Letters of Recommendation: The Basics

A HUGE part of your law school application comes down to your references. Your GPA and LSAT score only tells schools so much; admission committees want to know how you do in an actual class environment. Even if you're the smartest person in your undergrad class, if your references write in saying that you were always a jackass difficult student who had trouble with focusing and distracting others, that doesn't look good.

For better or for worse, you can't go back and change your last four years of behavior. Luckily, the way you ask for a recommendation can really help you (Or hurt you if you do it improperly).

The most important thing to keep in mind is that you're asking this person for a favor. So be polite. I'm not saying that you have to be overly formal, particularly if you already have a good working relationship with the recommender. There's no need to send an engraved letter along the lines of:

Dear Sir/Madame,

I would cordially request that you submit a letter of recommendation on my behalf to the following institutions, to facilitate my application and assist me in attaining admittance to a higher level of graduate education.

But on the other hand, you can't be too casual either. No professor wants to open their inbox to see:

What up teach? I need a letter of reccommendation for my law school app thats due at midnight tonight can you help me out? Id have asked yesterday but it was two-for-one tequila shots down at the Blue Pickle so I sorta forgot. Anyways   Im gonna need an extension on my final essay too. Your the best! K thx byee!!

I'm here to help you strike a balance. For starters, the professor you pick matters a lot here. They should be someone you've known for a while and have a decent relationship with. I know that sounds like a no-brainer, but there are some people out there who ask professors from their massive lecture courses, where the professor barely could pick them out of a crowd. Even if you got an A in that class, there aren't going to be many personal details a professor like that can write about in their letter. You should at least ask someone whose office hours you've been to.

Once you know who you're asking, it's a good idea to figure out when you should ask, and the answer is always as early as possible. If you expect your recommender to sit down and write out a thoughtful, complimentary letter, you need to give them enough time to do it. I'd say that you should ask at least a month before you want to start sending out your applications.

If you wait until the last minute, your professor is well within their rights to say no, that they don't have enough time. Even if you come across someone who is benevolent enough to agree, do you really want a letter that they wrote with one eye on the clock, trying to just throw something together so you'd at least have something to mail in?

After you've asked, and the professor has (hopefully) agreed, here's a tried-and-true trick that's worked for me over the years: Ask the recommender if you can sit down with them and talk about your application. You want to tailor each piece of your application, and this gives you the opportunity to do that.

It's not exactly a bad thing if a recommender focuses mostly on your strong writing skills in their letter, but if you were hoping that they could talk about how you improve as the semester progresses, and that you're a dedicated and hard worker, it's not the best possible outcome. Talking to the recommender gives you the opportunity to explain what you're hoping the admissions committee learns about you from this letter.

Talking to your recommender also means that you can help them write about why you're specifically interested in a particular program as well. If you're only applying to schools with great clinical programs, your recommender can add a tidbit about that, which can make you stand out from a pile of standard 'He/She was a delight to have in class'. 

All these little things add up, and an admissions committee can definitely tell the difference between a boilerplate, basic, "I send this out for every student that asks" letter, and a carefully crafted letter about you specifically.

Once you've gotten your letter sent in, there is one more, very important task that you have to do: WRITE A THANK YOU NOTE! Yes, it's big and red because it's just that important.

I'm not just telling you to write a thank you note because to not do so will lead to the death of polite society (Even though it will), I'm also telling you to do it because it's the best way to prevent yourself from accidentally burning a bridge. A professor might not automatically hate you if you don't write a thank you note after they write you a recommendation, but they will remember you much more fondly if you do. And they put the effort in to write you a letter. You owe it to them to at least let them know how your applications turned out.

Three basic rules: Be polite, give plenty of notice, and write a thank you note. It's not a perfect recipe to success; you still need to find professors who thought highly of you in the first place. However, it's a very good place to start.

