THE PRELAW HANDBOOK

 
ABOUT THIS WEBSITE
This website enables college students to decide whether they WANT TO BECOME LAWYERS and guides to law school those who do. This website contains exclusive LAW SCHOOL RANKINGS and is totally informative with no ads.  
PRELAW SUMMER PROGRAMS 
Attending a Prelaw Summer Program while an undergraduate can help a student make a rational choice about whether to attend law school. Some prelaw summer programs also attempt to prepare student for law school. 

FINANCIAL AID
Whether you are an undergraduate or a law-school student, financial aid may be necessary. This website gives unbiased financial advice.

RANKINGS OF LAW SCHOOLS BY U S NEWS & WORLD REPORT
We shall discuss the most recent (April 9, 2007) law school rankings by U S News & World Report by RAW DATA and by CATEGORY. We shal indicatee the CHANGES IN THE RANKINGS FROM 1987 TO 1999 and the CHANGES IN THE RANKINGS FROM 2000 TO 2007.
RANKINGS OF LAW SCHOOLS BY SELECTIVITY
 Determining where to attend law school may involve reading about the HUNDRED MOST-SELECTIVE LAW SCHOOLS or the EIGHTY LEAST-SELECTIVE LAW SCHOOLS.  
RANKINGS OF LAW SCHOOLS BY PRESTIGE
Combining university and law school prestige factors, we obtain the prestige of the law schools.

RANKING LAW SCHOOLS BY SPECIALTIES
A few law school applicants may have a law school specialty in mind (e.g. intellectual property) and may wonder about the top law schools in that specialty.

THE PATH FROM ENTERING COLLEGE AS A
FRESHMAN TO GRADUATING LAW SCHOOL
This path should, in theory, take seven years: four years to earn a Bachelor's Degree and three years to earn a law degree, the Juris Doctor (JD); some law schools also have a four-year part-time program leading to the JD degree.

DEFINING PRELAW STUDENT
The expression prelaw student is applied to students interested in attending law school sometime after obtaining the Bachelor's degree. Note that both "prelaw" and "pre-law" are in common use. This website is a handbook for prelaw students.

ACADEMIC RESTRICTIONS ON A PRELAW STUDENT
 In theory, a prelaw student faces no restrictions on the CHOICE OF MAJOR and no restrictions on the CHOICE OF COURSES, but the choice of major and the choice of courses should be given serious thought and should be discussed with family, prelaw advisors, and academic advisors. The proper choice of major and courses should lead to a high GRADE POINT AVERAGE, a few strong LETTERS OF RECOMMENDATION, a decent score on the LAW SCHOOL ADMISSION TEST (LSAT), the acquisition of important SKILLS, VALUES, AND KNOWLEDGE that will provide a sound foundation for law school, and a Bachelor's degree.

WHEN AND WHERE TO ATTEND LAW SCHOOL
At or before the end of the junior year, it is time to think about WHEN TO ATTEND LAW SCHOOL and WHERE TO APPLY TO LAW SCHOOL. Later it will be time to focus on WHICH LAW SCHOOL TO ATTEND. 
SPECIAL TOPICS. In the appendix, we also consider several SPECIAL TOPICS. 

 

 

THE 2008 (APRIL 9, 2007)
RANKING OF LAW SCHOOLS
BY CATEGORIES
SEE COMPLETE LIST

 

U. S. News & World Report (USN) not only ranks law schools but also ranks America's Best Colleges, Medical Schools, Nursing Schools, Engineering Schools, Careers, Hospitals, etc.. We should also note that U. S. News & World Report finds the time to report the news. A one year SUBSCRIPTION (Scroll down to Not a subscriber? Click Here) to U. S. News and World Report (53 issues) is only $15 (28 cents per issue).

Below is the April 9, 2007 USN ranking of the top eighteen law schools along with a ranking of these law schools by categories. See the COMPLETE LIST of all 184 ABA-Approved Law Schools. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

JUDGE/

Rank of

Rank of

Bar

USN

 

USN

PEER

LAWYER

Average

Average

Passage

RANK

LAW SCHOOL

SCORE

RANK

RANK

GPA

LSAT

Rank

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

Yale U (CT)

100

1.0

2.0

1.0

1.0

8.0

2.5

Harvard U (MA)

90

2.0

2.0

3.0

2.0

6.0

2.5

Stanford U (CA)

90

3.0

2.0

2.0

6.0

21.0

4

New York U 

87

5.0

7.0

6.0

5.0

11.0

5

Columbia U (NY)

85

5.0

4.5

11.5

3.0

22.0

6.5

U Pennsylvania 

80

10.0

9.5

11.5

8.5

5.0

6.5

U Chicago 

80

5.0

4.5

17.0

4.0

17.0

8.5

U Michigan

78

7.0

7.0

11.5

11.0

3.0

8.5

UC Berkeley 

78

8.5

9.5

4.0

14.5

20.0

10.5

U Virginia 

77

8.5

7.0

11.5

8.5

2.0

10.5

Duke U (NC)

