UChicago Law School Placement

Colleges & Universities University of Chicago
21

The framing of the UChicago outcomes data is fascinating: “83-88% Top 15 law school acceptance rate for UChicago students”

Leaving aside that it’s poorly worded and vague (come on UChicago! Learn to write better!), it is conceivable that, of the Chicago students who applied to T15 schools, 83-88% (whatever that means) got in. Perhaps they receive advice that, unless they are compelling applicants to the T15, they shouldn’t apply.

Either way, it seems needlessly vague. Honestly, why can’t Chicago be more direct with their data? It’s almost like they’re trying to put a spin on things!

22

Bingo. As mentioned upthread, if UCIL is doing its job correctly they’ll steer the 143-150’s away from GULC and other top schools. The 83-88% would then apply to those who applied to those schools. Not a bad statistic. GULC median currently 167 per their class profile.

23

I’d much rather see the total number of individuals accepted by the T15, rather than knowing that “83-88%” have gotten in. The “83-88%” figure doesn’t tell us much of anything.

24

@Cue7 - it tells us that UChicago is doing marginally better than a couple years ago when the relevant but “not much of anything” stat was that 84% of UChicago 2017 cycle applicants were admitted to a top-20 law school. What good does the number admitted do when you don’t know how many applied? Pretty sure even Yale sticks to percentages, btw.

25

Even with both GPA and LSAT over the law school’s median, the odds of admission is still not a gimme. Now, if the applicant’s GPA and LSAT were both over the LS’s 75th percentile, then ~85% admission rate is possible. But if that’s the case, we’re not talking about many applicants and Chicago is cherry picking its report. (Again, half of Chicago undergrads who took the LSAT scored <=166. Of course not all who take the LSAT end up actually applying to LS.)

For a place that prides itself on teaching critical reading and thinking skills, its hard not to believe that “poorly worded and vague” is intentional. (but I am a long-time cynic!) After all, the numerator and denominator should be readily available to the College, even if LSAC no longer makes it public.

26

Reading over the numbers highlighted and caveats the placement record is very respectable. It is a material improvement over a decade ago where the College had a grading policy that was misaligned from the focus on applicant statistics that USNWR law rankings engender.

I would add two additional caveats:

First (potentially), students who apply to a few top schools and don’t get into any would disappear from the statistical process if the numbers are conditional on enrollment at an ABA approved law school. Not certain if the numbers as reported have this problem. They would be very strong, in my view, if they do not suffer from this flaw.

Second (with certainty), regardless of methodology those that don’t apply at all reckoning they cannot get in anywhere worth attending are also not counted.

Both points are particularly important at UChicago and other selective colleges because the general mentality is “T14 or bust” with fewer students willing to attend T25 schools that seed regional markets. For the uninitiated, law school is not at all like medical school where merely going to more-or-less any MD program guarantees you a six figure salary. The T14 schools are the gate keepers to national firms and T25 schools feed many of the seats at respectable middle market law firms in second tier cities (e.g., Atlanta).

I suspect there are relatively few students at Chicago who are looking to practice law regardless of salary or professional context and statistics that inadequately account for this fact are to a degree inherently misleading. Again, don’t know if the fist caveat applies but the second certainly does.

27

“It is hard not to believe that ‘poorly worded and vague’ is intentional”. Agreed. I see in it the cleverest yet of Nondorfian tricks: to screen out all potential applicants for whom knowing the exact figures has any importance.

28

bluebayou: not attempting to be edgy, but your admission math versus medians would need to be informed by the number of URMs applying. Anecdotally, my experience suggest UChicago and other top tier colleges put up the strongest pools of URMs to T14 schools, whereby even if they are third quartile they will get seats almost surely. All it would take is something like 20% of the UChicago applicant pool to have an affirmative action consideration in play and the aggregate number could get materially skewed upward.

29

Could be off base here, but doesn’t the fact that they have a GPA and LSAT score entered on their LSAC admissions portal imply that they probably DID apply to law school? Or do LSAT takers have to start a portal to receive their scores?

30

@marlowe1 - I’m looking at the “career outcomes” page @JBStillFlying linked to earlier a little more closely, and it is an embarrassment.
https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/about/outcomes-data

“96% of recent grads have substantive post-college plans”?? What are “substantive” post-college plans? What class years? What does this even mean?

“Graduates from past 3 years are working in 40+ countries across 6 continents” – so what? How many are going where? What sorts of jobs are they taking in these countries?

and the kicker…

“80%-88% Medical School Acceptance rate for UChicago students” – for what class years? Must apps be endorsed by the pre-health office? How many students apply? So many other questions!

