Top Law Schools

Redacted

I think you're a flame, but you have a good shot at YS if true.

Your chances are not very good. I wish you luck. You'll need a lot of it.

Hahaha, I'm 4srs not. I would probably rather go to an academic grad school, but my LSAT scores just came back better than I thought, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I heard somewhere that Stanford (being a small school) focuses on intangibles harder than other places - does that make admission more up in the air than at other places, e.g. Harvard?

godofcoffee wrote:Hahaha, I'm 4srs not. I would probably rather go to an academic grad school, but my LSAT scores just came back better than I thought, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I heard somewhere that Stanford (being a small school) focuses on intangibles harder than other places - does that make admission more up in the air than at other places, e.g. Harvard?

Yes at Yale and Stanford great gpa and lsat are necessary but not sufficient.

Don't go to law school if you don't want to be a lawyer. PhD programs are funded, while you'll rack up debt (or waste inheritance money) attending these schools.

Desert Fox wrote:

godofcoffee wrote:Hahaha, I'm 4srs not. I would probably rather go to an academic grad school, but my LSAT scores just came back better than I thought, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I heard somewhere that Stanford (being a small school) focuses on intangibles harder than other places - does that make admission more up in the air than at other places, e.g. Harvard?

Yes at Yale and Stanford great gpa and lsat are necessary but not sufficient.

Don't go to law school if you don't want to be a lawyer. PhD programs are funded, while you'll rack up debt (or waste inheritance money) attending these schools.

I've been lucky enough that money is a genuine non-issue. I don't really want to become a lawyer, but the fam thinks it'll be a good prelude to whatever I want to do, legal or not. I'm just not sure if that's true - it seems like you would go to a professional school in order to enter a specific profession.

If you want to be an academic, supplementing a PhD with a JD isn't necessarily so silly. The legal academic market is far less bloodbath-y than other academic markets (that's admittedly a pretty low bar) and law profs (generally) earn more. If you do both concurrently, at least at Stanford, you'll only need to take out a year's worth of LS loans, which you can essentially pay off in one summer working with a firm.

lol@ Stanford for the Sun. Have you spent any time in NoCal?

Blatant anti-Harvard trolling.

Flame or asshole.

Or both.

clintonius wrote:Flame or asshole.

Or both.

I don't think either.

If it a flame, it's a poor one. Asking a realistic, noncontroversial question isn't a flame.

godofcoffee wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

godofcoffee wrote:Hahaha, I'm 4srs not. I would probably rather go to an academic grad school, but my LSAT scores just came back better than I thought, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I heard somewhere that Stanford (being a small school) focuses on intangibles harder than other places - does that make admission more up in the air than at other places, e.g. Harvard?

Yes at Yale and Stanford great gpa and lsat are necessary but not sufficient.

Don't go to law school if you don't want to be a lawyer. PhD programs are funded, while you'll rack up debt (or waste inheritance money) attending these schools.

I've been lucky enough that money is a genuine non-issue. I don't really want to become a lawyer, but the fam thinks it'll be a good prelude to whatever I want to do, legal or not. I'm just not sure if that's true - it seems like you would go to a professional school in order to enter a specific profession.

What do you want to do?

Most law schools are almost entirely professional, and only are good for getting a job as a lawyer. However Yale is by far the most academic law school.

However, I promise you there is a more relevant school/program to whatever you want to do.

Desert Fox wrote:

clintonius wrote:Flame or asshole.

Or both.

I don't think either.

If it a flame, it's a poor one. Asking a realistic, noncontroversial question isn't a flame.

Well, if you're right, then it's the envy talking.

Harvard's virtually a lock and OP would have to say something stupid to get tossed. Yale and Stanford are kind of black boxes, but the odds here are better than most.

Desert Fox wrote:

clintonius wrote:Flame or asshole.

Or both.

I don't think either.

If it a flame, it's a poor one. Asking a realistic, noncontroversial question isn't a flame.

I appreciate that, man (or woman). I do know enough about law school to realize that I was pretty lucky to get a score like I did on the LSAT

jmhendri wrote:lol@ Stanford for the Sun. Have you spent any time in NoCal?

Haha, I'm actually here right now, doing techy stuff. It's such a relief after 3 years in New Hampshire that I think I want to stay.

theadw wrote:If you want to be an academic, supplementing a PhD with a JD isn't necessarily so silly. The legal academic market is far less bloodbath-y than other academic markets (that's admittedly a pretty low bar) and law profs (generally) earn more. If you do both concurrently, at least at Stanford, you'll only need to take out a year's worth of LS loans, which you can essentially pay off in one summer working with a firm.

