Top Law Schools

Hey everyone...

As my final year of undergrad continues on I have been leaning more and more towards getting work experience before attending law school. Hopefully 1.5 - 2 years. My question is: Is there any data showing throughout the top 50 schools what percent of 1Ls are K-JD vs those having post-grad work experience (and how much). I was very surprised to learn Yale's incoming class is only made up of 18% K-JD and was wondering if this was a trend throughout T1 schools. I see it more as maybe 40-60% but even that is lower than what I expected a while back, thinking the vast majority of 1Ls are in fact K-JD.

Thanks for any input

Most of my classmates were going right to law school from undergrad, seemed like and those that weren't generally only had a few years gap.

I think you should take the time to go work and see the world a bit. Learn some skills. Get a background in something.

Won't make any real difference to you for law school, but will make you a happier person, I think.

I think it's going to depend on the school. Yale tends to select for the kinds of achievements it's hard to accomplish by the end of undergrad, so to the extent that number's accurate, it isn't going to reflect all the T14 where admission is more about the numbers. There are plenty of K-JDs in law school, as well as plenty of people with work experience. Anecdotally, many people feel having work experience helps - in getting a job out of law school maybe more than getting into law school.

Here are some percentages of K-JDs in the T14. The average or median 1L age for many schools is around 24 (25 for Northwestern, which is known to favor WE). Based on these numbers, I'd guess that no more than a third of the T14 are K-JDs.

Harvard 20%
http://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmission ... and-facts/

NYU 24%
http://www.law.nyu.edu/jdadmissions/app ... assprofile

Michigan 26%
https://www.law.umich.edu/prospectivest ... stics.aspx

Columbia 31%
http://web.law.columbia.edu/admissions/ ... ss-profile

Cornell 33%
http://www.lawschool.cornell.edu/about/facts_stats.cfm

Penn 35%
https://www.law.upenn.edu/admissions/jd ... rofile.php

UVA 37%
http://www.law.virginia.edu/html/about/factsstats.htm

Chicago is probably 35-45%. Getting WE isn't a bad thing. I'd recommend it even if I didn't do it.

Thanks for the replies.

I definitely think about 2 off is going too be the move. It will also give me an opportunity to bring my LSAT up 5-10 points to break into a T20 school without packing that into December and sending out applications late this cycle.