@marlowe1 - sure, not everyone wants to live on the coasts. But, for my pre-PhD friends, the location was immaterial. They uniformly went to the “best” academic programs, no matter where they were. So, if they were in California, Wisconsin, New York, New Haven, etc. that’s where they went.
It just so happened most of the best programs were on the coasts, so that’s where they went.
Why would the pre-law types be any different?
Law school is professional school. It’s only three years, and with internships, one can get back to the ‘hinterland’ for well-paid summers. LS curriculum is rather vanilla. Unlike undergrad, “fit” is not a requirement, unless you have family/SO that cannot temporarily relocate. Prestige matters in law, at least in snagging that first job. Highest-ranked place you can afford is the key decision.
btw: ‘back in the day’ what % of Chicago students were from the midwest, as opposed to now with many more undergrads from the coasts? In fact, less than a quarter are from neighboring states. If I recall, way back in the day, 70% were a day’s drive from campus.
https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/apply/class-2023-profile
As an aside, that 60% for Varsity athletes was extremely surprising for a school targeting future ‘monks’. (Using athletes as a plus factor in admissions is one big way to change the makeup of the student body.)
No doubt about the gravitational pull of money and prestige coming from the institutions of the seaboard. Some of us just have an internal anti-magnetic compass resistant to those blandishments. If you’re not seeking big corporate jobs or university appointments regional loyalties may be easier to hold and sustain. The assistant house head at Chamberlin House in my first year was a law student who never intended to do anything but return to Nebraska.
As I grow older I become less impressed by the concept of “the best” and more impressed by concepts such as loyalty, honesty, and courage. Straight-talking is pretty much the supreme Intellectual virtue in my book.
@marlowe1 - where did the pre phds go in your day? Also, in conformity to what you and @JBStillFlying say, many of the peers I had sought the “best” post-grad academic experience, no matter the region. If that took them to new haven or Madison WI or ann arbor or Pittsburgh, that’s where they went.
I actually think the chicago ethos makes location less material - the students are more interested in seeking those experiences, no matter if they are in manhattan or st louis.
So, the texan would follow the academic inclinations to stanford or purdue - wherever the intellectual sustenance would be greatest. Isn’t that the old chicago way?
Why would chicago pre law types be any different? Are you saying the pre phds at chicago are similar to those at harvard and yale, but it’s the pre law types at chicago who are true exceptionalists?
The argument seems strange.
Perhaps I am digressing but I have a question. When we visited undergraduate schools last year the admissions officers pretty much all stated that they ignore reported high school GPA and recalculate their own scores adjusted for factors like course difficulty. If Princeton and Harvard can do this for tens of thousands of applicants isn’t it feasible that elite graduate schools and sophisticated employers would be able to discern that UChicago has less grade inflation than certain other comparable institutions?
@River65 - for many prof schools, the guard rails are set pretty tight. As gpa counts in the rankings, there’s little reason to take the 3.57 from chicago over the 3.75 at yale.
Both will probably have similar success at the prof school, so there isn’t much of an incentive to take the lower gpa.
You’re losing me, Cue. I didn’t know many pre-professionals in college and didn’t know many Ph.D.s thereafter. I and my bunch weren’t making plans to conquer the world or even thinking much about being anywhere else than where we were, taking courses, reading books, schmoozing, and trying to figure out the meaning of it all. I reckon you and your bunch got around more, but if you’re asserting that people will always go where they need to go, you may be on to something.
@marlowe1 - why are chicago pre-phds ok heading to the coasts (or wherever) and chicago pre laws are not?
What’s exceptional about the pre law types, as opposed to the pre phd types, who make similar choices to their counterparts at yale, princeton, etc?
@River65, a direct answer will probably be more helpful to you than some of the speculation going on upthread. Concerning med school applications:
“I have heard that UChicago does not have grade inflation. What does that mean for professional school? Do medical schools recognize this difference? Would it be better to go to a less-rigorous school and have a higher GPA?
