3.61/169 From Top Public School Forum

[stylishlaw]

I only wish I could have gone to schools as good as those, but it sounds to me like you yourself are trying to defend the 'brand name' of your mediocre national university over the best liberal arts schools in the country.

I'm not disagreeing that the vast majority of the US population has never heard of them, but in terms of getting into graduate school, biglaw, prestigious government work, those names will carry as much weight as HYP.

lol, no.

[dr123]

What I hate about the HYP thing is that it assumes that someone from Williams, Amherst or Swarthmore wouldn't get a boost.

I'm not necessarily saying that any UG does or doesn't give you a boost, but if any do, i'd wager that the latter three would be more impressive to an adcomm than HYP.

I loled pretty hard at "Williams, Amherst, or Swarthmore being more impressive than HYP".

TBF Swarthmore is one of the few UGs that has a pretty harsh curve. A 3.5 from Swarthmore is infinitely more impressive than a 3.5 from Harvard, imo.

[minnesotasam]

I applied to and got into Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore. I applied to and got denied from Yale.

[Curry]

I applied to and got into Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore. I applied to and got denied from Yale.

THEREFORE YALE IS BETTER.

[dpk711]

I applied to and got into Amherst, Williams, and Swarthmore. I applied to and got denied from Yale.

COOL STORY BRO.
Regardless, that the top LACs are better and more reputable than the top national universities is a laughable argument.

[minnesotasam]

SHOULD HAVE POSTED IT IN CAPS, GOOD POINT

[aliarrow]

SHOULD HAVE POSTED IT IN CAPS, GOOD POINT

If you had gone to Yale, you would know Caps make an argument 20% more effective.

[Flips88]

I APPLIED TO NONE OF THESE BECAUSE I FIGURED SPENDING $200,000 ON A LIBERAL ARTS DEGREE FOR A NEGLIGIBLE TO MINIMALLY SIGNIFICANT BUMP WAS DUMB!

[Chickensoup]

The thought that Williams/Amherst/etc. are more impressive than even the art school at University of San Diego is hysterical.

[Puffin]

The thought that Williams/Amherst/etc. are more impressive than even the art school at University of San Diego is hysterical.

The thought of necro-ing a year and a half old thread is hysterical.

[somewhatwayward]

The thought that Williams/Amherst/etc. are more impressive than even the art school at University of San Diego is hysterical.

Yeah I don't think Amherst/Williams, etc give you a bump, but I have seen the numbers for people who did their undergrads at Harvard or Stanford, and the average LSAT/GPA admitted to all the law schools is usually lower than the respective law school's medians....like, for example, admitted applicants admitted to HLS who went to H for undergrad have, on average, like a 170-171/3.7-3.8. I realize you're comparing averages and medians. But I have observed the HYP bias in action...know two non-minorities admitted for the class of 2013 with GPAs under 3.5, very unusual for HLS, both H undergrads.

CLS is inundated with HYP people (seems very heavy on Y for some reason) as well as Columbia, Penn, Dartmouth, etc....only a coupe Stanford people who I know. In general, I think the reason for that is that the people who go to Ivy schools generally are good test takers and therefore have higher LSATs. I don't think it is because of a big systematic bias for people with Ivy degrees. But HYP can tip the scales. I keep thinking of more anecdotes: non-minority friend from H undergrad who was in at NYU RD with a 168/3.5; Stanford undergrad friend non-minority in at CLS with a 167, not sure of GPA, etc etc. I know the numbers mean more than the anecdotes. I think I have a table with the averages I was talking about above. Let me see if I can find it.

Okay, so here are some numbers from the table. These are LSAT/GPA averages of Stanford undergrads (or recent BAs) admitted to various schools - the matriculated averages are in parentheses. The matriculated numbers are the ones that can really be compared to the schools' medians since the medians are based on matriculants, not admitted students, and you can see some drastic differences in the matriculated averages and the medians of some schools (eg, Berkeley, CLS, Duke). I put the schools' overall medians in brackets. However, I don't know how the average v median things plays out. Overall, though, looking at this, it seems like there is a small boost for being a S undergrad....maybe ~1 point on the LSAT or .1 or .2 points on the GPA.

Stanford Student LSAT/GPA Averages
School: admitted averages (matriculated averages) [medians for c/o 2013]
Berkeley: 168/3.75 (164/3.66) - [167/3.8]
Columbia: 170/3.77 (166/3.62) - [172/3.72]
Cornell: 165/3.66 (n/a) - [168/3.7]
Duke: 170/3.7 (165/3.52) - [170/3.8]
GULC: 169/3.66 (166/3.58) - [170/3.67]
NYU: 170/3.77 (169/3.76) - [172/3.71]
Northwestern: 169/3.64 (166/3.72) - [170/3.8]
Penn: 168/3.86 (n/a) - [170/3.85]
Stanford: 171/3.85 (171/3.83) - [170/3.88]
Michigan: 170.5/3.69 (169/3.64) - [169/3.73]
UVa: 171/3.69 (172/3.39) - [170/3.85]
Yale: 174/3.87 (173/3.84) - [173/3.91]
Chicago: 169/3.7 (n/a) - [171/3.78]
Harvard: 172.5/3.83 (171/3.76) - [173/3.89]
*They did not compute averages if less than five students went so I put n/a.

If you look at those matriculated averages and imagine the whole class was made of Stanford students, some schools' medians would probably be a lot lower although, again, it is hard to know mean v median, especially since I think schools love URMs from HYPS, and they tend to have lower LSAT scores, which may lower the average but not impact the median in the same way.

[vman21]

(o '.')-o