6 Factors to Keep in Mind When Choosing Schools

When applying to law schools, it's important to figure out what's important to you. Yes, it's easy to just take a look at where you fall on their LSAT/GPA spectrum to figure out where you might get in, but picking the school that you want to attend, and that you think would be a good fit for you, should require a little more research. Here is a list of things that I look at in a school before I decide whether or not I want to apply, and why:

1. Bar Pass Rate: A no-brainer. I want to know how likely it is that I'll pass the Bar the first time; it's the whole point of law school.
2. Ranking: This matters because the name on your diploma carries weight, and a higher-ranked school is likely to have more clout when you're applying for jobs.
3. Clinical Programs: I know that I want to get as much hands-on experience as I can, as soon as I can, and law clinics are the best way to do that.
4. Tuition and Types of Financial Aid Programs: We all know that law school will be an expensive endeavor. Even with the six-figure salaries we all hope to get right out of law school, crushing debt isn't a good look on anyone, so it's good to figure out how much you'd be paying.
5. Location: Just by nature, a school in an urban area is going to have many more external opportunities than a rural one.
6. Reach, Match, or Safety: I don't look at this solely as a factor to decide on one school, but I like to know where I stand with each school I apply to, so I can ensure I'm applying to a variety of all three.

This is a non-exhaustive list, but I absolutely encourage everyone to at least look at these factors when you're picking the schools that you want to apply to, or figure out what's important to you and keep that in mind.

Picking which schools to apply to is overwhelming. Having a few clearly defined criteria that you're looking for can really simplify the process, rather than just applying to every place that might take you, and trying to figure it out from there.

Things to Keep in Mind as Application Season Approaches

As we're all aware by this point in the year, keeping track of what each law school's application requires can get pretty hectic. Yes, there's the very basic transcript and LSAT score that you can use the LSAC site to send, but beyond that, individual requirements vary. Here's the running list I keep of what I need to know for each school:

• Application Open Date
• Application Due Date
• Number of Letters of Recommendation
• Application Fee Amount

Not only that, but many schools vary on whether or not they allow you to submit the following, either required or optional:

• Writing Samples
• Personal Statements
• Separate Applications (Outside of the LSAC site)
• Resumes
• Diversity Statements
• Conduct Statements

I'm sure there are many more individual requirements for individual schools, and I definitely urge you to check the website for each school you plan on applying to, so that you are aware of everything you need. These are the most common ones I've run across so far, and hopefully adding them to your mental checklist (or, if you're like me, physical spreadsheet) will be helpful in the coming months. 

Your Teachers Were Right: Wikipedia Isn't Always Accurate

I, like many students unsure of where to begin when broaching a new topic, have frequently turned to Wikipedia in the past, for a broad overview of something with which I had no prior experience. Despite the best efforts of many teachers over the years, the convenience of Wikipedia is a powerful thing, from which the warnings about potential inaccuracies could not dissuade me. However, today I found, horror of all horrors, that they were right.

On the Wikipedia page for the LSAT (which can be found here), under the 'Administration' section, it read:

"LSAC administers the LSAT four times per year: June, September/October, December and February. The June examination marks the start of a new "cycle" of testing as most test-takers plan to apply for admission the following year. The September/October administration is typically the most popular with the February administration being the least popular."

That used to be the case, sure, but as you may remember from my post about the GRE versus the LSAT, the Law School Admissions Council has increased the number of tests administered, to six times a year. Fortunately for all those hapless Wikipedia users who may have been confused or misled, I have rectified the situation. The new paragraph reads:

"The LSAC previously administered the LSAT four times per year: June, September/October, December and February. However, in June 2017, it was announced that the LSAC would be increasing the number of tests from four to six, and would instead be administering it in January, March, June, July, September, and November."

 So never fear, the integrity of the LSAT page on Wikipedia has been preserved.

My Choice in LSAT Prep Books

I'm sure that everyone who has begun looking at LSAT prep has been a little bit overwhelmed at first. While there are certainly benefits to taking a prep class or hiring a tutor, I'm going to discuss everyone's favorite prep tool: Books.

