Yale Law School Class of 2012 Forum

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mallard

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by mallard » Mon Apr 27, 2009 2:59 am

KP429 wrote:
mallard wrote:The published curve at Harvard is 37% high pass, 55% pass, 8% low pass, just to be clear.
The actual curve for the highest self-reporting 1L section turned out to be ~25 HP/45 P/25 LP/5 F. All of the other sections had, at a minimum, 15-20% of students receiving a low pass.
This was, I repeat, the published curve - it's what the administration claimed the curve would be. And all of the current students I spoke to believed it, as did the professors.

Harvard will be giving book prizes as well, tinman, I'm pretty sure.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by airefresco » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:26 am

KP429 wrote:
mallard wrote:The published curve at Harvard is 37% high pass, 55% pass, 8% low pass, just to be clear.
The actual curve for the highest self-reporting 1L section turned out to be ~25 HP/45 P/25 LP/5 F. All of the other sections had, at a minimum, 15-20% of students receiving a low pass.
Pics, or it didn't happen. 5% of the "highest self-reporting 1L section" failed?

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by mallard » Mon Apr 27, 2009 3:29 am

airefresco wrote:Pics, or it didn't happen. 5% of the "highest self-reporting 1L section" failed?
Exactly, this has got to be flame.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by kalessebo » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:06 am

heyguys wrote:
There was almost no 'hard sell...'
zabagabe wrote:
I ran into a few koolaid-sipping D-bags who thought Yale was God's gift to the Blessed.
Are you calling Dean Koh a D-bag :shock: ? In all seriousness, Koh is awesome, but at the small group lunch talk thing he gave the same "lottery ticket"/"this isn't a decision" schtick that has turned some people off over the past few years.

That's not to say that I was turned off. I actually had a fantastic time, thought the D-bags were few, and generally could see myself loving the place. Handed over my (comparatively small, by the way) deposit before I left.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by mallard » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:11 am

airefresco wrote:
KP429 wrote:
mallard wrote:The published curve at Harvard is 37% high pass, 55% pass, 8% low pass, just to be clear.
The actual curve for the highest self-reporting 1L section turned out to be ~25 HP/45 P/25 LP/5 F. All of the other sections had, at a minimum, 15-20% of students receiving a low pass.
Pics, or it didn't happen. 5% of the "highest self-reporting 1L section" failed?
Actually, moreover, is KP really suggesting that 25 is less than 15-20?

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by kalessebo » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:12 am

Severa wrote:Hey all,

I was wondering if any of the current students could tell me a little bit about what the Cambridge-Oxford apts are like. I went to the ASW but did not have the opportunity to check them out and it seems that I will probably need a place as close to campus as possible.
The other response definitely captures the prevailing opinion, and I know of at least one other admit who took a place on the sixth floor and is very happy with it, but I want to warn you against signing up for one of these without seeing the place in person. I looked at a 2BR on the first floor of the Cambridge building and came away very disappointed. It was kind of small and very very dark. I'm not sure if this is true in all of the units, but this particular one had no working light fixtures, so it was lit entirely by lamps! Something to do with the building's historic building tax abatement forcing them to leave the original (nonfunctioning) fixtures. That's just one unit, and I'm sure the others are nicer, but I wanted to give everyone the heads up.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by heyguys » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:37 am

If I could say a bit more....things that came to mind to mention after having posted my overall review:

The student body, for a bunch of dorks (ha, c'mon--we are! By dorks, I mean people who are generally very intellectually engaged with the environment) are remarkably good looking and well-adjusted. I can really only think of one person that I met about whom I was thinking "man, this guy doesn't seem very comfortable even meeting people--i.e. doesn't seem very well-adjusted socially at all." A lot of really pretty girls and physically fit/good looking guys. That's not to say that it really matters much, but it was just surprising--I didn't see the diminutive shut-ins that have for whatever reason become what Yale students have been known to be due to their academic engagement.

