Yueping,
"if you live outside of Paris, there is a selection if you want to go to Paris"
This is the worst selection I can guess. That does not make La Sorbonne better.

FYI, Rennes I like Paris I also grant honors at the GPAs of 17, 15, 13 (or at least that was the case when I studied there from1995 to 2000), and a GPA of 15-16 seems to be the highest one can reach at Rennes university. I had outstanding professors there (eg Pr Drago). Some of them are now... at Paris I or II:)
The truth is, some universities in France are as tough graders as Paris I or II, and have very high academic standards (most certainly Rennes, Strasbourg, Bordeaux, and a few others) and the gap between most universities and the parisian ones is not that significant. Yet I believe these facts are rather unknown to admission committees in the US and thus students from non-parisian universities suffer a disadvantage. That's the way it goes...

"Yet I believe these facts are rather unknown to admission committees in the US and thus students from non-parisian universities suffer a disadvantage. That's the way it goes..."

I really hope you're wrong...

Intesting conversation! I think in the Netherlands we have the same 'problem'. Everyone gets admitted to the university he or she applies to, as long as you have completed a certain level of high school. So the selection to get into one of our nine law faculties actually occurs at the high-school level. But there are huge drop-out rates in the first year. (about 40%!!)
And than there is this thing about Leiden having the best reputation internationally, whereas in the Netherlands everyone knows that it isn't the best place to study law anymore. But, coming from Tilburg University I might be a bit biased ofcourse. And, as in France, all schools are funded by the government, so the differences aren't that big. But as my university is small (just a law ,an economics and a social science faculty, so it never appears in the general rankings, altough it does rank very high in law rankings, but we are Europeans, so we dont care so much about rankings anyway) I was affraid it would be a disadvantage in my US applications and that I should have studied law in Leiden or Utrecht after all. However, being admitted to 5 top-10 universities already, this assumption was probably not correct. Rather, I am now inclined to think that grades are much more of a decisive factor.

I think it's impossible to rank french univ: ther is no criteria.

I study in TOULOUSE 1 UNIVERSITY. We have wonderful professors in some field (Plagnet in tax law, Saint-Halary Houin in business law, Rapp in public law, Perruzetto in international law, Dean beignier,...), the law school is one the largest and most famous in France, but that doesn't mean that a student from toulouse is better than a tsudent from Poitiers or Aix. And i am sure that many students from Toulouse or Bordeaux are better tahn students from Paris 2, for exemple.

Until last year, Toulouse 1 also granted honors at the GPAs of 17, 15, 13. Even now, it's quite impossible to get more than 16( i would rather say impossible).

the most important is that french students, we have to show the quality of our university when we apply for a LLM in the US.
For exemple, i will send to US law school some newspaper ranks in which TOULOUSE 1 has good a good position:

- best french unversity fort the Times Higher University in 2005 (144th in the world)
- best law school "licence" program in france for l'EXPRESS in 2005 etc...

---------

it seems there is no set rules of what grades are considered good : an illustration would be the fact that some people are accepted at a top 10 law school yet rejected at lower ranked schools

One fact: all the French admitted to HLS, CLS & Cornell that I know graduated from Paris 1, 2 or Nanterre.

However this is just a fact, and maybe not one from which a general rule can be inferred.

Take care and good luck in the process.

Dear tom_france,

I don't agree with what you wrote in your last post: i studied law in Nancy (1st year to DEA) and am admitted so far to UPenn, NYU and Columbia.

Regards,

Dear tom_france,

I don't agree with you too.

I am currently an associate with an American law firm in Paris and I know many Harvard and Columbia French alumni who didnt graduate from Paris I or Paris.

Just a example : One of the four partners of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom in Paris graduated from Harvard Law School (LLM), Paris V and Paris XII.

(www.skadden.com).

Kind regards,

Dear tom_france,

I don't agree with what you wrote in your last post: i studied law in Nancy (1st year to DEA) and am admitted so far to UPenn, NYU and Columbia.

Eowyn,
Would you mind sharing your credentials (esp. your GPA). I am still waiting for replies from Columbia (I applied close to the deadline). The waiting is hard and I would like to evaluate my chances. Thanks

Sorry to interrupt this interesting debate but I have a question regarding the NY Bar.

I am a French qualified lawyer with French degrees (Licence Maitrise Paris X, DESS Paris XI-HEC, DEA Poitiers, Sciences Po Paris) and a UK LLM (King's College London).

Does anybody know if I would be eligible to take the NY Bar if I got accepted in a US LLM? Or will I still be considered "defficient" for not being from a common law background?

Thank you in advance for your reply.

Hi oddos,

New York allows foreign lawyers to sit for the NY bar once they have completed their LL.M. if that LL.M. was awarded from an ABA approved law school, consisted of at least 20 credits and involves at least 2 basic subjects tested on the NY bar exam. In addition foreign lawyers from civil law countries have to present that they had at least 3 years of law studies in their home countries, which is obviously your case.
I hope this helps.

Thank you my friend. That's exactly waht I wanted to hear...