Yale 2010 Forum

[ConMan345]

Don't be complaining about going to Stanford!! Some of us would kill to get in there. Besides, Palo Alto, boring though it may be, is still better than New Haven.

You're right, you're right, I suppose it's all relative--the whole "OMG stanford " thing wore off (and got a bit old) a long time ago, especially when you're surrounded by people who, surprise!, also got into Stanford. Perhaps the law school experience will be totally different, but the proposition of three more years, while obviously an embarrassment of riches, is....meh.

[crackberry]

- Admissions decisions are completely arbitrary.

One could theoretically make this argument, but I'd delete the word "completely." That's not really fair.

Lack of disclosure about the whole admissions process.

True for Stanford. Not at all true for Yale. See the blog.

The law schools rides on the school's Ivy name.

[Kretzy]

SLS, IMO, is in many ways like YLS.

- Small class size.
- Admissions decisions are completely arbitrary.
- Lack of disclosure about the whole admissions process.
- The law schools rides on their home schools' Ivy name.
- Mass dings at a time.
- And so much more...

Btw... damn, lotta people getting dinged by YLS. I guess my ding should be forthcoming any day now...

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

They're similar, but not in the ways you're describing.


EDIT: Goddammit CB, stop being a TLS gunner. Let other folks troll for SLS every once in a while.

[Unitas]

Thx, crackberry and Kretzy. Duly noted. (And, yes, I actually do follow Asha's 203 blog rather sporadically).

Btw... which brings me to another question (for the ill-informed like me):

WHAT THE HELL IS AN IVY LAW SCHOOL?!?!? Is there even such a thing?!?!? H? Y? P?

PS. Yes, my bad. I tend to think S is Ivy for some reason.

Ivy league is a sports league of what happen to be some of the top academic schools.. They are not the best at sports...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_league

[EijiMiyake]

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

Huh? Just because they blog about the functional process doesn't make it transparent. They don't tell us (and it's certainly not obvious from the outside) what they're looking for in an applicant, or even that they're consistent in their judging of applicants.

[crackberry]

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

Huh? Just because they blog about the functional process doesn't make it transparent. They don't tell us (and it's certainly not obvious from the outside) what they're looking for in an applicant, or even that they're consistent in their judging of applicants.

Ok, but no school does. Yale is more transparent than any other top school.

[Kronk]

How is it not obvious from the outside? They're looking for people with extremely stellar numbers who have something unique to add to a small class. They aren't going to accept 200 white guys, or two hundred gay people, or two hundred people who want to do civil rights law, or two hundred people who want to be future judges. If someone gets pulled off the waitlist to fill a spot, Asha tells us that she looks on the waitlist for a similar applicant to replace that person with.

[crackberry]

EDIT: Goddammit CB, stop being a TLS gunner. Let other folks troll for SLS every once in a while.

Sorry Kretzy, I'm going to Michigan for work next week and will be off TLS for the first half of the week. You can do all the SLS trolling you want then.

[EijiMiyake]

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

Huh? Just because they blog about the functional process doesn't make it transparent. They don't tell us (and it's certainly not obvious from the outside) what they're looking for in an applicant, or even that they're consistent in their judging of applicants.

Ok, but no school does. Yale is more transparent than any other top school.

I dunno dude, it's pretty obvious what HLS is looking for in applicant, for example.

[EijiMiyake]

How is it not obvious from the outside? They're looking for people with extremely stellar numbers who have something unique to add to a small class. They aren't going to accept 200 white guys, or two hundred gay people, or two hundred people who want to do civil rights law, or two hundred people who want to be future judges. If someone gets pulled off the waitlist to fill a spot, Asha tells us that she looks on the waitlist for a similar applicant to replace that person with.

I guess. I just equate transparency with consistency, and the "looking for unique applicants" makes consistency impossible.

[crackberry]

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

Huh? Just because they blog about the functional process doesn't make it transparent. They don't tell us (and it's certainly not obvious from the outside) what they're looking for in an applicant, or even that they're consistent in their judging of applicants.

Ok, but no school does. Yale is more transparent than any other top school.

I dunno dude, it's pretty obvious what HLS is looking for in applicant, for example.

Well HLS is much more numbers-centric than either YLS or SLS because they have to be with that big a class. Still, though, there are some numbers beasts who were held at HLS this year. I don't know. I really think Yale is more transparent than any other top school. The fact that they don't consistently take 175, 3.9 applicants doesn't make the process opaque.

[r6_philly]

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

Huh? Just because they blog about the functional process doesn't make it transparent. They don't tell us (and it's certainly not obvious from the outside) what they're looking for in an applicant, or even that they're consistent in their judging of applicants.

Transparent != predictable.

When things are not random, distribution is usually skewed. You introduce randomness into processes in an attemp to keep the distribution even (or, fair). I think they have been transparent about most steps. They can't really quantify the randomness (of the reviewers). Why have a predictable process, then some people can game it better than others.

[crackberry]

How is it not obvious from the outside? They're looking for people with extremely stellar numbers who have something unique to add to a small class. They aren't going to accept 200 white guys, or two hundred gay people, or two hundred people who want to do civil rights law, or two hundred people who want to be future judges. If someone gets pulled off the waitlist to fill a spot, Asha tells us that she looks on the waitlist for a similar applicant to replace that person with.

