University of California - Berkeley Boalt Hall School of Law, Berkeley, California
by Akbar Ali
Tuition at Boalt Hall is significantly lower than at comparably ranked law schools: tuition for the 2007-2008 school year runs to a comfortable $26,897 for California residents and $39,142 for non-residents.
Tuition at Boalt Hall is significantly lower than at comparably ranked law schools: tuition for the 2007-2008 school year runs to a comfortable $26,897 for California residents and $39,142 for non-residents. Annual room and board rates run to an average of about $14,000. Compared to other private top-tier schools like Harvard (whose annual tuition is $39,325) and Northwestern (whose annual tuition is $42,672), Berkeley is a bargain for a quality legal education.
Admission to Boalt Hall is highly selective, with an acceptance rate of only 11%. J.D. candidates are attracted to the law school for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the vast array of programs and specialties it offers, including the following:
Business, Law, and Economics
Comparative Legal Studies
Environmental Law
International Legal Studies
Law and Technology
Social Justice
Students may also pursue concurrent degree programs while working toward their J.D.s, among them:
Asian Studies
Business Administration
City and Regional Planning
Economics
History
Information Management and Systems
International and Area Studies
Journalism
Jurisprudence and Social Policy
Public Health
Public Policy
Social Welfare
Boalt Hall is also home to a number of different law journals reflective of the school's legal diversity and specialties, including:
The Asian American Law Journal
The Berkeley Business Law Journal
The Berkeley Journal of African American Law & Policy
The Berkeley Journal of Criminal Law
The Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law
The Berkeley Journal of Gender, Law & Justice
The Berkeley Journal of International Law
The Berkeley La Raza Law Journal
The Berkeley Technology Law Journal
The California Law Review
The Ecology Law Quarterly
Addressing the frequent question as to whether the admissions officers at Boalt Hall value LSAT scores over GPAs (or vice versa), Dean Edward Tom says, "I know that there is a perception out there in the cyberspace world that we value GPAs a lot more than LSATs, and I'm not sure where people get that. Because if you look at our index formula, we are purposeful in weighting it so that GPA and LSAT are roughly equivalent.
J.D. candidates are attracted to the law school for a number of reasons, not the least of which is the vast array of programs and specialties it offers.
"So if I had to characterize our review process, it's about one-third LSAT score, about one-third academic record — I prefer to call it 'academic record' because 'GPA' is just so narrow, whereas with academic record we consider all of the factors that impacted the GPA: work responsibilities, extracurricular activities, rigor of major, and so on. The last third is the subjective
factors — what one says in their personal statement and what others say about them in their letters of recommendation. So, no, I don't think either of the two quantitative factors is more important than the other."
For the class entering in the fall of 2007, 269 were enrolled out of a total of 6,980 applicants. The median LSAT score of accepted J.D. candidates was 167, and the median GPA was 3.79. The average age of this entering class was 25, with students ranging from 20 to 40 years old. Nine percent of the new class was over age 30.
Women made up 55% of the new class, edging out male students at 45%. More than one-third of students (38%) were of color, and 12% of students entering held advanced degrees. The most common undergraduate majors reported were economics, English, history, philosophy, and political science.
Employment prospects for Boalt Hall students are among the most promising of any law school. More than 300 law firms descend upon the campus each fall to interview potential recruits; the average student typically has several interviews and job choices because the firms outnumber students during interview season.
Virtually all Boalt Hall students are employed within nine months of graduation, with an average starting salary for private associates of $135,000. Passage rates for the difficult California bar exam vary between 84% and 94%.
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