Law and Med School Acceptances Turn Heads

Impressive Showing Greatly Exceeds National Averages

The Yeshiva College and Stern College for Women class of 1998 continued the success of previous classes with an extraordinarily high percentage of graduates admitted to professional graduate schools. This includes the acceptance of several students to some of the top graduate programs in the country.

Of the fifty-three YU students who applied to law school last year, an impressive 94% of applicants received at least one acceptance to an American Bar Association accredited law school. Of the thirty-four YC/SSSB men who were accepted, four gained admission to Harvard Law School. An additional eighteen acceptances were garnered (some students received multiple acceptances) to highly prestigious law schools such as Columbia, NYU, and Penn.

Dean Michael Hecht, Pre-Law Advisor since 1971, asserted that the most important credential considered by law schools in the admissions process is one's score on the LSAT, a standardized test taken by all law school applicants. YU students have achieved excellent results on this test for years. This past year's law school applicants were no exception. Four students placed in the 99^th percentile of test takers. An additional eight students received scores that placed them in at least the 95^th percentile. Nearly a third of all applicants scored in the top five percent of all test-takers. The mean score attained by all applicants placed them in the 84^th percentile.

So why do YU students perform disproportionately well on the LSAT? Dean Hecht claims that the results reflect, in part, years spent engaged in meticulous Talmud study. Dean Hecht professes that the skills one develops while studying Talmud, namely the ability to scrutinize complex material and to conduct a careful textual analysis, are exactly what the LSAT is testing.

These results come from a group of students that Dean Hecht characterized as a good or solid group, but not a great one. By no means is this one of the best classes for law school acceptance in YU history. This coming year's group is considered to be even stronger, as Dean Hecht says he is expecting "a bang-up year," with one or two students getting into Yale, four into Harvard, and ten into NYU and Columbia combined.

All four students accepted to Harvard Law School were enrolled in YC. Hecht acknowledged that SSSB students were over represented at the lower end of law school hopefuls. The most popular major among last year's group of applicants was political science, with history and psychology in a close second and third. These three were far more common than all other pre-law major areas of study.

Dean Hecht also stressed the popularity of Cardozo, to which seventeen students were accepted last year. He believes it to be an excellent option for law school hopefuls. Hecht emphasized the school's young and scholarly faculty, as well as its aspirations to be a great law school as reasons to consider it over other area schools including Fordham. According to Hecht, students who finish in the top quarter of their class at Cardozo and interview well will get jobs comparable to Columbia or NYU graduates.

Last year was also a successful one for YU students applying to medical schools. Of the forty-nine students who applied, an extraordinary 83%, or forty-one students gained admission to medical school. Compared to the national average of 35%, YU's acceptance rate is outstanding and is a source of pride to the pre-med majors. In addition, all fourteen of the students who applied to dental or optometry school were accepted.

The applicants had above average success in gaining admission to the top medical schools as well. Two students were admitted to Johns Hopkins, which is considered one of the most selective schools in the nation. Seven were accepted to NYU, the largest number of acceptances to this selective school ever. Twelve students were accepted to the Albert Einstein College of Medicine of Yeshiva University, which is ranked twenty-fifth nationwide. Also there were students admitted to Cornell, Maryland, Stoneybrook, Albany, and Mt. Sinai, as well as other high quality medical schools.

This class was classified as a good, though not great one in regards to medical school admissions by Dr. Weisbrot, a pre-med advisor at YU. He said that this year's MCAT scores were excellent, which is what made this class a better than average one. The average score this year was a 26, a marked improvement over the past years' average of 24. Weisbrot stated that he hopes the improvement in MCAT scores is an ongoing trend, since it is a significant component of the application process. "If the students continue to improve their MCAT scores, we expect the acceptance rates to go even higher in the next few years," Weisbrot said. One pre-med student commented that he feels that the improved MCAT scores are due to faculty improvement over the last few years, with 40% of pre-med students majoring in the natural sciences. Weisbrot noted, however, that there is no clear pattern for success.

The deans emphasized that in addition to YU's number 42 ranking, students should take pride in and be encouraged by the University's success in placing students in the country's top professional schools. Dean Hecht added, "Excellence is what counts, and our students are sought after. We've had a very good track record."