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Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:23 pm
by georgeNY
I recently came into possession of internal statistics from H and Y's respective offices of career strategy (many other students have this sheet; It was just given to me by a classmate). The following is data regarding applicants from H and Y to various law schools for those students who entered law school in the fall of 2016. Hopefully it sheds some light on how much going to an elite undergrad helps, or doesn't help, in the admissions process. Data:
-# of harvard college students accepted to H law: 59 of 134 applicants, 44%- avg. LSAT 171, avg. GPA 3.77; # of yale college students accepted to H law: 52 of 121 applicants- avg. LSAT 171, avg. GPA 3.80
-# of yale college students accepted into columbia law: 70 of 137 applicants- avg. LSAT 169, avg. GPA 3.68; harvard to columbia- 65 of 141 applicants- 169, 3.66
-# of harvard college to yale law: 42 of 127, 33%- 172, 3.83; Yale college to yale law: 60 of 135- 171, 3.81
Now, I should say that these statistics are for admitted students, not matriculated students. I couldn't find a way to upload the photo, so choose to believe me or not, but I thought that this might be helpful to some.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:33 pm
by lobsicle
Interesting; are you sure you’re allowed to publish this? Maybe you could put in an Excel google doc and paste a link.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:37 pm
by georgeNY
this has been floating around at H for a few weeks now, so i doubt it's too confidential. but yeah, the actual sheet has about 30 schools on it. HY and C were just the most competitive so I posted them.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 3:56 pm
by efficient
Very helpful! Thank you. Would love to see the full list.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:03 pm
by virginia_direwoolf
efficient wrote:Very helpful! Thank you. Would love to see the full list.
+1 would love to see the full list
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:21 pm
by SolemnMan
Would also like to to see the avg gpa and lsat for these applicants.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:34 pm
by principalagent
This could be really useful with URMs broken out. It’s kind of incomplete without that bifurcation of data
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 4:39 pm
by lobsicle
principalagent wrote:This could be really useful with URMs broken out. It’s kind of incomplete without that bifurcation of data
+1
I think it's also really hard with just average numbers. Tough to glean any insight without the full distribution of scores.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:30 pm
by cavalier1138
In before someone says, "See? Undergrad matters! I'm going to Yale!!!!!"
(I'm actually a little shocked that hasn't happened yet.)
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 5:55 pm
by icechicken
cavalier1138 wrote:In before someone says, "See? Undergrad matters! I'm going to Yale!!!!!"
FWIW,
Yale is apparently tied with Brown for highest median uGPA of grads applying to law school.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 6:15 pm
by principalagent
cavalier1138 wrote:In before someone says, "See? Undergrad matters! I'm going to Yale!!!!!"
(I'm actually a little shocked that hasn't happened yet.)
Yeah, my hunch is that if you take out URM numbers, then these stats will probably sit at, or perhaps even above, the LSAT/GPA medians for HY and C, instead of (barely) under as it currently stands. Considering the grade inflation at HY, as well as their students’ potentiality for high test scores, I’m not all that shocked.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:03 pm
by goingnutslawschool
Could you please give us any information on how UChicago undergrad law school applicants fair in applying to Harvard, Yale, Columbia and any other top law schools included?. Please, Please!! Would be eternally grateful.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:06 pm
by cavalier1138
goingnutslawschool wrote:Could you please give us any information on how UChicago undergrad law school applicants fair in applying to Harvard, Yale, Columbia and any other top law schools included?. Please, Please!! Would be eternally grateful.
It has begun...
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 9:08 pm
by Hikikomorist
efficient wrote:Very helpful! Thank you. Would love to see the full list.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Mon Dec 04, 2017 10:09 pm
by icechicken
goingnutslawschool wrote:Could you please give us any information on how UChicago undergrad law school applicants fair in applying to Harvard, Yale, Columbia and any other top law schools included?. Please, Please!! Would be eternally grateful.
