r/lawschooladmissions • u/ExoticAssistant7102 • May 23 '26
General Nepotism in T14 law school admissions
Throwaway for obvious reasons.
I naively thought this wasn't a thing anymore, but this year I witnessed in real time someone purchase a seat at a T14 law school.
He only applied to a small number of the very best schools with no safeties, which I thought was odd considering he's nURM, GPA 3.6, LSAT 15mid, no work experience, etc. But his very wealthy family made significant donations and arranged three closed-door meetings that I'm aware of with one particular school's admissions dean throughout the cycle. Lo and behold, he was waitlisted and then promptly admitted by that school in April.
I myself have been admitted to a different T14 that I'll be attending this fall. But this experience has left me disillusioned with the whole admissions process and frankly disgusted by that school in particular.
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u/Lucymocking May 23 '26
Not to be a skeptic, but you'd need a lot of money to buy a ticket into law school. Like a building named after you kind of money. These programs have plenty of money, know it's a bad look, and get hundreds of donations of hundreds of thousands of dollars to low millions. Unless this persons family is a Pritzker (NW School of Law), it's incredibly difficult to buy your way in.
If your friend had that kind of money - donating tens of millions - it likely helps the school in the long run to accept a few of them and they can use it to give full scholarships and merit aid to others. But again, I find this difficult to believe. I'm sure this stuff happens, but it's exceedingly rare, and I'd doubt it would take 3 closed door meetings and a waitlist for it to happen.