I guess. I just equate transparency with consistency, and the "looking for unique applicants" makes consistency impossible.

I think we differ on the definition of transparency.

[Unitas]

How is it not obvious from the outside? They're looking for people with extremely stellar numbers who have something unique to add to a small class. They aren't going to accept 200 white guys, or two hundred gay people, or two hundred people who want to do civil rights law, or two hundred people who want to be future judges. If someone gets pulled off the waitlist to fill a spot, Asha tells us that she looks on the waitlist for a similar applicant to replace that person with.

I guess. I just equate transparency with consistency, and the "looking for unique applicants" makes consistency impossible.

[strike]I think we differ on the definition of transparency.[/strike] I know what transparency means.

FTFY

[Dignan]

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

Huh? Just because they blog about the functional process doesn't make it transparent. They don't tell us (and it's certainly not obvious from the outside) what they're looking for in an applicant, or even that they're consistent in their judging of applicants.

The Yale process isn't transparent in the sense that you mean, but we at least know what form the process takes. We know that the YLS admissions office reads all applications in their entirety; we know that the YLS admissions office directly accepts about 50-60 applicants and directly rejects most of the other applicants; we know that the applications that are neither directly accepted nor directly rejected get forwarded to three different faculty members for review; and we know that each faculty reviewer assigns the applicant a score of 2 to 4.

No, we don't know exactly what they're looking for in an applicant--with 60 different faculty members participating in the review process, how could we?--but we do have a relatively clear understanding of the process. With SLS, by contrast, we have little idea. How many people look at each app? Are faculty involved at all in the review process? If faculty are involved, what is their role? Does SLS require that each application be read in its entirety, or does it reject certain applications based purely on inadequate numbers?

I'm not trying to give SLS a hard time. Like most schools, it doesn't talk openly about its admissions process. But YLS does, and that makes it unique in my experience. It's possible that other schools are similarly open about their process (Berkeley comes close), but I don't know of any.

[Unitas]

SLS isn't an Ivy, both schools actively blog about their admissions process (though SLS is not as transparent as Yale, which is arguably the MOST transparent of the top schools), and neither school sends mass dings via email like most of the rest of the T14.

Huh? Just because they blog about the functional process doesn't make it transparent. They don't tell us (and it's certainly not obvious from the outside) what they're looking for in an applicant, or even that they're consistent in their judging of applicants.

The Yale process isn't transparent in the sense that you mean, but we at least know what form the process takes. We know that the YLS admissions office reads all applications in their entirety; we know that the YLS admissions office directly accepts about 50-60 applicants and directly rejects most of the other applicants; we know that the applications that are neither directly accepted nor directly rejected get forwarded to three different faculty members for review; and we know that each faculty reviewer assigns the applicant a score of 2 to 4.

No, we don't know exactly what they're looking for in an applicant--with 60 different faculty members participating in the review process, how could we?--but we do have a relatively clear understanding of the process. With SLS, by contrast, we have little idea. How many people look at each app? Are faculty involved at all in the review process? If faculty are involved, what is their role? Does SLS require that each application be read in its entirety, or does it reject certain applications based purely on inadequate numbers?

I'm not trying to give SLS a hard time. Like most schools, it doesn't talk openly about its admissions process. But YLS does, and that makes it unique in my experience. It's possible that other schools are similarly open about their process (Berkeley comes close), but I don't know of any.

In fact, Dean Asha has given out lists of different things the different professors look for. However, since the professors differ and you don't know which professors you go to for review you can't tailor anything specific. Dean Asha has said some look at writing sample, some LSAT, some only at LORs... It is by far the most transparent of the review processes. Only thing I wish they would add is if you make it to faculty review or not when it happens. That is the only part they aren't transparent about.

[Tautology]

Well, I suppose I'm allowed to chime in with another shocking report of a rejection. My plan was always to hope that they misread my application and accidentally let me in, but alas my plan was not successful.

[AdmiralNelson]

I received my rejection letter in the mail today. I live in Boston, for those of you gauging the speed of the ding-wave.

[Kronk]

So does five months free of rejection constitute tacit acceptance?

[tamlyric]

Well, I suppose I'm allowed to chime in with another shocking report of a rejection. My plan was always to hope that they misread my application and accidentally let me in, but alas my plan was not successful.

do you mind saying what region of the country you're in?

sorry about the ding.

[owhlcn]

So does five months free of rejection constitute tacit acceptance?

i say yes. see you in new haven, kronk.

[Anastasia Dee Dualla]

Rejected today! Thankful that they even gave me a chance.

[adameus]

So does five months free of rejection constitute tacit acceptance?

I think it's equivalent to a Priority Waitlist.

[crackberry]

So does five months free of rejection constitute tacit acceptance?

TBF, the letter wouldn't have gotten to Colorado yet.

I also avoided a rejection letter from 06520 today, but I'm not going to breathe a sigh of relief until Monday or Tuesday.

[tomhobbes]

Well, I suppose I'm allowed to chime in with another shocking report of a rejection. My plan was always to hope that they misread my application and accidentally let me in, but alas my plan was not successful.

The reason you weren't admitted was that your application was not successful. Don't give up hope! If you reapply with a successful application next year, you'll certainly get in!