<p>Hi
I was wondering if there is an advantage for applicants that attend/attended top schools. I am currently at Duke and I am set on law school right now. just wanted to know if my school’s name will carry any weight. thanks</p>
<p>very little weight. your school’s name will not help compensate for a low GPA or LSAT.</p>
<p>Of course it won’t compensate for low numbers. What I mean is, how does it impact you if your lsat/gpa are in the range (25-75th percentile) and fair with applicants from less prestigious schools. I assume there should be some benefit considering a school like Duke has a more rigorous curriculum and has tougher classes than most.</p>
<p>It can matter a little more in some circumstances. As in, you go to a prestige school - like Duke - but are from another state, say Virginia or California, and you want to go to law school in your home state. You might then count as a resident but with the bonus of appearing on their ledger as a OOS Duke grad.</p>
<p>Undergrad prestige is a “soft factor”. It certainly plays a role as a tie breaker, and I would imagine that it would particularly beneficial for high LSAT splitters.</p>
<p>^
agreed.
what about non-prestigeous school with grade deflation v.s. prestigeous school with rigorour reputation? It should be counted as a soft factor but only would be considered when they have two students with similar stats from different undergrad insitution.
correct me if im wrong</p>
<p>Little to none. What you DO matters the most.</p>
<p>I would hope my 3.85 gpa from cornell means something, esp. with the pressure cooker reputation cornell has.</p>
<p>The fact that you got a 3.85 means something. For law school admissions, the fact that you went to Cornell means very little.</p>
<p>“Hi gpa from Cornell. I would hope my 3.85 gpa from cornell means something, esp. with the pressure cooker reputation cornell has.”</p>
<p>You have disgraced your family and offended Dr. English.</p>
<p>Actually I would think school name matters more in mitigating low GPAs than in enhancing high ones.</p>
<p>School name is not as important as school grading policy. If a school has lower reported gpa’s then as part of the process it gets adjusted. Same the other way, so an inflated average doesn’t help you. Other than that, law schools years ago* used explicit multipliers to adjust for school quality, but those became worthless when grades inflated so now it is indeed a soft point. And as noted in many threads, if you’re in the middle - the pool as we called it - then soft points become relatively more important, meaning that when you’re comparing x versus similar x1 versus similar x2, not x versus different y, you look at what you can.</p>
<p>*Can’t speak for all law schools but we did and I don’t remember us as being weird.</p>
<p>My understanding was that that was dropped for PR reasons, not because the statistics had become invalid. In fact, I did the math myself and UCB’s list is shockingly still accurate, thirty-some years later.</p>