I’m working on my next book, one that I hope will help you decide whether and where to attend law school and offering perspectives about what to expect from a career with a JD.
To make the book’s advice meaningful, I need your help. Please take 5 minutes to fill out this online survey. Your responses will help shape the direction of the book! Thank you so much!
Thanks to everyone who submitted humorous contributions (and serious ones as well) and entered to win the FREE LSAT Prep Course Contest.
Congratulations to the winners:
1. Golda – winner of a complete LSAT course from Alpha-Score.com
2. Jon W. – winner of a complete LSAT course from Alpha-Score.com
3. Sophia Carrillo – winner of 3 hours personal tutoring & a custom study plan from Alpha-Score.com
Law school conditional programs can be great opportunities for those who otherwise would not be admitted to law school. By participating in a shortened law school program (either via Internet or on campus) and achieving a certain GPA, an applicant can be admitted to the J.D. program for that fall. Generally, you do not apply separately for this program. A school reviews your application and sends you a letter saying you are not admitted but invited to participate in their summer conditional program (or AAMPLE program). (Here is a list of law schools offering conditional acceptance programs)
However, there are drawbacks:
(1) A small percentage of people are usually admitted through these programs; (At Charlotte Law, only 20-50% are successful in any given year, Florida Coastal’s is between 20 and 54 percent, and Nova’s AAMPLE program success rate ranges between 11 percent and 62 percent, depending on whether people complete the online or in person program.)
(3) If you don’t make it through and you’re reapplying next year, you may need to report your attendance (and failure to make it through) on some law school applications.
Anyone who would like to share their experiences with a conditional acceptance program is welcome to leave comments here!
2. The folks at Manhattan LSAT (Formerly AtlasLSAT) will be reviewing the December LSAT to figure out what lessons can be learned from the latest test administration. It’s a FREE live online event. This is a great opportunity to learn from your mistakes if you’re inclined to retake the test.
It’s on Tuesday, January 11th at 8pm EST. Register by clicking this link.
From now on, I’ll be blogging here a lot more often since I’ve officially resigned my post as the GetInLawSchool blogger at U.S. News. Be sure to subscribe to the Law School Expert blog and tell all of your friends who will be applying to law school!
Before we pour the champagne on the west coast, I wanted to share some of my thoughts on the current law school admission climate.
People are taking the LSAT more than they used to, thanks to the June 2006 ABA policy that encourages law schools to “count” the highest of multiple LSAT scores. But I do think it’s getting a bit ridiculous how often people are retaking the LSAT who really shouldn’t. If you study appropriately for the LSAT and you get within 3-5 points of your average practice exam scores on the real thing, there’s really no reason to retake the test. Yet so many people choose to do it in hopes of chasing just 2 or 3 more points. This usually ends badly, with no increase in score, or even a cancelled score, and then you’re applying later in the cycle than you intended. This tends to cause people to go a bit crazy – they wasted three or more months waiting for an LSAT administration, not to mention extra money spent on tutoring, prep courses, study materials, and the opportunity cost from all the fun you missed, hours you could have worked, etc.
It can be really frustrating to wait and not be any better off (aka, not any more competitive for law school admission) as a result. Law schools aren’t helping this trend: the University of Virginia told one waitlisted applicant that I’m working with that he would be admitted if only his LSAT score were two points higher. What a dumb thing for the school to say, especially for an applicant who has a documented history of struggling with standardized testing, and even dumber for any decision makers at UVA to think that he would be a better law student or practicing lawyer with a negligible increase in LSAT score. A top law school shouldn’t be chasing rankings to this degree. Of course, you’re applying to law schools, so you don’t really care about the dumb decisions law schools make so long as they admit you. If what you take from this example is that a 2-point increase is worth chasing then you’re missing the point; my guess is that I’ll be reporting in May that he will have been admitted to UVA without retaking the LSAT. I’m almost willing to put money on it. And this kind of attitude only feeds the monster – literally – of LSAC and LSAT prep programs, etc.
For everyone who says law school admission is all about the numbers, I have a client with a low 150s LSAT score and a GPA under 3.0 who is already admitted to top 50 schools and who is on the waitlist at a Top 20. And he’s not the only one. Of course, before everyone with a 153 LSAT gets excited I should say that it’s really important to honestly evaluate your credentials, accomplishments and experiences. Not just anyone can do this. Do you have a compelling story to tell? Are you self-sufficient? Do you write exceptionally well? Did you do things that no one could have predicted for you based on your background? Are your goals for the future reasonable based on your past accomplishments? Do you have people who will vouch for the fact that you are the real deal?
If you’re a traditional applicant without significant work experience, life experience, diversity, etc., then I agree with those who say it’s mostly about the numbers. However, you can be more than your numbers if your personal statement is insightful (not traumatic or dramatic, but insightful), your resume shows focus, and your letters of rec show that you took your endeavors seriously. We all make mistakes – MIP citations, a bad start to college, a poor choice of major for the first two years, taking the LSAT without adequate preparation – it’s how you deal with these things that matters in life. You don’t have to be perfect, but growth and maturity are important. If you can demonstrate these, you can make up for a lot in a law school application. If I believed it was all about the numbers, I would pack up my business. Exceptional applicants get in to schools beyond their numbers: people with 159s get into Penn, not regularly but it happens. Present yourself well, trust yourself. And if you know you’re not that exceptional, just present yourself with maturity and thoughtfulness. These things will take you far.