tinman's emphasis on no stress is true, and I think that it comes as much from grading-proper as it does from job opportunities. Like I said earlier, there was no talk about jobs during ASW--well, if there was, it was not talk about jobs available, but jobs desired. The sense really was: "You want to work at Cravath/Connoly/[insert boutique or firm]? Well, I'm not sure why you would want to do that with a Yale degree, but sure you could do that no problem." As someone interested in corporate governance issues/etc, I will say that the person I was boarding with was telling me that those only interested in corporate are looked down upon, but I think that's mostly because of the ridiculous array of opportunities Yale presents. Even with Harvard and Stanford, I was assuming that I would just graduate, hopefully clerk, and then do biglaw at least for a few years. I almost feel like I need to reevaluate my future plans now because Yale offers such a vast array of options, with all of them essentially being low hanging fruit. I think career-wise that's the major difference--Yale might offer comparable career opportunities as Harvard, but all of the opportunities at Yale feel like low hanging fruit (just by the student atmosphere), while at Harvard it seems that the top of all students can achieve things that the median at Yale would have no trouble attaining.

Disappointments: Actually, there was one aspect of the classes that disappointed me. During cold calls, the teacher in both of my classes would ask the classic "does anyone want to argue against this?" question; if no one answered, then they would cold call someone. It seemed that some got out of having to answer simply by saying 'I agree with _______ (person presenting initial analysis)' instead of constructing a counterargument. For me, part of the fun/interesting aspects of the rhetorical challenge presented by class itself is thinking beyond my own predilections and constructing arguments that I might not agree with....I was pretty surprised that the law classes didn't foment this as much as I thought they would.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by heyguys » Mon Apr 27, 2009 5:46 am

I also want to make one final comment about interaction with classmates: one of the biggest draws is how much more broadly educated the other students are than me. I know everyone tires of the [perceived-to-be] snooty "Everyone else is so smart, but not me" attitude, but that's not exactly what I'm getting at--after the ASW, I can say that I feel myself to have a sharp enough mind to keep up with the other students.

As a young guy, I can objectively say that I simply don't have the background of my classmates (I don't have any particular scholarly interests, no advanced degree, no couple of years away from school into the real world, etc). In a lot of ways, I think I will enjoy riding off the coattails of those who have spent a few years away or are finishing up a graduate degree in terms of what they can offer the class, and that's actually a pretty exciting idea for me--I know I was probably someone admitted to bolster gpa/lsat numbers (vis-a-vis the oxford graduate students and such), and I definitely plan to take full advantage of the opportunity to learn from those who are far more accomplished than I.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by Hoopster » Mon Apr 27, 2009 9:12 am

tinman, +1 that it's the students that make YLS unique and distinctive. I've made that assessment in a post yesterday and I firmly believe that. There's simply no comparison anywhere else.

You could sense how happy, relaxed and passionate the current and admitted students are to be in Yale. Unlike the other ASWs I went to (HLS and SLS), there was no doubt most, if not all, of the admits are going to attend YLS. That's probably the reason why YLS could afford to admit so few people, confident that most of them will choose to attend which has been historically justified.
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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by tinman » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:11 am

heyguys wrote:I also want to make one final comment about interaction with classmates: one of the biggest draws is how much more broadly educated the other students are than me. I know everyone tires of the [perceived-to-be] snooty "Everyone else is so smart, but not me" attitude, but that's not exactly what I'm getting at--after the ASW, I can say that I feel myself to have a sharp enough mind to keep up with the other students.

