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jw316

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by jw316 » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:41 pm

I've read this thread a ton of times and still end up with this incredulous stare on my face every time.

As I take the information in this thread, I'm led to believe that as an AA male: should a person score above a 168/170—out of everyone who takes the LSAT in a given cycle, you'll be able to put them and the roughly 10 other people who scored above that in the same room?

Like there were literally 4 AA males 170> last cycle and less than 20 AA total above a 167?

Please tell me I'm reading something improperly or misinterpreting the info.
nick1 wrote:I decided to run an update for those that are applying for this upcoming cycle. The number of blacks attending T14s has reduced drastically, the numbers below represent the class that entered in Fall 2012.

The number of black test takers drastically reduced as well, the data is for LSAT administration that ran through 2011 (JUN) -2012 (FEB). I broke down the total number of test takers as a whole and data for males and females as well. Keep in mind the SDs are unique to each data set so the numbers add up weird. But the data still pretty much tells the same story as the OP.

MALE
4217 test takers

2 above SD (161): 71
2.5 above SD (165): 21
3 above SD (170): 4

FEMALE
7236 test takers
2 above SD(158): 123
2.5 above SD (162): 36
3 above SD (167): 7

TOTAL
11453 test takers

2 above SD (159): 194
2.5 above SD(164): 57
3 above SD(167): 11

Keep in mind that these are very rough numbers and GPA and other factors must be taken into account when we walk about admissions. Also look out for the updated admissions data that will start trickling out in August and September for the class that will be entering this fall. Make sure you are registering for resources like lawschoolnumbers.com as well to add to the information we already have. Good luck in the upcoming cycle!
Last edited by jw316 on Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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John_rizzy_rawls

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by John_rizzy_rawls » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:48 pm

Athlone - I understand the motivation, just not a fan of it. But yeah, discussion for another time. Your analysis answered calibear's question nicely.

Jwe - You're not missing anything, that's mostly correct.

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jw316

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by jw316 » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:49 pm

John_rizzy_rawls wrote:Athlone - I understand the motivation, just not a fan of it. But yeah, discussion for another time. Your analysis answered calibear's question nicely.

Jwe - You're not missing anything, that's mostly correct.
Holy sh*t.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by Athlone McGinnis » Wed Jul 10, 2013 5:52 pm

John_rizzy_rawls wrote:Athlone - I understand the motivation, just not a fan of it.
I can understand where you're coming from on that.
jw316 wrote:I've read this thread a ton of times and still end up with this incredulous stare on my face every time. As I take the information in this thread I'm led to believe that as an AA male, should I/a person score above a 168/170—out of everyone who takes the LSAT in a given cycle, you'll be able to put them and the roughly 10 other people who scored above that in the same room? Like there were literally 4 AA males 170> last cycle and less than 20 AA total above a 167?

Please tell me I'm reading something improperly or misinterpreting the info.
As John just said, you've pretty much got the idea. There is a severe under-supply of high-scoring AAs, which is why we so often hear of T-14s (including the likes of Harvard) dipping down into the low 160s and high 150s to admit AA students. Such admissions probably wouldn't occur if AAs in the 167+ range were significantly more common than they're indicated to be here. All the statistical analysis you've seen in here just backs this up.

The AA "boost" is really just a product of demand outstripping supply. Schools (as well as the firms that draw employees from them, the companies that do business with those firms, and the state/federal governments that interact with all of the above) desire a certain level of diversity that they simply can't achieve without dipping down further into the AA pool due to the low supply of high-scoring AAs.
jw316 wrote:
Holy sh*t.
Yeah, it is a shocking reality.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by hcss11 » Mon Aug 12, 2013 12:50 am

dawyzest1 wrote:
hcss11 wrote:
a. What does Yield Protect mean?

b. My GPA is 3.37/4.0.
Yield protection is something law schools will engage in when they receive an applicant who is otherwise qualified for admission that they wait-list because they believe there is a good chance the applicant will get into more desirable schools and thus a low chance the applicant will attend their school. It allows them to show higher selectivity, which provides a marginal assist to their ranking.

