Top Law Schools

I understand the rankings and the tier system. However, I've strolled through some of the stats of schools in T3/T4. Some of the admission statistics of T4 schools are higher, the same, or just barely underneath (by one point on LSAT, and <.1 on GPA) the admission stats of T3s. Some of the bar passage rates are higher at T4s than T3s. Do admissions coordinators take note of this? I know rankings matter, but aren't the admissions people trying to measure your level of success based on the people that attended your school.

Take the John Marshall Law School Chicago for instance, they had 6 transfer enrolled into GULC last year. 3rd most and just underneath AmericanU and George Mason. On paper they're a T4, however, their admission stats are the same if not better, than many of the T3s (Instead of using the US World News reported stats I went to each schools and looked at their posted stats).

So do committees only care about T3/T4 rankings or do they actually look at admissions stats?

I was under the impression that rankings don't matter for transfer applications - it doesn't count one way or another on the transferee school's NALP reporting, right? I think they're just looking for another wallet to get cash from - probably not super picky on arbitrary things like T3/T4 rank distinctions that literally no one cares about.

zacharus85 wrote:I was under the impression that rankings don't matter for transfer applications - it doesn't count one way or another on the transferee school's NALP reporting, right? I think they're just looking for another wallet to get cash from - probably not super picky on arbitrary things like T3/T4 rank distinctions that literally no one cares about.

I would agree. Once you get below the "Tier-1" schools, so long as you're not at one of the more notorious dumpster fires (Cooley, any of the InfiniLaw schools, etc.) I would imagine the distinction is largely irrelevant.

zacharus85 wrote:I was under the impression that rankings don't matter for transfer applications - it doesn't count one way or another on the transferee school's NALP reporting, right? I think they're just looking for another wallet to get cash from - probably not super picky on arbitrary things like T3/T4 rank distinctions that literally no one cares about.

Rankings matter a lot for transfer applications actually, but yea I can't imagine it mattering as much on the lower end.