Top Law Schools

Ok, so everyone on this forum seems to be convinced that schools are very concerned with their USNWR rankings and equates those rankings with 25/50/75 LSAT/GPA splits. If we accept that that is the case, then shouldn't the chances for splitters (25/75'ers) be the same regardless of numbers?

My logic here is this, if the school wants to improve its LSAT distribution it will try to push its 25/50/75 distribution up, but once you exceed the 75th percentile for either category your additional LSAT or GPA points don't do anything unless you are close to the 75th percentile person (as far as I can tell USNWR uses the ABA 25/50/75 figures and doesn't get a full score distribution). Two guys were applying to a T-14 with a 25/50/75 of 3.6/3.7/3.8 GPA and a 167/169/171, one with a 3.5/173 and the other with a 3.4/180 they would both be 25/75 splits and have basically zero effect on the report statistics.

So, now that I have that laid out. Why is the conventional wisdom that the guy with the high LSAT will get an admissions boost? It seems like adcomms should be weighing these candidates purely on their PS and softs rather than the numbers.

From what I'm seen, admissions chances are very significant between the 25th and 75th percentile, and vital as to whether you're at/above median. If you're above the 75th (i.e. 173 vs. 180, the admissions statistics become marginally less important, and not neglected). On the flip side, if you're below the 25th, it's not like the difference is not important. If you're applying to Penn below their 25th (a 165 would make a world of difference vs. a 160). The same applies to GPA (let's say, a 3.6 vs a 3.15)

As for why LSAT gets a boost more so than high GPAs, it's a simple question of supply and demand. Give the convention that 170 is ~98th percentile, you have x amount of applications who are 170+. But, there are most definitely more than 2% of the application pool with 3.8+GPAs. GPAs also have a wide variance given the school and the major. A sociology major at State U would be treated different from an EECS at MIT in terms of GPAs. LSAT is the LSAT.

DMXdawg wrote: As for why LSAT gets a boost more so than high GPAs, it's a simple question of supply and demand. Give the convention that 170 is ~98th percentile, you have x amount of applications who are 170+. But, there are most definitely more than 2% of the application pool with 3.8+GPAs. GPAs also have a wide variance given the school and the major. A sociology major at State U would be treated different from an EECS at MIT in terms of GPAs. LSAT is the LSAT.

I am only really interested in cases of 75/25 splits for GPA/LSAT. I realize that it is much easier to get a 4.0 some places than others, so I would imagine that admissions committees would be concerned about the students ability to succeed if they went to CC and then no name State and graduated with a great GPA in an easy subject. In that case I would hope that the HYP or whatever undergrad with a high GPA low LSAT got the spot over the other guy. Conversely with LSAT scores, the difference between a 173 and a 178 is only a few questions and I would imagine not a significant predictor of success at a top school. Why should adcomms care about the difference between a 173 and 178?(or any other difference above their 75 for that matter)?

US News only factors in medians, and the LSAT median carries more weight than GPA.
http://www.usnews.com/articles/educatio ... l?PageNr=1