Transfer Question Forum

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

I was looking through ABA reports for different schools and was interested in looking at which law schools transfer students attended prior to attending their new schools. I was curious: are some schools sort of like "feeder" schools for transfers to higher-ranked schools?

For example: HLS's ABA says that 3 people transferred in from BC but 1 person transferred from BU. Is that a selection bias or does HLS take more people from BC than BU? Or are more people from BC simply applying to HLS more than BU students?

Same goes for Berkeley: 19 Students from Hastings but only 5 from Davis (although Davis is a higher ranked school). Should people go to Hastings over Davis if they were attempting to transfer into Berkeley? Even though its lower ranked than Davis?

[cavalier1138]

No one should go anywhere with a plan of transferring.

What you're likely seeing, however, is student dissatisfaction manifesting in a transfer. A student who has the stats to transfer from BU to Harvard is in the part of the class at BU that will likely get them the same outcome they would want from Harvard (and they're likely paying less for it). In general, this is all selection bias and has nothing to do with one school preferring transfers from another school. Obviously, being top of your class at Fordham gives you a better chance at transferring than being top of your class at Florida Coastal, but that has nothing to do with direct bias.

Anyway, this is all moot. You should never, ever, ever, ever consider transfer possibilities when picking a law school.

[Thomas Hagan, ESQ.]

No one should go anywhere with a plan of transferring.

What you're likely seeing, however, is student dissatisfaction manifesting in a transfer. A student who has the stats to transfer from BU to Harvard is in the part of the class at BU that will likely get them the same outcome they would want from Harvard (and they're likely paying less for it). In general, this is all selection bias and has nothing to do with one school preferring transfers from another school. Obviously, being top of your class at Fordham gives you a better chance at transferring than being top of your class at Florida Coastal, but that has nothing to do with direct bias.

Anyway, this is all moot. You should never, ever, ever, ever consider transfer possibilities when picking a law school.

Thanks for the input! Don't worry, I'm not planning on transferring but was just curious why certain schools had like 19 transfers to a particular school

[mjb447]

No one should go anywhere with a plan of transferring.

. . .

Anyway, this is all moot. You should never, ever, ever, ever consider transfer possibilities when picking a law school.

Agreed. There also probably isn't enough data to say much definitively about the question you're posing, although I agree that the answer is something other than "HLS prefers transfers from X school."