Penn and UVA are the T14 schools that seem to yield protect URMs the hardest. You can see the phenomenon here:

http://myLSN.info/d1qmwe_1-14.jpg

There is no way in hell an applicant qualified to be admitted to Harvard or Stanford is not qualified to be admitted to Penn. No way.
Also, re: this chart—I noticed that the scholarship amounts read "0% out of 0 dollars". Does the "0 dollars" amount assume household income of below $60,000? Does Harvard Law give disadvantaged URMs full rides like they do for their undergrads?

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by John_rizzy_rawls » Mon Aug 12, 2013 4:25 am

No, HYS law schools only give need-based aid, no merit aid.

And no, need-based aid won't cover everything. It may be fairly substantial (I've seen 20-30K at the very most) but that's rare and won't cover everything.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by 24671 » Mon Aug 12, 2013 5:49 pm

John_rizzy_rawls wrote:No, HYS law schools only give need-based aid, no merit aid.

And no, need-based aid won't cover everything. It may be fairly substantial (I've seen 20-30K at the very most) but that's rare and won't cover everything.
Can it be assumed that HYS accepted, low-income student can expect 20-30 K of need based aid every year? Not sure how applicable this is but I'd probably have an EFC of 0.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by flat-fifth » Tue Aug 20, 2013 1:03 am

I watched the Kaplan webcast tonight featuring adcomms from UVA, NYU, Penn, and H. The dean of admissions at NYU totally dismissed a "hypothetical" 155 LSAT and I instantly thought about this thread. Wishing you all the best of luck this cycle!!

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by Throttle » Tue Aug 20, 2013 10:29 pm

flat-fifth wrote:I watched the Kaplan webcast tonight featuring adcomms from UVA, NYU, Penn, and H. The dean of admissions at NYU totally dismissed a "hypothetical" 155 LSAT and I instantly thought about this thread. Wishing you all the best of luck this cycle!!
I tried to watch it but it wouldn't work. Seemed like they just stole my info and then told me to take a hike.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by flat-fifth » Tue Aug 20, 2013 10:46 pm

Throttle wrote:
flat-fifth wrote:I watched the Kaplan webcast tonight featuring adcomms from UVA, NYU, Penn, and H. The dean of admissions at NYU totally dismissed a "hypothetical" 155 LSAT and I instantly thought about this thread. Wishing you all the best of luck this cycle!!
I tried to watch it but it wouldn't work. Seemed like they just stole my info and then told me to take a hike.
The Kaplan website glitched and they emailed a link to the live feed. Here's the replay link: http://new.livestream.com/kaptest/the-1 ... roundtable

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by californiauser » Wed Aug 21, 2013 2:34 pm

Athlone McGinnis wrote:I’ll be using the data for African-Americans from the 2009-10 testing years. The key numbers are as follows:
Total number of test-takers: 14,585
Mean score: 142.04
Standard Deviation: 8.74
1SD Above Mean: 150.78 (151)
2 SD Above Mean: 159.52 (160)
2.5SD Above Mean: 163.89(164)
3 SD Above Mean: 168.26 (168)
Wasn't the 09-10 cycle particularly inflated because of the recession? I'd be interested to see the data from last year and this year. Since applications are down some 30% from 3 years ago, presumably, these numbers are probably a little high for predicting outcomes for the upcoming cycle.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by Athlone McGinnis » Wed Aug 21, 2013 3:46 pm

californiauser wrote:
Wasn't the 09-10 cycle particularly inflated because of the recession? I'd be interested to see the data from last year and this year. Since applications are down some 30% from 3 years ago, presumably, these numbers are probably a little high for predicting outcomes for the upcoming cycle.
Nick1 has got you covered.

http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 0#p6888273
nick1 wrote:I decided to run an update for those that are applying for this upcoming cycle. The number of blacks attending T14s has reduced drastically, the numbers below represent the class that entered in Fall 2012.

