I'm curious about the extent TLS thinks classes are fungible at similarly-ranked schools. I'm top 25%-ish at DNGC and I started wondering about this after I met a few students from UVA and a few from NYU and realized "you know, I don't think they're actually that much smarter than me."

Obviously, the classes at HYS are on average smarter than the classes at DNGC; just as obviously, it's clearly not the case that every Yale student is better than every Stanford student, who's better than every Harvard student, and on down the line. There are people at the top of the class at my school who I'm pretty sure would still be near the top at HYS. But, in those upper-middle to lower-middle ranges - how much of a difference do you think it would make if you took a top-quartile Georgetown student and dropped her at Columbia? Still top quartile? Top third? Median? Below median? My sense, admittedly based on almost no evidence, is that the performances wouldn't shift too much one way or the other.

Thoughts?

Those students you met from UVA & NYU scored, what- maybe 5 more LSAT points than you did? That doesn't make them per se smarter. Sure, maybe different people have different LSAT ceilings, but how often has your LSAT experience had any affect on your class preparation whatsoever? How often do you even use the same part of your brain as you did for LSAT prep?

I concede that there are probably more gifted people at Yale than at a TTTT, but I don't think the divide even between those poles is anywhere near what your post suggests.

So the difference in LSAT median between Columbia and Georgetown is two points. With an R^2 of 0.5, LSAT would explain about one tenth of one standard deviation of grades. So someone who finished median at Columbia would, statistically, finish a hair above median at Georgetown.

I was an LSAT-heavy splitter - don't really feel like checking the numbers right now, but I think my LSAT would be above median everywhere but HYS.

I don't know about the Yale vs. TTT thing - I think a randomly picked Yale student with at least some aptitude for law (instead of just a good LSAT/GPA - I have seen smart people realize they're just not good at this whole law thing) would probably destroy the field at any T2 school. At a certain point, the talent disparity has to win out.

That being said, the really high level of contempt some people have for the students at somewhat lower-ranked schools is really weird. Like, I was talking to a friend who had a 1L GPA almost identical to mine. Since I'm mainly targeting my home market after I graduate and it has a pretty highly ranked public law school (T25), we were talking about whether I wished I'd gone there and how well I think I would've done there. He said something along the lines of "yeah, you or I would probably be valedictorian there," and I was like holy shit, does he really think he's better than everyone at a school ranked, like, ten spots below us?

I expect any one of my classmates would be #1 at some of the bottom law schools. Any narrower a divide than that and it's like ehhh.

Is this a joke?

Any one of your classmates? Even the bottom 10% of the class? Really?


Judging from the general attitude of this thread, I guess I should take a long, hard look in my T2 mirror and just accept that I'm not as smart at you guys. So sad.

I know kids at brooklyn law who missed out on t-14's with $$$ by 1 point, applied late, didn't want to retake, got a full ride to brooklyn, have median grades. Honestly, its impossible to say how you would do anywhere else. My friends that went to Harvard, while probably a little bit more gifted, also work 50X harder than I ever have. Are they smarter? who knows. But if you are top 25% at DCNG, you are pretty dam smart and would probably do fine anywhere above you.

By bottom I mean bottom.

Yeah, I understood what you meant. It's still quite a statement that you'd expect the worst student at Harvard to be the best at one of the bottom schools. I'm happy that you have such reverence for your classmates!

This isnt a very nice thread.

Intelligence doesnt always determine whether or not someone will do better at one school. Work ethic plays a large, maybe larger, role too.

No it's math. The point is that a 2-point LSAT difference will statistically result in barely any difference in grades.

Let me explain it another way. Let's assume an R^2 of 0.5 (a fairly high assumption). Now, say we compose a class with the full distribution of LSAT takers (not just law school admits, the whole range from 120-180). We give them all law school exams. The folks who got 170 on the exam are statistically only expected to finish one standard deviation above the median, or about top 15%.

I also know some folks at my school who turned down much higher-ranked schools for full scholarships/in-state tuition, and who are now at or below median. I also agree that top 25% at DCNG would probably be fine anywhere, and I'll go even further and suggest that top 25% at a LOT of schools ranked even lower would probably survive law school anywhere.

Maybe not the worst student, but most. I'm talking about schools where bar passage rates are like <30%. When something like 97-98% of us get by on the first try even though our bar-related courses are lulz not all that oriented to the bar, then I'd gather most would do really well at a school where the majority of the class can't.

At my school the LSAT median is 172. In the three schools that outrank it the medians are 173, 170, and 173.

I imagine I'd do about the same grade-wise at all three. Job-wise, probably a bit better.

I'm not really sure how far down the rankings you'd have to go before you could just take any T6 or T14 student and be reasonably sure that they'd end up at the top of the class. I'm pretty sure that point exists though. I'm also pretty sure that if you took ten students from the top of the class at a TTTT most of them would struggle to hit median at a T6.

Where did you get the data showing the effect of LSAT scores upon GPAs across separate schools?

Look at people who transfer into t14 schools, a good chunk of which end up killing it post-transfer. This may be a 1L year vs. 2L/3L thing but its something and probably the best data points.

I'd bet all my SA money that each would be well above median (with a few in the top 5-10%) in that situation, assuming by "top" you mean "top 5%"

Look up "LSAT correlation".

Even if we assume 100% correlation between the LSAT and law school grades, 2 points still doesn't buy us much. We're talking about people who finished top 3% on the LSAT versus people who finished top 2% on the LSAT.

I don't want to bet money, but I'm leaning towards your side of the conversation.

Remember: the top of the class at TTTT are not the kids who can't pass the bar exam. They're probably just like the top of the class anywhere else, at least in that they are hard-working, competitive, and smart.

The LSAT is such a loose proxy that I bet I'd do exactly as well. That said, if I'm a really consistent exam taker so if I could get into a school that has HH H P grading I'd be rocking all H's.

Obviously work ethic plays a role, but the thing is, almost everyone works hard in law school (during 1L, at least) and GPA is a reasonable predictor of work ethic anyway.



I doubt this. Top of the class at a TTT is more likely to mean you have a natural aptitude for law (or at least for test-taking), but slipped through the cracks in the application process for one reason or another - LSAT is a good predictor, but it's not perfect. I don't know exactly where those students would be, but I think it's be pretty solidly above median.

I'll put it another way. The people at Columbia had LSAT scores in the top 2.5% of all test takers. Since law school admissions culls most people below 150, they had LSAT scores in the top ~5% of all law school enrollees. In other words, even on the LSAT itself folks at Columbia didn't beat the overall pool by as much as y'all are claiming when you say they'd be #1 at a TTTT.

"The correlation between LSAT scores and first-year law school
grades varies from one law school to another (as does the
correlation between GPA and first-year law school grades).
During 2010, validity studies were conducted for 189 law
schools. Correlations between LSAT scores and first-year law
school grades ranged from .12 to .56 (median is .36). The
correlations between UGPA and first-year law grades ranged
from .09 to .45 (median is .28). However, correlations between
LSAT scores combined with undergraduate grade-point
averages and first-year law school grades ranged from .30 to
.62 (median is .48)."

I'm no math whiz, but this seems to suggest that using these numbers to represent anything remotely resembling "accuracy" is kind of a waste of time... But seriously- I'll defer to your obviously superior math skillz.

Maybe you're right. Smart people end up at awful schools for a variety of reasons. I guess I just meant to imply that there are schools where it doesn't take much to achieve a high class rank.