You are correct—we do not have grade inflation. When medical schools look at your GPA, they are evaluating the rigor of your undergraduate institution, the intensity of your course-load, and your overall grades. They DO recognize that UChicago is not a school that practices grade inflation, and take that into account—within reason. That is not to say that you can earn a 2.0 at UChicago and expect that to be held in the same regard as a 4.0 at another school. The mean GPA nationally for applicants accepted into MD programs in 2019 was 3.72. The mean GPA of UChicago students accepted into MD programs in 2019 was 3.66. Specific to the sciences, the mean accepted science GPA nationally was a 3.66 and the mean UChicago science GPA was a 3.58. It is clear from those results that the medical schools are valuing the rigor of the UChicago experience when they consider candidates.”
https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/uchicago-careers-in/health-professions/pre-health-faqs
Regarding law school applications:
“Law schools consider GPA in evaluating your application and recognize that the University of Chicago offers a rigorous curriculum with no grade inflation. The Law School Credential Assembly Service (LSCAS) provides law schools an analysis of your GPA and LSAT score as it compares to other University of Chicago students. Because law schools don’t have a preference for certain majors, you should pursue the major that interests you most since that will help you perform as well as possible.”
https://careeradvancement.uchicago.edu/uchicago-careers-in/law/applying-to-law-school
So, to answer your question: it’s not only feasible, it’s what happens. From the law answer in particular it’s clear that these professional schools will look at UChicago students in the context of other UChicago students, not Harvard or Yale students. This is similar to how a college would consider GPA’s from, say, your high school (particularly one that the college knows well).
Regarding all this East-Coast vs. Hinterland stuff, it might make sense to bring the class of 2017 Outcomes Report out of mothballs and repost.
https://collegeadmissions.uchicago.edu/files/documents/class-2017-outcomes.pdf
The geographical representation is relatively evenly split between Midwestern and NE/E/S US, at least for job placement. A lot of that might have to do with where the students hail from. But also, you go where the money and opportunity are.
@JBStillFlying - but those answers from the careers website just speak about admissions generally - not at the tippy top. Why would Yale or Stanford law - places that can afford to be very picky, take a lower Chicago gpa over a higher brown gpa, when there are so many qualified candidates to choose from?
Same with tippy top med schools.
Again, this isn’t to deride Chicago, its placement at these elite schools is… fine. Nothing suggests these places are clambering on top of themselves for chicago grads, though.
The law data, btw, puts Chicago right where you think re placement - the 3.57 gpa 166 lsat (Chicago’s numbers) don’t place as well as the 3.75 gpa 166 lsat (from brown). Unless you believe marlowe’s hinterland stuff, the numbers dictate the placement.
Here are brown’s specific placement stats (numbers Chicago doesn’t publicly provide, btw):
https://www.brown.edu/academics/college/advising/law-school/statistics
Per that data, Chicago and brown’s lsat figures are very similar. There is disparity in gpa… and in placement. To my knowledge, Chicago isn’t sending 15-20 students to HLS every year, or another 12/yr to Columbia, etc.
The only noticeable difference is GPA.
Cue7–Very impressive data collection! My son was accepted ED1 to Chicago from one of those northeastern prep schools (probably the most academically rigorous among them). He’s got an impressive resume and both his parents were BA and MA Yale, so, while Yale was certainly not a sure thing, he happily forfeited his strong legacy card for Chicago. But he did so, as you recommend, with his eyes open. By my reckoning, the top four college destinations of students in his class are Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and Chicago (Harvard took an unusually large number this year). The kids at his school who will be attending Chicago are some of the smartest and most interesting (they applied ED1) and also some of the kids who didn’t get into H and Y (they applied ED2 and RD). Although the Chicago kids are as a group, by my estimation, probably the most appealing and quirky, they are not the highest flyers in the class. The world beaters, the most ambitious, the “Organization Kids,” the kids who have the self-belief that they are destined “to make the world a better place”–that is, the future Rhodes Scholars/McKinsey-ites/Yale and Stanford Law School and Harvard Med School grads–are overwhelmingly going to Harvard and Yale. Chicago’s place among major research university colleges in some ways resembles Carleton’s place among liberal arts colleges (by the way, Carleton was far and away my son’s favorite LAC): The undergraduate education on offer is superior, the focus is more purely academic, but it’s placement doesn’t match H’s and Y’s (just as Carleton’s doesn’t match Amherst’s and Wiliiams’s) and it’s really not attracting the same kind of kids. I think that’s largely–even wholly–to Chicago’s credit, but, from this admittedly very narrow perspective, the Chicago kids are apples to the H/Y oranges.
