Does anyone know whether kids from Elon with high grades and LSATs are getting into top 15-30 law schools? I feel confident you can get into a top 15 law school with high grades and lsat scores from a ton of lesser know schools (richmond, Wake, Davidson, bucknell, Lehigh, furman, wash & Lee) but I don’t know if Elon is in the same group as those, or whether a student at Elon with the same numbers (high grades and lsat) would have harder time getting into a top 15-30 L school.
I cannot answer your question, but I would say you’ve mischaracterized your list of schools. Elon, with an acceptance rate of approximately 67% is not the same as a Washington and Lee (17% acceptance rate) or a Davidson (15% acceptance rate).
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Can they?
Of course, they can.
They are not on the Harvard current year list or Yale list of the last five years - but many schools like name your state flagship, Allegheny, DePaul, Earlham, Drake, Central Oklahoma, Lewis & Clark, West Texas A&M - so Elon more than certainly fits…it’s a solid name. But perhaps no one applied (to Harvard this year or Yale in the last five - or perhaps they did but didn’t make the cut, unlikely related to the school name).
Oh - and they ARE represented at #4 Penn and #10 Northwestern (which has alums of schools like Bemidji State, Bradley, Southwestern, Tampa).
So to answer you - yes, absolutely, 100%.
Not all law schools list where their students went to undergrad but that’s a sample of four that do.
So if they have the right stats (law school is stat focused) - and they apply - then yes, then the name is unlikely to be why they can’t get into a specific law school.
And you can say that for any college in America - hello Western Illinois 
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Thanks! That’s what I figured. I bet there are Elon kids going to many of the top 50 or so law schools.
I’m sure there are - you can ask the school for a list - I’m sure it (Elon) has it for those in its prelaw program.
I don’t think it’s relevant to law school admissions but @cinnamon1212 is correct -from a ranking, perception or difficulty of admission POV, Elon is not on par with pretty much every school you mentioned, except maybe Furman but even there, not reallly.
But it doesn’t matter - if it’s the right school for your kid, then it’s great - and it has a law school itself - if that’s the direction they decide to go in four years.
I’ll say this - one shouldn’t choose their college as a hopeful springboard to a top 15 law school. They should pick a college because it’s right for them…a lot changes in four years.
And the reality is, if one didn’t have a top SAT, a top LSAT (which can make or break admission to a top school) is unlikely too…but they have four years to practice!! Take some philosophy/logic classes while there!!
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Just to put things into perspective.
Law Schools are snobs.
You may have heard the mention of T14.
The top 14 law schools are considered to be First Tier. They openly mock schools not in the top 14. Professors who graduated from a T14 school will mock their own employer/school outside of T14 and their students.
15 and down are already considered second tier.
To get a top firm job, student will need to be in their top 10% from a top law school.
To get a clerkship, you will likely need to be the top 10 student from your school.
Law School is very different from Med schools where P=MD (or DO now that is more common), In law school, jobs are directly related to prestige of the school and your rank / GPA while there, unless you already have pre existing arrangements.
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Yes, fully aware that law schools and big law firms are snobby. But you can still get a great clerkship or great job from any of the top 50 schools. Only the super snobby people (i.e., people from Harvard or Yale) are drawing lines between Harvard and, say, Wisconsin, Vanderbilt, Minnesota, Texas, UNC, Illinois, ND, Emory, Ohio State, WashU, Wake, BC, BU, GW, etc.
Schools only matter for clerkships and first job. In the real world, all these T14 lawyers end up working for more senior and much higher paid lawyers who graduated from schools outside the T14.
I don’t think the facts support your contention.
When the law firms are cutting back- yes, it’s a very democratic cutback. If they’re getting rid of third year M&A associates, then that’s who they’re getting rid of regardless of where they graduated. But when a third year M&A Associate is on the job market- during a recession no less- then having the second or third tier law school on the resume, no matter how prestigious the firm that fired them- ooof. That’s a tough one.
Even by 2011, 2012 and 2013 I know at least a dozen young lawyers who were still stuck in temp jobs doing doc review or paralegal-adjacent jobs which did not require a JD or bar admission. These were young lawyers who had gone for the merit aid at the second tier schools because people had told them “prestige only matters for your first job” or “if you don’t want to clerk, a no-name law school is fine”.
The financial crisis was in 2008-- and it took years for the lawyers who were impacted to get themselves back on track. Your JD is from Penn or Georgetown or Duke? It’s going to sort itself out a LOT faster if you are impacted by a downturn…
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Yes. Anyone from any UG CAN get into a T50 school. Your contention is a true statement. Best of luck to your kid.
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I’m sorry, but there’s just not any difference between a Georgetown (which, technically, isn’t even T14) and a Vanderbilt or a Duke and an Emory or a UVA and a Wake Forest or Michigan and an Ohio State or Wisconsin or a Harvard and a Boston College or a UCLA and a Texas. These are all big name schools, even though some are in the so-called T14 and others are outside the T14.
Employers are going to look at the other things on the applicants resume, and treat these schools as equal during the hiring process. Maybe Harvard, Yale, Chicago, and Stanford kids get a small bump over rest of T50. But the Vanderbilt lawyer will easily get the job over the Harvard lawyer if she was on law review, or interviews better, or comes from a better firm and/or has better work experience. It’s not as cut and dried as you make it.
Respectfully disagree.
But my perspective doesn’t matter- any kid who wants to go to law school can see that Elon is a fine place to do undergrad- AND that where you go to law school matters- a LOT, unless your uncle is a named partner at an 8 lawyer personal injury law firm and is willing to bring you on once you pass the bar.
The statistics (recent, not talking 30 years ago) look increasingly weak for non top tier law schools and how long it takes their grads to find work- as lawyers, jobs requiring a JD and bar passage- vs. top tier schools.
We don’t have to debate, the numbers are very clear. And it’s odd that in your post describing “it doesn’t matter where you go” you’ve managed to name a very significant chunk of the T-14 (Duke, UVA, Michigan, etc.)
Back to the topic at hand - yes, Elon could land you in a great law school
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We are talking past each other. I agree that it matters A LOT where you go to law school, which is why I asked the initial question about Elon kids getting into T50 schools. I completely disagree, however, that there’s a magic T14 and then the bottom falls out when you get to schools T15 to T50. There is no meaningful difference between many of the T15 and T50 schools.
If you are comparing the very top of the T50 to the very bottom, then, yes, there is a difference. But so many of these school are peers that no one in their right mind is going to hire based on school when both candidates went to excellent T50 schools. You are going to look at the other things on the applicants resume.
Don’t completely disagree on this. Trust me. I was at UCLA when it was ranked 15. We were constantly reminded we were second tier by our own professors. It’s a real thing.
Just to provide some perspective as a recent alum, someone in my graduating class is a current JD student at Yale. Another classmate just graduated from Penn law (and she served as student body president of the law school). Ultimately, if you work hard as an undergraduate, doors will open for you.
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