<p>Hi, </p>
<p>I know extracurricular activities are very important when it comes to getting into Harvard (and other Ivies) for undergrad. What about law school? </p>
<p>Is a 4.0 GPA and 175 LSAT enough or do you need a lot more? What would be a good EC that would help you get into Harvard Law School (Or Yale, etc).</p>
<p>Once again (can we get a pinned thread about this?), ECs matter for college because colleges want to be interesting places, full of outstanding crew and baseball teams, a capella groups, dance troupes, theatre troupes, an active student newspaper, a few literary magazines, a debate team, and public service groups. So they need to hire, whoops, admit students who are capable of making the campus a really interesting place - athletes, singers, dancers, painters, musicians, debaters, and writers.</p>
<p>In law school, ECs are unimportant: the school wants people who will write for the Law Review and various law journals, compete on the Moot Court team, and get good jobs. Ergo, there is really no incentive to take people who were the Presidents of their college political clubs.</p>
<p>I would say just make the most of your undergraduate experience–don’t pick your ECs based on where you want to go to school down the road. That said, leadership experience you can gain from leading a campus organization can be helpful not only for various admissions committees, but also for snaring internships and early work experience.</p>
<p>As for the argument above, I would actually suggest the opposite is true. Harvard has its pick of the top-tier LSAT scorers with superb academic performance–it probably has more people who are academically solid than it can fill a class with. And that’s when the “soft” factors like your personal statement, resume (including extra curricular’s), and recommendations really come into play.</p>
<p>Statistically, the LSAT and GPA are strong indicators of an applicant’s chances at a given law school–but they absolutely are not everything. If you look at LawSchoolNumbers.com from year to year, there are always candidates who are solidly in or above the mid-ranges for a top school, who are wait-listed or are rejected all together. I would be willing to guess that these candidates, while clearly top students, did not do a great job articulating their strengths outside of the classroom in their application or did not have as much to offer.</p>
<p>A 4.0 / 175 combination would certainly point to an acceptance, but I would not count on the numbers by themselves. Harvard is not so short-sighted as to only pick students who will participate in their legal extra curricular activities during their three years of law school. They want people who they can be proud of as alumni, and it’s going to take more than LSAT and GPA to indicate whether a given candidate is going to go out into the world and lead.</p>
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<p>Not in today’s environment, it does not. There are not enough ~3.8/173’s (unhooked) to go around.</p>
<p>Harvard’s class is just too big to fill because it loses other top stat candidates to YLS and SLS, not to mention CCN with named schollies.</p>
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<p>With the exception of those with felonies on their records, such numbers would be a lock for H in today’s app pool.</p>
<p>Ariesathena and Bluebayou are correct. GPA/LSAT make up 95% of your admission. Law School Numbers does show people with lower stats getting in but they are almost uniformly minorities. Every so often there’s an outlier who probably had connections of another kind, but basing an application on the minimal chance of outlier acceptance would be quite foolish. </p>
<p>Sometimes the top numbers applicants don’t get in either. This is usually due to yield protection (schools get ranked on how “selective” they are, so they stand to gain by turning down those least likely to accept an offer), though it could be due to other factors like past felonies. Again, drawing much of a conclusion from outliers is foolish. The trends on LSN are quite clear: GPA/LSAT/minority status matter. Everything else doesn’t.</p>
<p>Some students with top numbers will not get in, but that’s usually because their essays were horrible, their recommendations (which have nothing to do with ECs) show a problem, or perhaps their 4.0s came from schools and with majors that give the admissions committee pause. </p>
<p>I’m not in admissions, but I’m guessing that if you went to East Podunk, majored in communications, submitted recommendations that said “Joe Schmoe is silent in class, never offers any insight, and hands in assignments late,” and wrote a thoroughly mediocre essay, you may get rejected from Harvard Law regardless of your GPA and LSAT score. </p>
<p>To the extent that an “extracurricular” activity would help, I am guessing that it would either have to be exceptional (e.g. you were the national champion backstroke swimmer), or it would be a real-world, not an “extracurricular”, activity. Think being elected to public office, rather than serving on student government; or founding a successful charity or serving on the Board of an established charity, rather than participating in your college’s Clean Up the Local Park Day.</p>
<p>Due to its large class size, H is very numbers-oriented.</p>
<p>There were approximately 3100 students who score 170+ last year. However, the bottom of that group is way too low for H (unhooked). There were only 659 testers who scored 175+. H has a median of 173, so one can do their own extrapolation.</p>
<p>Of course, some of these 170+ testers had <3.0 GPA’s, others had 3.6 GPA’s, again, too low for H…</p>
<p>The point is that there aren’t many 173 test scores+high GPA’s available to H after YLS and SLS and CCN (full rides) weigh in. And H needs 550 to fill its class.</p>
<p>Just to clarify: does “unhooked” mean that the main thing going for an applicant is their LSAT+GPA? That there isn’t anything else on their application that makes it “stand out.”</p>
<p>In this case, unhooked primarily means not a URM.</p>
<p>ECs absolutely do count, especially at HYS, but not nearly as much as they did in undergrad. A 175/4.0 is virtually a lock at HLS.</p>
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<p>Correct. </p>