Even a first-year Chicago student could dismiss this page as fluff.

For a school known for serious, expansive inquiry, this is not a good look.

31

First, a word about the website. This is presumably based either on 2018 data or historical data through 2018, though they haven’t made any of that clear. Those of us who followed the career placement PDF’s in past years will recognize the wording. Most likely the calculations are the same; however, that’s small comfort to those who have issues with those prior placement reports.

“Substantive” plans mean a job or grad school and has since I’ve been following career placement at UChicago. Here’s prior wording (from 2017 in this case): " 93% of the Class of 2017 has substantive post-graduation plans. These plans include working at leading organizations throughout the United States and abroad, continuing their studies at some of the world’s most respected graduate and professional schools, starting their own businesses, and serving the greater good through organizations like Teach for America."

The good news is that a higher percentage of UChicago grads are graduating with plans in place. As a parent, that’s the most meaningful statistic - and my guess is that Nondorf wants to KISS. He’s not building these marketing pitches for all of you old grumpies and your perpetual states of confusion and flummox :wink:

The medical school wording is also an update from the earlier reports; 2017 reads as follows: “85% of UChicago 2017 cycle applicants were admitted to medical school, more than double the national average of 41%” Of course, BlueBayou is on record maintaining that colleges cook the stats for med school.

I have older kids who are graduated from or finishing up undergraduate professional degree programs, and skepticism regarding placement stats abound there as well. It’s a universal phenomenon.

I’ve been tracking LS acceptance rates at UC for a couple of years. Not so concerned with how they are calculating the data. You can only BS so much before your bluff is called. Anyway, here is the history I have:

85% of UChicago 2015 cycle applicants were admitted top 14 law schools
84% of UChicago 2016 cycle applicants were admitted to top-14 law schools
84% of UChicago 2017 cycle applicants were admitted to a top-20 law school
83%-88% Top 15 law school acceptance rate for UChicago students

They seem fixated on a percentage somewhere in the 80’s (perhaps someone learned in marketing class this this is a magic number) but the quality of the law schools seems to go up and down depending on the applicant cycle (which will include 4th years and alums who are usually 1-2 years out). Unlike BlueBayou, I’m not so very concerned about what “T14” or “T15” means because that tends to be jargon for a set of schools in the GULS range and higher. T20 I’m a bit less comfortable with.

I do NOT believe these stats are ‘pie in the sky’ or somehow misrepresentative - I’m betting they are accurate. But law school is so very dependent on other factors, including demographics (as has been pointed out) and gender, that they may simply not be applicable to my kid - or yours. They are a helpful metric to gauge the quality of the students at the College who are applying to law school, and not much more than that. Anyone looking at these stats and thinking they are set for a T15 will probably be about as happy at the end of the application cycle as someone who thinks applying ED means “sure thing” for the College. The stats over-simplify a LOT of other factors.

32

Aristotle tells us that different levels of detail and demonstrative proof are appropriate to different subjects and different audiences. The information in this little statement is not intended for use in anyone’s project of assembling and analyzing data in support of a thesis, certainly not one making invidious comparisons between Chicago and other schools, the eternal project of some on this board.

If I’m a parent or prospective student (the intended audience) I get the picture well enough from this “fluff” without the necessity of going down any of those rabbit holes looking for the hard stuff. Anyone is free to believe that their purport is seriously misleading or even an outright lie. That appears to be bluebayou’s assessment. If so, stay away from this lying manipulative school! To be fair most of the UCDS crowd have no intention of attending but only a settled resolve to denigrate, for reasons best known to themselves but often speculated on. Any excuse will do.

33

Of course, URM status is probably the #3 criteria for LS admission (after GPA+LSAT). But come-on, the website says 85% of applicants get into a T15. There can’t be that many URMs from UoC in the pool to get that kinda (85%) result. Just defies common sense.

34

@BlueBayou - at the risk of beating a dead horse - what’s your basis for saying it defies common sense? For 2017, we know that 16 were accepted to UChicago itself and that’s likely to be ED (since it corresponds to number enrolled at the Law School and there is special funding available for applicants from the College who apply ED). So those 16 would have withdrawn apps or just not applied to other schools. Then, another 24 got into NYU and possibly higher schools. Call those NYU+. So right away we are up to 40 applicants without even trying - and without even dipping below something like the T6 or T7. For 2016 it looked even better:45 either to Uchicago (ED) or NYU+. All you need is a few more ED’s elsewhere and then perhaps another 50-60 from the T8-T15 for the stat to start looking like it could hit 80+%, measured as a percentage of applicants targeting the T15. Of course, a lot depends on how many applicants are NOT targeting the T15 (or T20 in some years I guess). As I mentioned above, I’m wondering if 85% is some sort of “magic marketing number” and the caliber of school is what shifts around in their calcuations.