Yale 16
Harvard 45
Stanford 12
Columbia 23
Chicago 11
NYU 24
Penn 19
UVA 19
Michigan 10
Berkeley 10
Duke 16
Northwestern 11
Cornell 15
Georgetown 44
275

The number of black test takers drastically reduced as well, the data is for LSAT administration that ran through 2011 (JUN) -2012 (FEB). I broke down the total number of test takers as a whole and data for males and females as well. Keep in mind the SDs are unique to each data set so the numbers add up weird. But the data still pretty much tells the same story as the OP.

MALE
4217 test takers

2 above SD (161): 71
2.5 above SD (165): 21
3 above SD (170): 4

FEMALE
7236 test takers
2 above SD(158): 123
2.5 above SD (162): 36
3 above SD (167): 7

TOTAL
11453 test takers

2 above SD (159): 194
2.5 above SD(164): 57
3 above SD(167): 11

Keep in mind that these are very rough numbers and GPA and other factors must be taken into account when we walk about admissions. Also look out for the updated admissions data that will start trickling out in August and September for the class that will be entering this fall. Make sure you are registering for resources like lawschoolnumbers.com as well to add to the information we already have. Good luck in the upcoming cycle!
Different data, but largely the same story as the my OP.

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Re: URM and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by MoMettaMonk » Thu Nov 14, 2013 11:40 pm

I just realized that Twenty's excellent thread about how to calculate what percentile your LSAT falls according to your race and this thread had not yet been combined. As such here is the first post of that thread.
twentypercentmore wrote:There is an amazing thread by Athlone McGinnis you can find here: http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 4&t=195443

Credit where credit's due. :D

This is the Z-table calculator we'll use: http://davidmlane.com/hyperstat/z_table.html

This is the LSAC data from 2012. You can find the information you're looking for on page 20: http://www.lsac.org/lsacresources/resea ... -12-03.pdf

- Open up the Z-table and LSAC PDF.

- Copy the mean from the LSAC PDF as it relates to the race you're interested in, and paste it in the "mean" box on the calculator.
(example: Put 146.32 in the "mean" box for Hispanic)

- Copy the SD from the LSAC PDF over to the SD box in the calculator.
(for Hispanic, this is 9.25)

[[The calculator should show the whole graph in black at this point]]

- Now change the "Above" or "Below" box to your targeted LSAT scale. Suppose I was an MA with a 166 score, I would put "166" in these boxes.

The BELOW data shows your percentile. My 166 would be in the 98th percentile.

The ABOVE data helps you calculate how many scored higher than you.

Image

- Get out your calculator and take the total number of applicants within your selected race and multiply it by the number in the area box.

So, for example, if I put in 166 and I select the "above" option, I should get the number 0.0167

I now multiply that number by 7,213, the number of Hispanic LSAT takers last year.

My result is approximately 123, or that there are 123 people that checked "Hispanic" when they took the LSAT that have a higher score than I do.

What does this mean?

Let's first understand how other "non-URM" (let's say Caucasian + Asian) applicants do. My 166 puts me at about a 92nd percentile (if I were non-URM), which means there's about 5,000-ish applicants White/Asian candidates with better scores than I have. In theory, the 166 Hispanic score should be "equal" to a non-URM 172-173 by nature of percentile. Of course, it doesn't quite work this way, since law schools do not admit an equal proportion of URMs to the overall amount of LSAT takers.

[[Edit]] Dr. Zer0 did my work for me. :D Go read his post for why it matters.

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Re: URM and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by EvMont » Fri Nov 15, 2013 10:33 am

MoMettaMonk wrote:I just realized that Twenty's excellent thread about how to calculate what percentile your LSAT falls according to your race and this thread had not yet been combined. As such here is the first post of that thread.
Hey MoMettaMonk, do you mind posting the link to the other thread, as well? Thanks!

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by teampeeta » Fri Nov 15, 2013 11:11 am

MoMettaMonk wrote:I just realized that Twenty's excellent thread about how to calculate what percentile your LSAT falls according to your race and this thread had not yet been combined. As such here is the first post of that thread
I won't pretend that the statistical wizardry isn't impressive- at least to someone who never took stats in UG- but how accurate is it? E.g. according to the graph, my area is .0002 which means that 2 AAs who checked the box and applied to law school scored higher than me on the LSAT. Anecdotally, I know that that's not true. There are a few AAs on this message board who scored higher and those are just the few who post openly on TLS.
Last edited by teampeeta on Fri Nov 15, 2013 12:57 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by twenty » Fri Nov 15, 2013 12:40 pm

There's a couple reasons for that.

