Everything you wanted to know about law school admission.

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>I keep seeing the same questions about law school admission. Thus, I thought I would do a post answering most of these questions.</p>

<ol>
<li>How important is the GPA vs LSAT?</li>
</ol>

<p>There is no question that both are important , BUT the LSAT is even more important. You could get into a decent law school with a mediocre GPA but top LSAT. However, even if you have a 4.0, you will probably not get into most places if you really bomb your LSAT. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>How do I know what my chances are for a law school?
There are several sites that will ask you to input your GPA and LSAT and will rate your chances. I have found these "law school predictor" sites quite accurate for most law schools.</p></li>
<li><p>I have strong extracurricular activities such as sports, music etc. Will these in some way help overcome lower GPA or LSAT?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Generally the answer is NO. Law schools are primarily numbers driven. They look at your LSAT and undergraduate GPA and your essay....period. The only time extracurricular activities might be beneficial is if you are applying to the very top law schools and have the GPA and LSAT to get in. In that case, maybe some very strong hook might make the difference. However, I wouldn't count on it.</p>

<ol>
<li>I got a recommendation from some top person such as an appellate court judge or even a Supreme Court Judge. Will this help overcome lower stats?</li>
</ol>

<p>NO. I even knew someone who applies to a top state school and got a recommendation from a Justice at the top court at that state, which had no effect.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>If I major in "X" or have a double or triple major, will this help my chances for law school?
Answer NO. Your admission will be based on LSAT, GPA and essays.</p></li>
<li><p>Does it matter what major I have for admission?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>Answer NO, However, some majors will give you an edge in law school itself. For example, if you major in political science, you will have an edge in Constitutional law ,which is a first year subject. Criminology majors might have an edge in Criminal law. Accounting majors might have an edge in Tax law, although this won't be of benefit until the second or third year of law school.</p>

<ol>
<li>Do I need to attend the top 10 or top three or top 14 ranked law schools in order to get a job?</li>
</ol>

<p>This is a very contentious issue. Yes, jobs are MUCH harder to come by than it was many years ago. Generally, if you want to work for a major law firm, attending a top 10 law school and doing well will substantially increase your chances for that firm. HOWEVER, many middle sized and small firms do recruit out of the more well known schools in their state. Thus, If you want to work in Wisconsin, attending University of Wisconsin law school and doing well would probably get you a job there,but it won't help much for out of state firms. I attended Miami Law school. Many top firms in Miami did recruit there. My friend's son who attended University of Maryland law school and graduated in top 5% got several job offers from Maryland firms. </p>

<p>HOWEVER, in all cases for law firms, you will need to get very solid grades ( be in top 5-10% of class) to have a decent chance of a job and preferably be on law review.</p>

<p>NOTE: this all assumes that you want to work in top , well known law firms. There are other job openings such as government, state jobs etc. that will hire people who didn't attend the top schools or even the top schools in the state. </p>

<ol>
<li><p>I attended grad school and did very well. Will that give me an edge with admission?
Answer: NO. they simply use the LSAT and undergrad GPA. My son graduated top of his class in grad school, and it had no effect that I could see.</p></li>
<li><p>If I do well in law school, can I transfer to a better ranked law school?
The answer is yes BUT don't count on it. Law school grading is VERY tough especially in the first year. You would have to be in the top 20% of your class to move up to a higher tiered law school and be in the top three or so people to get into a top 20 law school from a lower tiered school.
Just to elaborate, law school rankings are based on three tiers. Top 50 schools are in tier one. The next 50 are in tier 2. The rest are all in the last tier,</p></li>
<li><p>Is it worth going to a law school that isn't in the top ten or twenty?</p></li>
</ol>

<p>This is up to you. However,attending a lower ranked law school will definitely make your job chances MUCH, MUCH harder.It is still possible to get a job with strong networking skills, lots of hussle and good interviewing skills,but I wouldn't count on it.This is particularly true since the federal government is in a hiring freeze.</p>

<ol>
<li>A recruiter told me at a law school fare that I have a decent chance of admission. Should I apply there?
Recruiters, in my experience, lie! Their goal is to get more applications in order to beef up rankings. You can't rely on anything they say about </li>
</ol>

<p>12, Does the undergraduate school that I attend have any affect on law school admission?</p>

<p>In my observation, no effect! Again, the basis for admission is the LSAT, undergrad GPA and essay.Yes, you will see many more people from Ivys and other top schools getting into top law schools. However, this is probably because these schools attract people with top test scores who normally do well on any standardized test.</p>

