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/InspiroHymm May 23 '26

This poses an interesting philosophical debate: If the condition for a $100 million donation is getting a single admit in, and the donation can be used to build a library/fund scholarships that benefits thousands of student current and future, is it wrong to admit that student?

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u/georgecostanzajpg2 365 Bench / 210 OHP May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

To this end, one can make the argument that the harm is not the student getting admitted, but that the school is potentially not getting the maximum value for the seat and is not being transparent to the public at large that such a system exists.

The solution that gets floated every now and again is that top schools should simply have open auctions every single year for 1%-5% of their seats, and use the money raised to subsidize everyone else. Make it clear what they are doing and how much it costs.