- If the AAs did not declare their race on the LSAT "what's your ethnicity?" box, they will be missing from the statistic. This is also true if they checked more boxes than just "AA" (i.e, they checked AA/Caucasian)
- If the AAs took their LSAT before this year, they will be part of last year's statistic rather than this year's.
- We don't have this year's numbers yet, and it seems safe to assume that there are quite a few more 168+ AA scorers this cycle than last.
- To my understanding, the LSAC data counts the averages of every administration of the LSAT, while schools only care about the highest LSAT. An AA is unlikely to retake a 165+, while a non-URM is much more likely. This, understandably, brings the average down against the real number, so the very top of the curve (the 167+ [3 above SD] group)'s average retakes are lower, meaning there's an extra 2-3 AAs in there that aren't being counted.

Speaking for both Athlone and myself, we recognize that while this is a very good estimate of URM admissions (which it seems to be, considering that AAs with 163s get into H/S on mylsn) there is too little firm data to completely extrapolate the absolute number of URMs that would be applying in this specific cycle. So that's my disclaimer. :)

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by MoMettaMonk » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:24 pm

To take TPM's disclaimer a step further, there are all sorts of variables that this basic calculation doesn't take into account. For example, there is no accounting for socio-economic status or varied levels of educational opportunity. Also because we're talking about such small numbers of individuals in such a tight cluster at the 170+ mark there are going to be wild variations from year to year. It's totally reasonable that one cycle might have 15 170+ AAs and another cycle might have 2. The zscore calculator is only going to give us a general idea. It won't predict the future.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by applelover » Fri Nov 15, 2013 1:48 pm

I'm terrible at stats, so thank you for this.

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Re: URM and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by MoMettaMonk » Fri Nov 15, 2013 3:35 pm

EvMont wrote:
MoMettaMonk wrote:I just realized that Twenty's excellent thread about how to calculate what percentile your LSAT falls according to your race and this thread had not yet been combined. As such here is the first post of that thread.
Hey MoMettaMonk, do you mind posting the link to the other thread, as well? Thanks!
Here's the link to the full thread.

http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 4&t=214761

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by midnight_circus » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:13 pm

This absolutely blows my mind every single time.
Thanks for doing all the statistics though. I haven't touched a standard deviation since high school :)

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Re: URM and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by EvMont » Fri Nov 15, 2013 4:38 pm

MoMettaMonk wrote:
EvMont wrote:
MoMettaMonk wrote:I just realized that Twenty's excellent thread about how to calculate what percentile your LSAT falls according to your race and this thread had not yet been combined. As such here is the first post of that thread.
Hey MoMettaMonk, do you mind posting the link to the other thread, as well? Thanks!
Here's the link to the full thread.

http://top-law-schools.com/forums/viewt ... 4&t=214761
Thanks! :D

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ponyboy7

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by ponyboy7 » Mon Dec 16, 2013 6:36 pm

Can somebody please post updated numbers for MA's? I'm not the best at statistics so I wouldn't trust my own results.

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Nova

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by Nova » Fri Jan 03, 2014 12:20 am

ponyboy7 wrote:Can somebody please post updated numbers for MA's? I'm not the best at statistics so I wouldn't trust my own results.
Can someone do this? Maybe for PR and NA too?

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aboutmydaylight

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by aboutmydaylight » Sat Feb 22, 2014 10:24 pm

Where are the updated numbers? I don't think LSAC breaks MAs down into their own category anymore so it wouldn't be possible. It would have to be by Hispanics.

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Re: Blacks and Law School: By The Numbers

Post by PepperJack » Sat Feb 22, 2014 10:32 pm

This is one of the most useful threads on TLS. Black applicants have a dearth of information on where to apply. Many are lost at the application level, and having knowledge like this is uniformly helpful. Bravo. The problem isn't only lower LSAT's on average, but also a lot of them applying to the wrong schools by either overreaching or under-reaching.

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