What makes a law school elite?
When exploring the landscape of legal education, one question tends to come up the must: What makes an elite law school? To the untrained eye, it could be as simple as tuition price or highest ranking. But to many, there’s much more than that. The Ivy League and other private schools have a reputation of being the best in the country. To be classified as an elite school, a few key factors must be in play – the biggest of which is academic reputation. The American Bar Association and the Law School Admission Council conducts a survey every several years to determine academic prestige for all ABA-accredited law schools. The survey asks other law school representatives to estimate the academic performance of candidates for admission (and in some cases graduates) on a scale of 1-5. The faculty of elite law schools are also heavily recruited; the freedom to teach what they want instead of ABA specifications is attractive to highly accomplished educators. But arguably the most important aspect of an elite law school is the alumni network. For premier law schools across the country , the alumni network is large and strong, which helps students and recent grads land coveted summer clerkships and posts as lawyers upon graduation. Another defining characteristic of an elite law school? Size, baby. Elite schools tend to be larger than most – U.S. News reports that elite schools have a median student to faculty ratio of 4.5 to 1, whereas non-program schools have a ratio of 7.2 to 1. To boot, elite institutions enjoy strong research centers whose resources are made available to students. For example, the most recent BSN research report revealed that more than 80 percent of elite business schools are involved with research centers. Elite law schools are much like an exclusive club that only the best are invited to join.
Top Elite U.S. Law Schools According to Ranking
Leading the way is Harvard University, consistently ranked as the number-one law school in the country as it has a big reputation for attracting top students and professors from around the world. Students can even choose between graduating with a JD or a JD/MBA, which equips them with a business degree along with their law degree. Stanford University School of Law is another to be named among the best, specializing in intellectual property and international law. This law school takes a more interdisciplinary approach to the law and often collaborates with other schools and departments. Tied for ranking are Yale University, committed to a class that consists of diversity and intellectual excellence, and the University of Chicago Law School, which is dedicated to creating excellent legal scholars.
Ranking and selectivity criteria
These elite law schools impose some very demanding admission criteria that include not only passing the LSAT with top scores, but also obtaining an above average GPA, and even having a knockout personal statement with excellent letters of recommendation. Of course, at all of these schools, the acceptance rate is exceedingly low; In fact, only 1 in 5 applicants are admitted into some of the very hardest to get into schools in the Nation.
For instance, at both Yale Law School and Harvard Law School, it’s the LSAT and GPA (aka for graduate school, the Graduate Record Examination or GRE) scores that are most carefully considered by the admission teams. The GRE is the newest standardized test used in conjunction with law school applications. The Yale Web site states that both the LSAT and GRE are equally accepted, but Yale "strongly recommends the LSAT" for those wishing to go to Yale Law. To go to Yale, a student must possess a 3.9 or better GPA.
Further, at Harvard Law School, they only accept the best and the brightest students, and a very select amount of candidates who have faced an unusual obstacle or two. Like Yale, students need a better than 3.9 GPA to get into Harvard. A piece of advice that was given to prospective applicants is that upon entry into school and at the beginning of the semester, take a good look around you. In other words, do not expect to find an environment where students are just "getting by," as few who walk through the doors of Harvard are doing so. In fact, their graduation rate is exactly 98 percent.
Of all the law schools, Yale and Harvard are the very top candidates in terms of acceptance into the bar (if you are wondering how to pick a law school that has an excellent bar passage history). Yale has always produced the students who pass the Bar on the first attempt, with an astounding 96.2 percent passage rate in 2015. Harvard follows closely at a 95.1 percent bar passage rate.
Other commonly accepted admission practices among the Nation’s top law schools include having second interviews on campus, or on a phone interview via Skype or FaceTime for those who live out of state. Other requirements at many schools include passing a character fitness conference or providing a personal statement to include with your application.
In addition, for most law schools, the average age of students is 30 years old. The most common background was a G.P.A. between 3.8 and up, and an average LSAT score hovering around 160. But of all schools, Yale remains the most competitive of all while Southwestern Law School rates somewhere in the middle with a 56 percent acceptance rating.
Opportunities after graduation
Career prospects after law school vary greatly depending on the strength of the institution that the graduate attended, whether they graduated in the top of their class, what field they plan to enter, and whether they have internships or other experience in their field of interest. For example, in addition to a top law school, securing and excelling in an internship with a federal judge or a prestigious scholar can make a difference in employment prospects at a high-end law firm. Similarly, a student who lands a clerkship for a federal judge will be much more coveted after graduation than one who does not. Likewise, students interested in a career in academia are more likely to get a teaching position at a prestigious college or university if they have graduated at the top of their class or earned postgraduate degrees, particularly a PhD. It is nearly impossible to generalize the career prospects of a top-level law school graduate because admissions committees at elite law schools make their decisions based on many factors other than merit, as discussed in the previous section.
