Above 75th. Do schools care? Forum

[NYC-WVU]

Do the top schools distinguish between a candidate that is very high above their 75th% versus slightly above their 75th%? I would assume, from a pure numbers standpoint, a student one point above 75th% and slightly above median GPA would be preferable to a student 5 points above 75th% and slightly below median GPA. But this assumes schools are really numbers focused, and not as focused on the overall "quality" of applicants. What is the conventional wisdom?

[Pneumonia]

Short answer: yes. Especially for scholarships, but for admissions purposes as well. I've always wondered about this and never gotten a fully satisfactory answer from Spivey or Dean Perez, but the gist of what both have said is that schools legitimately do have an interest in attracting the "best" possible candidates, even when choosing between those that are above both 75ths.

[SFrost]

Well, do you expect schools to care about those one point below the 25% VS those significantly below?

I would say, yes, schools want the best they can get. Yale is probably the exception, nothing is good enough for them.

[NYC-WVU]

Well, do you expect schools to care about those one point below the 25% VS those significantly below?

I would say, yes, schools want the best they can get. Yale is probably the exception, nothing is good enough for them.

I recognize that schools want the best they can get. But, it's a zero-sum game, right? Perhaps I should rephrase my question.
If you are over the 75th% in one category, does the amount you are over in this category help make up for deficiencies in the other category?

As an example, assume a school is:
25% - 50% - 75%
165 - 168 - 170
3.5 - 3.7 - 3.8

Who wins?
171, 3.75 vs.
177, 3.65
OR
171, 3.82 vs.
177, 3.7

[Pneumonia]

Depends on the schools medians, but yes if your <25th in one aspect ever bit over 75th in the other is helpful. Think about it. If a school needs X number of splitters to maintain medians, why not start with the best ones? Numbers are most frequently the indicator used because most peoples softs are a wash.

[mornincounselor]

Post removed.

[NYC-WVU]

Thanks for trying to help me clarify. I re-read both my posts and realized that I still have not expressed my question clearly. Partially this is because I hadn't fully formed the question in my head. And I appreciate Pneumonia trying to answer.

So my question is actually related to relative importance of decreases over the entire spectrum in one category versus increases above 75th in the other. It is a somewhat interesting question when the second category is below 25th, but I think it's much more interesting when the second category is within 25-75.
From a numbers standpoint, I would suspect that the school would rather take a candidate over median in the first category and at or slightly above 75th in the second category versus under median in the first category and substantially over 75th in the second category, but I'm not sure if this is true from a practical standpoint. So if we just do it with percentages, as mornincounselor did, who is the favored candidate?
45th% GPA and 95th% LSAT; or
55th% GPA and 77th% LSAT?

[Pneumonia]

Sorry for the misunderstanding. LSN suggests that both have a good shot of getting in,but the first one more so.

[Tiago Splitter]

who is the favored candidate?
45th% GPA and 95th% LSAT; or
55th% GPA and 77th% LSAT?

Unquestionably the second one. Medians are far and away the most important part of the whole game. A number of hardcore median gamers have an LSAT median that is either identical to or just one point below their 75th percentile LSAT. The schools with the same distance between 25-50 and 50-75 are the ones that tend to look at the numbers more holistically and might care more about the really high LSAT or GPA number.

Then there's Penn, which will reject you for having too high of an LSAT score.

[Pneumonia]

Yes it is clearly the second. Meant to say that originally.

[NYC-WVU]

Thanks y'all. That's what I figured. I find the admissions game really interesting.

[Tiago Splitter]

When a school can choose either one student with say 20% GPA and 80% LSAT vs a student with 15% GPA 90% LSAT who will they choose.

This one is more about the GPA floors different schools use. Those floors have softened in recent years with the decline of apps but they still exist. This thread is the holy grail for the GPA floor discussion, but it's a little old.

[Clyde Frog]

who is the favored candidate?
45th% GPA and 95th% LSAT; or
55th% GPA and 77th% LSAT?

Unquestionably the second one. Medians are far and away the most important part of the whole game. A number of hardcore median gamers have an LSAT median that is either identical to or just one point below their 75th percentile LSAT. The schools with the same distance between 25-50 and 50-75 are the ones that tend to look at the numbers more holistically and might care more about the really high LSAT or GPA number.

Then there's Penn, which will reject you for having too high of an LSAT score.

Makes sense

[drawstring]

Somewhat related question--in median calculations for USN rankings, would a 172.5 be rounded up to a 173? So, if a school is just trying to maintain a 173 median and hypothetically has four numbers to work with, would a 173 be just as valuable as a 175 if the other numbers are 172, 172, and 174?

And concerning the discussion above, is it safe to say that at HYS a 3.86/178 is stronger than a 3.9/173? The other example was a case of being above both medians vs below one, but what about cases where someone is way above a median and just below another, while another person is just above one and at the other?

[Pneumonia]

Median isn't the same as average; it will always be a whole number for LSAT.

[NapoleonXV]

who is the favored candidate?
45th% GPA and 95th% LSAT; or
55th% GPA and 77th% LSAT?

Unquestionably the second one. Medians are far and away the most important part of the whole game. A number of hardcore median gamers have an LSAT median that is either identical to or just one point below their 75th percentile LSAT. The schools with the same distance between 25-50 and 50-75 are the ones that tend to look at the numbers more holistically and might care more about the really high LSAT or GPA number.

Then there's Penn, which will reject you for having too high of an LSAT score.

I guess Penn may not be the best school to run this comparison due to its YP practice?

The first one is borderline at T6 (more toward the ding side), while the second one has a decent chance of getting T6 (more likely to get YP'ed)

[drawstring]

Median isn't the same as average; it will always be a whole number for LSAT.

I understand, but if you have an even number don't you take the average of the two middle values?

Although now that I think of it the chances of the two middle values being different seems fairly small.

[Pneumonia]

Oh yeah ok I see what you meant. I think this is a case in which an adcom says "get me a X score applicant, no matter the cost"

[Lord Randolph McDuff]

At many schools, having just over their medians is what they want. For example, take school Y, with a 165/3.55 median. Why admit 10 people with 170/3.8 when Y's own admission statistics show that only about 3% of students with those numbers matriculate to Y? They could offer these people full ride scholarships, but even that won't guarantee they show up in the fall. So what school Y will likely do waitlist/yield protect all the before mentioned kiddos and admit 10 people with 166/3.6 w/ 75% scholarships. Their data shows that a person just over the medians w/ a 75% scholarship is 30% or 40% likely to attend.

Then the school will fill up the other 90% to 95% of the class with 155/3.8s and 168/2.7s who will feel privileged to pay full tuition at the "T3 in enviro law" school because they don't feel like they are deserving candidates with their shit LSAT or UGPA. Some schools do this to the extreme, some dabble, but all schools are forced by USNEWS into this thought process.