The Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) website has a lot of wonderful resources for law school applicants. But if you don't have an LSAC account and you're planning on applying during this application cycle, you need to get one, now.
First of all, the LSAC website is the portal through which you submit your applications. Most schools will not accept online applications any other way; you'd have to do hard copies for every individual school. But the LSAC website gives you to-do lists of what else your application requires, compiles all the information that you submit, and sends it off to each school that you apply to.
Your past schools and your recommenders can submit your transcripts and letters of recommendation directly to the website, so that you can be sure that each school that you apply to receives them, rather than hoping that each one individually makes its way to the school, with no confirmation about whether or not it does.
Basically, if you don't want to lose your mind from stress this application season, or get rejected from all your schools because you forgot to send out your personal statements or something, the LSAC website is the way to go.
Furthermore, you're going to need an LSAC account to register for the LSAT. No getting around it, the LSAT is administered by the LSAC and you've got to give them some personal information (and pay them) before you can register for the test.
Finally, you get access to some cool stuff once you've got an account. You need an account to register for law forums, to view their official guides and reviews on all law schools, and to access their new Khan Academy LSAT prep material (my review of which will be forthcoming).
Basically, the LSAC exists to make your life as an applicant easier. Take advantage of what they're offering you.
Showing posts with label Application Basics. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Application Basics. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 24, 2018
Monday, July 16, 2018
Law Fairs, And What To Know Before You Go
Every time I give advice here, I do my best to cite what the Law School Admissions Council (LSAC) has to say on the subject, as my guiding principle. I've said it before, and I'll say it again: They're the experts when it comes to this stuff.
I've probably linked to their website enough times that someone might start to wonder whether or not I'm being paid to promote them (I'm not), but I'm going to do it again here, because that's where you can find information on where they'll be hosting a law fair near you.
Law fairs tend to have two components: Forums and meetings. You can watch panel discussions about topics such as LSAT prep, diversity in applications, and financial aid half the day, and then spend the other half meeting representatives from the various schools that attend. Some fairs have representatives from over 150 schools, so it can be overwhelming at first, if you don't know what you're doing.
If you only think that you might want to go to law school, I'd recommend holding off on attending law fairs for the time being. Their purpose is not to sway conflicted students; law fairs are meant to give those of us who know that we want to apply all the advice that we need. This isn't meant to be a discouraging or exclusionary statement. However, in my experience, these fairs don't tend to offer much that would interest someone who isn't already fairly set on law school.
If you're able to attend a larger law fair, it's likely that there will be more forums than you have time in the day, particularly if you want to meet with school representatives, so prioritize which panels you know that you want to attend. If you have a fairly decent grasp on the LSAT, and you really need to get more information on what schools look for in a personal statement, you know where you need to be.
When it comes to speaking to school representatives, again, the key is prioritization. You should know, generally, the schools which are in range for you. Speak to those representatives, ask questions with answers that aren't readily accessible on the school websites, and take notes so that they don't just blur together. Every representative that you meet there will be very friendly, but that doesn't change the fact that just by the nature of your LSAT score and GPA, there are some schools that you would never consider applying to. Time at these fairs is limited. Don't waste yours.
Ultimately, the best advice that I can give is that law fairs can be incredible resources, but you could attend every fair in the country, and it wouldn't be very useful to you if you don't already have a general idea of what you're looking for, and where you most need to focus your attention.
I've probably linked to their website enough times that someone might start to wonder whether or not I'm being paid to promote them (I'm not), but I'm going to do it again here, because that's where you can find information on where they'll be hosting a law fair near you.
Law fairs tend to have two components: Forums and meetings. You can watch panel discussions about topics such as LSAT prep, diversity in applications, and financial aid half the day, and then spend the other half meeting representatives from the various schools that attend. Some fairs have representatives from over 150 schools, so it can be overwhelming at first, if you don't know what you're doing.
If you only think that you might want to go to law school, I'd recommend holding off on attending law fairs for the time being. Their purpose is not to sway conflicted students; law fairs are meant to give those of us who know that we want to apply all the advice that we need. This isn't meant to be a discouraging or exclusionary statement. However, in my experience, these fairs don't tend to offer much that would interest someone who isn't already fairly set on law school.
If you're able to attend a larger law fair, it's likely that there will be more forums than you have time in the day, particularly if you want to meet with school representatives, so prioritize which panels you know that you want to attend. If you have a fairly decent grasp on the LSAT, and you really need to get more information on what schools look for in a personal statement, you know where you need to be.
When it comes to speaking to school representatives, again, the key is prioritization. You should know, generally, the schools which are in range for you. Speak to those representatives, ask questions with answers that aren't readily accessible on the school websites, and take notes so that they don't just blur together. Every representative that you meet there will be very friendly, but that doesn't change the fact that just by the nature of your LSAT score and GPA, there are some schools that you would never consider applying to. Time at these fairs is limited. Don't waste yours.
Ultimately, the best advice that I can give is that law fairs can be incredible resources, but you could attend every fair in the country, and it wouldn't be very useful to you if you don't already have a general idea of what you're looking for, and where you most need to focus your attention.