As a young guy, I can objectively say that I simply don't have the background of my classmates (I don't have any particular scholarly interests, no advanced degree, no couple of years away from school into the real world, etc). In a lot of ways, I think I will enjoy riding off the coattails of those who have spent a few years away or are finishing up a graduate degree in terms of what they can offer the class, and that's actually a pretty exciting idea for me--I know I was probably someone admitted to bolster gpa/lsat numbers (vis-a-vis the oxford graduate students and such), and I definitely plan to take full advantage of the opportunity to learn from those who are far more accomplished than I.
I think your feelings are shared by many of the younger students, and I have an anecdote to share about it. I was talking to someone right out of college. S/he (I want to respect this students privacy as such as possible, including hiding his/r gender) was saying how s/he felt so unaccomplished next to all of us older admits.
My response: "You must of done something amazing ... Did you cure cancer during one of your summers at college?"
S/he: "No, nothing like that."
Me: "What about saving a village in a third world country, it seems some of the other admits have done that?"
S/he: "No, not that either, I'm really just straight from school."
Me: "Published a great article or a book?"
S/he: "No, nothing really."
Me: "So what did you do? Get a 180 on the LSAT?"
S/he: Yes

S/he wasn't kidding either. :D
(To put the conversation in context, we were at one of the many parties during the ASW and I was definitely joking and teasing him/r ... I just think it's hilarious that s/he was not, and I wanted to share to the TLS group[/i]).

I think Yale is the only place where a student with a GPA and an LSAT score well above the lofty 75 percentile scores risks feeling intimidated by his/r peers. The accomplishments of everyone at Yale also humble those of us with life experience. I mean, if you have a grad degree from a place like Oxford and the person to your right in class is a published scientist while the person to your left started a non-profit before law school, who should be intimidated?

Personally, I am intimidated by those students whose brains are still young and sharp.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by littleboyblue » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:18 am

i have to admit - all this talk about how accomplished the students are is making me a little nervous!

so - have you all sent in your deposit yet? i guess i need to go do that...

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by tinman » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:27 am

littleboyblue wrote:i have to admit - all this talk about how accomplished the students are is making me a little nervous!

so - have you all sent in your deposit yet? i guess i need to go do that...
ops ... I'll stop then :) But consider the students that have started non-profit organizations before law school. Sure, that's an amazing thing. But does that mean they will break the curve in their 1L civil procedure section? Doubtful. And even if they could, there is no curve to break! That's the beauty of Yale. You can simply enjoy learning from them. And it's unlikely that they will be gunning for the top firm job coming out of YLS (so there is less competition for jobs like that, it seems). And if you want to do non-profit work, I am sure they will need help! Perhaps the only place where competition is heightened is if you are both competing for the same clerkships. That's possible. But conventional wisdom is that Yale is not a bad place to go if you want to clerk, from what I have heard :)

I think you should not be intimidated. And I think anyone going to YLS benefits from the high density of superstars.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by KP429 » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:32 am

mallard wrote:
airefresco wrote:
KP429 wrote:
mallard wrote:The published curve at Harvard is 37% high pass, 55% pass, 8% low pass, just to be clear.
The actual curve for the highest self-reporting 1L section turned out to be ~25 HP/45 P/25 LP/5 F. All of the other sections had, at a minimum, 15-20% of students receiving a low pass.
Pics, or it didn't happen. 5% of the "highest self-reporting 1L section" failed?
Actually, moreover, is KP really suggesting that 25 is less than 15-20?
Not a flame. The numbers were taken from a survey passed around by a 1L at --LinkRemoved--

The numbers were supposedly high for "fails" in that 1 section because there was a "mishap during one final" which gave people the option of credit/no credit. I don't know where you're getting that I'm suggesting 25 is less than 15-20, but whatev. I was just pointing out that in every reporting section (and there are problems with self-reporting, obviously) the numbers were about 40/40/20 H/P/LP. In the section with basically full participation, it looked more like 25/45/25/5. I honestly don't care if you believe me or not, so make of it what you'd like.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by heyguys » Mon Apr 27, 2009 10:58 am

