<p>But you might be surprised to find out you were wrong on both counts,at least partially. Harvard influences people, and one of the results of that is that students get interested in law and policy, and migrate out of more academic fields into ones with more connection to the world. A lot of lawyers are former math majors, or people who started out to be math or physics majors and finished up as economics or political science majors.</p>
<p>Also, looking at the numbers, Hanna overestimated. College Board figures for the last available class show 33 non-applied math majors and 27 physics majors, out of 1800 bachelors degree recipients, or 3% of the total student body. It’s hard to believe that exhausts the true top intellectual talent. Meanwhile, there are ten times as many mainstream social science majors (economics, government, psychology, anthropology, sociology), a full third of the class. In terms of actual numbers, that group is likely to include more of the “true top intellectual talent at Harvard” than the math and physics majors, even if not ten times more.</p>
<p>^ Certainly true. Also certainly true, that many start out in math or physics and simply can’t survive it or have a future in a field like law in mind that is heavily dependent on GPA so make the concentration switch to preserve the GPA.</p>
<p>I’m just responding to two assumptions that I saw here today. The first was that it’s more selective to go to HLS than to HC. Maybe it’s the Tiger Mom in me but I just don’t think the numbers support that statement. The second assumption I disagree with is that the brainiest (ie, most intellectually gifted) students are the ones taking the LSAT. They may, indeed, have higher GPA’s but then I think you have to look at the concentrations and not just go by absolute GPA.</p>
<p>So all this was really about saying that Obama must be brilliant because he (1) went to HLS, (2) was Pres of the Law Review, and (3) graduated magna. I’d agree with all that, especially #3, which I have a sense is the least affected by politics. </p>
<p>Finally, I’m kind of glad after this thread that my kid didn’t want to pursue law. I just find it lazy and silly to let GPA play such a role in admissions. Concentrations vary in difficulty and so do institutions. Learning this about law school, even Harvard Law School, makes me less impressed, not more impressed by the field. I think this approach to admissions could foster a lot of calculated grade-grubbing behavior in our future lawyers and surely this a field that needs to improve it’s image in general. I suppose the LSAT score is meaningful and objective. No raw GPA number can be viewed as that.</p>
<p>^^I don’t know about any of the other kids, but my daughter was a Physics concentrator at Harvard. And so far as I know she has no desire whatsoever to become President of the US.</p>
<p>Physicist here, married to a physicist, working with physicists, know lots of physicists. I would say that physicists tend to be somewhat introverted. This is a disqualification for political office.</p>
<p>I think most law school deans would agree with you. But they can’t afford not to play the US News ranking game. It’s a HUGE deal whether Harvard overtakes Yale for the #1 spot, or slips behind Stanford into #3. It’s a huge deal whether Columbia or NYU is the “best” law school in NYC; whether Michigan overtakes Chicago for tops in the Midwest; whether UC Berkeley stays in the top 10 or falls out; whether UVA or Duke is the “best” law school in the Southeast as measured by US News. And sometimes very small differences in GPAs and LSAT scores can make a difference, or be one of the statistical factors that jointly make a difference, in propelling a school upward or downward in the US News rankings. </p>
<p>US News has even more of a stranglehold on the law school admissions process than on undergrad admissions—and heaven knows, it’s out of control there. Twenty or 30 years ago law school admissions was much more “holistic,” but under the tyranny of US News rankings it’s now almost purely numbers driven.</p>
<p>Where law school deans (and I know of few) would differ with you is on the importance of LSAT scores. I think they’d be just as happy to de-emphasize LSAT scores as GPAs, largely because in law schools as in undergraduate admissions, standardized test scores are at best weak predictors of first-year academic performance, and rather poor predictors of academic success beyond the first year. (GPAs—even raw, unadjusted GPAs—are actually BETTER predictors than test scores, but they’re not great, either). But in US News-world standardized test scores are a proxy for quality, and the deans can’t risk slipping in the US News rankings lest they incur the wrath of alumni and students, and the scorn of future generations of prospective students. So US News and its rigid, short-sighted methodology rule, and distort the process.</p>
<p>Although this thread is suppose to be apolitical, I bet I could identify the Party affiliation of the posters who commented on contemporary Presidents.</p>
<p>“I think most law school deans would agree with you.”</p>
<p>Speaking as a law school administrator – they certainly would. bclintonk hasn’t exaggerated the role of rankings at all. They are just as critical lower down the food chain; whether a school remains in the third tier, or moves up or down, is practically the only thing that matters. Lots of people lose their jobs over this.</p>
