Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships Forum

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ber6992

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Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by ber6992 » Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:22 pm

I am choosing between HLS and SLS, and I am interested in clerking. People always point to Stanford's better clerkship numbers, but are these stats all percentages? Given that there are a limited number of clerkships available, the fact that Harvard is bigger and still sends a high number of people, even if not a high percentage of their class, to clerkships seems to be relevant. Also, for the specific population of people choosing between Harvard and Stanford, isn't there an argument to be made that they have a higher chance of being nearer the top of their class at Harvard (given that it's harder to get into Stanford) and therefore might have a relatively better chance of getting clerkships if they go to Harvard? Let me know if I'm off on any of this, but I haven't seen anything addressing these thoughts.

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Sls17

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Sls17 » Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:41 pm

I don’t think there is an appreciable difference in clerkship chances from either school. I also, respectfully, don’t think you have a higher chance of doing well at Harvard because you got into Stanford. Choosing between those schools, I’d be considering only COA (did you get more aid from one or the other?), location preference, and possibly fit / school size preference as the schools are pretty different experientially from that standpoint.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by The Lsat Airbender » Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:45 pm

It's definitely not easier to be near the top of your class at Harvard, lmao. HLS's students are stronger on paper.

Stanford is probably a bit better than Harvard for securing a clerkship if only because its class size is much smaller. You want to be solidly-above-median at either to be confident; median starts to get trickier and that's where SLS's advantage is more pronounced. It's not a huge difference either way, and as the above poster notes you should prioritize things like CoA over the delta in clerkship outcomes.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by LBJ's Hair » Tue Apr 23, 2019 1:53 pm

It sounds like you'd rather go to Harvard. That's great, just go to Harvard.

But you should absolutely not assume you're going to do "better' at Harvard than Stanford because you were admitted to Stanford and it's more selective. Law school exam success is correlated to LSAT and GPA in broad strokes - like if your score is 10 points higher than someone else's yeah, you're probably smarter than them and more likely to do well. But (1) even then, there are tons of exceptions, I know transfers to Harvard who graduated magna and are clerking on the Second Circuit, and (2) the difference between a Harvard admission and a Stanford admission turns on like, what food the admissions officer had that day, or whether s/he liked your personal statement, or maybe a point on the LSAT. We're splitting hairs. You should assume you're no different than the average Harvard student and no more or less likely to do well on your exams

I also don't really understand your clerkship #s argument, at all, frankly. Maybe you can elaborate on that.

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hdivschool

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by hdivschool » Tue Apr 23, 2019 2:25 pm

I agree with the above posters that you have no reasonable expectation of doing better grade wise at one school vs. another.

I suspect some factors playing into SLS's clerkship advantage include the fact that it is relatively easier to get on SLR (more slots per student at SLS than HLS), meaning that proportionally more SLS students have the law review credential, and SLS students take more courses on the quarter system, meaning they have more grades to show their skill and more professors to recommend them.

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Sls17

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Sls17 » Tue Apr 23, 2019 2:35 pm

hdivschool wrote:I suspect some factors playing into SLS's clerkship advantage include the fact that it is relatively easier to get on SLR (more slots per student at SLS than HLS), meaning that proportionally more SLS students have the law review credential, and SLS students take more courses on the quarter system, meaning they have more grades to show their skill and more professors to recommend them.
Actually, I do think these are fair points, though probably not major enough considerations to strongly draw you to one school over another. It is easier to get on law review at SLS. It’s also a little easier to get professor recs early in the game — you’re taking a full course schedule of electives by 1L spring, so you’re self-selecting your profs — though as long as the Plan is in place this isn’t the advantage it used to be.

ber6992

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by ber6992 » Tue Apr 23, 2019 3:07 pm

Okay, good to hear there is not a difference in ability to do well based on the slightly higher stats of SLS admits. I didn’t really have much confidence in this idea, but wanted to hear it addressed, as I heard quite a few people reference something like this at the admitted students weekends.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Sls17 » Tue Apr 23, 2019 4:10 pm

ber6992 wrote:Okay, good to hear there is not a difference in ability to do well based on the slightly higher stats of SLS admits. I didn’t really have much confidence in this idea, but wanted to hear it addressed, as I heard quite a few people reference something like this at the admitted students weekends.
People said this at HLS ASW? Love it.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by gaucholaw » Tue Apr 23, 2019 11:37 pm

I think people grossly overestimate the difficulty of obtaining flyover clerkships, even COA.