The following data are publicly available for the 2016 cycle:
165 applicants
149-180 LSAT range
166.36 LSAT mean
3.59 median GPA
~138 applicants (84%) got at least one T14 acceptance, according to
this pamphlet (PDF), and UChicago undergrads got the following acceptances.
4 Yale
6 Stanford
8 Harvard
21 Chicago
9 Columbia
24 NYU
There's almost certainly some overlap there; I'd guesstimate about 10-15 people got HYSColumbia acceptances in total. That would be, very roughly, the top 5-10% of an applicant pool that already has pretty strong grades relative to their classmates. Not too hot; it seems like there isn't much of a UChicago bump for uGPA at those schools. NYU is easily the friendliest T6 school to splitters, so that spike isn't too surprising. Probably a lot of people with numbers like 3.4/170, which NYU often admits but the rest of the T6 usually reject.
The apparent bump at Chicago Law surprised me a little. There are a number of possible explanations: 1) the Law School leans heavily on the College for URM candidates, 2) Chicago undergrad splitters get special consideration, perhaps contingent on strong faculty recommendations, 3) the Chicago Law Scholars program hoovers up the cream of the crop, who therefore don't apply to HYS or Columbia. Probably a combination of all of the above.
TL;DR: you're gonna perform in line with your numbers, with the caveat that a 177/3.6 bro probably has a much better (i.e., any) shot at Chicago Law than people with the same numbers from other undergrads.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 12:30 am
by goingnutslawschool
I think that I’m interpreting the information differently than you. My research is that the ABA information comes from all UChicago applicants past and present in that one cycle. So the 138 figure extrapolated from the UChicago brochure would not be accurate. Just curious to see what is on the stats sheet that the OP has is all.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:08 am
by icechicken
goingnutslawschool wrote:My research is that the ABA information comes from all UChicago applicants past and present in that one cycle. So the 138 figure extrapolated from the UChicago brochure would not be accurate.
I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing.
Just curious to see what is on the stats sheet that the OP has is all.
It sounds like OP got his numbers through personal friends of his who attend Harvard and Yale and have access to those colleges' career services databases. If you're currently an undergrad at Chicago (which I'm assuming is the case) then you probably have better access to the numbers you're looking for than every internet stranger combined. Ask your prelaw advisor. If they won't release the info to you, it either isn't being collected or is being kept tightly under wraps.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:23 am
by goingnutslawschool
Yes, thanks for the advise about asking the pre law advisor- totally intend to do that at a later date. Just curious and trying to see what comes up on these threads.
The distinction is that the ABA number of 165 is from all UChicago present and past undergrads applying to law schools for the one cycle. My understanding is that this is how they collect their data. So the 165 is not just the graduating undergrads from UChicago.
The brochure provides the information for just the graduating seniors that are getting into top law schools.
So you can’t just extrapolate that there are around 138 UChicago undergrads applying that year who got into top schools.
Does that make sense? Let me know if I missed something but that is the way I’m interpreting the information.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 1:28 am
by gwillygecko
Pretty good evidence that going to a top-top-top ugrad gives you a boost at the highest tier. Of course anyone that didn't have their head up their ass already knew that, because why wouldn't it be a plus?
Two more points:
1)If you're going to filter out urm data like some people asked to do, then you'd have to do the same for the data for the whole pool of HLS/YLS lsat data to be consistent.
2)The lsat avg for admits is almost always higher than the avg for matriculants at a given law school based on the fact that people on average go to one of the highest ranked schools they get into, although for HY this will be much less of an effect because a)theyre at the top of most people's lists and b)their yield rates are so high because of that. Since the avg lsat for admits from HY Ugrad to HY LS is lower than the average lsat of matriculants to these schools, that makes the idea of a boost even stronger.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:07 am
by goingnutslawschool
Just wondering- what exactly is a “top-top-top” undergrad school?
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:11 am
by SolemnMan
goingnutslawschool wrote:Just wondering- what exactly is a “top-top-top” undergrad school?
HYPSM.