When you're searching for a prep book, it can be hard to decide which one best suits your needs. There are a lot of big-name prep companies that publish their own books, both for their classes and for individual study. But these books tend to be very pricey, and their quality varies. That's why I suggest the PrepTest series, which can be purchased here.

Published by the Law School Admissions Council, the PrepTest series has two types of books: Regular PrepTest books with ten practice tests in them, or SuperPrep books, which contain three practice tests and detailed explanations for each answer. Both books come with information on how best to recreate real testing circumstances, from the time limits to the type of distractions you should get used to during your practice tests.

These books are written by the people who write the actual LSAT. The questions are a far more accurate depiction of what you're going to see on test day than what the other prep books can give you. And because they're the official practice tests, the practice score you get at the end is a much better representation of what you're going to actually get than anything a prep company can tell you.

On top of all the other benefits to the PrepTest books, they're much more affordable than most others on the market. A PrepTest book costs about $20, as opposed to the off-brand books that can cost over $100.

PrepTest isn't perfect, of course. Because they do not offer books meant to help with specific test sections, you may have to buy a book that gives a general overview of all of the test sections even if you don't need them all. In those cases, it might be better to look at a different brand of book that gets more specific by section. But for someone just getting started with their LSAT prep, the general overview PrepTest books give simply can't be beat. 

Why I Wouldn't Use the GRE for Law School Applications

Speaking as someone who has taken the GRE, and is currently prepping for the LSAT, I absolutely would not recommend using the GRE to apply to law school. Sure, there are certainly benefits to the GRE. There's a lot more flexibility on when you can take it, if you're applying to regular graduate schools as well then you only have to take one big test rather than two, and, let's face it, the GRE is just easier. I know I'm going to get some raised eyebrows on that, but any test that relies on you memorizing a bunch of vocabulary words and math formulas is always going to be easier than one that solely relies on fluid intelligence.

Still, despite these benefits, the GRE isn't the way to go. For starters, out of the 205 ABA-approved law schools in the US, less than 30 have confirmed that they will accept the GRE, whereas all of them accept the LSAT. So if you only plan on applying to those schools, fine, but I'd like a little bit more flexibility for myself. 

Even if you do not mind limiting yourself to those schools, the inability to predict how you'll fare is reason enough for me to shy from the test. Because many of the schools have just begun to accept the GRE, there's very little data on the average scores that they accept, so to a certain extent, you're flying blind. You could use ETS's conversion tool to see what they say the LSAT equivalent of your GRE score is, but the Law School Admission's Council (LSAC) has expressed a lot of doubt about the reliability of that tool. 

Overall, the LSAT is getting better at meeting the demand for the test. They've added two more test dates to the calendar, bumping their annual number from four to six, and they're getting speedier about releasing results. So overall, you've got that, the fact that every ABA-accredited law school will accept the LSAT, and years of data on a school's admission history with the LSAT to go over.

The only solid argument left is that the GRE is more cost-effective for people applying to both law and other graduate programs. For those only applying to law schools, the GRE is actually more expensive than the LSAT, but for those applying to both, it might seem to make sense to only pay the $205 to take the GRE, rather than the additional $195 to also take the LSAT. 

Because of those issues, the LSAC has also been making strides in lowering the costs of the test, and has a pretty sweet deal for those eligible for the fee waivers: Not only do you get the test and score-report fees waived, but also, you get free registration for the Credit Assembly Service (CAS) and a free prep book.

Finally, we get to the root of the matter for a lot of people: The GRE is easier. And yes, it is. But now I have to ask, is easier better? If you can't get the score you need on the LSAT, the test that was specifically designed to determine if you're a good fit for law school, do you really want to spend the next three years of your life in law school? Or longer, if you're doing a part time program? I'm not trying to be mean or discouraging here, but I did promise nothing but the truth, and the truth is, if you really can't handle the LSAT, are you sure you can handle law school itself?