<p>13.If I work for a top firm, will I have to work a LOT of hours?
This depends on the firm culture,but the answer for most top firms is YES. This is why I have known a number of people quit these top firms and work for the government. The hours required at law firms usually well exceed that of accounting firms.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>I want to teach law in law school. Does the ranking of the school matter?
Yes. surprisingly, law schools want people who graduated in the top 10 ranked schools. Rankings of law schools attended are very important for law schools in selecting professors. Their research is also important,but they don't seem to be able to overcome attending a second rate law school</p></li>
<li><p>I attended several undergraduate schools such as a community college, which school's GPA count in admission?
Answer: All of them. The process is that you submit all of your transcripts to the LSAC who scores them. Thus, they give a certain score to A-, B+ etc, which might not equal the GPA on the transcript.</p></li>
<li><p>I had some disciplinary problems in college or I had a DUI etc. Will this hurt my chances?
Answer: It depends on the problem Unless you were convicted of a felony, it shouldn't hurt your chances too much. HOWEVER, you must disclose this on applications</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I hope this all helps.</p>

2

<p>I wanted to add point 17. which I forgot.</p>

<ol>
<li>I did horribly in my freshmen year but did MUCH better in other college years. Will law schools take this into consideration when I apply for admission?
Generally, from what I have observed is that you are out of luck. The LSAC will give all of your grades from all years a score and send that score to the law schools. The law schools will then take the adjusted GPA reported from the LSAC and the LSAT and essay and make a decision. The fact that one year was much worse or better than the other years will be irrelevant. </li>
</ol>

<p>Let me add that all comments are based on my observations of kids who have applied to law school and based on conversations with lawyers. They are based on my opinion. Thus, people may differ on some answers</p>

3

<p>I noticed a mistake in my original post, which may not have much of an affect on you,but it should be clarified. There are four tiers of law schools based on rankings. The last tier consists of unranked law schools.</p>

<p>Finally, I want to emphasize that unless you have a special “in” for working at a law firm, I would NOT incur a lot of debt for law school. This is particularly true for the bottom tier but also applies to almost any law school other than the top 10. If you have incurred a debt of a hundred thousand or more, you will find it VERY difficult to pay off especially with your chances of employment being diminished if you don’t attend a top 10 law school or the top law school in the state. Don’t incur this amount of debt. </p>

<p>There is a sobering post here at the top of the forum about people who incur large amounts of debt to attend a bottom feeder type of law school. It is a VERY bad idea to incur this debt for almost any reason.</p>

4

<p>What percentage of matriculates to the top law schools have work experience? I know that certain schools like Northwestern require you to have WE. Is the trend toward more work experience?</p>

5

<p>I know two people who attended Harvard law school and one who attended Chicago. NONE had any significant work experience before law school. Again, The main criteria that law schools use are Adjusted GPA, LSAT and essay. I HIGHLY doubt that work experience will have any significant impact on law school admissions. This may be quite different for MBA admissions, however. </p>

6

<p>For #15 and #17, and generally calculating GPA for law school admission, LSAC has this web page to explain it:
<a href=“Transcript Summarization | The Law School Admission Council”>http://www.lsac.org/aboutlsac/policies/transcript-summarization&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

7

<p>Northwestern cares about work experience. No other law school does. Employers care though.</p>

8

<p>Harvard definitely cares about work experience now (unlike in years past); Dean Minow constantly makes that statements when she does speeches to alumni. In her view (and thus HLS’s view), work experience means that a student will have first-hand experience with things that are discussed in the classroom- such as contracts. </p>

<p>If you don’t believe me, check out the HLS admissions website.</p>

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<p>[url=&lt;a href=“http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grutter_v._Bollinger]This[/url”&gt;Grutter v. Bollinger - Wikipedia]This[/url</a>] and [url=&lt;a href=“http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1011]this[/url”&gt;20 U.S. Code § 1011 - Antidiscrimination | U.S. Code | US Law | LII / Legal Information Institute]this[/url</a>] are why Harvard’s dean, and every other dean in the country, claim to care about things like work history. The data do not support that view to any real degree (except at NWU). It is technically possible that in a perfectly balanced competition between two students for one slot, work experience could be a tie breaker. Truly exceptional work experience might also give you a leg up. If you used to be in the NFL, for example. As I said, however, employers absolutely care about work experience.</p>

10

<p>Demosthenes49, contrary to your assertions, the data DO STRONGLY support the premise that taking at least one year between college and law school are very important to schools. </p>

<p>Harvard: 76% of students took at least one year off between college and law school (<a href=“http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/apply/classprofile.html”>http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/apply/classprofile.html&lt;/a&gt;)
Only 9% of students hold other advanced degrees, meaning that about 65% of students did something non-academic (i.e., worked) during that time off.</p>

<p>Yale: 76% of students took at least one year off between college and law school (<a href=“Profiles & Statistics - Yale Law School”>http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/profile.htm&lt;/a&gt;)</p>

