~How to Transfer Law Schools~

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>I'm curious about the law school transfer process.</p>

<p>1.) Is it usually only after the first year that people can transfer? Are there ever second year transfers? </p>

<p>1.b) If it is only after the first year, then how do law schools base their decisions, given that the student would only have had ONE semester under their belt at the time of admissions? Or is the transfer application deadline and decision-making after both semesters of the full first year? </p>

<p>2.) How common and/or how difficult is the process? </p>

<p>3.) Do transfer usually end up having to retake their first year at the new law school for credit or do they usually just go straight to the second/third year? ....And do grades transfer over directly? </p>

<p>LOTSA questions, but definitely appreciate anyone's feedback who may be in the know on this topic. </p>

<p>Thanks a bunch guys and gals!!!</p>

2

<p>My kid and one of his friends transferred. Transfers are only after the first year. The entire first year’s grades are used. </p>

<p>There are a lot of negatives to the transfer process: If you’re trying to transfer up, then presumably you’re doing very well academically at School #1. By transferring, you lose the opportunity of being on law review and being at the top of your class at School #1. School #1 obviously knows about the transfer application, since you have to get your transcript sent out and need references. You’re burning some bridges. It did not appear that there were transfer scholarships, so your School #2 is likely to be full fare. </p>

<p>Law school classes are small enough that the students bond through Year #1. Transferees are viewed somewhat negatively as students who weren’t good enough to get into the school in year #1. It can be overcome, but socially being a transfer student is a handicap. Law students pay a lot of attention to “tiers” and status, and some will judge the first school attended. </p>

<p>There are not many openings for transfer applicants. Openings occur when students drop out or fail out (usually not many, and fewer at the higher ranked schools) or transfer out themselves. As you go up the tiers, the schools have fewer and fewer transfer openings since the top schools don’t get many students leaving. A few schools reportedly keep some openings for transfer students. It’s been reported that
they use these openings to accept students whose credentials show
a lot of promise, but who they couldn’t have admitted as 1Ls without
affecting their stats. </p>

<p>Admissions are issued around the middle to end of the summer, as the schools find out how many openings they will have. It doesn’t leave a lot of time to make living arrangements.</p>

<p>My kid applied to two schools (he had been rejected by both schools as a 1L) and was accepted by both. He found out at the beginning of August. He was told that there were 16 transfer applicants for the 6 openings at the school he attended. The schools he applied to were at least 30 rankings higher in the T100 than his School #1. </p>

<p>His reasons to transfer were to save money (School #2 was significantly cheaper than his lower ranked School #1) and to go to school where he wanted to practice. The higher ranking was not a big issue for him, since outside of the T14 (or T5 or T20, depending on how you view it) he viewed the rankings as being less important on a regional basis. School #3 which he did not choose was higher ranked, but also would have added another $30,000 or so in debt.</p>

<p>The two schools where he was accepted as a transfer student approached transfer credits differently. Each of them required him to take at least 1 additional required class. One school required him to retake one class. This meant that he lost two possible electives that he could have used for a clinic etc. There aren’t a huge number of electives in law school after you take all of the required classes and strongly suggested classes to prepare for the bar, so electives are very valuable. His performance at School #1 was not counted as eligibility for law review at School #2, and did not count towards his School #2 GPA. There was some confusion over whether he was eligible for the summer clerkship interviews that occurred the first semester of School #2. School politics came into play, with students of School #2 being very protective of those opportunities. Ultimately he did get some interviews based on his grades at School #1, but transfer students are definitely handicapped. The alumni interviewers also favor the students who have had their 1L at the school, over transfer students whose abilities are not known by School #2’s professors.</p>

<p>Keep in mind that you never know who will be at the top of a class. It’s impossible to guess that you’ll do great and be eligible for transfer. My kid was not a scholarship student at School #1, and probably was at the lower end of its admitted student profile…yet he did extremely well. Was transferring the right decision? Well, it saved him money but his job opportunities may have been better if he had stayed at the top of his class at School #1. Hard to tell.</p>

3

<p>1.) Is it usually only after the first year that people can transfer? Are there ever second year transfers? </p>

<p>Yes as to usually only after first year as noted above.</p>

<p>1.b) If it is only after the first year, then how do law schools base their decisions, given that the student would only have had ONE semester under their belt at the time of admissions? Or is the transfer application deadline and decision-making after both semesters of the full first year? </p>

<p>Transfer decisions are made in June and July after you submit your end of the first year grades</p>

<p>2.) How common and/or how difficult is the process? </p>

<p>Difficult but not always as difficult as one thinks and attempts to transfer up are fairly common. You need high grades to move up to a higher ranked law school. You also need recs from two of your profs and that becomes delicate because they usually don’t want you to go if you have high grades. However, for some of your top twenty law schools, Georgetown, Columbia and NYU among them, you will find that they actually take a lot of transfers (60 or more). It is part of the ratings and financial game they play. They admit fewer 1Ls than a full class and then fill it after first year with transfers whose stats are not used by US News to determine rankings. Moreover, transfers get no scholarship money and they pay full fair (either out of their pocket or through loans) and the law school thus evens out the finances they had to use in the first year for scholarships. That does not mean it is easy to transfer up to a top twenty law school but it is easier than many think. As noted above, if you transfer up, you will lose your law review oppurtunity that you likely had at the first law school.</p>

<p>3.) Do transfer usually end up having to retake their first year at the new law school for credit or do they usually just go straight to the second/third year? …And do grades transfer over directly? </p>

<p>They usually give first year credit but there can be some exceptions, e.g., you may be allowed to transfer only 30 hours whereas first year courses at some law schools add up to 31 or 32 hours. Also, there might be some particular course that for some reason is not considered transferable but that does not happen often since law school 1Ls everywhere tend to take like courses. Though the course work usually transfers and you become a 2L, the grades do not become part of those considered as grades in your new law school.</p>

4

<p>Thank you so much drusba and neonzeus!!! </p>

<p>Those were some amazing posts! I am so gratefully thankful for your help and detailed informative insights! </p>

<p>I’ll be saving that info. for future use and printing out some notes based on what you guys said for me to keep in mind. </p>

<p>And one last question…do people usually retake their LSAT’s for transferring? Undergrad GPAs are set in stone, but ppl can retake LSATs up to a certain limit I recall. </p>

<p>But I’m curious if one is already IN law school if LSAC allows you to retake it then (for the purposes of scoring higher for TRANSFER)? …</p>

<hr>

<p>Also, do the transfer committes even LOOK at LSAT/GPA from undergrad or do they focus soley on first year law grades as the determinant for law transfer?</p>

5

<p>They don’t retake the LSAT. I don’t know what the transfer committee looks at, but I’d guess the primary focus is on 1st year law grades based on my kid’s and his friend’s transfer admissions. You might do a quick survey of law school sites about transfer applications to see if any of the schools give more information.</p>