Stanford c/o 2015 Applicants (2011-2012 cycle) Forum

[spek]

Glad you guys like the pictures! I also have to apologize...they were taken on one of rare non-cloudless days. Since getting here two months ago, it has rained 1.5 times, and has been cloudly maybe 4 or 5 days. I kid you not, every other day has been deep blue skies with 75-85 degrees during the afternoon.

*Sigh. Sounds amazing.

[amc987]

Hey all,

Just submitted my application yesterday and today it says that I'm complete on the online status checker. *Fingers crossed*. Good luck to everyone!!

[sokomofo]

.

[RonnyDworkin]

hey guys, do you think that i should put my military service in the "employment" section of the application? i wrote an addendum about it, but i was wondering if i should also put that under employment... i only have 2 summer jobs under it and it looks a bit lame

I believe that qualifies as employment.

[jim-green]

?

[tamereth]

Finally got that Dean's Statement in (they let my school email it) and I'm under review.

[sokomofo]

.

[jim-green]

.

[American_in_China]

.

[admisionquestion]

But surely that is not the whole story.

Most basically. Enter bar, strike up conversation, eventually discuss that your a student at University of mich, penn, uva etc. Check reaction. Try again, but mention you go to stanford.

Its not just a matter of what region its located in.

[kulshan]

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 2&t=169946

[jim-green]

.

[jim-green]

?

[annyong]

Just curious, how come SLS's median LSAT is so low (compared to CLS, NYU, etc?)? How do they maintain their rank? They share a median with GULC.

Best school on west coast= great jobs for grads. It's a matter of scarcity.

So jobs for the school's grads are factored into the rankings? But the jobs depend on the rankings! So it is a cycle. I thought only GPa and LSAt contribute to rankings.

Noooo not true. Rankings take into account a lot of factors - as the thread kulshan posted mentioned, Stanford excels in a lot of areas, and they have holistic admissions, so their LSAT may suffer, but they get exceptional students and can remain solid in the rankings for a lot of reasons.

[admisionquestion]

Removed at request of the person I quoted.

[thelawschoolproject]

Has anyone successfully applied for a need-based fee waiver?

[jim-green]

?

[jim-green]

.

[vincanity1]

Has anyone successfully applied for a need-based fee waiver?

Yes

[thelawschoolproject]

Has anyone successfully applied for a need-based fee waiver?

Yes

And, how did that go?

[vincanity1]

Has anyone successfully applied for a need-based fee waiver?

Yes

And, how did that go?

Approved after I emailed them requesting to apply for it and emailing them back their form. They were pretty quick about it.

[MumofCad]

Jimgreen - There is alot more to the rankings than LSAT/GPA - from what I've seen (and I'm no expert), for the very top schools, it seems that the amount the spend on each student is heavily important in defining their rank. This has alot to do with endowments from alum, which means that as long as they are recruiting great candidates that are going to go onto success, they will be able to maintain their ranking. Top lawyers, judges, and academics also rate the schools and that factors in. The medians are just so close in the T-14 that it makes the statistic matter less.

For those below the T-14, LSAT/GPA come more into play because they don't have the endowments or flexibility in some of the other factors. They also tend to have a larger range in their LSAT/GPA medians, which makes their ranking more sensitive to that number.

Stanford is known to be more GPA sensitive than some of its peers. Some schools have preferences like this throughout the rankings, in comparison to their peers. You can look at their medians and get a good idea what priorities the schools might place on different factors and thus where you might fit in. Stanford's GPA range is more in line with HYS than CCN on down. However, we saw last year with the introduction of the Rubenstein schollys at Chicago that Chicago now has a comparable GPA ranking. We'll have to wait and see if that moves things any in the rankings, but its interesting as Chicago already has a very high LSAT range.

I would also speculate that Stanford finds it more difficult to maintain both numbers in the HY range. Most will still choose HY and alot of the holistic candidates will be drawn away by Yale. There are only so many non-splitters in the ranges that these top 3 are looking to matriculate. As you move down the rankings, that means there is going to be more variety from class to class in terms of medians depending on who decides to matriculate each year. Of course, all the schools would like to have a class full of people above both their previous medians, but that's not always possible. The schools that are looking for other attributes of success (though remember LSAT/GPA is already a pretty good predictor), may find this even more true.

[jim-green]

.

[MumofCad]

Thanks, Mum! This makes a lot of sense. I'm surprised by the $$$ a school spends being important. How do you accurately measure that, and how do you know it is efficient spending?

I'll look up what the Chi Rubenstein schols are. Have not heard of them, but then, I am new to this entire process. The Chi app did not have a question or extra essay about them.

The question this thread, including your long post, doesn't answer is why SLS doesn't easily raise LSAT levels, since CLS and NYU have done it higher than SLS. If CLS/NYU can, why not SLS?

Also, a question I asked before but did not get an answer on another thread: Does holistic mean softs or URMs? I ask this because your posts talks about holistic candidates taken away by Yale.

It means softs - and the point is that they don't want the candidates that CLS/NYU are taking. Some schools have different preferences, they aren't all the same. But holistic also doesn't mean that they are going to ignore numbers. It just means they are going to consider them as one factor. Stanford's ranges are still very high. The people on the low end are URMs. That doesn't change from school to school.

I think the mention of softs can be confusing. Softs should be realistic in terms of these applicant pools. They don't mean having a masters or publishing a single journal article or what not (those are just minor things that might get you picked over someone with similar numbers) - to get in with below average numbers, you need to have something that could go on their profile of candidates of incoming classes. We're talking about very fine lines here. Some schools may think there really isn't much difference between a 169 and 172 LSAT, while others will. Its really not a huge difference between their medians so take the holistic process fwiw. I think I've heard Stanford also tends to have alot of IP candidates that might get in with lower LSATs? It has a special relationship with Silicon Valley that HY doesn't so they may be making exceptions for candidates they think will be particularly successful in that area, since its their strength.

[jim-green]

.