It would be good for a random sample of Harvard and Yale students to take standardized tests on the way out, along with others at a variety of other colleges. This way we could see the comparison.
Standardized tests for admission to Law School and graduate school aren’t random as they compare those seeking the next level among the graduates of bachelors programs. But, these scores are readily available and they are administered to motivated test-takers.
The schools with the highest average LSAT scores for their students are:
Harvard–173
Yale–173
Columbia–171
Stanford–171
UChicago–170
Duke–169
NYU–169
UPenn–169
Virginia–169
Northwestern–168
WashUStL–168
These are very impressive scores. Near perfect at the top. Harvard and Yale students seeking law school do much better than students at “average” schools seeking law school.
The same schools are well-represented among the top scorers on the GRE (used for PhD programs in the arts & sciences, and also for med schools), except ... some engineering schools like MIT are included.
BOTTOM LINE: whatever these top schools are doing, they’re doing well. I will now refer to the recent Supreme Court decision on reverse discrimination. The Court was o.k. with using race as one among a variety of considerations in admissions BUT NOT WITH race-based quotas.
We who seek to restore academic freedom and equal treatment under the law (the so-called conservative position), want these things for the elite schools because they are so good. If they weren’t as good as they are, we’d be indifferent.
I think the University of Virginia law school is the one Sheila Jackson Lee (the Einstein of the House of Representatives) attended.