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Related Discussions
Impact of Undergraduate School Ranking on Law Admissions?
Adriel .
Member
Was wondering what role if any the undergrad school you attended plays in the law admission process i.e. if a higher ranked school looks better, lower looks worse - increasing or decreasing chances respectively?
Comments
Generally it doesn't matter too much. It can help if you were to go top school like Princeton or something. And in theory it can hurt if you've gone to school they've never heard of, but that is extremely rare.
All the admissions officers I've talked to mainly say that it doesn't matter where you went. They just want to see you excel wherever you went. Overall your GPA is the most important because law schools much rather see a high GPA than a low GPA from a great school, since this impacts their rankings the most.
I don't think it matters too much, for better or worse.
Honestly it probably doesn't matter but I wouldn't dismiss the undergrad institution entirely and it is probably extremely case-by-case.
I have asked some admissions counselors about that and they claim accreditation is the main thing they are concerned with.
I don’t think it’s an issue for the most part unless you’re talking about extremely rare cases when this might be a tie-breaker. I do somehow, however, think Yale is an exception in that they do look at the prestige of your undergrad. Dk where I got this sense; can somebody confirm or correct me on this?
I have thought about this before, as I transferred from a competitive school to a completely average school (average median GPA and SAT scores). I think all the admissions committees are going to care about is my 3.80 GPA because it helps with their numbers. However, I'm not applying to T14 schools. Really, I'm looking at the top 20-30. So if your GPA is high, it shouldn't matter.
This was a while ago, but I will also add that my mom went to Penn for law school when it was ranked #5 and she went to a competitive school-- on par with Northeastern, BU, Pitt, etc... but by no means an ivy. So that worked out really well for her. However, even though she got a nearly perfect score on her LSAT, she got waitlisted (accepted only two days before class started) by NYU when it was #4. So the moral of that story is that it clearly varies from school to school.
From what I’ve seen, very little. Your GPA is the main thing they are concerned about. It might be a soft factor if you went to an Ivy or something. But generally, they just want to see good grades and I think they do take into account the info they get with the CAS report about your undergrad’s median GPA and LSAT scores, so they can compare you to the average graduate from it. But overall, it means very little.
Pretty unfair in my opinion. People like me who went to a hyper-competitive university full of gunners, puts us at a disadvantage in terms of grades. But oh well, what can you do? It makes sense schools care that much about rankings, I mean if I was a school, I would too.
But still, it just seems wrong. Getting a 4.00 GPA in underwater basket weaving from University of Podunk would be valued higher than a 3.4 GPA in economics from MIT or similar. Weird.
Well, unfortunately things just aren’t always fair. I’ve heard that they do take into account that many STEM programs typically have lower GPAs. But at the end of the day, US News rankings depend on GPA and don’t adjust for anything. So, a lower GPA will affect their stats regardless of where it was earned.
I think it’s unfair that when LSAC standardized GPAs, they allow for higher than a 4.0 even though many universities (including mine) don’t give A+ grades. It’s annoying, but they can only do so much to standardize things.
If they accounted for prestige of schools, then law schools would (even more than they are) be largely made up of financially well off students that could afford to attend those schools. As I mentioned, I do think they take into account the median grades from your university and compare you against it. But US News is unforgiving, so if they want to keep their stats up, they have to go by the numbers.
Yeah, everything is rankings-driven in today's world. I'm seeing it's especially true in the legal world. It is what it is I suppose.
For the original question about undergrad prestige, Spivey mentioned it used to matter a lot more back then due to a lot more schools using faculty review but now mainly Yale uses it. Only time it seems to matter significantly is when you are applying for the same grad school where you did your undergrad. On LSN you will notice some 3.5 (below HLS soft GPA floor) non-urm get into HLS who got waitlist at CC and rejected at YS, and then you find out they went to Harvard undergrad. For HLS, the boost is that H undergrads get a fourth faculty review. And I suspect for many other law schools it helps for getting into schools that may yield protect you since you already chose that school for undergrad.
In the example of the MIT 3.4 student, they would probably get into a better school than the basket weaving 4.0 since their LSAT will prob be much higher. At the end of the day the LSAT is the great equalizer.
Example where undergrad matters: http://lawschoolnumbers.com/b-a-n-a-n-a-s
Spivey comments: https://www.reddit.com/r/lawschooladmissions/comments/8hfn20/does_undergrad_degree_matter/dyjjpg4/?context=3&utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=usertext&utm_name=lawschooladmissions&utm_content=t3_9fvux0
I agree with @"Leah M B" here, though I totally understand your frustration. I got 99s and 100s in multiple classes, but my school doesn't give A+s. Some schools also give As for 90-100, so A- isn't a grade you can get. None of it is really fair.
t Princeton. > @tekken1225 said:
Well at most elite universities grade inflation is rampant. The one school OP mentioned (Princeton) is the notable exception. I don't think accounting for majors or school is the right way to go about it. Both would need to be accounted for, but many schools don't publish that data.
@"Leah M B"
most elite universities (Harvard, Yale, Stanford, etc.) are very affordable and cheap, especially for low income and middle income families. Most of them have no-loan polices.
From Harvard:
https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/how-aid-works/harvard-financial-aid-initiative
"And, if your family earns less than $65,000 per year, your parents pay nothing for you to attend Harvard. It is simply our effort to make sure you and your family know you can afford to attend Harvard."
"Ninety percent of American families would pay the same or less to send their children to Harvard as they would a state school."
Some of the elite public universities, such as UC Berkeley, UCLA, Michigan, etc are also exceptions. In fact, places like Berkeley, I would say there is grade deflation... speaking from personal experience, haha.
@tekken1225 @10000019 LSAC actually releases uGPA and LSAT scores from undegrads so you can check which schools are the most grade inflated. Princeton has a average of 166 LSAT and 3.55 GPA and Berkeley has a average of 159 LSAT and 3.55 GPA. Of note, Princeton gave up grade deflation in 2014 due to campus pressure and losing cross-admits to other top schools. Still the most deflated Ivy for sure though.
Link: https://www.lsac.org/data-research/data/top-240-feeder-schools-aba-applicants
Princeton: https://qz.com/277288/princeton-is-giving-up-ground-in-its-fight-against-grade-inflation/
My dad didn't go to an ivy and still got a C on an exam he got a 95 on lol. That just further speaks to the fact that every school is different. That's why the LSAT is so much more important than GPA.