<p>It just seems rather inconsistent to me that different law schools mean a whole lot, but you’re unwilling to concede that the same is true for undergrad. I just get the sense that you’re (Hillary) applying your specific aspirations and successes to everyone, and generalizing from a far more specific case than the rest of us.</p>
Yes, that’s sensible.
And the same attitude, applied to undergraduate schools, also would be sensible.
Admitting that you really don’t know, rather than flatly saying there is no difference in the learning environments. Challenging others to back up their claims is fine, though.</p>
<p>No, more people at Brown go onto better law schools than from UGA. But would it be accurate to use that information to conclude that Brown offers a better education than does UGA?</p>
<p>Students from Brown will probably due better on the LSAT because they a) are more willing to put in the hours to be successful and b) probably more intelligent.</p>
<p>But that doesn’t mean that an education from Brown is of a higher quality than an education receieved at UGA. If this were true, why would Yale bother accepting anyone from UGA? Or any of the many, many less prestigious colleges represented in its class?</p>
<p>BTW: You should probably let someone at your school know that there is no “Georgetwon” Law School…</p>
<p>I’m no expert in law school admissions, but I doubt LSAT scores and undergraduate preparation are the sole considerations. One factor that may come into play is a desire for broad geographic representation.</p>
<p>There were over 3000 applicants to Yale Law School this past year, but only 76 undergraduate institutions are represented in the entering class. Those 76 schools include every single Ivy, most of the USNWR top 25 national universities, and most of the top 10 LACs. These “elite” schools account for more than half the represented schools (and I’m not talking about spots, but represented schools). Only a tiny percentage of the thousands of other schools are represented. </p>
<p>A professional school like YLS will admit, what, 10 or 15 students from most of the Ivies and some other highly selective schools? Maybe more from HYPSAWP, fewer from others. By then it has filled more than half its class and needs more distribution. So it admits 1 applicant from each of 30 or 35 other schools. In all likelihood, many of those 30 or 35 will be different schools next year. The first 40 or so schools will again be the usual suspects.</p>
<p>Are all admitted students equally well-prepared? That’s doubtful. Will preparedness exactly correspond to the college attended? That’s doubtful, too. But across a population of students, I’d expect some significant differences in college preparation to show up.</p>
<p>Well the obvious implication is that you wouldn’t be surprised to see students from the elite schools to be more prepared. This is something that you and melody have mentioned.</p>
<p>You can speculate all you want, but the bottom line is that the admissions committee - who are much more qualified to judge one’s preparedness for law school - had faith in these people to do well at Yale. </p>
<p>Not only that, but these students from the lesser schools were apparently BETTER prepared and MORE qualified than many students from “HYPSAWP” who didn’t get in.</p>
<p>According to what criteria?
Criteria specifically associated with academic preparedness in all cases?</p>
<p>Better prepared and more qualified are not necessarily the same thing. Yes, I’m speculating, but I would imagine that many well prepared and well qualified applicants are rejected. Once YLS has admitted the 20th applicant from Harvard, it may decide to pass over the 21st in favor of an applicant from the University of Wisconsin - Eau Claire, even though the latter has a lower LSAT score and is not as well “prepared”. The two may be close enough by the numbers, so the committee decides the latter is better “qualified”. By what standard? Is he presumed to have more “drive” (or brains) because his scores are almost as good as the applicant who had better preparation? More interesting in some way that has nothing to do with academic preparation? Or, maybe they just want to get more of a geographic and institutional mix, to ensure more balanced perspectives.</p>
<p>My question still remains: if it were categorically true that elite schools offer a higher-quality education, why would the best law schools in the country even bother admitting students from non-elite schools? </p>
<p>If we examine the list of colleges represented in Harvard’s law school right now, we see that the vast majority are NOT elite. While the vast majority of students may have come from elite schools, the vast majority of schools themselves are not elite.</p>
<p>Obviously adcoms at Harvard and Yale law do not believe that the quality of education differs that greatly from non-elite to elites. If they did, they would only place their faith in students from the elite schools.</p>
<p>I think you are ignoring 40 years of trends in higher ed admissions.
