Categories: Advice, Law School Admission Deadlines, Law School Personal Statement, Law School Resume Tips, Letters of Rec, LSAT, LSAT; Rolling Admissions
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If you just took today’s LSAT, congratulations on being done. For the next 24 hours make no major decisions and avoid reading any forums or talking to anyone who also took today’s test. You have 6 days to decide whether to cancel your LSAT score and there are no bonus points for rushing to cancel today. Take a deep breath and relax. I always talk to a lot of people who panic on LSAT day, only to feel just fine about their performance the next day. That rarely happens in reverse. However, definitely cancel your LSAT score if any of these things happened to you.
When you wake up tomorrow, decide to be productive. Here are 3 easy things to do this week to move your application process forward:
1. Get out your resume and resolve to polish it up. See this US News post I wrote last year and listen to Chapter 6 of the audio version of The Law School Admission Game: Play Like an Expert.
2. Make sure your LORs are in process – being sent to LSAC or already there.
3. Work on your personal statement. Here are some helpful posts about law school personal statement writing and this one about concluding your personal statement.
Lastly, if you end up being disappointed by your score, is it OK to take the December LSAT and apply in early January? YES. Absolutely. It’s ok.
Enjoy the rest of the weekend and, as always, I’m happy to answer your questions.
Categories: Advice, Career, Law School Resume Tips, Practicing Law, Salary Trends
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On Wednesday I’ll be hosting a Blog Talk Radio Show with advice for getting hired as a rookie attorney. Whether you’re about to graduate from law school or you haven’t even started yet, I promise you insights from people responsible for hiring. They will be sharing their suggestions for maximizing your chances of finding a good job after graduation. Please tune in live – you’ll be able to chat questions and add to the discussion. Here is the link to “Advice for Getting Hired as a Rookie Attorney.” Spread the word!
Here’s an article I wrote about the disgruntled Boston College Law Grad who asked for his tuition money back.
Here’s a link to a great article about all the buzz with trends in legal hiring.
Categories: Advice, Application Timeline, Law Careers, Law School Admission Deadlines, Law School Admission Trends, Law School Location; Law School Rankings, Law School Rankings, Law School Resume Tips, Low LSAT, LSAT Prep, Uncategorized, Wait lists, waitlist
Tags: applying to law school, insider secrets getting into law school, law school podcast, LSAT Preparation
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I recently did a podcast interview for Insider Secrets : ”Getting Into Law School” - you can listen to it or read the transcript. In it, I discuss how to choose an LSAT prep program, choosing a law school, taking on debt, putting together your applications, resumes, wait lists, low LSAT scores, and about a thousand different things related to law school admission. I’m happy to take questions here and/or entertain your comments and thoughts.
Categories: Advice, Law School Admission Deadlines, Law School Admission Trends, Law School Personal Statement, Law School Resume Tips
Tags: getting into law school, law school admission tips
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I just returned from a really great couple of days speaking to the Pre-Law Society at San Diego State University and the Phi Alpha Delta chapter at University of California San Diego. Next week, I’ll be headed to NYC to speak to students at Fordham University. The school newspaper there interviewed me about my tips for getting into law school. I wanted to share this with my readers because I think they asked me some really great questions.
Categories: Law School Resume Tips, Letters of Rec
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During my first phone consultation with prospective law school admission consulting clients, often a parent or applicant will tell me they’ve had “great internships.” These invariably include things like UC-DC programs, interning with a Member of Congress (which really just means answering calls and giving tours of the Capitol building, right?), or perhaps something in the business world like being a marketing and promotions intern for a sports company (which is really just throwing t-shirts into a crowd).
So, where do internships come into play when building the strengths of a law school application?
1. Internships are better than working at the GAP. Unless, of course, you had to work at the GAP to pay your rent and tuition. Then, working at the GAP – if explained the right way in your application – shows a lot more about you than an internship would.
2. On the other hand, an internship in a law-related field shows you are not just applying to law school to avoid looking for a job.
3. It’s even better, however, to have had 2 or 3 internships in quasi-related fields. If you’ve had 2-3 internships in totally (seemingly) unrelated fields (public relations and finance, for example) then it can look like you lack direction and haven’t found your stride yet.
The same goes for job history – if you’ve been out of college for 2-3 years and have held 2-3 jobs that weren’t promotions within the same company or industry, then applying to law school can appear insincere – it can look like you’re floundering.
How do you counteract some of these assumptions?
First, don’t assume your experiences are more amazing than anyone else’s. Choose to emphasize your internship in a personal statement only if you learned something specific in a unique situation or were able to contribute meaningfully, or – in the alternative – if you learned something significant from having a negative experience at an internship. Think about what makes the experience interesting because simply having the internship on your resume probably isn’t impressive enough to a law school admission officer or law faculty member.
Second, stay away from LORs based on internships unless you did take the lead on a project or acted in some way above and beyond the standard intern. The letter should be written by the person who most closely supervised your work and can add the most substantive detail to the letter, and not necessarily the most famous person in the office.
Categories: Law School Resume Tips
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In today’s posting, Brett of The Frugal Law Student gave one really great resume tip that applies to law school directed resumes, not just employment seeking resumes.
“Give figures and be specific. In your past job descriptions or volunteer section, give specific figures of what you accomplished while holding that position. For example, I used to train third party verifiers for gas and electric companies. Instead of just putting trainer, I put “Trained 15 new employees on how to perform third party verifications.” If your only job experience are part time jobs during college, put down how many hours you worked during a week while going to school full time. This shows employers that you know how to multi task and manage your time.”
And here’s my tip of the day on this subject: Put Education First. You’re applying for a position at an institute of higher education. List your degree(s), honors, activities, etc. from education before listing your employment. There are exceptions to this rule, but in general it applies to everyone who graduated from college within the last 10 years.
Ann K. Levine, Esq., former director of law school admissions for two ABA approved law schools, is a law school admission consultant and owner of Law School Expert,
