What does section size mean? Forum

[cotiger]

I was looking at the updated stats for T14 schools and was wondering what section size means. From brief searches it seems like it might mean your 1L class sizes? I'm having trouble accepting that Stanford has 30 person 1L classes while similarly-sized Chicago has 93 person classes. Is that actually true, or am I misinterpreting it?

[sublime]

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[Robb]

It is a bit strange... Based on this Stanford seems to have a similar system to Chicago of dividing the class into 30-person LRW sections, then having classes that combine 3 of the sections.

It's self-reported, so schools might be interpreting the meaning of section differently, as sublime suggests.

[rinkrat19]

As the other person said, it'll vary a bit how schools do it, but generally the 1L class is divided up into equal sections, and you take all your big doctrinal 1L classes with your section. At NU we take the six standard doctrinal subjects with our full 60+ section, and CLR with approx half of our section (I think there were actually 9 CLR classes formed from 4 full sections, so do the math).

Someone else can speak for UChicago specifically, but I assume there are schools that have 90-person lectures.

[ScottRiqui]

I think the link in the OP is listing the "small section" size for some schools, and the "combined" section size for others. The ABA data for Cornell says that "section size" was 102 in 2012, but that there was also a "small section" of 34.

[cotiger]

Thanks for all your helpful responses!

[johnnyquest]

Does anyone know how they choose the students in the sections? Do they try to get a range of different uGPAs and LSATs? Or is it random?

[WhiteyCakes]

Does anyone know how they choose the students in the sections? Do they try to get a range of different uGPAs and LSATs? Or is it random?

Random unless we are talking about a TTT that section stacks

[First Offense]

Another anecdote - UVA has ~12 sections of around 30 students each. You generally take LRW and one doctrinal class with just that section, then the other doctrinal classes with one or two other sections (so you'll have one class with 30, 1-3 with 60, and normally not more than 1 with 90+LRW).