<p>But it can also mean something really unique: Rhodes Scholar; Olympic Champion; Professional Skydiver; former musician/ballet who performed internationally for years; non-traditional who grew up homeless, put themselves through college then joined the military, worked for xx years after…; or scion of a world leader; etc.</p>
<p>Last cycle 2012/13 test takers for 2013 admission</p>
<p>Quote:
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<p>[ABA</a> Applicant Data for 2012/13 cycle | Spivey Consulting](<a href=“http://spiveyconsulting.com/blog/aba-applicant-data-for-201213-cycle/]ABA”>http://spiveyconsulting.com/blog/aba-applicant-data-for-201213-cycle/)</p>
<p>And, the June 2013 LSAT had 5% fewer takers than the previous year. October 2013 LSAT had 13% fewer than the previous year.</p>
<p>If the number of 175+ applicants falls 15% for 2014 admission, there will be significantly fewer 175+ applicants than it would take to fill the Harvard 1L class,</p>
<p>Law school admissions is much more meritocratic compared to college admissions. Getting into Harvard undergrad will require years of B.S. ‘extra curricular’ activities, ranging from soup kitchen, community service, orchestra, or sports. How these folks can objectively and effectively evaluate how one candidate’s ‘extra curricular’ is more qualified than the other guy’s is beyond me. Hey, any applicant can sugar coat his / her extra curricular resume and credentials when applying for colleges, right? </p>
<p>Harvard Law will only care that you have a high GPA and a high LSAT score. The end.</p>
<p>A little off topic…but…has anyone heard if HLS has sent out any acceptances yet for Fall 2014?</p>
<p>"bluebayou </p>
<p>Senior Member</p>
<p>Join Date: Nov 2004</p>
<p>Location: Southern California</p>
<p>Posts: 18,266 Not in today’s environment, it does not. There are not enough ~3.8/173’s (unhooked) to go around.</p>
<p>Harvard’s class is just too big to fill because it loses other top stat candidates to YLS and SLS, not to mention CCN with named schollies."</p>
<p>That’s not true at all. I went to HLS and recall spending hours and hours looking at the various graphs and charts showing law school acceptance rates for top law schools.</p>
<p>At a school like Harvard, Yale, Columbia or Stanford (or Duke, Chicago, etc.), people whose scores meet the school’s average have a less-than-even chance of getting in, which means that there are plenty of people who meet the school’s GPA and LSAT score averages, or even exceed them, yet who still don’t get in. You have to have not only scores and grades that meet the school’s standards plus a good story to get in. There are still plenty of highly qualified people to choose from, and only a minority of them get in.</p>
<p>So in short, a 4.0/175 should get you in anywhere, regardless of ECs, as long as you have a good story to weave from your life.</p>
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<p>I don’t know how long ago you went to school, but this is undoubtedly not true anymore and hasn’t been for years. Take a look through the [historical</a> data](<a href=“Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers”>Recently Updated J.D. Profiles | Law School Numbers) and notice the very obvious bands. LSAT/GPA constitute the vast majority of your application, even at Harvard, to the tune of at least 90%. That’s even more true now. With the number of LSAT takers shrinking [url=<a href=“http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/10/31/number-of-lsat-test-takers-is-down-45-since-2009/]dramatically[/url”>http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2013/10/31/number-of-lsat-test-takers-is-down-45-since-2009/]dramatically[/url</a>] schools with big classes like Harvard are undoubtedly desperate to fill their class while maintaining their USNWR standing.</p>
<p>^^^ This.</p>
<p>Law schools have ever cared about your story, unless it is absurdly exceptional. They care about the numbers. </p>
<p>I will also point out that anyone who looks at the 50% GPA/LSAT and thinks that they have a 50% chance of getting in, is a person who needs to learn basic statistics. (Here is a hint: HLS loses admits to Stanford, Yale, and full scholarship offers.)</p>
<p>I will also point out that part of the bottom half of admits is going to be demographic admits: URM, kids from Mississippi whose low LSAT score is the highest in their state, captains of industry with GPAs from the 1970s, engineers with GPAs substantially lower than their liberal arts counterparts, etc. (Some of those matter more than others.) “Weaving” a good story about your life is totally beside the point: you either fall into a special-interest category or you don’t.</p>
<p>“I went to HLS…”</p>
<p>CityE:</p>
<p>Look at recent LSAC reports. There just aren’t many 173+'s in this economy. And there are even fewer 3.8/173+'s. Thus, that combo has an extremely high probability of acceptance to HLS, (and CCN with money). Sure, a crappy essay or poor recs can sink the deal, but absent a charge of sexual abuse, the odds are really good (70%+) for HLS. It has a large class to fill, and needs several hundred 173+'s just to keep its median.</p>
<p>"Thus, that combo has an extremely high probability of acceptance to HLS, "</p>
<p>It may have a high probability of acceptance (by HLS standards), but it’s not guaranteed, and plenty of people with that combination do not get in.</p>
<p>For the importance of a story: Google Joyce Curll, the dean of admissions of HLS when I was there. Stories counted. If you just say, “well, I like studying and I want to use my law degree to make a lot of money”, that won’t work.</p>
<p>HLS is not Podunk U. It is not “desperate” for anything.</p>
<p>I graduated 15 years ago.</p>
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<p>I don’t care if you personally are dean of HLS and oversee each and every admission yourself. Data doesn’t lie. People do. When the 15 years past (why do we even care about this? Did it magically become 15 years ago when I wasn’t looking?) dean says “we care about stories,” and the data shows clear acceptance bands correlating perfectly with GPA/LSAT, then either there is an absolutely remarkable correlation between high scores and stories or the dean is full of it.</p>