Top Law Schools

Not much to do for the next little while before I start work so I thought I might be able to help some TLSers since you guys were so helpful when I was applying to law school/clerkships.

1. How much of a miltary bump, if any, do you think there is at Yale? Did you know anyone below a 25th who got in with their service?

2. Did graduates perceive extra value from their degree as opposed to their counterparts at Harvard or Stanford, or is that largely an invention of TLS?

Thanks for taking questions. I'm considering applying there, even though there's not a good chance for admission.

How did you balance your academic and social lives at Yale? In undergrad I focused heavily on academics, and part of me regrets missing a number of opportunities to engage in extracurricular clubs, meet new people, etc. The other part of me justifies my focus on school since I've got the numbers to go to HYS. Obviously your goals factor into how much time you put into your grades, but I'm just curious what your approach was.

What did you think of New Haven?

How much of a disadvantage do you think KJDs are at in Yale admissions? Are there any sentiments you'd recommend avoiding in the PS for Yale faculty in particular?

Thanks for doing this!

Dcc617 wrote:1. How much of a miltary bump, if any, do you think there is at Yale? Did you know anyone below a 25th who got in with their service?

2. Did graduates perceive extra value from their degree as opposed to their counterparts at Harvard or Stanford, or is that largely an invention of TLS?

Thanks for taking questions. I'm considering applying there, even though there's not a good chance for admission.

1. As far as I'm aware, there isn't much of a military bump. There were a few people in the military in my year and as far as I know, they weren't outside the average numbers.

2. I think I'm a little biased, but I do perceive some extra value from my degree. I think people are also impressed by H/S, but they also seem to think YLSers are a little more 'mysterious'. Multiple recruiters told us at FIP that they felt YLS had done the job of preselecting for them and so they gave callbacks/offers to most of us. And at my firm they definitely had some YLS-only events that I'm not sure they did for other schools. But again, that could just be because I'm not as plugged in to other schools and not as aware of the perks there.

libertttarian wrote:How did you balance your academic and social lives at Yale? In undergrad I focused heavily on academics, and part of me regrets missing a number of opportunities to engage in extracurricular clubs, meet new people, etc. The other part of me justifies my focus on school since I've got the numbers to go to HYS. Obviously your goals factor into how much time you put into your grades, but I'm just curious what your approach was.

I had a very similar attitude when I was in college and I feel exactly the same about it all being worth it. I thought balancing school and a social life was pretty easy at YLS (a bit harder if you have kids/a family obviously). Inevitably, there are certain people who spent all of their time studying but most of us, I think, had a really healthy balance. For example, if you knew you were just going to 'take the P' in a class and didn't care about it, that meant you had to spend no to next-to-no time on it because there was almost nothing you could do to not get a P in it. If you wanted an H in classes, then that was considerably more work. So it kind of depended on your attitude to your classes. On the whole though, you could find people to go out with you to have a drink on a Tuesday night and it was great.

I also spent so much of my time in undergrad focused on academics and I think you'll find that most of your classmates did as well. In some ways, I found that that commonality actually made it easier to make friends in law school (which, I admit, sounds counterintuitive) because we understood the quirks of others who are hardcore studiers. As a result, I found that I made friends much more easily in law school even though we were all a bunch of Type-A people.

shump92 wrote:What did you think of New Haven?

It's completely do-able for law school. I think you inevitably confine yourself to a certain areas, mainly East Rock and downtown, but there's enough to do/eat/drink to last you three years. And they're making the downtown area ridiculously bourgeois so if you need artisanal olive oil, you can find it

But the law school EMPTIES on the weekend with people going to see their SOs in New York/Boston so New Haven is actually perfectly situated for that.

salander wrote:How much of a disadvantage do you think KJDs are at in Yale admissions? Are there any sentiments you'd recommend avoiding in the PS for Yale faculty in particular?

Thanks for doing this!

I think it's a disadvantage in the process but it's unclear to what extent because I think 20% of our class was K-JDs. I actually think navigating that as an actual student is trickier.

I stayed away with directly talking about why I wanted to be a lawyer at all in my PS, but that was a style preference on my part. It is really hard to give general advice on the YLS faculty because they are a quirky lot. For example, some of them would be offended by the notion that you are an expert in something because they feel they have all the expertise. Others would be intrigued by someone who wants to engage in direct services work, while others have absolutely no interest. My only advice would be that if you're going to try to talk about politics or the judicial system, you better know what you're talking about because they will tear you apart on that. Almost all of the faculty have their own interpretations of the law/the legal system/the political system (some of them conflicting with each other) and so you better be very careful addressing that topic if you don't want to risk their ire.

I know that many students already have a masters/phd at YLS, but what fields did they get their masters in? Do they register an upward grade trend? (3.3 freshman year, basically straight 4.0's for the next three years).

Which clinics are the more popular ones and why?

Thanks for doing this!

mbeaufort wrote: 2. I think I'm a little biased, but I do perceive some extra value from my degree. I think people are also impressed by H/S, but they also seem to think YLSers are a little more 'mysterious'. Multiple recruiters told us at FIP that they felt YLS had done the job of preselecting for them and so they gave callbacks/offers to most of us. And at my firm they definitely had some YLS-only events that I'm not sure they did for other schools. But again, that could just be because I'm not as plugged in to other schools and not as aware of the perks there.

