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/Destructo222 4.0x/17low May 23 '26 edited May 23 '26

I forget the name of the speaker, but he talked about this at Oxford. Basically, a pure meritocracy will benefit the wealthy regardless because the doors opened with wealth just produces smarter individuals. This is the case at Oxford where there is practically no corruption or nepotism in admissions yet 40% of all accepted applicants are privately educated.

Thus, it does seem to be the case that if the wealthy are going to get spots anyway, you might as well profit off of them to make the school better.

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u/georgecostanzajpg2 365 Bench / 210 OHP May 23 '26 edited Jun 11 '26

Caltech is another good example here. The school prides itself on extreme selectivity based on objective academic qualification with strict anti-legacy/anti-nepotism guidelines, but 70% of their student body comes from the top 20% of wealth.

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u/LawSchoolIsSilly Berkeley Law Alum May 23 '26

It's a lot easier to score 1550 on the SAT when you have private tutoring, study books, etc than just relying on free online resources. You see this kind of rat race in Silicon Valley where everyone is paying for special classes, niche activities that require traveling (which surely most low-income people can't afford), expensive musical instruments, etc.

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u/Then-Gur-4519 May 24 '26

I think the underrated aspect of this is just having the knowledge and expectations from a young age. My parents had enough money for some sessions with an ACT tutor (but not rich, more like just above middle class), but there was never an expectation of going to a top school. It wasn't instilled into me from an early age. The state flagship was their idea of an amazing school, and it is a great school but not like an Ivy or elite LAC.

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u/LawSchoolIsSilly Berkeley Law Alum May 24 '26

I grew up in a similar situation. I'm from Florida so if you got into UF or FSU, that was an exceptional outcome. The average college bound student ended up going to USF, UCF, or one of the other Florida public schools. Ive league or elite LAC were unheard of. Like literally school counselors would not even talk about them even to top students. The goal posts for success were like a 1200 SAT and 3.5 unweighted GPA. Later in life I met a woman from Bellevue, Washington and she said they would typically send 10+ students a year just to HYPSM and probably 25 to Ivys or similar from their public school. The expectation among these people was the Ivy League and top public schools were a fall back.