Cost and funding options
While the advantages conferred by elite law schools cannot be understated, their costs can be. For most law students, they are among the highest school costs of their lives. As such, the issue of how to pay for law school is of vital importance. We’ll take a look at what you can expect to pay, how to find aid to cover law school costs, and how to avoid putting yourself in a mountain of debt.
When doing our analysis of the costs of attendance at different types of law schools, the data we found was split very evenly. There are equal numbers of ABA-accredited law schools with typical tuition costs between $10,000 and $20,000 a year and typical tuition costs of over $50,000 a year. Though we also found some schools with typical tuition costs between $20,000 and $50,000, they were lumped together with the higher schools by US News and World Report (no schools had lower tuition between $10k and $20k).
This means that the range of tuition for graduates of the top 25% of law schools is quite large, as many of them charge far less than other students. The same is true of those who will be graduates of schools in the middle tier of both private and public law schools. The result is that while the actual costs of law school may range widely, most law graduates will enjoy considerable financial benefit from interest rates .
As we’ll see when we analyze the median salaries of graduates of law schools, even those with debt levels that seem dangerously high given the potential salary the graduate would earn might actually be quite manageable when their lower income is taken into account. Law school loans are subject to lower income rates, so they should cost less to repay than you might think given their size.
The majority of elite law schools (roughly 2/3) have standard in-house law school loans. This is important for graduates because it means that if they decide to attend one of these law schools they won’t have to go in and try to get loans through a bank or credit union, which can involve a lot more paperwork and stress. It’s also helpful for applicants because if they are accepted, the law school will usually offer them loans automatically. The rest of the elite law schools we found had loans from the government.
There are two standard paths to law school financial aid. One is scholarships, while the other is grants. Grants are non-refundable forms of financial aid that do not need to be returned. Scholarships are similar but are based on merit that the applicant can demonstrate. If you start looking early enough, and begin preparing your application early, there is a good chance that you’ll be able to get a scholarship, especially because competition is usually not high early in the process.
Diversity of thought and inclusion
Efforts to foster diversity and inclusivity within the student body and faculty are a central tenet of many elite law schools’ missions. Dean Ellen Katz of the University of Michigan Law School said, "We are committed to the idea that diversity is essential to our mission as a leading law school." The university has continued an active recruitment policy seeking to enroll an increasingly diverse student body and faculty.
Yale Law School tracks demographics annually, noting that its ‘special focus is on ensuring that women and people of color – particularly those who are the first in their family to attend graduate school – attend Yale.’ This year, the school saw women take 51% of the seats in the JD class and 54% of the LLM class. African American students made up 17% of the JD class; Latino students 12%; and Asian American students 12%. Dean Heather K. Gerken states, "True diversity – of race, ethnicity, class, culture, geography, sexual orientation, and thought – is one of the most important values we can promote in legal education." At Harvard Law School, approximately one-third of the JD students are students of color, and the faculty is equally committed to building a law school community that reflects the varied population it serves.
Choosing the right elite law school for you
When it comes to choosing among the set of elite law schools in the United States, prospective students face a challenging situation. For starters, acceptance into any of these schools is no easy feat, but then comes the task of determining which might be the best choice for the student. Adding to this challenge is the fact that students can apply in order to increase their options in the coming year, and from there students can start narrowing their options down to start determining which would be the best option for them. To really start analyzing the options available to them, students must look at various factors in order to start analyzing their top choices from this set of elite law schools. These factors can include locations, specialization opportunities, and overall campus culture. Location can be one of the most important factors. The school should be within a commutable distance with some of the best career opportunities for someone who has attended law school. This limits the schools that students might be interested in because access to career opportunities is crucial . It’s also a big factor in determining the location of potential internships and which employers are looking for lawyers. Specialization opportunities are equally important as students will have the chance to focus on an area of the law that they might want to work in. This can include classroom time, on-site training, and the ability to network with other students who have a similar approach. Again, this needs to be in an area that is convenient for potential employers, but it can help to determine which ones end up being the best choice. Some students might work with alumni in the field in order to determine which specialization would be the most beneficial. One of the less objective factors that students can use to choose the right elite law school for them can be campus culture. This will help determine where a student will be the most comfortable both during their time in law school and what type of environment they want to spend the next several years in. Many of these students will have already gone through an undergraduate program in a field of law, meaning they have some idea of what type of environment is going to be best suited for them.