Logistical question: I filled out all my financial aid forms, and denoted the agency through which I want to get my loans. I understand the deadline is May 4th--do we also have to have applied to the credit agency in question before May 4th? Maybe rabbit or sandpiper can help out on this issue, if they remember how they did it....or maybe this is a simple issue that everyone but me knows, which certainly might be the case :P

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by 1004LSAT » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:08 am

This conversation/argument about grades is ridiculous. If you don't think your'e able to do well at a school where you have to study to succeed, go to yls. However, for such accomplished people, I'm surprised at how much emphasis you're putting on the no-grade grading system.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by dueprocess14 » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:45 am

1004LSAT wrote:This conversation/argument about grades is ridiculous. If you don't think your'e able to do well at a school where you have to study things you don't want to have to study to succeed, go to yls. However, for such accomplished people, I'm surprised at how much emphasis you're putting on the no-grade grading system.
There, fixed. I don't think anyone thinks you can coast through Yale doing nothing for 3 years and then be wildly successful. Yale is lucky it gets people so hard-wired to be accomplishment-oriented they do it even in the face of no grade incentives for most of it. I, at least, find this appealing more because of how it affects the student culture and encourages self-directed projects than because I am fearful of grades (though I did meet one or two people who straight-up told me they chose YLS over HLS in part because they were afraid of grades).

If I don't end up choosing YLS, I won't be crying about having grades. ;)

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by tinman » Mon Apr 27, 2009 11:51 am

1004LSAT wrote:This conversation/argument about grades is ridiculous. If you don't think your'e able to do well at a school where you have to study to succeed, go to yls. However, for such accomplished people, I'm surprised at how much emphasis you're putting on the no-grade grading system.
So, I can't speak for everyone (and Zabagabe has spoken for himself). But I am excited about YLS's grading system not because I am afraid of failing at a place like SLS ... but rather because I am afraid of succeeding. I think the lack of grades (that is, no honors) the first semester creates a culture unique to Yale. By nature, I enjoy nothing so much as helping people and teaching. If fact, I spent the morning answering emails from students in my class. When I worked as a section instructor during graduate school (as part of a larger class with many other section instructors), I put so much time into teaching that my whole section consistently scored a standard deviation above the class mean. If I were a student in such a class, I would definitely help and study with my friends, but it's unlikely I would be overly generous with helping strangers in the class whose high scores could lead to myself getting a lower great. Any class that has a curve, no matter how generous the curve, naturally creates competition. Yale's first semester has no curve whatsoever. The same cannot be said about any other top school. And after that first semester, there are not required courses, so students can go off to develop their singular talents and interests and earn Hs because they love the material, not because they are gunning for Hs.

Those of us here got into HYS based largely on our GPAs. There is no way around that, even if we saved a village in a third world country, we probably would have been rejected if we had a 3.3 GPA. That's just how it works, especially because Yale can take the guy who saved a village and who has a 3.9. Give us the carrot of a book prize, and I am sure many of us will be gunning for it (I know I would). Remove the carrot, and we realize it's much more important to develop as individual scholars and humanists. Human nature is human nature, even more so than Yale is Yale or Harvard is Harvard :) but we can choose to organize our lives and our institutions so it encourages those aspects of human nature that we most value.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by mallard » Mon Apr 27, 2009 12:50 pm

KP429 wrote:Not a flame. The numbers were taken from a survey passed around by a 1L at --LinkRemoved--

The numbers were supposedly high for "fails" in that 1 section because there was a "mishap during one final" which gave people the option of credit/no credit. I don't know where you're getting that I'm suggesting 25 is less than 15-20, but whatev. I was just pointing out that in every reporting section (and there are problems with self-reporting, obviously) the numbers were about 40/40/20 H/P/LP. In the section with basically full participation, it looked more like 25/45/25/5. I honestly don't care if you believe me or not, so make of it what you'd like.
We misunderstood when you said "highest" in "highest self-reporting" not to mean "highest proportion of students reporting" but "highest-achieving section of those that self-reported." It is, of course, possible that there were more LPs than the administration claimed, but again, none of the current students I spoke to had any doubt as to the veracity of the published stats.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by iagolives » Mon Apr 27, 2009 1:40 pm