In fact, back in the day, I suspect they rarely did bother. I do not have numbers at hand to show that, but I’d expect to see that 50 years ago, the number of represented schools would have been far fewer. It’s not that all the schools now represented got so much better, or the elite schools got so much worse. It’s that people in higher education decided that a broader range of factors needed to be considered than simply the undergraduate preparation.</p>
<p>There must be some parallels with undergraduate admissions. I’ve read that some exclusive New England boarding schools used to virtually guarantee admission into Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Williams or Amherst. No more. They now must compete with high schools all over the country. HYPWA reject many applicants with perfect SATs and high GPAs. They admit some students with far lower scores and grades. Does that mean the quality of high school preparation of all admitted students is equal? That every impoverished rural high school is just as good as any top math and science magnet school in an affluent suburb?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t know about Harvard, we’ve been focused on Yale. I’ve looked at the Yale list of admits; it appears a small majority of represented schools are elite schools.</p>
<p>That was 40 years ago! I’m not sure how this is relevant to the discussion. </p>
<p>And comparing the process of high school to college with college to graduate school is not fair.</p>
<p>Some rural high schools have horrible, horrible teachers and terrible text books while other high schools cost upwards of $20,000 a year and teachers have doctorates.</p>
<p>But at the college level, there are exceptionally distinguished faculty, excellent resources, and great students at all of the top 100 schools.</p>
<p>You asked why the best law schools in the country would even bother admitting students from non-elite schools, if it were categorically true that elite schools offer a higher-quality education. I’m suggesting to you that over the past several decades, admissions standards have been influenced by desires to broaden educational opportunity. Which is a good thing. But that desire sometimes competes with, and must be balanced against, strict standards of academic performance and preparation.</p>
<p>Look at it this way. Do you think that every state university is all that it could and should be? Would you be content to see class sizes increase, faculty salaries cut, and all new library acquisitions canceled? Do these factors matter at all to instructional quality? Is every school equal when measured against them? </p>
<p>
So you recognize a difference between the top 100 and maybe the bottom 100? If so, why would it not be rational to expect some differences within the top 100? </p>
<p>I visited a public honors college with my son. It has a beautiful campus, good resources, and many pleasant, intelligent students. He would have been happy to go there. But I would not say its faculty is exceptionally distinguished. When I think of “exceptionally distinguished”, I’m thinking Nobel Prize caliber. There are no Nobel Prize winners at that school. No Pulitzer or MacArthur prize winners as far as I know. At some other schools, there are many. Does that mean there aren’t excellent teachers at both? No, but there is a difference between (a) being taught well from a good textbook and (b) being taught brilliantly by the person who wrote that textbook, but who does not even use it anymore because he’s come up with new ideas.</p>
I don’t know. I don’t know enough about law school admissions. I suspect there is some of that going on. I would think if I were going to law school, I would want that. </p>
<p>I would not be surprised if some of these talented students had slightly lower LSAT scores and weaker undergraduate preparation than some higher scoring, better prepared (but less interesting) students who were rejected.</p>
<p>I want to tell the OP something that some other posters have touched upon-you may be jumping from the frying pan and into the fire by choosing a less elite school when it comes to cutthroat competition. While the classes at elite schools are tougher and probably require more work, you won’t be competing for a handful of A’s. Indeed, you may never even see a C grade or lower on your transcript while for most state school students that’s unheard of. My state’s flagship aims to fail (remove from the major) 1/2 of the engineers come the end of sophomore year-no joke. Even though I’m pretty sure as someone who was able to get into Stanford to study engineering I wouldn’t be in that bottom half-that would no doubt create stress for even the most self-confident of candidates. Contrast this with Stanford engineering where pretty much no one fails even though we still work really hard. Now I’m not going to tell you to look at a JHU or a Harvard if you aren’t comfortable with type A’s-but at schools like Stanford and Brown very few people complain about the competition. You do not want to do yourself a disservice by shutting yourself out of schools because they belong to a larger group of schools that is often erroneously stereotyped. </p>
<p>I do not think that Yale sacrifices student quality for the sake of geographical diversity.</p>
<p>Also, yes, I do believe that there is a difference in the quality of education at a certain point. Of the almost 4,000 institutions of post-secondary education, I do believe that there is a distinct difference between number 1 and (the would-be) number 4,000. The question is: where does this difference begin to take place? I certainly do not believe it takes place at all within the top 100 schools. Where does it begin? I don’t know, but I’m sure not among the top 100.</p>
<p>I don’t think Yale admits unqualified students. I’m confident that you and every other admitted student is exceptional. But, if elite law admissions is anything at all like elite undergraduate admissions, it is not a pure intellectual meritocracy (nor would we want it to be). I would hope they do not simply take the top 200-odd LSAT scores with comparable grades. There is probably a dexterous thumb on the scale to achieve a balance among competing “goods”. </p>
<p>
None of us can say with precision where it begins. I can speak from my experience, though. I have attended a top 10 school and one that is ranked about 15 points lower on the USNWR scale. There were distinct, noticeable quality differences in the kinds of features I described above. Larger classes, smaller library. Less distinguished faculty. Teaching from textbooks, not primary sources. etc. Many great schools have lots to offer but still have room for improvement.</p>
<p>I should add, my FIL learned mechanical engineering at a school I’ve still never heard of outside a few conversations with him. And he’s probably forgotten a lot more than I’ll ever know in my lifetime.</p>
<p>Your friends apparently aren’t representative of the University of Georgia student body. Look at the following grade distributions, especially for math and science classes:
[UGAKey.com</a> - The Key to the University of Georgia - UGA Student Resource](<a href=“Georgia State University (GSU) | Docsity”>http://ugakey.com/)</p>
<p>Quite a few of the kids are getting C grades and I don’t believe that all the kids who get one C grade comprise all the students getting them.</p>
<p>I guess it boils down to personal experience.</p>
<p>One of my best friends from high school and I have both wanted to attend Yale Law since 9th/10th grade (she’s a year older than I). When we graduated, we both had options to attend elite schools. She chose at go to Columbia, and I chose to go to UGA. She worked hard, got good grades, and did well on the LSAT. When it came down to it, I got into Yale and she didn’t. To me, she is all the worse for the wear - not only did she not get into Yale, but she spent $200,000 for her education, which is $200,000 more than I spent.</p>
<p>Morsmordre,</p>
<p>You’re right. I was in the Honors College, and most of my friends were in the Honors College. So my friends were not representative of the student body. That being said, in my experience, not getting a C is by no means “unheard of.”</p>
<p>I’ve heard very good things about honors college programs at state universities.
Given a choice between $0 and $200K out of pocket, any differences would begin to cloud over in my eyes, too. For many students these days, the cost difference is not nearly that great. The Ivy may even be cheaper.</p>
<p>Maybe your friend was admitted to another good school?</p>
<p>Anyway, I’d like to believe that state universities all over America are offering low cost education equal in quality to the best private schools. That would be great for the country because so many excellent students are rejected from the most selective schools.</p>