The T-14: Top Law Schools - Top Tier Admissions

For students building their target list of top law schools, the “push for prestige” is strong, especially given the competitive job market for aspiring lawyers. We also commonly work with students aiming for “the T-14.” This refers to the top 14 law schools in the U.S., and it’s based on the annual U.S. News & World Report’s Best Law School Rankings. Roughly 10% of law students attend a T-14 school each year. Contrary to what the nickname would suggest, this list includes more than 14 schools. This is because, every year, some schools are tied for a certain number in the ranking. Georgetown, Cornell, UT Austin and UCLA often seem to fight to make it onto this list.

“The T-14” is a term not just used amongst law school applicants but also for working professionals. This past fall, I worked with a law school applicant who received an offer from her NYC-based employer to enroll in law school. Her firm would cover tuition, fees and housing (if outside of NYC) in full —in a global pandemic. It was quite the offer. The catch? She had to commit to returning to the company after graduation, and she had to get into a top 5 law school program, not a T-14, a T-5.

Spoiler alert: She’s in and she starts this August.

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T-14 LAW SCHOOLS: 2022

2022 US News Ranking	Law School	City & State	Median GPA	Median LSAT	Matriculated Students
1	Yale Law School	New Haven, CT	3.94	174	201
2	Stanford Law School	Palo Alto, CA	3.89	171	180
3	Harvard Law School	Cambridge, MA	3.92	174	560
4	Columbia Law School	New York, NY	3.84	174	479
4	University of Chicago Law School	Chicago, IL	3.91	172	191
6	NYU School of Law	New York, NY	3.86	172	485
6	University of Pennsylvania Law School	Philadelphia, PA	3.9	171	309
8	University of Virginia School of Law	Charlottesville, VA	3.91	171	300
9	University of California Berkeley School of Law	Berkeley, CA	3.83	169	385
10	Duke University School of Law	Durham, NC	3.82	170	282
10	University of Michigan Law School	Ann Arbor, MI	3.84	171	313
12	Northwestern University School of Law	Chicago, IL	3.86	171	249
13	Cornell Law School	Ithaca, NY	3.86	171	204
14	UCLA School of Law	Los Angeles, CA	3.82	170	366

WHO GETS IN?

If you’ve been following our blog, you know that we urge students to take ALL rankings with a grain, if not a shaker, of salt. That said, if you’re considering law school admissions, you are probably assessing the applicant pool. Who’s your competition? What are your reach schools?

Yale Law School, for instance, is a reach for everyone on the planet. For their Class of 2024 (in spring 2021), they accepted 214 students (out of 5,296 applicants) and their yield is impressive —87%, or 187 applicants accepted. Only 27 applicants got in last year and told Yale Law “No thanks.” That’s not very many —when Yale Law lets you in, you go, or at least almost everyone does.

Yale Law published information on their applicants last year. Breaking down these numbers offers some valuable intel to applicants, including current college students with law school admissions on the horizon, and working professionals seeking law school later on.

The most recent Class of 2024 is 51% women (or female-identifying). It will be interesting to see how that number changes (or not) this spring.
The average age is 25, so they’re pretty young but not really “right-out-of-college” young.
- Want proof of that? Only 8% came right from college. Together, they hold 71 graduate degrees. That means many graduate from college, obtain work experience, pursue a Masters, THEN apply to Yale Law.
54% are students of color. Diversity is important and top programs are starting to show (and tell) that more.
Their median GPA is 3.94. That means “B scrubbing” is happening in the first round cut in admissions, as we well know.
Their median LSAT is 174 and, even more telling, is that the 75^th percentile is 177. Breaking 175 on the LSAT is essentially a requirement to gain acceptance.

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ASK THE RIGHT QUESTIONS

Too often students ask “What makes a law school application great?” Rather, the more important question should be, “What makes a law school great?”

We help our students consider not just the prestige of a law school, but also the true value of the program. That means considering the curricular foundation and real-life experience they could and will gain as scholars at the school. For example, are contrasting views and perspectives presented to and encouraged by students, faculty and the administration? Is interdisciplinary inquiry woven into the fabric of the program and to what extent? Are there new courses on digital commerce, e-commerce law and digital currency? (That wasn’t too big a decade ago, but we’d argue now it needs to be.) Are journal publication opportunities, clinical experiences, and entrepreneurial opportunities part of the program? Does the school promote intellectual risk taking? How about pro bono legislative and policy work? Do they value and promote a strong code of ethics and social justice efforts? These are important questions for law school applicants to consider.

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As you consider law school admissions and your target list, we urge you to reflect on your own intellectual curiosity, as well as the program’s rigor and commitment to their students. It’s not just a matter of assessing what you’ll bring to a top law school, but also what the law school will bring to you. Let us help you craft your own T-14 list and find the “best fit” law school for YOU!

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Dr. Kristen Willmott

Senior Private Counselor & Graduate School Admissions Director at Top Tier Admissions

A former Admissions and Financial Aid Officer for Harvard University, Kristen brings over 20 years of experience working in higher education. Kristen has a PhD in Education with a concentration in Higher Education, an M.S. in Business Management, and a B.A. in English. Her PhD dissertation won the International Susan B. Anthony Institute Dissertation Award. In her role at Harvard, Kristen oversaw admissions for 17 departments and was also responsible for distributing funding from the National Science Foundation Fellowships Program and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Student Research Fellowship Program. Kristen previously worked as a substitute K-12 teacher, as adjunct faculty at three universities in MA and NY, and as an educational researcher. Kristen recently published a book (Information Age Publishing) on faculty and tenure in academia which Stanford University Libraries featured on their recommended "Gender and Education Books" list. Kristen has written for Entrepreneur Magazine and published in journals such as the Journal of Critical Scholarship on Higher Education and Student Affairs and the American Association of Behavioral and Social Sciences Journal. Kristen has also been featured in and interviewed for publications such as U.S. News & World Report, the Washington Examiner, Yahoo News, and Business Insider.

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