tinman wrote:Those of us here got into HYS based largely on our GPAs. There is no way around that, even if we saved a village in a third world country, we probably would have been rejected if we had a 3.3 GPA. That's just how it works, especially because Yale can take the guy who saved a village and who has a 3.9.
I'm sorry to interject myself into this rather serious conversation (and to keep posting on a board which I don't really belong in), but I just had to say that this line literally made me laugh out loud. I am sitting in my living room and my housemate gave me a rather quizzical look when I did it too. (However, he's used to my eccentricites, so I doubt it surprised him much.) :)

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by bgc » Mon Apr 27, 2009 8:40 pm

Has anyone gotten a loan from CHESLA? They have a much lower fixed interest rate than GradPlus.


http://www.chesla.org/index.php

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by arrrrrr! » Tue Apr 28, 2009 12:50 am

yeah but look at the reserve fee. it's huge. (note; not really sure what a reserve fee is, but i know it's bad)

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by bgc » Tue Apr 28, 2009 1:51 am

arrrrrr! wrote:yeah but look at the reserve fee. it's huge. (note; not really sure what a reserve fee is, but i know it's bad)
It is bad, but it's the same as the origination fee on a gradplus loan, which this would replace.

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by constellationx » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:15 pm

I am curious about the CHESLA loan too. Rabbit and/or sandpiper, do you know anyone who has borrowed through CHESLA? Anyone else have any insight?

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by arrrrrr! » Tue Apr 28, 2009 6:37 pm

heyguys wrote:Logistical question: I filled out all my financial aid forms, and denoted the agency through which I want to get my loans. I understand the deadline is May 4th--do we also have to have applied to the credit agency in question before May 4th? Maybe rabbit or sandpiper can help out on this issue, if they remember how they did it....or maybe this is a simple issue that everyone but me knows, which certainly might be the case :P
same question. anyone?

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Re: Yale Law School Class of 2012

Post by rabbit9198 » Tue Apr 28, 2009 7:06 pm

arrrrrr! wrote:
heyguys wrote:Logistical question: I filled out all my financial aid forms, and denoted the agency through which I want to get my loans. I understand the deadline is May 4th--do we also have to have applied to the credit agency in question before May 4th? Maybe rabbit or sandpiper can help out on this issue, if they remember how they did it....or maybe this is a simple issue that everyone but me knows, which certainly might be the case :P
same question. anyone?
I don't think it's a hard deadline. In fact, I TOTALLY violated both the "denote" and the "actually apply" interpretations of the deadline last year (and know MANY other people who did the same) and everyone was fine. That said, don't follow my example and blame me if something goes wrong. :) I think the general idea is just to do things sooner rather than later, so that you don't have problems getting the loans certified/set up. Don't wait till July, but if you need a week or two to get everything in order and do your due diligence, don't worry about it - just keep the Fin Aid office informed if you need a lot of extra time. [Those of you coming to YLS in the fall will soon learn that deadlines are only rarely actual deadlines...more like suggestions.]
constellationx wrote:I am curious about the CHESLA loan too. Rabbit and/or sandpiper, do you know anyone who has borrowed through CHESLA? Anyone else have any insight?
I hadn't actually heard of CHESLA until now. To me, it seems kind of interesting as an option, but I'm no expert. I'd suggest asking the financial aid office about it, if you have questions.

All that said, there unfortunately was a really serious tragedy affecting Pat Barnes this week, and I know a few admitted students have gotten the "she's out of the office indefinitely because of a personal emergency" answer when calling to ask questions. Obviously, the timing's not ideal, but I promise she's not avoiding you if you can't get an answer just-this-minute! I imagine this will also mean they'll be happy to grant you some flexibility regarding any "deadlines."

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