@Mom2Melcs - what interesting analysis! Could you explain a little more? What are the common threads of the (many) Chicago admits from your prep school? If the Chicago students aren’t the “highest fliers” or “most ambitious” - how would you describe them? What are their motivations and aspirations?
Also, in terms of viability for YLS or Stanford Law, why would the H and Y-bound students be more promising? Do they tend to be the better test takers, and would do better on the LSAT?
And @JBStillFlying I wanted to come back to this central point you made:
“The lesson is clear: in a tough curriculum environment, selectivity matters a lot more than available resources.”
JB, what are your thoughts on this re-framing of your position:
“in a tough curricular environment, cultivating a sense of belonging matters more than bringing in the #2 or #17 best incoming class in the country.”
Let me come back to my thought experiment, where we took the 1990 class and gave them 2020 resources/administration. Let me also be clear, the 1990 cohort was still strong. Per the SAT trends over time link (posted somewhere upthread), it looks like Chicago’s class (avg. SAT of 1335) was similar to Brown, Cornell, UPenn, etc. at the time. Not the rarefied air of being #2 like today, but in the top 15-20 for incoming class strength.
So, if we agree the class was good, how would resources combat the abysmal retention and graduation rates? (In the 90s, I think Chicago had something like a 87% freshmen retention rate, and maybe a 75% 4 yr grad rate.)
Here’s what I contend: that the resources signify something much larger: we care, and want you to belong here.
This means offering a far better residential life experience (with no far-flung, satellite dorms where people feel like commuter students). This means advising and tutoring students. This means encouraging extra-curricular pursuits. This means supporting students in their post-grad plans. This also means an administration that cares - and is aware of - what’s going on elsewhere.
JB, I’ll put it to you this way, I think a big shift in Chicago’s institutional thinking is this. In the past, it was “we don’t care what anyone else does. We’re Chicago.” Now it’s “we’re aware - and track - what our peers are doing, and what’s going on. We make changes in accordance to this.” (see: trott, business econ, Institute of Politics, expanding metcalf internships, building an arts center, heeding the McKinsey report to over ivy league-like experiences, etc.)
Can you imagine what Chicago’s 2020 leadership would think if their incoming classes - still in the top 15-20 in the nation - had 75% graduation rates? The alarms would sound. People would worry about drops in rankings, and think of ways to improve fast. Action would be taken. In 1990, these rates were met with a general shrug. We’re Chicago, this is hard, and if people drop out, so be it.
So, that’s my contention. I just don’t think that going from #16 in incoming class strength to #2 (or whatever) explains the huge jump in retention and graduation. The #2 class might do better academically, but you’d think a class that’s #16 in strength (in the entire country!) would have the wherewithal to graduate.
Ah! @JBStillFlying here’s a good illustrator for my point: Swarthmore College.
Like Chicago, Swarthmore has a tough, academics-focused environment. It’s not known for grade inflation, and it attracts a lot of curious, bright kids.
Also, while not at the pace of Chicago, Swarthmore’s incoming classes have improved markedly over time. From 1995 to 2018, Chicago’s avg. SAT went from 1335 to 1510 (or thereabouts): a big increase of around 175 points. Swarthmore was no slouch either. I think in the 90s its SAT avg. was around 1380, and now is around 1500 (about a 120 point increase).
The classes at Swarthmore and Chicago have definitely gotten better over time.
