Top Law Schools

I went through the T14 on LSN and pulled out people that have reported decisions so far. I made a spreadsheet that performs a quick analysis of the reported numbers. A couple things to take into consideration:
These numbers are self reported and could be full of shit. Many of the sample sizes are too small to put any weight behind. This doesn't take into account URM or Nontrad status. Does not take into account submit date. I also didn't include Yale or Columbia yet because they lack a noteworthy number of decisions.

For the schools that don't report an admissions index I used the school with the closest LSAT/GPA ratio per LSP. I listed which schools index is used. Northwestern also had the closest to an average ratio, so I included their index so everyone can have a baseline comparison between all schools.





Google Doc links
Build Your Own!

You can't edit these, but you can copy and paste to your own file to experiment with if you want
2012
2011 (Last Cycle) T14

Typo's on Berkeley and Northwestern. I did use their own indexes for them, just forgot to change the header.

All the schools are putting up impressive numbers so far, but admitted students stats are usually better than attending students stats. The worse a school's yield, the bigger the difference.

Yeah. This is incredible. I wish we coudl compare this to last year's LSN data.

Man I need a break from all the copying and pasting, but I can probably do that next week.

Very cool. And yeah, WTF at some of these numbers. Berkeley currently sitting at 173/3.81 median?

Smumps wrote:Very cool. And yeah, WTF at some of these numbers. Berkeley currently sitting at 173/3.81 median?

right but as Soj pointed out these are just the accepted students not necessarily who is enrolling. This should just help give applicants an idea where the stand relative to who is and isn't getting in at this point, not what final LSAT/GPA numbers will look like.

Smumps wrote:Very cool. And yeah, WTF at some of these numbers. Berkeley currently sitting at 173/3.81 median?

They haven't waitlisted anyone yet, so the only acceptances seem to have gone out to people that they REALLY want.

TheWatch wrote:

Smumps wrote:Very cool. And yeah, WTF at some of these numbers. Berkeley currently sitting at 173/3.81 median?

right but as Soj pointed out these are just the accepted students not necessarily who is enrolling. This should just help give applicants an idea where the stand relative to who is and isn't getting in at this point, not what final LSAT/GPA numbers will look like.

Oh I fully realize those are not the final numbers - still eye popping. It's comical to go from "yeah I'm a traditional splitter everywhere, >75% LSAT, <25% GPA, then looking at this and thinking "yeah I'm below the 25% for both." Haha

TheWatch wrote:Man I need a break from all the copying and pasting, but I can probably do that next week.

You are incredible.

Great work! Seems like most have been padding their numbers so far...

I guess some more copy and paste isn't that hard.
2011 LSN Info Below





I realized about halfway through that my WL-->Attending formula wasn't working right, but I didn't bother to go back and fix it for those ones. Deal with it.

This is all very cool data to play with and theorize about, thanks!

Though it's extremely disheartening to see that Harvard and Stanford have already accepted over half of the total number they accepted last year (On LSN anyway).

nice work, TheWatch thanks for the effort.

I am now still at work after 5 on a Friday. I really should have planned better.

ETA: I also resolved the issue of people w/o GPAs affecting the Minimum Index values, so what is shown should be accurate (you know, provided the reported info is accurate).

Google Docs have been added to the OP

As a fellow quant/data miner--this thread is gold. Thanks, OP.

Build Your Own!

Google Doc that allows you to copy and paste data from any school on LSN to get the information.
All you have to do is go to LSN.
Selected the school you want
go to Applicants
sort by decisions so that Accepted is the first decision
Go to the "Database tab"
Copy and paste starting in C4 (you can do a page of decisions at a time)
Go to the Summary tab and all the information is there.

I just tried it with Wake Forest and it worked fine, so here you go:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc ... vmhI#gid=3

If you decide to use this for a school that I haven't done before or update a school after a batch of decisions it would be great if you can select File>Make a Copy>Save as the schools name>Select share on the right hand side>Post new link in here.

Hope this is helpful!

Bottom line: They seem to be maintaining their medians from last year despite the drop in applicants. No?

Robespierre wrote:Bottom line: They seem to be maintaining their medians from last year despite the drop in applicants. No?

