Top Law Schools

I'm sure this has been answered somewhere but I can't seem to find it. I was talking to my dad about taking a year off to retake/reapply, which he is opposed to, and his main argument right now is that the benefits of going to a better school would be mitigated by tougher class competition, which would lead me to a lower class ranking. Right now i'm in at a school just in the top 50, and depending on how my lsat score/luck in the fall turns out I could end up as high as around Cornell. So how significant is the level of competition between schools in the rankings? How much would the rankings between two schools have to differ in order for it to be noticeable?

SUCO wrote:I'm sure this has been answered somewhere but I can't seem to find it. I was talking to my dad about taking a year off to retake/reapply, which he is opposed to, and his main argument right now is that the benefits of going to a better school would be mitigated by tougher class competition, which would lead me to a lower class ranking. Right now i'm in at a school just in the top 50, and depending on how my lsat score/luck in the fall turns out I could end up as high as around Cornell. So how significant is the level of competition between schools in the rankings? How much would the rankings between two schools have to differ in order for it to be noticeable?

This is true to some extent, but the statistically predicted difference in class rank will not even approach the value of moving from a T50 to Cornell.

Your dad is wrong.

Do you have a free ride at the T50?

If not, a score that would get you into the T14 would probably also be worthy of a free or nearly free ride at a lower ranked school. Therefore with a good LSAT you'd probably have a choice of tougher class competition or going to the same or a similarly ranked school to the one you're currently admitted to and saving a fortune. A Loans for a $40k a year school paid back over 10 years cost over $200k.

Personally, I'd still opt for the T14 school, but if you are more debt adverse a lower ranked school with no tuition is certainly much better than the same school at sticker.

Your dad is wrong.

Any difference in the level of students btw Cornell/T50 will be made up by how much more stressed and competitive the T50 students will be given their non guarantee of a decent job.

probably ~60% of the kids at UVA this year will have desirable, competitive jobs when they graduate.

probably ~20% of the kids at William and Mary will as well.

Do you think 4-5 LSAT points, and their incredibly weak correlation to grades, make these equally difficult to achieve.

If he truly believes what he is saying then he would have given you the same advice if you had already been accepted to a T14 this cycle. I doubt he really believes that, it makes no sense.

Your dad's faulty assumptions are:

1) Law school grades are strongly correlated with class intellegence/brain power. Law school grades are somewhat unpredictable: geniuses, hard workers, and gunners end up below median and lazy and less intelligent people end up above-median.

2) Students at higher ranked schools are much smarter than you. Legacy admissions and TLS people who simply work hard on the LSAT for 4 months get to mingle with the Mark Zuckerbergs and Richard Epsteins of the world. I was shocked at Chicago both how incredibly smart some students are (its comical), that others seem pretty uninformed, and most just seem to be people of above average intellegence who studied really hard for the LSAT and have good reading comprehension, analytical, and critical reasoning skills.

Do your best on the LSAT, it might mean you'll get to go to a high ranked school where you can compete with those "smarter" than you, it may mean that you get to go to your current school/ a slightly better school with a great scholarship so that you wont have to walk away depressed if you graduate jobless.

Taxguy Your dad is wrong: Florida Coastal isn't in the T50.