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As a former transfer student to H/Y/S, I want to address this statement on HLS's website: "Many successful transfer candidates . . . would have also been admitted or wait-listed as first-year students on the basis of their pre-law-school credentials." I see discussions about this pop up every year and want to address this from my personal experience.

For the most part, based on what I have gathered from other transfer students at these schools, this is not true at all of H/Y/S. My peers and I have had LSATs and GPAs that were at the median or lower, and little work experience in between.

Just want to put this out there for those of you who, like me before I transferred, are anxious about how your undergraduate performance might factor in. If you turn out a solid performance 1L year, you have just a good a shot as the phi beta kappas.

If others have similar stories to share, feel free to post them. I hope this can be an encouraging thread for those of you who are thinking about transferring. The last thing you need is one more thing to worry about.

Median is still pretty competitive. Heck, even a 25th percentile can be overshadowed with good 1L grades. I highly doubt they'd take someone with a 3.0 GPA and scored in the mid 150s. Can I ask what school range you transferred from, and what the lowest range of schools the people you know were from? There are only two recorded instances of people ever getting into an HYS school from below tier 2, just wanted to know if that was true or not.

I transferred from a T30. From collective knowledge (my transfer friends at H/Y/S), H takes from Tier 2 schools and below, whereas Y/S rarely do, making it all the more misleading that HLS would post that statement on their website. Most of the transfers at Y/S are from T14s but there are a couple from the T20-30 range.

I'll just add the qualifier that this advice is most relevant to 1Ls at a T2 or above school (and especially to those at T30+ who didn't quite have the GPA/LSAT combo for a T14).

trooper492 wrote:I transferred from a T30. From collective knowledge (my transfer friends at H/Y/S), H takes from Tier 2 schools and below, whereas Y/S rarely do, making it all the more misleading that HLS would post that statement on their website. Most of the transfers at Y/S are from T14s but there are a couple from the T20-30 range.

this isn't true. i don't want to out everyone or the exact schools my fellow SLS transfers went to, but this is the breakdown of ranges:

2 T6
3 MVPB
1 DCNG
3 t20
3 t35
2 t50
1 T2

6/15 went to T14s. from the people i've met this is roughly consistent with previous years, though it does seem that yield was higher than expected this year (or they decided to take more transfers - i haven't heard a definitive answer).

seems like Y is the only one out of HYS that rarely dips below T30 and has the smallest transfer class.

trooper492 wrote:I'll just add the qualifier that this advice is most relevant to 1Ls at a T2 or above school (and especially to those at T30+ who didn't quite have the GPA/LSAT combo for a T14).

What if you're in the T14 but were a splitter...does anyone know/have any anecdotes about these cases? Specifically low gpa/high lsat?

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juzam_djinn wrote:

trooper492 wrote:I'll just add the qualifier that this advice is most relevant to 1Ls at a T2 or above school (and especially to those at T30+ who didn't quite have the GPA/LSAT combo for a T14).

What if you're in the T14 but were a splitter...does anyone know/have any anecdotes about these cases? Specifically low gpa/high lsat?

There is at least one T14 splitter who transferred to H.

vanwinkle wrote:

juzam_djinn wrote:

trooper492 wrote:I'll just add the qualifier that this advice is most relevant to 1Ls at a T2 or above school (and especially to those at T30+ who didn't quite have the GPA/LSAT combo for a T14).

What if you're in the T14 but were a splitter...does anyone know/have any anecdotes about these cases? Specifically low gpa/high lsat?

There is at least one T14 splitter who transferred to H.

awesome, now I know it's possible =)

So, I know UGPA and LSAT don't really matter, but how bad can they be before they do actually hurt you? I'm currently top ~10% at a TT, but my UGPA was like a 2.1; I'm doing EA to GULC and GW, will that really not matter?