My son, currently a sophomore in college, took the LSAT in Sept and got 177. His GPA is 3.9 so far. He is very interested in law school. He will try to maintain a strong GPA. He will probably graduate a semester early from college. What should he be doing to figure out more about law school? Kindly advice would be greatly appreciated. If asked he will say that he wants to be a professor of law but I think he does not know enough yet to make a decision like that. He is a scholarly sort.
no need to graduate early, unless it is a financial decision. (All professional schools prefer age over the alternative.)
See if he can get a job as an intern for a law firm, or otherwise get experience, perhaps with a local public defender or legal clinic. It will make no difference to LS applications – they really don’t care about EC’s, but it will help him understand better if that is the kind of environment that he enjoys.
He seems to want to graduate early and he has the credits to do it. It is a nice savings for us and we can use that money for further education. (law school is expensive) So he will be younger than some…
It is hard to believe that law schools are only concerned with stats and that an internship or other experience in the legal arena would not be helpful to his application. I do want him to know what he is getting into.
Going to law school to become a law professor is generally a bad idea for several reasons. First, it is an aspiration necessarily held by those who have never even seen one in action. How can a person know that they want to be something they have no experience with?
Second, the academic market is small and shrinking. Competition is fierce enough that only top law students, generally with top appellate clerkships and a publication record, have a chance. That’s today. In the future, with applications shrinking, it will likely only be harder. Law school is graded on a curve. No matter how smart your son is, he will be competing with those equally talented and graded against them. But schools only really consider the top students.
Third, law school is absurdly expensive. Given the very low chance of obtaining a law professor job, taking out upwards of $300,000 in debt to pursue it is a very risky proposition. Luckily, if your son can obtain his numbers he may be able to get some scholarships. Unfortunately, those scholarships wouldn’t come from HYS, where most schools draw professors from, because those schools do not really need to offer merit aid (at least to the same degree as the lower-ranked schools).
The smartest move for your son, right now, is to go talk to some law professors and see if any are willing to take on an undergrad intern. The connections in the field, plus the first-hand experience, will help solidify whether he actually wants to pursue this. He should also work in a law firm setting (public or private) a bit after graduating. If he can’t get a law prof job he’ll probably have to go for a lawyer job, and he’d better make sure before spending the money that lawyer is something he is willing to be.
This is helpful information and stuff I had not thought about.
Yes it makes sense that if there is less demand for a law degree there would be less demand for law professors. So this would indeed be a difficult goal. Good to keep in mind. Competitive too of course. As well, I agree that it would be wise to be sure he would enjoy practicing law as best as one can be certain.
He does want to attend one of those top schools as he believes that is where he will come out with the best opportunities. Absolutely it is too bad they do not offer merit scholarships. I assume we will end up paying a lot for the privilege if he does earn it.
I will suggest to him that he seek out law professor internships in his future and he already realizes he should do a legal internship of some sort. Originally that was the plan for this summer but something more interesting appeared. Plenty to keep him occupied.
Thanks!
He should go to HYS law only, directly if possible. He’ll get an assistant professorship at a T14 only if he’s law review and brilliant and clerks for a USCA, and one year only at a BigLaw firm, with few exceptions. If he’s law review only, he’ll get a professorship job at any other school if he doesn’t mind the lack of prestige. I have former Michigan classmates who teach at Michigan, Chicago, Colorado, Oklahoma, and other lesser named law schools. Your boy will do fine. Congratulations for being a great parent and giving him the stability and environment he needed to succeed.
Not “only,” but close. Law schools are really concerned about their ranking, and that is based primarily on the test scores and GPA of matriculating students. With the big drop in law school apps, the numbers of testers who score 17x has plummeted. For HLS to keep its lofty median score of 173, mathematically it HAS to accept nearly everyone with that score and higher. HLS has a large class to fill, so EC’s don’t much matter (as long as one is not a felon).
“other experience” counts for the few law schools with small classes, such as Stanford, Yale and Chicago.
HYS only offers need-based merit aid, but everyone else offers merit money.
Naturally this leads to more questions. How many law schools should one reasonably apply to? Any thoughts on dual degrees? If he were interested in a philosophy and law degree would this be reasonable? Also, is it seems like a good idea to get applications submitted early in the admissions cycle. Is law school admission more like rolling admissions?
