Top Law Schools

I've read that in the past admissions committees would adjust an applicant's GPA up or down depending on the difficulty of the undergraduate institution where they earned their degree, though this is no longer really done. Obviously a GPA of 3.8 is more impressive coming from Harvard than from Portland State (grade inflation aside), and any admissions Dean would be likely to take that into account.

I've heard that this is no longer the practice, but rather that the average LSAT score for a college's undergraduates is used to determine how talented its students are. I've heard that Harvard undergrads who take the test average a score of about 170, but I've been unable to find any hard data (or even any speculation, really) on this topic. Has anyone else out there tried to hunt down these numbers or know if they're published somewhere I'm not looking?

For context, I went to St. John's College for my undergrad. It's a small liberal arts school of about 800 students who all study exactly the same program all 4 years. It's was an amazing experience, but unless you know how that school works it's really hard to understand what goes on there. When an admissions officer looks at my transcript they'll see something like this:

Freshman Language: B
Freshman Math: A
Freshman Lab: B+
Freshman Seminar: A

And so on for four years. It's been my experience that people are impressed with my studies if they know about St. John's. It's also been my experience that very, very few people know about it and I'm hoping there's some objective way to measure the difficulty of the classes I took.

There's not

Harvard undergraduates average a 166. LSAC will post data for your school once you register with LSDAS. Yale is around 165, Princeton 164, Columbia/Stanford 163, and so on. 170 would be ridiculously insane, for any undergrad institution.

firstguess,

Thanks for the reply. Those numbers do indeed sound more realistic, and I'm glad someone else has looked into this.

I've registered for the LSDAS and since reading your post I've tried like the dickens to find these numbers. Do you know specifically where to look?

Someone started a thread a while back on TLS where everyone replied with their school's average - I'm not sure exactly where it is though. The information isn't officially released by LSAC though.

malena wrote:Someone started a thread a while back on TLS where everyone replied with their school's average - I'm not sure exactly where it is though. The information isn't officially released by LSAC though.

Here it is: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =2&t=19882

Bologna.

William Mary - 160

Represent. Higher than UVA - 158. Shows you how much the USNEWS ranking means with William and Mary at spot 31 and UVA at 23.

afrikaans9 wrote:William Mary - 160

Represent. Higher than UVA - 158. Shows you how much the USNEWS ranking means with William and Mary at spot 31 and UVA at 23.

riiiiiiiight cuz a school's avg. LSAT means EVERYTHING.

muddywaters wrote:

afrikaans9 wrote:William Mary - 160

Represent. Higher than UVA - 158. Shows you how much the USNEWS ranking means with William and Mary at spot 31 and UVA at 23.

riiiiiiiight cuz a school's avg. LSAT means EVERYTHING.

TITCR

How do I find this information for my undergraduate school on my LSAC account?

someone is really impressed by St. Johns college?

afrikaans9 wrote:William Mary - 160

Represent. Higher than UVA - 158. Shows you how much the USNEWS ranking means with William and Mary at spot 31 and UVA at 23.

People at W&M are ugly and therefore have more time to study for the LSAT since they're not getting laid.

rayiner wrote:

afrikaans9 wrote:William Mary - 160

Represent. Higher than UVA - 158. Shows you how much the USNEWS ranking means with William and Mary at spot 31 and UVA at 23.

People at W&M are ugly and therefore have more time to study for the LSAT since they're not getting laid.

Taking that personally.

law schools dont care where you went to ug. they care about your lsat, your gpa, personal statement, disciplinary file ( hopefully you dont have one).

northwood wrote:law schools dont care where you went to ug.

They certainly care to a degree.

Helmholtz wrote:

northwood wrote:law schools dont care where you went to ug.

They certainly care to a degree.

Not to a degree that Saint Johns college is considered anything other than the same as 98% of all other schools.

Patriot1208 wrote:

Helmholtz wrote:

northwood wrote:law schools dont care where you went to ug.

They certainly care to a degree.

Not to a degree that Saint Johns college is considered anything other than the same as 98% of all other schools.

