealthy students there. And I would be willing to bet my family would be in the bottom 5% of socioeconomic status for my class, but the vast majority of top law students are middle class people who just happen to be extremely bright, and the First Generation Professionals is a relatively large club at those schools. To say virtually every student is well-off, and that schools actively discriminate against poor students, is one of the most idiotic things I've read on TLS, and I've read most of GDane's messages.
I agree with everything you said about Yale when compared to Harvard

. But I disagree with the rest. What do you call giving weight to someone who did white collar work but barely any or none to someone who did blue collar work before applying to law school? What do you call putting so much emphasis on the LSAT, which doesn't have a high correlation with success in or after law school but has a nice correlation with wealth (just access to the materials and an LSAT program can make you go from 150s to a 170)? What do you call preference for applicants who graduated from higher ranked undergraduate schools, which themselves tend to cater to more wealthy students (especially cause working-class students tend to go to state or local schools even if they qualify for national schools)? What do you call "please identify a close relative that went to" this school? Come on now. Every tiny bit of the admission process is basically a proxy for, "So, you got the money?" And in the same breath they say they're all about diversity, inclusion, and equal opportunity.
That's like if I were looking to hire a CEO and said "I'm an equal opportunity employer who finds the following characteristics important: (1) lifting heavy weights at the gym, (2) hunting, shooting guns for fun, and drinking beer with the boys, and (3) ability to grow a beard." But nooooo I definitely wouldn't actively discriminate against women. Nope. Not at all. It's just that those characteristics happen to historically correlate to success as a CEO. I mean, look at how many successful CEOs before could biological grow a beard so obviously there's something there hahah
My favorite is when they say, "Golly gee wiz. There just aren't any qualified working-class applicants to take. None of them went to Exeter and then Harvard before applying here." hahahahahah
At least we agree on what's important.
But let me reject the rest of your message. Fun fact. I had a blue color working background with literally 0 white collar work when I applied. I worked full-time to put myself through college in that job, and I was the first person in my family to graduate college (only the fourth in my extended family of 40+ individuals to graduate high school). Obviously, I didn't interview with YLS so I don't know their thoughts on me, maybe I was a charity case. However, I did interview with pretty much every other school except Stanford, either for scholarships or admissions. In my interviews with Columbia and Chicago, I could tell they found my background fascinating, and I got the strong impression that they were actively seeking students from these kinds of backgrounds. In Harvard's interview, my interviewer noted approvingly my work experience, commenting that she'd never seen someone with that kind of background, although to your credit, she was rude to me about my undergrad. But again, they let me in, and it was pretty obvious from my application that I'd be receiving close to the maximum need-based scholarship. Many of my friends there were also going to need grants, and their numbers were much more borderline, and yet they too were accepted. There is no evidence to support your statement that they are not need-blind and are actively discriminating against poor students, and a ton of evidence to the contrary.
I'm not going to give you a statistics lesson, but I think you will find that some studies have found the LSAT to have a statistically high correlation with first year grades, which would count as law school success. Of course, one's LSAT score by no means defines an individual, and so they can still excel despite that, but statistically, you're wrong.
But more important is your claim that the LSAT is intrinsically tied to wealth. You're confusing correlation with causation, but more importantly, ignoring the real correlation here. There is a correlation between elite schools and LSAT score. Most Ivy League students have parents that are smart, hardworking (many of the parents are immigrants), and push their children extremely hard to succeed in school. There's a rational explanation to the Ivy League's high performance on the LSAT outside of "muh privilege", many are genetically very intelligent, hard working, and then have great educational backgrounds because of their parents to teach them how to think analytically. State school students meanwhile, often come from families with little to no motivation to focus on academics (as I did), and so often put it on the backburner, and so end up not developing the necessary analytical abilities the LSAT tests for. The LSAT does not reward wealth. I didn't spend a dime on my prep (borrowed some old books from a friend) and did well. It rewards logical ability, something that is just more prevalent at the elite schools. Schools are not saying "this guy is rich, let's let him in but this girl can't pay, fuck her." They're saying, "this person has a 3.9 GPA and a top 1% LSAT score and their recommender, a famous Harvard professor, is saying they're the smartest person they've ever seen." There is a correlation between attending an elite undergrad and attending an elite law school, but the cause is that those people are just smart and hardworking, not that the schools hate and reject poor people.
Again, you're just plain wrong about schools discriminating against poor students and the top law schools having nothing but rich kids. However, I would genuinely love to know your alternative to admissions. The LSAT and GPA combined have a very high correlation to 1st year grades. However, even though we're in a very cerebral profession, because students who are inherently smart and also have strong educational foundations tend to do better on tests and maintain higher GPAs, should we throw out both of those? Because an Ivy league background does not show us a long history of Academic excellence from a student, but instead just says they're from a rich, privileged family, should we just reject all of them and accept only state and local school grads? Seriously, since apparently law admissions is hopelessly corrupt, and every single law student is extremely rich (I wish I could find my millions), what should we do?
Edit: I now see that you answered someone else with your alternative, albeit an insanely silly one. I would say I fit your latter example pretty well, but if I had made a 165, I would not have deserved to be chosen over another applicant with a 175. That is too statistically great a difference. Sure, socioeconomic diversity should be considered, but not to such a degree that it prejudices children of well-to-do parents, who no more chose their parents than anyone else. Where do we draw the line? In your example, the child of the judge/lawyer, probably went to a great school, excelled there, and then made a 175, which is about as good as anyone can hope. They literally did everything they could with the tools given to them. But you would reject them because of who their parents are. I'm pretty sure that's the definition of classist. I also find the idea that I need to be judged by different criteria because I grew up poor extremely offensive, like you need to take care of the little poor person.
Also, the fact that you asked cavalier if he had internet access as an example of his privilege shows that you are some upper-middle class kid who wants to lecture us on privilege. When I was growing up, sure, the internet was brand new so I didn't have it. But in todays world, the vast, vast majority of people have internet access. Even in my hometown, where more than 60% of people live below the poverty line, virtually everyone has internet access (everyone if you include the library computers). The more you know.