<p>Other law schools also show large percentages of students taking time off, and low numbers of students with other advanced degrees, indicating a lot of work between college and law school.</p>

11

<p>HappyAlumnus, Yes, it is possible that work experience could be used in tie breaking cases among the very top law schools. However, due to rankings, the key components of admission that I have seen were: LSAT, Adjusted GPA thought the LSAC, and the essay. I know of hundreds of people who have been admitted to many types of law schools. However, I have yet to see “work experience” overcome lower LSATs or GPAs. The primary reason is rankings. Rankings are everything for law schools. They live and die by them. Most of the schools will do anything to raise their rankings or to keep their rankings up. Sadly, work experience for newly admitted students is NOT a factor in the rankings. </p>

<p>In fact, both my son and a friend’s son had tremendous work experience working for top firms, the government and even worked on contracts. Yet both didn’t seem to benefit from the work experience regarding law school admission.</p>

<p>However, with that said, I can see some very top schools, especially for those located in states that have anti-affirmative action laws using work experience as a subterfuge in getting around these anti-affirmative action laws or getting around the problems that affirmative action presents. However, even in these cases. I would bet that use of work experience isn’t widely used and isn’t a major factor in the equation. </p>

12

<p>

</p>

<p>Don’t be confused by the old saw, correlation does not equal causation. (Law types tend to be math-challenged, which is why they are not premed!)</p>

<p>In today’s economy, folks gunning for HYS are well advised to graduate and apply after college. And that is for two reasons, and two reasons only: senior classes will boost GPA; free time to study and rock the LSAT.</p>

<p>Demo and Tax Guy are correct. It takes an really, really, really special job to get the eyes of Adcoms: think Military officer, Olympic Medalist, traveling musician and recording star, professional skydiver; MD… </p>

13

<p>LSAT is king over everything. GPA second. And if you don’t go to your top state schools (and want a job in-state or have other connections) or top 15 don’t bother. Pretty much echoing everything taxguy said. And get good grades after admittance.
The LSAT is different than most exams because of its analytical reasoning and logic problems which can be studied for to some extent but are difficult to master. They require your mind to jump through some hoops. A lot of people are either naturally good at them or never will be. Even two point differences in scores on the LSAT can be huge for admission.</p>

14

<p>@HappyAlumnus: I agree with you that the data shows a lot of law students have work experience. However, to follow up on what bluebayou pointed out, this correlation is not evidence of causation. For evidence of causation, we’d have to look at what we’d expect to see if work experience were a significant factor. Namely, we’d expect to see people with otherwise low numbers but solid work experience nevertheless getting admitted. I haven’t seen any evidence of that. </p>

<p>As an initial matter, it would be odd if schools cared about work experience (which is what makes NWU such an outlier). Schools are consumer (student) driven like every business. Consumer demand is very sensitive with regards to USNWR rankings. For some reason, prospective law students care a lot about what their school is ranked. This effect isn’t just in terms of trying to get into the T14. Even a move from 51 to 49 has huge economic effects. This is one reason why the deans at bad law schools get paid so much when they move up in ranks, and fired when they don’t. Since, as taxguy correctly notes, work experience isn’t factored into the rankings, it would be strange for law schools to care about it. They would be trading off something their consumers care about for something they don’t. </p>

15

<p>USNWR rankings also take employment statistics into account. A candidate for law school admissions who has work experience is probably more employable than someone who has no pre-law school work experience, and so having applicants who have work experience probably helps those rankings at least in a small way. Not that HLS needs to care about employability, but its new emphasis on work experience is in light of those rankings.</p>

<p>When I was going through in the mid-'90s, definitely less than 76% of each entering class took time off between college and law school, so a focus on work experience is new.</p>

<p>HLS has plenty more applicants with numbers in line with what the school looks for, so the school probably just uses work experience as an extra tie-breaker between otherwise equally-qualified students.</p>

<p>I am not speaking for other law schools here, just HLS.</p>

16

<p>@HappyAlumnus: You’re absolutely right that for the past two years, USNWR has taken employment 9months out into account when calculating rankings. It is possible that schools will in the future respond to this by preferencing work experience, however I think this unlikely. As it stands, I haven’t seen any evidence that schools are following the change in methodology with a change in recruiting standards. However, as I mentioned earlier it remains possible that schools could use work experience as a tie breaker.</p>

<p>I think schools are unlikely to change acceptance standards to take work experience into account for two main reasons. First, LSAT/GPA are controllable inputs and job placement a relatively uncontrollable output. Second, the significant decrease in applications. </p>