Considering the fact that the OP hasn't logged onto this site for two years, it seems pretty safe to say that our advice re: Saint Johns College is probably not going to be doing a lot. And I think it's pretty naive to say that UG doesn't matter for 98% of possible undergrad institutions.

Helmholtz wrote:

Patriot1208 wrote:

Helmholtz wrote:

northwood wrote:law schools dont care where you went to ug.

They certainly care to a degree.

Not to a degree that Saint Johns college is considered anything other than the same as 98% of all other schools.

Considering the fact that the OP hasn't logged onto this site for two years, it seems pretty safe to say that our advice re: Saint Johns College is probably not going to be doing a lot. And I think it's pretty naive to say that UG doesn't matter for 98% of possible undergrad institutions.

You really think it matters out of the obvious prestigious schools at the top and the obvious schools at the bottom, ie Harvard and Phoenx online? Most schools are state schools and the vast majority of them are going impossible to determine which is better than the other.

Patriot1208 wrote: You really think it matters out of the obvious prestigious schools at the top and the obvious schools at the bottom, ie Harvard and Phoenx online? Most schools are state schools and the vast majority of them are going impossible to determine which is better than the other.

I took your statement to mean that the top 1% of schools would be put into a category that would give one a boost and the bottom 1% of schools would put one into a category that would result in damage to a person as an applicant; and I just don't think this is the case. Are schools going to care whether you went to UVA vs. UMich for UG? Probably not. Would schools care whether you went to Notre Dame vs. Trevecca Nazarene University? Well, yeah, probably (even though nobody would say that either school is in the top 1% or the bottom 1%). For a lot of top law school applicants, it's not going to matter that much because so many of them went to really good UG schools that are difficult to draw fine lines between when it comes to quality. But I don't think it's right to say that when it comes to 98% of undergrad institutions, adcomms just don't give a crap.

Helmholtz wrote:

Patriot1208 wrote: You really think it matters out of the obvious prestigious schools at the top and the obvious schools at the bottom, ie Harvard and Phoenx online? Most schools are state schools and the vast majority of them are going impossible to determine which is better than the other.

I took your statement to mean that the top 1% of schools would be put into a category that would give one a boost and the bottom 1% of schools would put one into a category that would result in damage to a person as an applicant; and I just don't think this is the case. Are schools going to care whether you went to UVA vs. UMich for UG? Probably not. Would schools care whether you went to Notre Dame vs. Trevecca Nazarene University? Well, yeah, probably (even though nobody would say that either school is in the top 1% or the bottom 1%). For a lot of top law school applicants, it's not going to matter that much because so many of them went to really good UG schools that are difficult to draw fine lines between when it comes to quality. But I don't think it's right to say that when it comes to 98% of undergrad institutions, adcomms just don't give a crap.

It was obviously an overgeneralized statement, but for the VAST majority of applicants I can't imagine it having much of a push either way.

Rand M. wrote:

rayiner wrote:

afrikaans9 wrote:William Mary - 160

Represent. Higher than UVA - 158. Shows you how much the USNEWS ranking means with William and Mary at spot 31 and UVA at 23.

People at W&M are ugly and therefore have more time to study for the LSAT since they're not getting laid.

Taking that personally.

Sorry you weren't attractive enough to get into UVA.

Edit: My own issues resolved.

thedevilsadvocate wrote:How do I find this information for my undergraduate school on my LSAC account?

You can find this information on your academic summary report after you submit your transcript.

I went to William and Mary and graduated several yrs ago, average is a 159 according to my CAS report. When you look at W&M seniors who went straight to law school vs. W&M graduates who could be anywhere from one to 50 years out of college, the W&M seniors averaged about 159-160 last several years, non-seniors were about a 158-160. Pretty good for a public university, though my suspicion is that a disproportionate amount of the W&M students who get 166-180 are not Virginians, but that's to be expected at public universities. Out of state students tend to be the higher achievers. For the record, I'm a Virginian.

http://www.wm.edu/as/government/prelawa ... /index.php


I find it hard for any undergraduate institution to average more than 164-165 max for an LSAT score. The Ivies plus Duke (and related institutions), Williams, Swarthmore, Amherst, etc. would be the schools I expect to be close to the 164-165 average.