77

12.0

12.0

5.0

12.5

9.0

12

Northwestern U (IL)

76

15.0

12.0

25.5

8.5

19.0

13

Cornell U (NY)

74

12.0

12.0

14.0

12.5

7.0

14

Georgetown U (DC)

72

12.0

15.0

15.5

8.5

16.0

15

UCLA

71

15.0

17.5

20.5

17.0

18.0

16.5

U Southern California

69

17.5

28.5

23.5

14.5

36.0

16.5

Vanderbilt U (TN)

69

17.5

15.0

7.0

17.0

52.0

18

U Texas-Austin 

68

15.0

15.0

38.0

20.0

41.0



THE 2008 (APRIL 9, 2007)
RANKING OF LAW SCHOOLS
RAW DATA
SEE COMPLETE LIST

 

U. S. News & World Report (USN) not only ranks law schools but also ranks America's Best Colleges, Medical Schools, Nursing Schools, Engineering Schools, Careers, Hospitals, etc.. We should also note that U. S. News & World Report finds the time to report the news. A one year SUBSCRIPTION (Scroll down to Not a subscriber? Click Here) to U. S. News and World Report (53 issues) is only $15 (28 cents per issue).

Below is the April 9, 2007 USN ranking of the top eighteen law schools along with some raw data about these law schools. See the COMPLETE LIST including an attempt at ranking the law schools in the third tier and the law schools in the fourth tier..
 

 

 

2006

JUDGE/

2006

2006

 

2006

 

 

 

PEER

LAWYER

GPA

LSAT

2006

Student/

USN

 

USN

SCORE

SCORE

25th-75th

25th-75th

Acceptance

Factuly

RANK

LAW SCHOOL

SCORE

5.0 max

5.0 max

Percentile

Percentile

Rate

Ratio

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

1

Yale U (CT)

100

4.9

4.8

3.83-3.97

170-176

6.8%

7.3

2.5

Harvard U (MA)

90

4.8

4.8

3.72-3.95

169-175

12.6%

10.5

2.5

Stanford U (CA)

90

4.7

4.8

3.77-3.96

167-172

8.7%

8.6

4

New York U 

87

4.6

4.6

3.58-3.89

168-172

21.1%

10.7

5

Columbia U (NY)

85

4.6

4.7

3.51-3.82

169-174

14.7%

10.3

6.5

U Chicago 

80

4.6

4.7

3.51-3.77

169-172

15.9%

9.4

6.5

U Pennsylvania 

80

4.3

4.5

3.47-3.84

167-171

15.6%

12.1

8.5

UC Berkeley 

78

4.4

4.5

3.65-3.89

163-169

11.0%

12.0

8.5

U Michigan

78

4.5

4.6

3.53-3.80

166-170

20.6%

14.5

10.5

Duke U (NC)

77

4.1

4.4

3.66-3.85

165-169

23.3%

11.9

10.5

U Virginia 

77

4.4

4.6

3.49-3.82

167-171

25.2%

13.9

12

Northwestern U (IL)

76

4.0

4.4

3.40-3.80

166-172

17.3%

10.6

13

Cornell U (NY)

74

4.1

4.4

3.50-3.80

166-168

22.6%

10.0

14

Georgetown U (DC)

72

4.1

4.3

3.47-3.82

167-171

21.5%

14.5

15

UCLA

71

4.0

4.0

3.44-3.80

162-169

18.9%

12.5

16.5

U Southern California

69

3.7

3.7

3.47-3.75

165-167

19.1%

13.1

16.5

Vanderbilt U (TN)

69

3.7

4.3

3.49-3.88

164-167

25.3%

15.0

18

U Texas-Austin 

68

4.0

4.3

3.33-3.80

162-168

21.7%

14.0



THE 2008 (APRIL 9, 2007)
RANKING OF LAW SCHOOLS
BY SELECTIVITY (Top 100)
SEE COMPLETE LIST

 

Some law schools may be able to use this table to see the strengths and weaknesses of their admission policy. Note that we work with the 25th percentile and the 75th percentile for both GPA and LSAT; also for each of these four pencentiles we give the rank of each of our hundred most selective law schools; note that this rank may vary from 1 to 184. The last two columns give the selective rank of the top one hundred most selective law schools.
* Note that Wayne State University (Detroit) is a USN Tier Four law school but ranks 85 in selectivity. The University of Memph is a USN Tier Three law school but ranks 88 in selectivity.

Below is our ranking of the top eighteen most selective law schools. See the COMPLETE LIST.

 

 

 

2007

2007

2007

2007

2007

2007

2007

2007

 

 

 

GPA

GPA

GPA

LSAT

LSAT

LSAT

Selec-

Selec-

USN

USN

 

25th-75th

25th Pct

75th Pct

25th-75th

25th Pct

75th Pct

tivity

tivity

RANK

SCORE

LAW SCHOOL

Percentile

Rank

Rank

Percentile

Rank

Rank

Score

Rank