Ultimately, every applicant has to make the decision that best suits their needs, and maybe there's someone out there in a situation where just taking the GRE makes the most sense. But I'd have to say that for the vast majority of us law school hopefuls, I wouldn't recommend cutting corners, if that's what you're doing. Law school is going to be a long haul, and the work starts now.

The LSAT: The Basics

Oh, the dreaded LSAT. Around 100 questions, scored on a scale from 120-180, and probably the worst five hours of standardized testing you’ll ever face… Until you get to the Bar exam, that is. I’ll be going over the basic format of the test, as well as how your raw score is calculated into your final one.

There are five sections of questions on the LSAT, four scored. The last section is where they test questions for future LSATs, so that the process can endure for another year. Unfortunately, there is no way to know which section is unscored while you’re taking the test. 

The make-up of the exam is two logical reasoning (or arguments) sections of the test, one reading comprehension section, and one analytical reasoning (or logic games) section. So at the very least, you know that if you have two analytical reasoning sections, one of them has to be the prototype and one is scored, but that’s about it. 

The order of the sections varies per test as well, to help disguise the unscored section. Finally, after the questions, there is an argumentative essay portion of the exam, which is also unscored, but is sent with your score to every school that you apply to. 

The LSAT is not computerized; it has to be taken with pencil and paper. There is no scratch paper allowed, all work must be done in the test booklet. Overall, each section usually contains between 17 and 23 questions, and lasts for 35 minutes. 

The first of the three types of questions, analytical reasoning, gives the test-taker sets of random scenarios, restrictions on each scenario, and then asks them to answer questions on what might be possible based on those restrictions. It’s basically a series of advanced riddles with a time limit. 

The second type of questions, reading comprehension, contains sets of dense pages of one or more texts on a highly specialized subject, and then approximately five to eight questions about each text. 

Finally, the logical reasoning questions are made up of a series of unrelated questions that each offer a scenario or pose an argument, and the test taker has to answer questions about them. Usually it’s about a piece of evidence that best supports or undermines either the argument or the conclusion, but it can also ask about analogies, flawed logic, or any number of relationships between the parts of the argument. 

After the multiple choice sections, there is the essay portion of the exam. The essay segment gives the test taker a prompt involving a scenario where a character must make a decision between two options, each with a major pro and a major con. The test taker must argue for one option over the other in a persuasive essay. Luckily, you get a little bit of scratch paper to outline your essay for this section. Again, the essay isn’t scored, but many schools report the essay making or breaking a borderline candidate’s admission, and rejecting otherwise overqualified candidates because of their poor essays.

Each question in the four scored sections is worth one point. Each correct point is added up, and that total number makes up the raw score. Then the raw scores of everyone in your testing section are distributed along a bell curve, and your final LSAT score is calculated based off of that. A score of 150 would be around the 50th percentile, and it goes up and down from there, with minor variations depending on how everyone else in the testing section does. Because of that, I can’t give an exact table for the conversions, but any practice test will have the table for that version of the test laid out with the answer key.

If this sounds a little bit too daunting for you, some schools have begun accepting the GRE in place of the LSAT, which I’ll be discussing in my next post. Until then, happy studying!

Introduction

Hello and welcome to your one-stop-shop for law school application advice. If you're here, you probably already know that the process for applying to law school is pretty strenuous; you’ve got to put together applications that present your best self in terms of personal statements, transcripts, and letters of recommendation. You’ve got to look at which programs would best fit your interests, and which ones are most likely to accept you. If you’re anything like me, you’re trying to figure out where to start.

Over the course of the summer, I’m going to be sharing some of the tricks and tips I’ve picked up about how to prioritize which schools you should apply to, how to deal with areas of deficiency on your resume or transcript, and everything I’ve learned about how to face off with the LSAT. I’m not an expert, but hopefully I’ll be able to pass along a little bit of good advice as we move closer to application season.