Thanks for all the responses. I am just trying to learn a little more so I can be an informed parent as I have not previously thought about law school. For the most part, it seems relatively straightforward.
Law schools do have rolling admissions so it seems like a very good idea to apply as early as possible. My son did and acceptance came early, before deadlines for most schools. He could have always applied to other schools if rejections came (although rejections might come later than acceptances). If an applicant is a slam dunk at a school it might not matter, but if at all borderline it seems that applying early would. I would recommend applying to several. If the T14 are at all a reach, the more you apply to the better. Of course you want one or more safeties. There is also a lot of merit money available, so if that is important to you it can be well worth the application fee to apply to multiple schools to see which provides the largest scholarship.
With your sons stats, the entire T14. He should also be eligible for merit-based fee waivers at most of the T14.
He’ll want to negotiate scholarships, so applying to all schools in the T14 is recommended.
@madamecrabster, with those numbers, your son will probably get in most everywhere, so he should apply to all of them in the “top 14”, from Yale down. I would expect that he’d get into Harvard/Yale/Stanford and generous scholarships from the others, such as Duke and Columbia. He should apply to a few safety schools (which for him would probably be still in the top 20-25), though. He should apply as early as possible.
A law and philosophy degree is pointless in my opinion, as are most of the “JD/something else” degrees. A JD/MBA is golden in the job market (in the private, for-profit sector), however. A JD/MPP is also useful for the public sector/non-profit sector, too.
Law schools certainly do count experience, although GPA/LSAT are the major criteria. Keep in mind that while your son’s numbers will put him at the top of the applicant pool most everywhere, even Harvard and Yale, there are still many more applicants than slots available for people who meet the median GPA/LSAT criteria for even the top schools, and so “intangible” factors matter somewhat.
Keep in mind that few if any people go to law school for the experience of law school itself, and so the location, aesthetics, etc. of the law school shouldn’t matter as inherently of interest. A law school is a job factory. All that should matter, more or less, is placement.
I am surprised to hear that it would not be unusual to apply to 14 or 15 schools. That sounds like quite a lot. I do understand the point about having the offers so that negotiation is possible.
He will be going into law because it would an intellectually stimulating career. He does want to go to the best school he can get into. A side benefit is that he will eventually be able to build an independent life with a sustaining career! (that is my perspective)
Regarding dual degrees, and in general, I suppose it really matters what the goal of working towards that degree is.
With his numbers most of the t14 are virtually safeties for him. Assuming everything else is even just okay there’s no way that the lower ranked t14 schools reject someone like him. If the name of the game is getting into an intellectually powerhouse school positioning and crafting his app will be the ticket to full rides at schools like Chicago and nyu which have great clerkship placements and can set him up (assuming good grades) with an eye into academia. That said HYS (all of which are in play here) really have a higher boost into that very competitive market.
Disclaimer: hys student
^^Au contraire. Many of the T14 are known for yield protection. He will need LOCI’s to convince them that they have a shot. But with a pithy LOCI, yes, safety.
Bluebayou is correct. I recall meeting with the dean of admissions of one T-14 school when I was applying to them. My GPA/LSAT were higher than that school’s median numbers. The dean told me that I should look at Columbia, which was ranked much higher than his school.
I was waitlisted at his school, and got into Columbia and every other higher-ranked school that I applied to.
This is true- I overlooked yield protection. That said, I don’t think the majority of the T14 would yield protect one guy- my point here is mainly that he doesnt need to be thinking about or applying to schools ranked 14-25 or anything like that since those are way off his radar.
What is LOCI?
Also what about the dual degree thing? Is there a benefit mostly when geared toward an actual career goal? Is it a good use of time and energy? I am just wondering what people think even though I am sure this will not be my decision to make.
How does one craft an application well?
Thanks for the responses!
LOCI = Letter of Continued Interest.
So I am not quite sure I understand. He sends the schools a letter of continued interest, presumably after he gets an offer, to let them know he is still seriously considering that school? Or what?
A LOCI is really more for students who have been waitlisted and want to show their interest or if their application is being held or deferred. More for the former than the latter.
i wouldn’t send one for no reason since it could be interpreted poorly.