HYS is sufficient credentialy speaking to get you a district, even if you’re last in your class. But, though every judge is different, hiring is basically a 2-prong test: 1. Credentials 2. Fit. Lots of HYS grads are not down to earth enough to click with district judges who themselves did not necessarily have a bougie career before becoming a judge.

TLDR: 1. HYS 2. Down to earth 3. Willing to live anywhere = you’ll get your clerkship.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by notrub14 » Wed Apr 24, 2019 1:51 pm

ber6992 wrote:Okay, good to hear there is not a difference in ability to do well based on the slightly higher stats of SLS admits. I didn’t really have much confidence in this idea, but wanted to hear it addressed, as I heard quite a few people reference something like this at the admitted students weekends.
I haven't seen any data on admitted students, but for matriculants, HLS has a higher LSAT median and SLS has a higher GPA median (I'm assuming HLS isn't rounding down 3.93 or 3.94 to 3.9).

I think SLS is harder to get into because it cares about things other than numbers, not because it requires higher numbers. And given that the LSAT is the best predictor of 1L grades that we have--not that it's that good of a predictor--I don't think there's any good reason to think that it's easier to do well at HLS than SLS.

https://law.stanford.edu/aba-required-disclosures/

https://hls.harvard.edu/dept/jdadmissio ... and-facts/

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by abl » Wed Apr 24, 2019 2:23 pm

gaucholaw wrote:I think people grossly overestimate the difficulty of obtaining flyover clerkships, even COA.

HYS is sufficient credentialy speaking to get you a district, even if you’re last in your class. But, though every judge is different, hiring is basically a 2-prong test: 1. Credentials 2. Fit. Lots of HYS grads are not down to earth enough to click with district judges who themselves did not necessarily have a bougie career before becoming a judge.

TLDR: 1. HYS 2. Down to earth 3. Willing to live anywhere = you’ll get your clerkship.

For the most part, this is bad advice. If you're from ND and have a winning personality, it's true that being last in your class at Yale may not necessarily preclude you from getting a ND clerkship. But there are vanishingly few federal judges who prefer below-median HYS grads to whoever is at the top of the class at whatever school is local, and most bottom-of-the-class HYS grads who want to clerk will not ultimately secure any federal clerkship.

OP: Stanford has the advantage of being in a less-saturated clerkship market (geography matters a little, even for COA clerkships) and of offering a more scarce resource. On this latter point, most judges have a slight preference for hiring clerks from a diversity of top schools (e.g., if a judge has already hired 2 Harvard alums, the third spot is less likely to go to a third Harvard alum, all else equal), and there are fewer Stanford grads to go around. Additionally, professor recommendations and calls are important for federal clerkships (especially COA clerkships), and Stanford's smaller size offers more opportunities for closer professor interactions. Finally, I think that the quarter system is a slight advantage as it leads to 2L applicants (which is generally when most folks apply) having a slightly meatier transcript, which diminishes the perceived risk to a judge of selecting an applicant based on only limited information.

I've been on both sides of the clerkship application process and I do think that the difference between H and S is real in this respect (for the above reasons + others discussed in this thread). There's a legitimate question of whether a marginal difference in what roughly 10% of the class does is reason to select Stanford over Harvard if you're otherwise leaning towards Harvard, and there are reasons unrelated to clerkship placement to choose H over S. But looking exclusively at clerkships, Stanford gives you a better chance of clerking for a federal judge than Harvard.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Vursz » Wed Apr 24, 2019 3:09 pm

abl wrote:
gaucholaw wrote:I think people grossly overestimate the difficulty of obtaining flyover clerkships, even COA.

HYS is sufficient credentialy speaking to get you a district, even if you’re last in your class. But, though every judge is different, hiring is basically a 2-prong test: 1. Credentials 2. Fit. Lots of HYS grads are not down to earth enough to click with district judges who themselves did not necessarily have a bougie career before becoming a judge.

TLDR: 1. HYS 2. Down to earth 3. Willing to live anywhere = you’ll get your clerkship.

