<p>A few comments (from a Williams guy, obviously, who also happened to attend one of the law schools the OP is interested in, so I have a good idea what I am talking about). </p>
<p>First, if you have, say, a 3.7 from Williams or Middlebury, with the same LSAT scores, the odds are you will get accepted at the same schools. Law schools care about LSAT first, GPA second, and undergrad reptuation third, but school only will compensate for a SLIGHTLY lower LSAT or GPA if you are Williams vs. say, the 50th ranked liberal arts schools, rather than one in the top ten. The odds of choosing Midd over Williams having any affect on whether you get into Yale Law are too infinitismal to really matter. You are going to need at LEAST around 3.8 and 172 plus at either (or from Amherst) for Yale unless you bring something really unusual to the table. And you’ll need at least around a 3.6 and 170 plus for UChicago. </p>
<p>Second, whoever cited working at Skadden or Cravath as indicia of anything, the only thing that indicates to me is that those particular graduates are wasting their intellectual gifts :). </p>
<p>Third, I would ignore Jamie folks, sounds like a classic ■■■■■. </p>
<p>Fourth, the difference between Williams folks attending HY law schools vs. Midd folks attending those folks is almost surely entirely explained by the slightly higher average LSAT of Williams students, which correlates with their slightly higher average SAT’s (remember, Midd’s reported SAT scores over the years are deceptive as fewers students report them to Midd for the years you are looking at). A two or three point different in average LSAT will have a big impact, in the aggregate, on distribution of law schools attended by grads of any particular LA schools (and by the way, I woudn’t sweat Williams’ one year aberration at Yale, these numbers fluctuate over time, but Williams is also number 1 or 2 in terms of LA representation there, when you average over a number of years). Assuming you would score the same on the LSAT regardless of whether you attend Williams or Midd (seems to be a safe assumption), the fact is, there won’t be any material advantage fo choosing Williams, at least in this regard. </p>
<p>Fifth, I do think there are some advantages to Williams over Midd (although not so many that someone with a clear preference for Midd should instead pick Williams, I’d only let Williams’ slight edge in prestige and more substantial edge in resources be the deciding factor if it was a true toss-up), law school admissions just happens not to be one of them.</p>