I don't think there's any doubt that we have a substantial advantage for biglaw and clerkships over Stanford and Harvard. Don't think it's bias at all.

gnomgnomuch wrote:I know that many students already have a masters/phd at YLS, but what fields did they get their masters in? Do they register an upward grade trend? (3.3 freshman year, basically straight 4.0's for the next three years).

Which clinics are the more popular ones and why?

Thanks for doing this!

Main fields were philosophy, economics, history, and political science and then a group of people with UK masters (from the Rhodes/Marshall/etc.) in different fields.

An upward grade trend can't hurt but I don't know how much weight they'll give it depending on your overall GPA.

There are two types of popular clinics: the clinics that are popular because people really care about them and the clinics that are popular because people think they're prestigious (not that there can't be overlap). SFALP and the Supreme Court clinic are very popular for prestige (I think that's particularly true for SFALP). But almost all of the other clinics, CJC, Vets Clinic (which has done some incredible things this year), ACY, WIRAC, IRAP, etc. are made up of true believers and so they're really popular because people really care about those causes.

mbeaufort wrote:

gnomgnomuch wrote:I know that many students already have a masters/phd at YLS, but what fields did they get their masters in? Do they register an upward grade trend? (3.3 freshman year, basically straight 4.0's for the next three years).

Which clinics are the more popular ones and why?

Thanks for doing this!

Main fields were philosophy, economics, history, and political science and then a group of people with UK masters (from the Rhodes/Marshall/etc.) in different fields.

An upward grade trend can't hurt but I don't know how much weight they'll give it depending on your overall GPA.

There are two types of popular clinics: the clinics that are popular because people really care about them and the clinics that are popular because people think they're prestigious (not that there can't be overlap). SFALP and the Supreme Court clinic are very popular for prestige (I think that's particularly true for SFALP). But almost all of the other clinics, CJC, Vets Clinic (which has done some incredible things this year), ACY, WIRAC, IRAP, etc. are made up of true believers and so they're really popular because people really care about those causes.

What about UK masters without Rhodes/Marshall's or something similar? Overall ended up being a 3.78. Is there a public policy emphasis - I'm looking into YLS, but at the moment my number 1 choice would be the Furman at NYU for it's policy emphasis (and full ride.)

gnomgnomuch wrote:

mbeaufort wrote:

gnomgnomuch wrote:I know that many students already have a masters/phd at YLS, but what fields did they get their masters in? Do they register an upward grade trend? (3.3 freshman year, basically straight 4.0's for the next three years).

Which clinics are the more popular ones and why?

Thanks for doing this!

Main fields were philosophy, economics, history, and political science and then a group of people with UK masters (from the Rhodes/Marshall/etc.) in different fields.

An upward grade trend can't hurt but I don't know how much weight they'll give it depending on your overall GPA.

There are two types of popular clinics: the clinics that are popular because people really care about them and the clinics that are popular because people think they're prestigious (not that there can't be overlap). SFALP and the Supreme Court clinic are very popular for prestige (I think that's particularly true for SFALP). But almost all of the other clinics, CJC, Vets Clinic (which has done some incredible things this year), ACY, WIRAC, IRAP, etc. are made up of true believers and so they're really popular because people really care about those causes.

What about UK masters without Rhodes/Marshall's or something similar? Overall ended up being a 3.78. Is there a public policy emphasis - I'm looking into YLS, but at the moment my number 1 choice would be the Furman at NYU for it's policy emphasis (and full ride.)

There were probably people with other UK degrees outside of the scholarships, I just can't think of anyone off the top of my head.

Some classes are 99% public policy emphasis (which makes studying for the Bar quite the surprise...) but it's all based on the professor's philosophies of what public policy is/means. It's a lot of high theory at YLS. If you're looking for more real world public policy, then NYU might be the better option for you. That being said, there are still institutional advantages to going to YLS to consider.

mbeaufort wrote:

salander wrote:How much of a disadvantage do you think KJDs are at in Yale admissions? Are there any sentiments you'd recommend avoiding in the PS for Yale faculty in particular?

Thanks for doing this!

I think it's a disadvantage in the process but it's unclear to what extent because I think 20% of our class was K-JDs. I actually think navigating that as an actual student is trickier.

I stayed away with directly talking about why I wanted to be a lawyer at all in my PS, but that was a style preference on my part. It is really hard to give general advice on the YLS faculty because they are a quirky lot. For example, some of them would be offended by the notion that you are an expert in something because they feel they have all the expertise. Others would be intrigued by someone who wants to engage in direct services work, while others have absolutely no interest. My only advice would be that if you're going to try to talk about politics or the judicial system, you better know what you're talking about because they will tear you apart on that. Almost all of the faculty have their own interpretations of the law/the legal system/the political system (some of them conflicting with each other) and so you better be very careful addressing that topic if you don't want to risk their ire.

Thanks for the response. Quirky faculty members... sounds like my cup of tea!