Don’t feel pressure to choose an area of law to specialize in. Everyone seems to be the next big international law attorney. Intellectual property law is a close second. Of course, this is slightly better than five years ago when everyone claimed to want to be a public interest lawyer. If you’re a traditional applicant with maybe a few extracurricular involvements, and you don’t speak any other languages and you studied abroad in Australia, your ”strong interest in international law” will fall flat. Some people can really “sell” that they have a specific goal within law, but I highly suggest you take the advice of Jaret Davis from my most recent Blog Talk Radio Show and be open to legal careers that are booming in this economy, or whatever economy we’re in when you graduate in 2014.
If you’re taking the February LSAT, I hope you’re either applying for Fall 2012 law school admission, or using the score increase to get in off wait lists that you are already on (and that the schools you’ve applied to are not holding your application for the score.)
A possible New Year’s resolution? Resolve to be less susceptible to law school adcom gossip. I’ll stay away from saks.com if you promise to avoid law school numbers and law school discussion. Why does it help you to see that someone who applied to GW before you already got their acceptance letter but you haven’t? How on earth is that helpful information? Read a good book, visit friends – heck, visit law schools. But stay away from all things (and people) toxic to your emotional well being during this stressful in-limbo time.
For those of you planning to submit apps in January, look for next week’s U.S. News.com Get In Law School post about how you can plan to fare applying in January. This Monday’s post will be about transferring after your 1L year. Then, I think I’ll stop writing for U.S. News and save my best ideas and blog posts for my loyal and supportive readers of the Law School Expert blog.
In this new year, I wish you wonderful opportunities, experiences that lead to personal growth, meaningful friendships, and success – however you define it.
I hear from a lot of idealistic people – idealism is good. I’m a card-carrying idealist myself. And if you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you know how I feel about disgruntled lawyers – (in a nutshell: they should’ve gone in with open eyes, done their research, and should now conduct themselves professionally and honorably). Two clients sent me a link to this video in the last 24 hours and I just have to share it with you. Why? Because it’s funny. And why is it funny? Because it is absolutely based in truth. Why is the truth important? It will make you think. And if you think, and if you do your research, then you will know that -should you choose to go to law school- you will have done it for the right reasons, even if they are on the idealistic side.
I know you’re sitting down right now, trying to write the most brilliant, persuasive, powerful personal statement ever written but your fingers are paralyzed on the keys. “I hate to write about myself,” some tell me. Others say, “my life has been pretty boring/sheltered/standard/privileged.” Still others say, “I went through hard times but I don’t want to write a a sob story.” How do you hit the perfect compromise and create a personal statement you can be proud of?
I dedicate a lot of space to this in my book, but here are a few ideas to get you started on brainstorming topics to address:
1. It’s very hard to go back to the drawing board after writing an intro and conclusion, so just start writing your ideas down and sharing your stories and experiences. Start writing like you would a journal or blog, using a conversational tone. Write how you speak. You can fix the grammar and spelling later. Fine-tune conclusions and themes later. Right now, get your stories on paper and see what themes naturally emerge.
2. Yes, your final personal statement will be between 500 words and 4 pages for each law school. Most law schools want 2-3 pages. And yes, this is double-spaced. But don’t think about that. When you first get started you should write at least four pages so you have room to cut.
3. Don’t try to weave together everything you’ve ever done. Find things that are similar, either in subject matter or in exhibiting a trait you’re trying to demonstrate, and only weave them together if it really works.
4. Don’t reiterate everything from your resume. Leave job descriptions to the resume, and if you discuss resume items in your personal statement be sure to take a more anecdotal and lessons-learned approach rather than describing your duties and accomplishments.
5. Going in chronological order can be a trap. There is no reason to start with the day you were born, no matter how dramatic the birth might have been. Start with the most interesting thing about you – get the reader’s interest by sharing information about you that will be likable and interesting and as captivating as possible. Don’t try to “warm up” to your story with childhood memories, no matter how cute. You can always reflect back on those memories later in the essay if they were essential in formulating your goals and ideals and if they provide real context for your later achievements.
6. The goal is not to be “unique.” That’s a very high bar to set. Don’t apologize for being privileged if you were fortunate enough to fall into this category. Just tell your story, whatever it might be, and tell it in an authentic and sincere voice.
7. If you did face a lot of obstacles in your life (family issues, poverty, discrimination, immigration, etc.) you face an entirely different set of problems because you may have to pick and choose among them. Sharing all of your trauma (parents’ divorce, food stamps, education not stressed, poor grades, working through school, dealing with depression and ADD) can be overwhelming and cause concern that you don’t really have your life together. But sharing a few of these things can make for a powerful essay. The key is sharing information that shows you’ve prepared yourself for the challenges ahead and you’ve demonstrated that you truly overcame these issues – not just that you’ve survived them but that you overcame them.
No Comments yet, your thoughts are welcome! 
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,
