Colleges I should apply to?

[Chembiodad]

Continuing with College Transitions list of top feeders to the top law schools:
In recent years, the legal field has become increasingly competitive and less job secure, as many graduates of second and third tier law schools struggle to find employment. Elite law schools, on the other hand, still provide graduates with abundant access to stable and high paying positions, and should be on the radar of any aspiring lawyer. Using . . . data provided by LinkedIn, we were able to identify which colleges and universities send the highest percentage of students to a top-ranked law school.
Amherst
Brown
Claremont McKenna
Columbia
Cornell
Dartmouth
Duke
Georgetown
Hamilton
Harvard
Middlebury
Northwestern
Pomona
Stanford
UChicago
UMichigan
UPennsylvania
U of Southern California
Yale
Yeshiva
Source: College Transitions

Hamilton was also ranked #24 in Business Insiders “The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries”
http://www.businessinsider.com/colleges-with-the-highest-starting-salaries-2015-8

[CrewDad]

Hamilton was also ranked #24 in Business Insiders “The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries”

But Hamilton is not list in Business Insiders “The 50 best colleges in America” Although, 6 NESCAC colleges are among the 50. Impressive.
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-best-colleges-in-america-2015-2015-7/#50-villanova-university-1

[Chembiodad]

That’s OK as every list is slightly different in ranking. That “The 50 best colleges in America” list is from 2015, so maybe there’s an updated one.

That said its hard to believe that Hamilton College being included in BOTH “The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries” and “The 50 smartest colleges in America” isn’t an impressive combo

• #24 in “The 50 best colleges where students earn high starting salaries”
• #38 in “The 50 smartest colleges in America” - Williams, Amherst, Hamilton and Middlebury were the only NESCAC’s that made this list (in that order) http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-smartest-colleges-in-america-2016-10

[Chembiodad]

Oh, there Hamilton is on the 2016 list of “The 50 best colleges in America”, along with 4 other NESCAC’s - all is well http://www.businessinsider.com/how-we-ranked-the-best-colleges-in-america-2016-8

Unless my eyes are bad, only 4 NESCAC’s made the list in 2015 - Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury and Williams; the 2016 list is those 4 plus Hamilton. Agree that its impressive!

[Chembiodad]

@wa2424, and you call tell your parents that their money will be well spent at Hamilton College as its also;

• ranked #29 of all universities and colleges in the US by Kiplinger’s in “Kiplinger’s Best College Values” https://www.kiplinger.com/tool/college/T014-S001-kiplinger-s-best-values-in-private-colleges/index.php?table=all
• and ranked #44 of all universities and colleges in the US by Money Magazine’s in “Best Colleges For Your Money 2017” http://time.com/money/best-colleges/rankings/best-colleges/

Good luck researching more options!

[CrewDad]

@Chembiodad

Unless my eyes are bad, only 4 NESCAC’s made the list in 2015 Amherst, Bowdoin, Middlebury and Williams;
Oh, there Hamilton is on the 2016 list of “The 50 best colleges in America”, along with 4 other NESCAC’s

I’m surprised that you’re not aware that Tufts is a member of the NESCAC. :))
http://www.businessinsider.com/best-colleges-in-the-united-states-2016-8/#28-university-of-north-carolina-at-chapel-hill-23
Tufts #27
http://www.businessinsider.com/the-50-best-colleges-in-america-2015-2015-7/#30-tie-tufts-university-21
Tufts #30

Tufts is also the only NESCAC on the Forbes list of highest earning grads. Colgate and Swarthmore are also among the top 25.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/larafishbane/2016/07/06/the-top-college-graduates-who-earn-the-most/2/#

[Chembiodad]

@CrewDad, too many lists - yes, Tufts was one of 5 out of the 11 NESCAC schools included in 2015, and included in the 6 out of 11 that made the list in 2016.

Agree that 6 (Amherst, Bowdoin, Hamilton, Middlebury, Tufts and Williams) out of 50 schools in the US coming from the NESCAC is impressive!

[warblersrule]

@merc81

In terms of graduate entry into highly regarded law schools, College Transitions includes Amherst, Hamilton, Middlebury, Pomona and Claremont McKenna as the liberal arts colleges among their top-20 schools.

@Chembiodad

Continuing with College Transitions list of top feeders to the top law schools:
In recent years, the legal field has become increasingly competitive and less job secure, as many graduates of second and third tier law schools struggle to find employment. Elite law schools, on the other hand, still provide graduates with abundant access to stable and high paying positions, and should be on the radar of any aspiring lawyer. Using . . . data provided by LinkedIn, we were able to identify which colleges and universities send the highest percentage of students to a top-ranked law school…

Law school admissions is heavily dependent upon GPA and LSAT scores. Unsurprisingly students who fared well on the SAT/ACT also do well on the LSAT – just look at the colleges with mean LSAT scores ≥ 164 in 2016 (i.e. the top 10th percentile).

168.88 Yale
167.99 Harvard
167.09 Princeton
166.70 Stanford
166.36 Chicago
166.24 Dartmouth
166.01 Columbia
164.97 Penn
164.49 Rice
164.45 Wash U
164.41 Duke
164.33 Georgetown
164.26 Brown
164.08 Amherst

Hamilton itself notes as much:

The IR Office recently completed an analysis of predictors of Law School Admission Test
(LSAT) scores among Hamilton students from the Classes of 2005 through 2010. Results show
that SAT scores were by far the best predictor of LSAT scores, while cumulative GPA had some
predictive value. We tested the effect thirty-eight individual courses had on scores (courses in
which at least 20 of the LSAT takers enrolled), and found that when controlling for SAT, no
course had an effect. We also looked at basic demographics, and found an initial difference
between students of color and all other students, but when SAT was controlled for there was no
difference.

“Law school placement” signifies nothing besides highly selective undergraduate admissions and a pre-professional student body.

[Chembiodad]

@crewDad, can you provide a link to the 2016 LSAT information as I’ve only seen 2011 data, as follows http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/1190895-mean-lsat-score-by-undergraduate-college.html;
Tufts 160
William and Mary 160
Cornell 161
Georgetown 161
Haverford College 161
Northwestern 161
Notre Dame 161
Reed College 161
Washington and Lee 161
Wesleyan University 161
Wheaton College (Illinois) 161
Carleton College 162
Claremont McKenna 162
Hamilton College 162
Rice 162
University of Chicago 162
Brown 163
Columbia 163
Dartmouth 163
Duke 163
MIT 163
University of Pennsylvania 163
Stanford 164
Williams 164
Pomona College 165
Princeton 165
Swarthmore 165
Yale 165
Harvard 166

[Chembiodad]

Oh, I got it. The LSAC list is not the absolute highest scores, its only the 240 schools with above a certain number of law school applicants as tracked by the LSAC - that’s the reason why we don’t see Williams, Bowdoin, Swarthmore, Pomona, amongst others on that partial list https://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/data/top-240-feeder-schools/2015-2016-accessible

[merc81]

Re #27:

As far as I can tell, an internal analysis with respect to the students at one college has been interpreted as informative – misguidedly in my opinion – of the differences, or the lack thereof, in outcomes across colleges.

In actuality, evidence indicates that law schools recognize significant differences among undergraduate schools:

http://web.archive.org/web/20000829094953/http://www.pcmagic.net/abe/gradeadj.htm

The question of over- or under-performance, based upon incoming student profiles, might remain open from a social science perspective. However, an implication that treatment effects are nonexistent seems somewhat undermining of the design and intent of a college education.