For the most part, this is bad advice. If you're from ND and have a winning personality, it's true that being last in your class at Yale may not necessarily preclude you from getting a ND clerkship. But there are vanishingly few federal judges who prefer below-median HYS grads to whoever is at the top of the class at whatever school is local, and most bottom-of-the-class HYS grads who want to clerk will not ultimately secure any federal clerkship.

OP: Stanford has the advantage of being in a less-saturated clerkship market (geography matters a little, even for COA clerkships) and of offering a more scarce resource. On this latter point, most judges have a slight preference for hiring clerks from a diversity of top schools (e.g., if a judge has already hired 2 Harvard alums, the third spot is less likely to go to a third Harvard alum, all else equal), and there are fewer Stanford grads to go around. Additionally, professor recommendations and calls are important for federal clerkships (especially COA clerkships), and Stanford's smaller size offers more opportunities for closer professor interactions. Finally, I think that the quarter system is a slight advantage as it leads to 2L applicants (which is generally when most folks apply) having a slightly meatier transcript, which diminishes the perceived risk to a judge of selecting an applicant based on only limited information.

I've been on both sides of the clerkship application process and I do think that the difference between H and S is real in this respect (for the above reasons + others discussed in this thread). There's a legitimate question of whether a marginal difference in what roughly 10% of the class does is reason to select Stanford over Harvard if you're otherwise leaning towards Harvard, and there are reasons unrelated to clerkship placement to choose H over S. But looking exclusively at clerkships, Stanford gives you a better chance of clerking for a federal judge than Harvard.
Seconding this. Even at YLS, everyone who wants to clerk doesn’t get to clerk. There really is a degree to which grades matter for clerking, even at the top schools.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by ConfusedNYer » Wed Apr 24, 2019 4:12 pm

Current District Court Clerk in a district where I have no ties after graduating median from HLS, so its definitely possible from HYS (and not even as hard as I thought, I assumed I'd need 1-2 years WE to bolster my resume) and I know some other folks in the same boat. I definitely agree that grades are somewhat overstated for these schools (though bottom of the class probably won't fly, we toss most apps with even one LP.)

I think if you can pull of top half at HYS, are geographically flexible and willing to try over mutliple cycles and interview fine you can clerk, the problem is the percentage of people who actually graduate law school 100% geographically diverse, stay that way over multiple years, are willing to give up Big Law money for a clerkship after a demoralizing failed cycle and are competent interviewers is actually kinda small. Make of that what you will.

Which coast do you want to end up on, I have a hard time envisioning a scenario where that shouldn't be the deciding factor here?

Quick note: HLS's clerkship #s compared to Stamford my also be slightly distorted by that fact that almost 20% of the students cant really clerk but I don't know enough about Stamfords student body compensation to be sure.

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Sls17

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Sls17 » Wed Apr 24, 2019 4:33 pm

Vursz wrote:Seconding this. Even at YLS, everyone who wants to clerk doesn’t get to clerk. There really is a degree to which grades matter for clerking, even at the top schools.
I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong, but as a counter-point, someone in my class who kind of famously got straight Ps (which is pretty much as poor a transcript as you can have at SLS, we don’t really do the low pass thing) clerked. Granted he has a winning personality and was flexible re geography and prestige. But the vibe at SLS was always, if you really wanna clerk you can clerk.

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by QContinuum » Wed Apr 24, 2019 6:34 pm

Sls17 wrote:
Vursz wrote:Seconding this. Even at YLS, everyone who wants to clerk doesn’t get to clerk. There really is a degree to which grades matter for clerking, even at the top schools.
I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong, but as a counter-point, someone in my class who kind of famously got straight Ps (which is pretty much as poor a transcript as you can have at SLS, we don’t really do the low pass thing) clerked. Granted he has a winning personality and was flexible re geography and prestige. But the vibe at SLS was always, if you really wanna clerk you can clerk.
That's the vibe at YLS too. Not really the case at HLS - which again is a tremendously strong school, make no mistake, and I don't dispute that some below-median HLS students will land A3 clerkships (but that doesn't make it the rule).

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by The Lsat Airbender » Wed Apr 24, 2019 8:22 pm

The size difference isn't some small tiebreaker. Harvard has about as many law students as Yale and Stanford and Chicago combined. So it's necessarily more competitive for certain things like law review or clerkships. (There are also lots of things, like breaking into smaller US markets or overseas, where that big alumni network is a huge positive.)