Anyway, does that make sense? If not, what type of analysis or statistic can you provide to clarify or correct?

35

@bluebayou - here’s how a 83-88% acceptance rate at T15 law schools is possible:

https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/advising/law-school/statistics

Those are Brown’s pre-law statistics. Unlike Chicago’s embarrassing lack of data, Brown provides a lot of stats. Check out the class of 2018:

157 brown students/grads applied to law school
Of those 157, 92 - or about 60% - matriculated at T15 schools.

It’s totally conceivable that a bunch more were accepted to T15 schools, and then decided to defer, or not go, or take scholarship money at a lower ranked school. It’s then fairly easy to get to the 83-88% accept rate at T15 schools.

Of course, we can’t say for sure because Chicago doesn’t provide nearly enough data. But, it’s possible to hit the 83-88% mark.

Note also, Chicago only says “83-88% T15 law school acceptance rate for UChicago students .” Do they mean students who were actually accepted to any law school, or all students who applied?

Because, if you look at the Brown data, 157 people applied, and 137 were actually accepted anywhere. So, Brown could cook their stats like Chicago and then say (hypothetically) “90% of Brown students were accepted to a T15 Law School!” and that’s probably true. Of the 137 who were accepted to any law school, probably around 90% earned a T15 acceptance.

Anyway, it’s definitely possible. It’s just unfortunate that the data Chicago provides is a joke.

36

Best guess is that UChicago doesn’t publish that level of detail because it wouldn’t look particularly good on a historical basis and they are buying themselves a bit of time with the vagueness. We don’t know that for sure, but this is naturally the suspicion and posts from yesteryear like this one (College LSAT 162???) don’t provide any evidence to the contrary:
http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/15465424/#Comment_15465424

Also, maybe I’m not checking the correct internet forums, but the only complaints I’ve read so far seem to emanate from the least informed in the peanut gallery. No one with any direct knowledge of law school placement is actually bothering to comment. Perhaps they know something that just us chickens do not :wink:

It’s fair to wonder what they mean by “students” but most likely UChicago’s career placement isn’t doing somersaults to arrive at their statistics. As for Brown, this level of detail is as helpful as it is unusual, and it’s possible to extrapolate a bit from it. First of all, as @Cue7 pointed out, getting from 60% matriculated to 85% accepted is quite easy, especially when you consider some of the other schools listed. Some will have opted for the big bucks at a T16+ rather than pay full at a school that’s only a couple points higher but in the same general locale. Second, there would have to be something seriously wrong at UChicago if they didn’t place similarly now, given that they’ve been outperforming Brown on the LSAT lately and have a meatier program of study per GPA equivalent.

37

[quote=“bluebayou, post:14, topic:2068726”]

I assume you have never taken the LSAT. While it is Learnable to an extent, it isn’t even close to being easily able to ace it.

One needs to Learn to identify the form of the logic problems to use skirt cute to solve them within the allowed time; general intelligence will allow smart students to solve them but not within tilt constraints.

But it is not an easy test. And very few indeed “ace “ it.

It also has very little to do with predicting law school performance except identifying those who took the time to study for the test.

38

Nobody said it was.

LG are the easiest to learn, particularly if one has UChicago critical thinking skills. Sadly, LG is being dropped from the LSAT…

Again, nobody said it was easy to ace.

Perhaps not, but it is still ~50% of LS admissions (at all by Y & S), a little less at Chicago and Berkeley Law, and a little more at some others. Moreover, a high score can yield big tax-free merit money at all but HYS, so definitely worth taking the time to study for it.

39

@bluebayou - per the comments up thread, are you now clear on how a school can boast a “83-88%” accept rate at the T15 law schools?

40

@bluebayou

YOU said it was easy to ace: “ and those top testers can easily ace the LSAT (which is a very learnable test).”

Me, I read two prep books and got a 175 (or was it a 176? 99.x percentile I recall) but certainly didn’t ace it. I ran out of time on the last logic test. I imagine you or others you know did better. I imagine I could have taken the course where they teach the tricks. I was also much older so my mind wasn’t as quick as it once was.