Law school admission and elite colleges

blossom
Wed, 30 Jun 2021 18:06:30 +0000

There are actually few surprises in law school admissions. The various sites which compile the data note that there are a few unpredictable factors:

Yale. They take who they take. The class is small, the pedagogy is not identical to its peers, it runs on its own fumes at times. So many top top top applicants who get accepted to Harvard and Stanford (and Chicago, et al) either get rejected from Yale or don’t apply.

Incredibly compelling “backstory” from an otherwise under-represented or marginalized group in society (and in this case under-represented means “less access/more need to legal counsel”). That means that a student whose stats put them below the median or even in the bottom quartile who grew up homeless, on Tribal Lands, disabled, etc. gets some sort of an admissions boost since law schools are sensitive to opening access.

Substantive, relevant and recent professional work (this favors the older student of course) which suggests that the student will punch above his/her weight in class discussions. That does not mean working as a paralegal for a year while studying for the LSAT’s. But it can mean working as a military police officer (or law enforcement of some kind), White House fellow, etc.

So while I agree with CU that the LSAT/GPA formula is not absolute, the data these sites aggregate show that there are VERY few surprises, and admissions, based on the stats, is highly predictable. And when there is an idiosyncratic result, it’s generally not because “oh, she juggles and collects butterflies, that’s so cool”, but for some personal/biographic element which is part of the school’s overall mission.