Top Law Schools

i'm curious about this....if your LSAT was median for your school, how close to the median are you GPA-wise? i'm particularly curious about CLS specifically but also top schools in general.

i'm going to CLS next year with a sub-median LSAT but a top 5% GPA from HYP.

LSAT and GPA correlate very, very weakly to first year performance.

I know people from every area of the LSAT/GPA spectrum who wound up in every area of the law school spectrum.

The person I know with the highest law school grades was a girl who had a 25th percentile LSAT score. I know somebody with a full ride due to being above both 75th percentiles who took 1L exams in the teeth despite trying hard.

Don't worry about your entry credentials, don't worry about the entry credentials of your peers.

well that is good to hear. i mentioned somewhere else that i expect to be in the top half of my class despite my LSAT, and people were telling me i was naive, etc....of course, they were all 0Ls

somewhatwayward wrote:i'm curious about this....if your LSAT was median for your school, how close to the median are you GPA-wise? i'm particularly curious about CLS specifically but also top schools in general.

i'm going to CLS next year with a sub-median LSAT but a top 5% GPA from HYP.

My LSAT score fell into the 25th percentile of my school and my UG GPA was over the 75th percentile (though I did not go to HYP), and I'm in the top 5%.

The LSAT doesn't mean anything after you've been admitted.

somewhatwayward wrote:well that is good to hear. i mentioned somewhere else that i expect to be in the top half of my class despite my LSAT, and people were telling me i was naive, etc....of course, they were all 0Ls

You are naive to expect to be in the top half of the class, and that has nothing to do with your LSAT score.

OP, keep in mind that the higher up the LSAT scale you go, the smaller the difference between scores is. The difference between a 173 and a 170 is just a couple of guesses on the test. You really cannot draw any conclusions on who has better logical reasoning skills based on a small difference on the LSAT.

If we were talking about, say, a 155 going to school with a bunch of high 160s or something, then yeah. That's a big difference, and I'd be really concerned if I were the 155. But you got into CLS, so you must have a solid LSAT score, and I wouldn't feel intimidated if I were you.

Unemployed wrote:

somewhatwayward wrote:well that is good to hear. i mentioned somewhere else that i expect to be in the top half of my class despite my LSAT, and people were telling me i was naive, etc....of course, they were all 0Ls

You are naive to expect to be in the top half of the class, and that has nothing to do with your LSAT score.

But this is also credited.

somewhatwayward wrote:well that is good to hear. i mentioned somewhere else that i expect to be in the top half of my class despite my LSAT, and people were telling me i was naive, etc....of course, they were all 0Ls

You were naive. It is naive to expect to be in the top half of your class with an above median LSAT (unless the difference is truly vast), and it's just a little bit more naive to expect it when your LSAT is sub-median. The LSAT correlation doesn't give you much in the way of predictability, but GPA gives even less. It might be the case, empirically, that HYS GPA's are better predictors, but I've never seen any data on that.

Not naive: your odds of being top half are roughly comparable to nearly all your classmates. Do your best.

I dunno. Report back in January to tell us the answer.

Unemployed wrote:

somewhatwayward wrote:well that is good to hear. i mentioned somewhere else that i expect to be in the top half of my class despite my LSAT, and people were telling me i was naive, etc....of course, they were all 0Ls

You are naive to expect to be in the top half of the class, and that has nothing to do with your LSAT score.

He's naive to have expectations in the first place. Go in, kick ass, let grades shake themselves out accordingly. Don't even worry about where you will be, because it only adds stress and anxiety that you don't need.

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I'm at the median with one of the lowest LSAT scores of my entire class. Like 10 points below....

I wouldn't worry about LSAT and first year performance. If you got into Columbia, you've got a good LSAT. Now, if you've got a 150 LSAT going up against someone with a 170+ LSAT, that is another story (time to be concerned).

Keep in mind that at most top schools the LSAT spread is incredibly narrow. For example, here at UVA the 25/75% for LSAT is 165/171. Even the folks with the 165 were scoring in the top ten percent of all LSAT test-takers. While there's a difference between a 165 and a 171, it's not that huge, and it also only really indicates potential. It indicates you have the skills necessary to apply yourself well on law school exams. It doesn't indicate that once you get into law school you'll actually learn how to apply those skills properly or that you'll actually do it on the exams themselves.

A lot of law school is self-taught. You have to teach yourself how to take law school exams, how to apply the law that you're learning to new and different fact patterns, and how your professor expects you to respond. Those who do a good job figuring those things out will do better than those who don't. Even two people who have the exact same LSAT score will have wildly different law school grades depending on these factors.

LSAT just measures one of the skill sets you need to succeed in law school. Everyone who does well enough to get into a T10 school has done well enough to show they have all the necessary skills. Grades are dependent on how they apply those skills, which is an entirely different subject.

vanwinkle wrote:Keep in mind that at most top schools the LSAT spread is incredibly narrow. For example, here at UVA the 25/75% for LSAT is 165/171. Even the folks with the 165 were scoring in the top ten percent of all LSAT test-takers. While there's a difference between a 165 and a 171, it's not that huge, and it also only really indicates potential. It indicates you have the skills necessary to apply yourself well on law school exams. It doesn't indicate that once you get into law school you'll actually learn how to apply those skills properly or that you'll actually do it on the exams themselves.

A lot of law school is self-taught. You have to teach yourself how to take law school exams, how to apply the law that you're learning to new and different fact patterns, and how your professor expects you to respond. Those who do a good job figuring those things out will do better than those who don't. Even two people who have the exact same LSAT score will have wildly different law school grades depending on these factors.

LSAT just measures one of the skill sets you need to succeed in law school. Everyone who does well enough to get into a T10 school has done well enough to show they have all the necessary skills. Grades are dependent on how they apply those skills, which is an entirely different subject.

Vanwinkle always makes me feel better.