Well so far, maybe. There seems to have been a bit of a delay for the bulk of decisions and a good bit of WLing and holding going on compared to previous years. A lot of auto admits and dings may have heard back, but adcoms just can't absorb a 17% drop in applicants after an already record low year without scraping off the bottom a bit. I predict a few shifts in school's medians.

chucklesmcgee wrote:

Robespierre wrote:Bottom line: They seem to be maintaining their medians from last year despite the drop in applicants. No?

Well so far, maybe. There seems to have been a bit of a delay for the bulk of decisions and a good bit of WLing and holding going on compared to previous years. A lot of auto admits and dings may have heard back, but adcoms just can't absorb a 17% drop in applicants after an already record low year without scraping off the bottom a bit. I predict a few shifts in school's medians.

Yea...I think we're going to see a much more extensive use of the Hold/WL this year. It appears that the auto-admits are getting in, but those on the margins, or who are splitters/reverse splitters, are being held/WL to see how the auto-admit pool shapes out. I think we're seeing this a lot at Harvard, and to a less of a degree at most of the T5-T14 schools, especially UVA, Penn, and a few others.

Doorkeeper wrote:

chucklesmcgee wrote:

Robespierre wrote:Bottom line: They seem to be maintaining their medians from last year despite the drop in applicants. No?

Well so far, maybe. There seems to have been a bit of a delay for the bulk of decisions and a good bit of WLing and holding going on compared to previous years. A lot of auto admits and dings may have heard back, but adcoms just can't absorb a 17% drop in applicants after an already record low year without scraping off the bottom a bit. I predict a few shifts in school's medians.

Yea...I think we're going to see a much more extensive use of the Hold/WL this year. It appears that the auto-admits are getting in, but those on the margins, or who are splitters/reverse splitters, are being held/WL to see how the auto-admit pool shapes out. I think we're seeing this a lot at Harvard, and to a less of a degree at most of the T5-T14 schools, especially UVA, Penn, and a few others.

How can you say that about UVA? They've already admitted more LSNers as of today than they did ALL of last cycle (118 vs. 116), and the medians of the acceptees actually ROSE. Seems like they have all the qualified applicants they need, and then some.

Robespierre wrote:

Doorkeeper wrote:

chucklesmcgee wrote:

Robespierre wrote:Bottom line: They seem to be maintaining their medians from last year despite the drop in applicants. No?

Well so far, maybe. There seems to have been a bit of a delay for the bulk of decisions and a good bit of WLing and holding going on compared to previous years. A lot of auto admits and dings may have heard back, but adcoms just can't absorb a 17% drop in applicants after an already record low year without scraping off the bottom a bit. I predict a few shifts in school's medians.

Yea...I think we're going to see a much more extensive use of the Hold/WL this year. It appears that the auto-admits are getting in, but those on the margins, or who are splitters/reverse splitters, are being held/WL to see how the auto-admit pool shapes out. I think we're seeing this a lot at Harvard, and to a less of a degree at most of the T5-T14 schools, especially UVA, Penn, and a few others.

How can you say that about UVA? They've already admitted more LSNers as of today than they did ALL of last cycle (118 vs. 116), and the medians of the acceptees actually ROSE. Seems like they have all the qualified applicants they need, and then some.

Even though there are less total applicants, there is still a chance that there is simply more LSNers this year, which can skew that data.

Doorkeeper wrote:Yea...I think we're going to see a much more extensive use of the Hold/WL this year. It appears that the auto-admits are getting in, but those on the margins, or who are splitters/reverse splitters, are being held/WL to see how the auto-admit pool shapes out. I think we're seeing this a lot at Harvard, and to a less of a degree at most of the T5-T14 schools, especially UVA, Penn, and a few others.

If my cycle so far means anything, I don't think this is true at all. I heard back from UMich on 11/16 (only about a month after I submitted). It was one of the first batches and I'm definitely a borderline-splitter candidate. (#s in profile.)

"Even though there are less total applicants, there is still a chance that there is simply more LSNers this year, which can skew that data."/quote

More LSNers this year? No, there are fewer. Just run a search of all Users; you'll see that the LSN population is sharply down.

salsahips wrote:"Even though there are less total applicants, there is still a chance that there is simply more LSNers this year, which can skew that data."

Robespierre wrote:More LSNers this year? No, there are fewer. Just run a search of all Users; you'll see that the LSN population is sharply down.

touché