Top Law Schools

As I was looking over the list of schools I am considering, I noticed some of them have a much lower 25th percentile compared to the other schools around them on the rankings list. North Carolina-Chapel Hill, for instance, has a range of 157 to 164. All of these law schools appear to be state schools.

I'm sure there's some good reason for this, possibly one that has been discussed already, but I am not sure of what it is.

40% of US News is institutional prestige, which becomes feedback loop due to past prestige, has some correlation with numbers but not alot (HYSCCN have a lot of overlap).

Some schools are friendlier to splitters and reverse splitters, meaning they will take people whose GPAs/LSATs have greater variance. Look at a school's LSAT and GPA medians for a better idea of where you stand.

dissonance1848 wrote:40% of US News is institutional prestige, which becomes feedback loop due to past prestige, has some correlation with numbers but not alot (HYSCCN have a lot of overlap).

Some schools are friendlier to splitters and reverse splitters, meaning they will take people whose GPAs/LSATs have greater variance. Look at a school's LSAT and GPA medians for a better idea of where you stand.

The range isn't the same for out of state students at a school like Chapel Hill, is it?

I don't wish to debate or advocate for/against the process but I know that often URM's can take up much of the bottom 25%. Example, at American. So URM (very) friendly schools can statistically put the first 24% as low as they want, without harming any statistical figures.
http://american.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats

txadv11 wrote:I don't wish to debate or advocate for/against the process but I know that often URM's can take up much of the bottom 25%. Example, at American. So URM (very) friendly schools can statistically put the first 24% as low as they want, without harming any statistical figures.
http://american.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats

How do you know if a school is particularly friendly to URMs?

b.j. wrote:

txadv11 wrote:I don't wish to debate or advocate for/against the process but I know that often URM's can take up much of the bottom 25%. Example, at American. So URM (very) friendly schools can statistically put the first 24% as low as they want, without harming any statistical figures.
http://american.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats

How do you know if a school is particularly friendly to URMs?

Look here: http://officialguide.lsac.org/release/O ... fault.aspx select a state/school, then click the ABA info link and look on the stats. Also LSN shows trends. If a school has a large gap from 25-median then I usually assume it is URM's OR people with WE etc...(be it race/gender, older, LGBT etc) This is not to say that these groups can't, and don't end up in the 75%+ category, but generally these groups can "reach" into a school better than a typical non-urm, or get a better financial offer.

The low 25ths may allow them to maximize their medians. Most people below one median/quartile that are admitted are above the other.

txadv11 wrote:

b.j. wrote:

txadv11 wrote:I don't wish to debate or advocate for/against the process but I know that often URM's can take up much of the bottom 25%. Example, at American. So URM (very) friendly schools can statistically put the first 24% as low as they want, without harming any statistical figures.
http://american.lawschoolnumbers.com/stats

How do you know if a school is particularly friendly to URMs?

Look here: http://officialguide.lsac.org/release/O ... fault.aspx select a state/school, then click the ABA info link and look on the stats. Also LSN shows trends. If a school has a large gap from 25-median then I usually assume it is URM's OR people with WE etc...(be it race/gender, older, LGBT etc) This is not to say that these groups can't, and don't end up in the 75%+ category, but generally these groups can "reach" into a school better than a typical non-urm, or get a better financial offer.

In other words, some schools weigh more heavily on SOFT FACTORS, while others keep their quartiles tight with NUMBERS.

To go back to OP's original example... state schools tend to have larger number ranges, especially lower 25%iles because they try to (or are required to) admit a certain number of people from their home state, and thus end up admitting some applicants that they otherwise wouldn't.

Because they use splitters and reverse splitters to drag their median as close as possible to their 75th, creating a 25th that's farther away.