BUT Swarthmore’s graduation rates have stayed consistent over time:
https://www.swarthmore.edu/sites/default/files/assets/documents/institutional-research/GradRates.pdf
(In 1995, they had a 4 yr grad rate of 85%, and in 2019, the grad rate was 87%, with yearly variation in the middle.)
Why is this? If the incoming classes have gotten noticeably stronger, shouldn’t the grad rate go through the roof for such a strong college?
Chicago went from whatever awful 4 yr grad rate it had in 1995 (70%? 75%?) to 93% (or whatever) today.
I don’t think “improving selectivity” captures the change. The Swarthmore illustration tells us otherwise.
The total Law school placement at Harvard and Yale can be a cumulative effect of the following factors
Slightly lower average GPA for Chicago applicants. So a difference of 0.2 in the average GPA may impact the percentage of successful offers specially at Harvard and Yale
Slightly lower interest (11% vs 15%) among Chicago applicants for law school
Different demographics of applicants from each of these universities. If the applicant pool from Chicago is largely white, male and upper class, that may impact how many are chosen compared to a more diverse applicant pool from other Ivies. Specially at the tippy top schools because they have limited seats and definitely would be looking to shape a diverse class in terms of race, SES and gender. We do know for example that Chicago has lower Pell grant students than some of its peers and is now recruiting more from private prep schools
Career interests: Chicago Law for example sends a lot of graduates to big law firms. Yale graduates tilt more towards government than Chicago. 60% of Chicago grads go into private practice, 48% of class in fact goes to 500+ big law firms. At Yale that number is 31% and 25% respectively. 40% of Yale graduates go into clerkships vs only 28% at Chicago. Those are very different students.
Since UChicago undegrad applicants seem to be having better luck at getting into Chicago law, maybe their career interest and profile is very different from what Yale is looking for and they don’t fulfill the institutional needs of Yale as much as let’s say the applicants from Brown would. This would say nothing about these students.
In fact @Cue7 should be happy with this profile. This kind of profile suggests that purely from a “future donor/endowment” perspective, you would want more UChicago students to fit the Chicago, Columbia and Penn law target profile and not the Yale or Harvard law profile, which is what seems to be happening.
While the above maybe true, it is only part of the answer. It barely matters how you compare to other applicants from the College. What law schools care about first and foremost is your numbers (GPA & LSAT) vs. their medians; the matriculant medians which is what drives USNews rankings.
For perspective, Chicago Law’s medians are 3.90 and 170. The former is fractionally higher than Harvard’s 3.89, as Chicago Law has been increasing emphasis on GPA’s over the past 10 years. As a result, the College’s lack of grade inflation – relative to its peers – hurts its own students at its own law school (and every other T14).
^ Actually, I don’t quite believe that last part, Blue. Of course, we don’t know the gpa’s of those from the College admitted to UC Law but the university has made available special admission and funding pathways to the College students who wish to stay put for law school. Competitive as hell, most likely, but still special consideration.
Some schools give out A+'s and I believe those carry into the LSAC GPA. Someone graduating from a school with no A+'s is theoretically penalized right off the bat based on what you’ve been saying. Having a hard time believing that as well.
What percentage of applicants for these schools submit GRE instead of LSAT, I wonder?
@JBStillFlying - this is overcomplicating the matter.
Colleges with the higher gpa (lsats being equal) will generally have the better placement. We see that comparing brown and chicago, or princeton and yale (P’s gpas tend to be a little lower). Or johns hopkins and georgetown, and on and on.
^ Yale is also 20% larger than Princeton. G-Town is a third larger than JHU. Size matters.
EDIT to add: Whoops, almost forgot. UChicago only reached the size of Brown as of this coming fall (assuming all matriculate). Brown will dominate med school placement because they are a med school feeder. How do they place in Business and Law? Not to mention engineering, public policy, and other professional graduate programs. There are more interests out there than med or law.
No @JBStillFlying - i mean when you either look for schools with similar numbers of law aspirants (like brown and chicago), or just normalize based on number of applicants.
For law school especially, as others have said, it really is a numbers game. Not much need to over-analyze here.