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 2:24 am
by icechicken
goingnutslawschool wrote:The distinction is that the ABA number of 165 is from all UChicago present and past undergrads applying to law schools for the one cycle. My understanding is that this is how they collect their data. So the 165 is not just the graduating undergrads from UChicago.
The brochure provides the information for just the graduating seniors that are getting into top law schools.
Ah, that makes sense and I think there's a chance you're right. The language in the pamphlet is unhelpfully vague ("Class of 2016" some places and "UChicago 2016 cycle applicants" next to that 84% figure). If so, then those T6 numbers are probably underselling the situation by a fair margin, maybe as much as a factor of two or three. But that's getting even more speculative and I still wouldn't see the case for a "undergrad bump" that isn't explained by the blistering LSATs at Chicago and its peers.
Incidentally, looking at those numbers I'm pretty impressed by the extent to which Yale noses ahead of its competition this cycle. Grade inflation,
whatever -
averaging a 169 across 200 applicants is pretty darn impressive.
gwillygecko wrote:Pretty good evidence that going to a top-top-top ugrad gives you a boost at the highest tier. Of course anyone that didn't have their head up their ass already knew that, because why wouldn't it be a plus?
Because undergrad pedigree doesn't obviously correlate with anything law schools care about, but caring about it
does work against one of their objectives by reducing undergraduate-program diversity in their classes.
1)If you're going to filter out urm data like some people asked to do, then you'd have to do the same for the data for the whole pool to be consistent.
You're missing the problem here - the data in the OP are averages, whereas most law schools only publish their medians. Negative outliers (not only URM admits but also many splitters or reverse-splitters) drag down the former but not the latter. If a 173, 174, 173, and 165 get admitted from Harvard College to HLS, the former reports a mean of 171 and the latter reports a median of 173.
You can see this effect in action here - note the discrepancy between means and medians.
2)The lsat avg for admits is almost always higher than the avg for matriculants at a given law school based on the fact that people on average go to one of the highest ranked schools they get into, although for HY this will be much less of an effect because a)theyre at the top of most people's lists and b)their yield rates are so high because of that. Since the avg lsat for admits from HY Ugrad to HY LS is lower than the average lsat of matriculants to these schools, that makes the idea of a boost even stronger.
This isn't a compelling argument for the reason you explain yourself (the lion's share of people who get admitted to H and/or Y matriculate) and also because the air gets extremely thin for LSAT scores north of 173. The population of people you're talking about is tiny.
Yet another factor you're not considering is that there seems to be a slight edge for people applying to their alma mater's law school, which probably distorts the H/Y data above and is different from a broad "undergrad boost". You can see above that Harvard students don't get quite as much love from YLS, and vice versa - I'd wager that graduates of Stanford/Chicago/Columbia don't enjoy the same advantage at either, not to mention places like Princeton/MIT/Amherst that are every bit as prestigious as the above but don't house law schools.
SolemnMan wrote:goingnutslawschool wrote:Just wondering- what exactly is a “top-top-top” undergrad school?
HYPSM.
this thread is really going places
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 6:39 am
by cavalier1138
SolemnMan wrote:goingnutslawschool wrote:Just wondering- what exactly is a “top-top-top” undergrad school?
HYPSM.
What about lay prestige?
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:26 am
by A. Nony Mouse
gwillygecko wrote:Pretty good evidence that going to a top-top-top ugrad gives you a boost at the highest tier. Of course anyone that didn't have their head up their ass already knew that, because why wouldn't it be a plus?
It's a plus when you're comparing people with the same numbers. It's not going to outweigh higher stats from lesser institutions. (And with regard to the numbers of people accepted from elite undergrads, there's a correlation/causation issue.)
Re: Harvard/Yale college data
Posted: Tue Dec 05, 2017 9:35 am
by FriedChickenHero
I went to a HYPSM (not H or Y though) and I can confirm that our statistics are similar to those quoted above. Except, our numbers of accepted students to HY is lower, which seems to indicate that there's a bump for the undergraduates that attend those schools.