This is really interesting to me - I have a non-trivial shot at Stanford CS, and would love to do it if I get in. Is there any sort of established PhD-JD program there?

clintonius wrote: Harvard's virtually a lock and OP would have to say something stupid to get tossed. Yale and Stanford are kind of black boxes, but the odds here are better than most.

That's awesome, I didn't know people could be locks at Harvard.

godofcoffee wrote:

clintonius wrote:Harvard's virtually a lock and OP would have to say something stupid to get tossed. Yale and Stanford are kind of black boxes, but the odds here are better than most.

That's awesome, I didn't know people could be locks at Harvard.

Harvard's class is huge and their admissions process is much more numbers-centric than those of Yale and Stanford, which each have classes about 1/3 the size of HLS's and can afford to cherry-pick from even the most desirable candidates.

Desert Fox wrote:

godofcoffee wrote:

Desert Fox wrote:

godofcoffee wrote:Hahaha, I'm 4srs not. I would probably rather go to an academic grad school, but my LSAT scores just came back better than I thought, so I thought I'd give it a shot.

I heard somewhere that Stanford (being a small school) focuses on intangibles harder than other places - does that make admission more up in the air than at other places, e.g. Harvard?

Yes at Yale and Stanford great gpa and lsat are necessary but not sufficient.

Don't go to law school if you don't want to be a lawyer. PhD programs are funded, while you'll rack up debt (or waste inheritance money) attending these schools.

I've been lucky enough that money is a genuine non-issue. I don't really want to become a lawyer, but the fam thinks it'll be a good prelude to whatever I want to do, legal or not. I'm just not sure if that's true - it seems like you would go to a professional school in order to enter a specific profession.

What do you want to do?

Most law schools are almost entirely professional, and only are good for getting a job as a lawyer. However Yale is by far the most academic law school.

However, I promise you there is a more relevant school/program to whatever you want to do.

Ah, also, my plans are pretty much one of:
a) Finance, minus the horrific analyst experience
b) Politics in my home country (Canada)
c) Academia

Seems like the first two could be abetted by a law degree.

And the third, particularly if you get into Y/H. Although I think breaking into finance would be much, much easier with an MBA, and even if you did the JD route it would take a few years of being an associate. And it'd still be a long shot.

godofcoffee wrote: Ah, also, my plans are pretty much one of:
a) Finance, minus the horrific analyst experience
b) Politics in my home country (Canada)
c) Academia

Seems like the first two could be abetted by a law degree.

You should talk to someone who goes to Yale and see what kind of Finance jobs are available to recent grads. I know some associates at big law firms can, under very slim circumstances make the jump in to finance. I've also heard some investment banks will do on campus interviews at top schools, but that was before the economy crash. I don't know if that still happens. Either way isn't an MBA the better choice here?

For B, wouldn't a MPP from a Canadian school be better?

Yale actually produces a large portion of US legal academics.

clintonius wrote:And the third, particularly if you get into Y/H. Although I think breaking into finance would be much, much easier with an MBA, and even if you did the JD route it would take a few years of being an associate. And it'd still be a long shot.

Not legal academia, CS or Math academia. I'm not that interested in problems of law or legal interpretation (which may be a red flag for law school, actually).

Desert Fox wrote:

godofcoffee wrote: Ah, also, my plans are pretty much one of:
a) Finance, minus the horrific analyst experience
b) Politics in my home country (Canada)
c) Academia

Seems like the first two could be abetted by a law degree.

You should talk to someone who goes to Yale and see what kind of Finance jobs are available to recent grads. I know some associates at big law firms can, under very slim circumstances make the jump in to finance. I've also heard some investment banks will do on campus interviews at top schools, but that was before the economy crash. I don't know if that still happens. Either way isn't an MBA the better choice here?

For B, wouldn't a MPP from a Canadian school be better?

Yale actually produces a large portion of US legal academics.

I always thought that MPPs were sketchy and too easy to have any signalling effect (which is honestly a lot of what I want). But I get all my information secondhand - is this not actually true? If I went to any of harvard, yale or stanford, people would know I was at least a little smart. But I can't imagine that being true of an MPP at ANY Canadian school.