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The obvious response is that Harvard and Yale are the best law schools, so it's not inconsistent that all the best students come from there. I don't know if tha

TheSoftwareGuy 6y ago
Revisionist history did a really good episode going in depth about all this: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/31-puzzle-rush http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/31-puzzle-rush
- MiroF 6y ago
  This podcast is presented as if testing is an American phenomenon - but it hardly seems like it. If anything, the extreme parental backlash against testing seems more of an American phenomenon. I've had the opportunity to apply for a few british and french things in school/academia and both required that I take a test - and were actually more test-driven than the US appeared to be, with explicit harsh cutoffs based on your test score's z-score. Before even moving on in the Oxford application process for physics, for instance, you have to first pass a test putting yourself 1.5 z-scores over the average, then pass a series of interviews where you are timed on your ability to ask questions to you posed in person. And that's already after your A-level exams in highschool or whatever.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
redisman 6y ago
Sounds highly subjective obfuscated in a layer of objective measures. What's the best tech company? This implies it is the one with the highest average Leetcode score. LSAT is basically an IQ plus time spent practicing test. Hey that actually sounds kind of familiar!
gamblor956 6y ago
The obvious response is that Harvard and Yale are the best law schools, so it's not inconsistent that all the best students come from there. I don't know if that's the case, but looking at LSAT ranges at least they seem to be at the top. I laughed really hard at that one. Being good at the LSAT has absolutely no connection to one's skills as a lawyer, and generally isn't even very predictive of performance in law school. While good lawyers come out of Yarvard, the quality of their graduates is no different from most other law schools. The only difference is that a Yarvard Law graduate will make sure to tell you they went to Yarvard Law.
- ponker 6y ago
  But the kind of people with the ambition to be Supreme Court litigators usually will prep for the LSAT enough to get a high score.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- bluedevil2k 6y ago
  > the quality of their graduates is no different from most other law schools I’ll call BS on this. Yarvard grads are going to be better than a typical law school grad, simply because a large percentage of their graduates were the top applicants to law schools across the nation. Saying otherwise would indicate other schools give a better education than these 2 schools, which would be farcical. You got any sources for any of your claims? They come off as bitterness on your end.
  - gamblor956 6y ago
    https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1651&context=articles https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article... on the predictive power of LSAT scores. Saying otherwise would indicate other schools give a better education than these 2 schools, which would be farcical. Many schools give a better legal education than Yarvard. Their reputation outside of the legal industry is better than their reputation within it (except among Yarvard graduates). For example, when it comes to legal specialties (i.e., focused on specific areas of law), Yarvard only takes top ranking in constitutional law, i.e., the one area where almost all of the lawyers are graduates of Yarvard due to alumni hiring preferences among the judiciary. Unlike the general rankings, whose methodology largely consists of polling Yarvard graduates working at law schools about how they feel law schools should be ranked, the specialty rankings are based on surveys of people actually practicing in those fields. (US News includes information about its methodology in all of its rankings, so you can visit their site for more detail but you might need to pay to get the full info.) Law firms hire Yarvard graduates because clients like to see those diplomas, but Yarvard graduates don't perform any better in practice than other lawyers. The worst lawyers I have ever met were Yarvard graduates; some of the best lawyers I have ever met went to 4-year evening programs at their local law school, and none of the best lawyers I met were Yarvard graduates though other schools in the Top14 did feature prominently in that group. (My personal experience with Yarvard grads: when I practiced trial law, I was undefeated against Yarvard graduates. When I switched to transactional practice, for several years I worked with Yarvard lawyers who couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper bag and frequently got stuck cleaning up the mess they made, which is probably where the chip comes from.)

TheSoftwareGuy 6y ago

Revisionist history did a really good episode going in depth about all this: http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/31-puzzle-rush http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/31-puzzle-rush

MiroF 6y ago
This podcast is presented as if testing is an American phenomenon - but it hardly seems like it. If anything, the extreme parental backlash against testing seems more of an American phenomenon. I've had the opportunity to apply for a few british and french things in school/academia and both required that I take a test - and were actually more test-driven than the US appeared to be, with explicit harsh cutoffs based on your test score's z-score. Before even moving on in the Oxford application process for physics, for instance, you have to first pass a test putting yourself 1.5 z-scores over the average, then pass a series of interviews where you are timed on your ability to ask questions to you posed in person. And that's already after your A-level exams in highschool or whatever.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

redisman 6y ago

Sounds highly subjective obfuscated in a layer of objective measures. What's the best tech company? This implies it is the one with the highest average Leetcode score. LSAT is basically an IQ plus time spent practicing test. Hey that actually sounds kind of familiar!

gamblor956 6y ago

The obvious response is that Harvard and Yale are the best law schools, so it's not inconsistent that all the best students come from there. I don't know if that's the case, but looking at LSAT ranges at least they seem to be at the top. I laughed really hard at that one. Being good at the LSAT has absolutely no connection to one's skills as a lawyer, and generally isn't even very predictive of performance in law school. While good lawyers come out of Yarvard, the quality of their graduates is no different from most other law schools. The only difference is that a Yarvard Law graduate will make sure to tell you they went to Yarvard Law.

ponker 6y ago
But the kind of people with the ambition to be Supreme Court litigators usually will prep for the LSAT enough to get a high score.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bluedevil2k 6y ago
> the quality of their graduates is no different from most other law schools I’ll call BS on this. Yarvard grads are going to be better than a typical law school grad, simply because a large percentage of their graduates were the top applicants to law schools across the nation. Saying otherwise would indicate other schools give a better education than these 2 schools, which would be farcical. You got any sources for any of your claims? They come off as bitterness on your end.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1651&context=articles https://scholar.law.colorado.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article... on the predictive power of LSAT scores. Saying otherwise would indicate other schools give a better education than these 2 schools, which would be farcical. Many schools give a better legal education than Yarvard. Their reputation outside of the legal industry is better than their reputation within it (except among Yarvard graduates). For example, when it comes to legal specialties (i.e., focused on specific areas of law), Yarvard only takes top ranking in constitutional law, i.e., the one area where almost all of the lawyers are graduates of Yarvard due to alumni hiring preferences among the judiciary. Unlike the general rankings, whose methodology largely consists of polling Yarvard graduates working at law schools about how they feel law schools should be ranked, the specialty rankings are based on surveys of people actually practicing in those fields. (US News includes information about its methodology in all of its rankings, so you can visit their site for more detail but you might need to pay to get the full info.) Law firms hire Yarvard graduates because clients like to see those diplomas, but Yarvard graduates don't perform any better in practice than other lawyers. The worst lawyers I have ever met were Yarvard graduates; some of the best lawyers I have ever met went to 4-year evening programs at their local law school, and none of the best lawyers I met were Yarvard graduates though other schools in the Top14 did feature prominently in that group. (My personal experience with Yarvard grads: when I practiced trial law, I was undefeated against Yarvard graduates. When I switched to transactional practice, for several years I worked with Yarvard lawyers who couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper bag and frequently got stuck cleaning up the mess they made, which is probably where the chip comes from.)