<p>As to the first, admissions wants to score points where they can. They can control what GPA/LSAT combos are admitted and thereby pick up points on the front end. Employment is a concern 3 years out. The best employers are also far more selective by grades than they are work experience, outside a few outliers (e.g., several years experience in a targeted industry). Since employers care more for grades than work experience, and since a job is a job for rankings purposes, the marginal advantage provided by the year or two most law students have as work experience won’t tip the job scales enough to be worth considering over LSAT/GPA. Plus, job placement has a lot to do with how many jobs are available, something totally outside the control of admissions. There’s no point spending GPA/LSAT points betting on how the economy will be 3 years out. </p>

<p>As to the second, the decrease in applicants puts most schools in a very tough position. Several have all but created open-door policies. They are certainly not going to start restricting their applicant pool further by demanding work experience. Even at the top, the number of top LSAT scores has fallen dramatically. That means the top schools, who used to be able to be choosy enough to risk preferencing something like work experience, now are less able. They suffer less in bad economies since the T14 brand carries a lot of weight with employers, but they are unlikely to start sacrificing LSAT/GPA now for the mere potential to win points back in a few years. </p>

<p>I think a lot of the move toward work experience among applicants is as a result of the economy and the press law schools have been getting. Expensive schools force people to save, which necessitate work. Plus, there are an awful lot of people (including me) telling prospective applicants to go get work experience before they apply to law school. </p>

17

<p>Employment is a concern during even the first year of law school, since 1Ls start focusing on the job search for their 1L summer during the spring semester, and how a 1L summer turns out can impact the 2L summer (and thus post-graduate employment statistics).</p>

<p>The facts are clear. Over 75% of 1Ls at HLS took time off- in most cases, to work- between college and law school. Thus time off, and what someone did with it, is something that the HLS admissions committee just has at least give more than a fleeting thought to.</p>

<p>In addition, with a harder job market for lawyers, it makes sense that law schools would focus more on work experience, since someone with work experience has a stronger resume (and better interviewing skills and more of an idea as to what the person wants in a job) than someone who went straight through from college. HLS isn’t dumb; they know this and that’s why the school proclaims that it’s now a new focus for it.</p>

<p>Again, I am not speaking for other law schools–just HLS.</p>

18

<p>I haven’t posted in this forum for a while…</p>

<p>I freely admit that my own and my attorney kid’s experience are now out of date. However, I can tell you that my kid would have shown up in those stats as having taken a year “off” after college. My kid applied to law school during senior year, got in and deferred a year. I know that even back then --about a decade ago now–about a third of the class did the same thing, i.e., deferred. </p>

<p>Some students do this in order to accept presitigious fellowships–there are Rhodes, Marshall, Gates Cambridge, Fullbright, Keasbey, Mellon, Rotary and other scholars in every YHS law school class. There are also people who deferred to do a stint in Teacher for America, the Peace Corps, the Jesuit Volunteer Corps, NYC Urban Fellows, etc.There are also some students who get in and defer for a year or two to work, especially for high-paying consulting firms. </p>

<p>Now, MOST, though not all of those of those who had fellowships got advanced degrees, these are sometimes awarded too late to be included in entering stats. But people who took teaching Fullbrights, or did TFA, the Peace Corps, JVC, NYC Urban fellows are counted as having “worked.” While they certainly did “work,” I don’t think this is what most people think of in terms of “work experience.” </p>

<p>In many cases, these students applied as college seniors, at the same time they were applying for other programs or jobs, got in, and then deferred. In other cases, they applied in the fall following their May/June college graduation, and even if they started immediately after graduation–which is unusual–they had about 4-6 months of work experience when they applied. It was more common among my kid’s friends who waited until after graduation to apply to devote at least a couple of weeks after graduation to studying for the LSAT in June…or to spend the entire summer studying for the October LSAT…and then begin work. </p>

<p>That’s a long-winded way of saying I agree that you shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that the student who enrolled in law school a year or two or three after finishing college got into law school because of what (s)he did in the interim. </p>

19

<p>Jonri, absolutely, your point is well made.</p>

<p>When I was in school (mid-'90s), I knew very few students who took time off between college and law school for whatever reason, and for those who did, I’m not aware of anyone who had an amazing, amazing job in between and was admitted because of it. (If someone has an amazing job right out of college, why go to law school?) </p>

<p>I just think that in today’s tough job market, and with US News rankings that consider employment statistics, taking at least a year between college and law school, and doing something reputable then, is probably just another box that the HLS admissions committee checks and takes into consideration, as one of many factors, in deciding which applicants to admit.</p>

20

<p>I think that many people here are reading too much into the statistics about jobs before law school. Yes, I think it can be a check mark that places like HLS uses to distinguish among applicants. However, there is little doubt in my mind that work experience won’t overcome lower LSATs or GPAs unless it is extraordinary. Even then, I think that it would only be a very small marginal factor. Again, work experience isn’t a factor in the rankings or ratings,which law schools live and die by. </p>