Attending Lower Ranked College Affect T14 Admissions? Forum

[Na_Swatch]

Actually schools don't report numbers they report medians and quartiles... And thus while you refer to "very rare possibility," in reality its schools often functionally considering a 3.72 equivalent to a 3.78. Why? Well if their median is a 3.82 and their 25th is a 3.7, then taking the 3.72 over the 3.78 won't do a thing to the numbers they report.

Of course this doesn't mean they consider all grades between quartiles as equivalent, but it does mean that schools have some leeway in terms of GPA to consider other factors. This is only amplified once you get to the T14 schools due to their large amount of applications. It's not purely coincedence that top law schools have so many students from elite undergrads (and its not entirely due to the relatively higher LSAT scores of these students either).

ah okay. Now I finally see what you misunderstand that is making you keep hammer on this drum. Schools aren't really sure which candidate is going to ultimately represent its median, 25th or 75th pretty much until day one of classes (or possibly until day one of classes at UChi, if you think about it). So they care quite a bit about +/- .05 (especially obvious when you look at UVA's ED gaming).

Schools have a ton of elite UG students because a shockingly large number of elite UG students eventually attend law school. They don't need to boost elite UG candidates to populate their classes with them.

No this is only part of it... see when you get very close to the medians it matters as schools want to maintain their medians from year to year. But a 3.78 well never functionally matter to the median for a school that averages 3.82 median. Why? Because they have to jam in a ton of students from 3.8 to 3.85 to insure that they stay close from year to year. If they're relying on a 3.78 as part of the calculus for their median numbers somethings already gone very wrong for their predictions.

Also, my reasoning for this isn't just supported by statistics, though (which are hopefully sound, I was a math major, although not a very good one haha... hence law school). It's also from looking at a ton of applicant profiles on LSN and talking to students at my school. You definitely do see a trend where there's a little bit of GPA leeway or LSAT leeway that point to adcom consideration of UGs. Of course the most obvious example is the Harvard UG -> HLS boost which can be like a full +.1 in GPA or +2/3 in LSAT, but smaller variations of this do exist.

[IAFG]

Actually schools don't report numbers they report medians and quartiles... And thus while you refer to "very rare possibility," in reality its schools often functionally considering a 3.72 equivalent to a 3.78. Why? Well if their median is a 3.82 and their 25th is a 3.7, then taking the 3.72 over the 3.78 won't do a thing to the numbers they report.

Of course this doesn't mean they consider all grades between quartiles as equivalent, but it does mean that schools have some leeway in terms of GPA to consider other factors. This is only amplified once you get to the T14 schools due to their large amount of applications. It's not purely coincedence that top law schools have so many students from elite undergrads (and its not entirely due to the relatively higher LSAT scores of these students either).

ah okay. Now I finally see what you misunderstand that is making you keep hammer on this drum. Schools aren't really sure which candidate is going to ultimately represent its median, 25th or 75th pretty much until day one of classes (or possibly until day one of classes at UChi, if you think about it). So they care quite a bit about +/- .05 (especially obvious when you look at UVA's ED gaming).

Schools have a ton of elite UG students because a shockingly large number of elite UG students eventually attend law school. They don't need to boost elite UG candidates to populate their classes with them.

No this is only part of it... see when you get very close to the medians it matters as schools want to maintain their medians from year to year. But a 3.78 well never functionally matter to the median for a school that averages 3.82 median. Why? Because they have to jam in a ton of students from 3.8 to 3.85 to insure that they stay close from year to year. If they're relying on a 3.78 as part of the calculus for their median numbers somethings already gone very wrong for their predictions.

Also, my reasoning for this isn't just supported by statistics, though (which are hopefully sound, I was a math major, although not a very good one haha... hence law school). It's also from looking at a ton of applicant profiles on LSN and talking to students at my school. You definitely do see a trend where there's a little bit of GPA leeway or LSAT leeway that point to adcom consideration of UGs. Of course the most obvious example is the Harvard UG -> HLS boost which can be like a full +.1 in GPA or +2/3 in LSAT, but smaller variations of this do exist.

If you have some actual data to back it up, it would certainly help your case, but so far that sounds like confirmation bias.

[r6_philly]

A student with an elite UG is going to be more employable comparatively with a student without an elite UG. There are many reasons to this (network, resources, familial support, etc), plus legal hiring/industry is pretty prestige driven. So having and elite UG is going to have some effect (read advantage).