<p>IMHO, the LSAT has an important role to play as a threshold measure predicting bar passage. In my fantasy world, schools that can’t put at least 80% of their graduates into the profession on the first try would be shut down. But whether a school’s 25th percentile is at 167 or 169 tells you zilch, and shouldn’t matter.</p>
<p>“Learning this about law school, even Harvard Law School, makes me less impressed, not more impressed by the field.”</p>
<p>Your opinion would probably sink yet further if you knew how great a role law school prestige, clerkship prestige, practice-area prestige, and firm prestige can play in a legal career, especially in the upper echelons. The whole profession is hierarchical.</p>
<p>^ That’s really interesting. No field is perfect, I guess. </p>
<p>Getting back to “brainy” presidents – the insights shared here about law have helped me appreciate the scale of Obama’s academic achievements. He should certainly be counted as one of the prodigious academic intellects among our presidents.</p>
<p>No one has mentioned Gerald Ford. While perhaps not on a par with the real intellectual and academic stars among our presidents, he was no slouch. He did very well at UMichigan, then attended Yale Law School.</p>
That is so true. We have a totally separate recruiting process for clerks and after being hired, they get special bonuses and first crack at interesting work. Leaving non-clerks to feel like second class citizens. Of course, the non clerks all come from the top of the class at the top ten law schools, so they are certainly well-credentialed also.</p>
<p>I still disagree about Obama. I’m confident that he is very smart, but over the years I’ve worked with, had personal relationships with and sat on committees with such luminaries as a current, sitting member of the US Supreme Court (who is the best, best, best friend of a person I work closely with and with whom I have attended BBQs, a wedding, a funeral and a bris and holiday parties for decades), a top appointed official in the highest level of a presidential administration with whom I have had weekly committee meetings, and one of the brightest legal scholars in the entire country (bold faced name in the extreme and who considered cycling through a law firm a few years ago for financial reasons and whose candidacy I escorted). All credentialed as highly as Mr. Obama, but vastly different. I would say it takes much more than credentials to be counted among our braniest presidents when the candidates are people like Thomas Jefferson and William Jefferson Clinton.</p>
<p>I haven’t actually stated my vote, but I’d have to go with Jefferson or Lincoln.</p>
<p>Jefferson because of his curiosity and skill across a multitude of fields. Not many architects can write like that!</p>
<p>Lincoln because his achievements and writing put him into any debate on this topic, and he barely went to school at all. There’s a lot of myth in the Lincoln ideal, but it really was true that he was scratching letters in charcoal on the back of a shovel because he couldn’t afford paper or even chalk. He must have had truly extraordinary innate abilities to become the lawyer, writer, and strategist he was through self-education.</p>
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but that certainly does show evidence of great natural intellect. I kind of feel the same way about Clinton, though, because nothing in his background would have led anyone to imagine what he could achieve. I have to believe it’s natural intelligence, as well, because I really do think he is that brilliant.</p>
<p>Have you ever visited Monticello? It changed my sense of Jefferson. Yes, it’s a beautiful home but deeply strange. The round room. The odd bedroom. He was a genius and a little off. It’s really worth visiting.</p>
<p>Up until about 100 years ago, it was common and accepted for highly intelligent people to be interested in consciousness-affecting drugs. From Thomas De Quincey to Samuel Taylor Coleridge to J.K. Huysmans, Arthur Rimbaud, and (of course) Sherlock Holmes. Basically, we didn’t start criminalizing non-medical drug use until the early 20th century. So Jefferson might well have felt comfortable in the 60s.</p>
<p>Jefferson and Lincoln are the obvious favorites in any brainy Presidents derby. That isn’t so interesting. What’s interesting, to me at least, is thinking about who else is in the race (and what it means about braininess). So I am more interested in Garfield and Tyler and Hoover and Carter than the Usual Suspects.</p>
<p>I think it’s interesting to note that there are things that make a President seem brainy, or non-brainy, that may not really tell us much. Gerald Ford is a prime example–we tend to think of him as non-brainy, but is that really due to anything other than a few clumsy incidents that were used as comedy fodder by Chevy Chase? Jimmy Carter’s accent makes people doubt his braininess. And nobody’s mentioned Lyndon Johnson, who was certainly shrewd, but didn’t project an aura of braininess. I think Ronald Reagan seems smart if you like him, less if you don’t. As for the Founding Fathers, certainly some of them were geniuses, but I wonder if we aren’t mistaking class (as in social class) for brains with respect to some of them.</p>