Prestige of UG important?

[Sean Pitt]

I have heard that the top law schools give a high priority to the prestige of the undergrad school the applicant attended. This concerns me. I just graduated from New Jersey Institute of Technology, which does not have the greatest prestige (slightly below Rutgers College). I graduated with a B.S. in Computer Science with an overall GPA of 3.71 (3.78 in my major)and received a 177 on the LSAT. Hardly anyone from NJIT goes to law school. What do you think are my chances are of getting into a good law program? Are there any that you know of that may be easier/harder than others because of the school I attended? Keep in mind, I have a degree in CS, not in History, Political Science,etc.. Thank you for any advice.

[Andrew]

I don't think prestige of one's undergrad is very important at all.  I'm sure the schools consider the school you attended, but from people I've talked to, it seems to make little difference if any.  If anything, I would think the law school admissions officers might adjust one's GPA based on how competetive the undergrad school was.  Alternativly, they might look at class rank instead of GPA (ie, consider the top 30% of an Ivy to be comparable to the top 20% of a second tier undergrad.)  My guess though is that law schools aren't as reputation concious as the applicants.

As for your major, I don't think the school gives much weight to one's major other than to consider (1) the difficulty of the classes and/or (2) the diversity of the incoming class.  They probably want multiple majors represented, and they probably allow a slightly lower GPA from those with very difficult majors (Bio-Chem or something like that.)

None of this is fact, or even well researched analysis, but this is the impression that I get.  I'd look first at the LSAT / GPA numbers, decide how high to aim, and apply to a range of schools.