Sunday, July 8, 2018
Another Factor to Keep in Mind When Choosing a School
A few weeks ago, I wrote a post about the six factors to keep in mind when choosing a school. After doing more research, I'd like to add a seventh: Class size.
This can be applied two ways; both the size of the average class within the school and the amount of people per year can make a huge difference in your experience. There are pros and cons to each side, so you have to pick which aspects will work the best for you.
If you do better in small discussion groups where you have a lot of one-on-one time with the professor and other students, you're going to want to look at schools that tend to have very small classes. However, if you do well in lecture-style courses and know that you learn better when you are exposed to a diverse array of perspectives, larger class sizes might be what you're looking for, particularly if you check your school's diversity reports and see a highly-varied representation.
The number of people in your year at school can also seriously impact your experience. Schools with larger student bodies tend to have larger facilities, and offer a larger array of classes (this isn't always a given, but it's a good indicator). But larger doesn't always mean better, and if you're hoping to network while you're in school, it can be harder to make a splash in a bigger pool.
There's no single, correct answer for what everyone should pick. I know that I do well in individualized settings and want to have variety in my course options, so I tend to look at schools that have large student bodies and small class sizes. However, anyone considering law school should take a moment to reflect on their experience in undergrad or in other post-grad settings, and remember in which situations they've done the best.
This can be applied two ways; both the size of the average class within the school and the amount of people per year can make a huge difference in your experience. There are pros and cons to each side, so you have to pick which aspects will work the best for you.
If you do better in small discussion groups where you have a lot of one-on-one time with the professor and other students, you're going to want to look at schools that tend to have very small classes. However, if you do well in lecture-style courses and know that you learn better when you are exposed to a diverse array of perspectives, larger class sizes might be what you're looking for, particularly if you check your school's diversity reports and see a highly-varied representation.
The number of people in your year at school can also seriously impact your experience. Schools with larger student bodies tend to have larger facilities, and offer a larger array of classes (this isn't always a given, but it's a good indicator). But larger doesn't always mean better, and if you're hoping to network while you're in school, it can be harder to make a splash in a bigger pool.
There's no single, correct answer for what everyone should pick. I know that I do well in individualized settings and want to have variety in my course options, so I tend to look at schools that have large student bodies and small class sizes. However, anyone considering law school should take a moment to reflect on their experience in undergrad or in other post-grad settings, and remember in which situations they've done the best.
Wednesday, July 4, 2018
The LSAT/GPA Paradigm
Whenever you apply for an academic program, you have to take into consideration whether or not you are qualified for it. I don't mean the out-and-out "bare minimum, graduated from a four-year university" qualifications, I mean whether or not the facts on you provide a strong enough basis for that program to accept you.
For us lawyer-hopefuls, those facts pretty much come down to our LSAT scores and our GPAs. It only takes a Google search to find the statistics on a school's admitted applicants, but sometimes it can be hard to properly understand how that criteria is applied. Does a 25th percentile GPA mean that you only have a chance of admission if your LSAT score is in the 75th percentile? Or is there still hope?
I found a program that tracks applicants' LSAT scores and GPAs together, and catalogues whether or not they were admitted. See an example below:
I picked Georgetown after reading that it is one of the most applied-to schools in America, so I figured that it would be the most relevant. You can check out the stats on your dream school here.
It's good to know about where other applicants were in terms of both their scores, not just one or the other, so that we can be realistic about our prospects. For Georgetown, at least, a 25th percentile LSAT score (161) doesn't do you much good if you've also got a 25th percentile GPA (3.52).
Even though some of the data you may find could be disheartening, it's better to know than to blow the $50 on an application fee for a school where you don't have a chance. Then again, maybe you do. After all, there's almost always that one, hopeful little green dot in the lower or left-hand reaches of the screen. Maybe you could be that dot.
For us lawyer-hopefuls, those facts pretty much come down to our LSAT scores and our GPAs. It only takes a Google search to find the statistics on a school's admitted applicants, but sometimes it can be hard to properly understand how that criteria is applied. Does a 25th percentile GPA mean that you only have a chance of admission if your LSAT score is in the 75th percentile? Or is there still hope?
I found a program that tracks applicants' LSAT scores and GPAs together, and catalogues whether or not they were admitted. See an example below:
I picked Georgetown after reading that it is one of the most applied-to schools in America, so I figured that it would be the most relevant. You can check out the stats on your dream school here.
It's good to know about where other applicants were in terms of both their scores, not just one or the other, so that we can be realistic about our prospects. For Georgetown, at least, a 25th percentile LSAT score (161) doesn't do you much good if you've also got a 25th percentile GPA (3.52).
Even though some of the data you may find could be disheartening, it's better to know than to blow the $50 on an application fee for a school where you don't have a chance. Then again, maybe you do. After all, there's almost always that one, hopeful little green dot in the lower or left-hand reaches of the screen. Maybe you could be that dot.
Thursday, June 28, 2018
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:
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.
Tuesday, June 26, 2018
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:
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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Location: Just by nature, a school in an urban area is going to have many more external opportunities than a rural one.
- 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.
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.
Monday, June 25, 2018
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
- 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.
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