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by yuant » Thu Apr 25, 2019 10:16 am

ConfusedNYer wrote: Quick note: HLS's clerkship #s compared to Stamford my also be slightly distorted by that fact that almost 20% of the students cant really clerk but I don't know enough about Stamfords student body compensation to be sure.
Harvard has more international students, basically about 15% whereas SLS only has about 3%...

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Igloo2022 » Thu Aug 22, 2019 9:04 pm

LBJ's Hair wrote:It sounds like you'd rather go to Harvard. That's great, just go to Harvard.

But you should absolutely not assume you're going to do "better' at Harvard than Stanford because you were admitted to Stanford and it's more selective. Law school exam success is correlated to LSAT and GPA in broad strokes - like if your score is 10 points higher than someone else's yeah, you're probably smarter than them and more likely to do well. But (1) even then, there are tons of exceptions, I know transfers to Harvard who graduated magna and are clerking on the Second Circuit, and (2) the difference between a Harvard admission and a Stanford admission turns on like, what food the admissions officer had that day, or whether s/he liked your personal statement, or maybe a point on the LSAT. We're splitting hairs. You should assume you're no different than the average Harvard student and no more or less likely to do well on your exams

I also don't really understand your clerkship #s argument, at all, frankly. Maybe you can elaborate on that.
Did you go to HLS?

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Igloo2022 » Thu Aug 22, 2019 10:01 pm

QContinuum wrote:
Sls17 wrote:
Vursz wrote:Seconding this. Even at YLS, everyone who wants to clerk doesn’t get to clerk. There really is a degree to which grades matter for clerking, even at the top schools.
I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong, but as a counter-point, someone in my class who kind of famously got straight Ps (which is pretty much as poor a transcript as you can have at SLS, we don’t really do the low pass thing) clerked. Granted he has a winning personality and was flexible re geography and prestige. But the vibe at SLS was always, if you really wanna clerk you can clerk.
That's the vibe at YLS too. Not really the case at HLS - which again is a tremendously strong school, make no mistake, and I don't dispute that some below-median HLS students will land A3 clerkships (but that doesn't make it the rule).
Did you go to Yale, QContinuum?

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by QContinuum » Thu Aug 22, 2019 11:20 pm

Igloo2022 wrote:
QContinuum wrote:
Sls17 wrote:
Vursz wrote:Seconding this. Even at YLS, everyone who wants to clerk doesn’t get to clerk. There really is a degree to which grades matter for clerking, even at the top schools.
I’m not saying this is necessarily wrong, but as a counter-point, someone in my class who kind of famously got straight Ps (which is pretty much as poor a transcript as you can have at SLS, we don’t really do the low pass thing) clerked. Granted he has a winning personality and was flexible re geography and prestige. But the vibe at SLS was always, if you really wanna clerk you can clerk.
That's the vibe at YLS too. Not really the case at HLS - which again is a tremendously strong school, make no mistake, and I don't dispute that some below-median HLS students will land A3 clerkships (but that doesn't make it the rule).
Did you go to Yale, QContinuum?
The community generally frowns upon resurrecting ancient threads. OP was choosing between HLS and SLS in April, and presumably made their choice months ago.

What's the purpose behind your asking LBJ's Hair and myself about our alma maters?

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by Igloo2022 » Fri Aug 23, 2019 12:21 am

It might help putting your advice regarding the schools into context. If you went to Yale or Harvard or Stanford it would make your comments about the schools potentially more credible than if it was second hand. But obviously it's up to you whether you provide that info.
Sorry about reviving the old thread. I didn't notice the date :?

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Re: Harvard vs. Stanford Clerkships

Post by QContinuum » Fri Aug 23, 2019 12:44 am

Igloo2022 wrote:It might help putting your advice regarding the schools into context. If you went to Yale or Harvard or Stanford it would make your comments about the schools potentially more credible than if it was second hand. But obviously it's up to you whether you provide that info.
You are, of course, free to disagree with me or any other TLSer. But charging into a thread and demanding credentials left and right is not a good look (doubly so when you're not offering any advice of your own, and triply so when you're resurrecting an old, dead thread). Please refrain from doing so in future.

I'm locking this topic. OP is, of course, free to start a new thread if they'd like any further advice.

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