soft factors at yale?

Graduate School Law School
1

<p>does yale take some people who have high numbers but not much in the way of soft factors, or is it pretty much all people who have done something amazing in addition to school? i played a varsity sport in college, but i don't have any extracurriculars related to law. i graduated pbk from harvard with a 3.9. i'm taking the LSAT in september. i've studied and gotten to the point where i consistently get 175+ on practice tests. do you think a 177/178 plus my other stuff would be enough? (cross my fingers that i get a lucky test....)</p>

<p>i guess no one can really answer this question. i'm just as bad as the 'chance-me' people, but i really want to go to yale law because i am interested in going into academic law or maybe a policy/government position (ie, not big law).</p>

2

<p>If you played a sport, then thats fine for ECs. You should be competitive, but as you seem to realize, its difficult to “chance” you. I would say, again, that you will most likely be a competitive applicant.</p>

3

<p>Yale is impossible to chance because of the nature of faculty review. For the record, among the twelve people in my small group, we had:</p>

<p>Two PhD’s from Oxford, one in English and one in Neuroscience;
A national-championship skydiver
An MD-candidate
A member of the Peace Corps
A Captain in the US Army (Airborne)
Somebody who’d worked in an inner-city public defender’s office; she’d been shot at multiple times while in the course of that job</p>

4

<p>bluedvilmike,</p>

<p>have you been accepted to Yale Law? (thought you were at Duke Law all throughout).</p>

5

<p>bdm…
hmmm, i didn’t know that one could be a national champion at skydiving. how does one go about judging how good a skydive is?</p>

<p>were there any people in your group who seemed to be straight-up academic admits (the oxford phds, i suppose…)?</p>

6

<p>Apparently it’s similar to synchronized diving; you’re judged as a group for your performance.</p>

<p>And it’s hard to tell for sure, but there did not appear to be any students in my group (of 12) who were only excellent undergraduate students. I think there might be one or two that I know of in my class (of 180). It’s hard to say, because sometimes folks surprise you.</p>

7

<p>what was your “hook”?</p>

8

<p>I think Yale does take some people with high numbers but not much else. I had a 3.8x and a 176 with weak softs, and I was admitted this cycle. I think I wrote a very nice PS but otherwise, not much else.</p>

9

<p>I know a lot of recent Yale Law grads. Not all of them walked on water. </p>

<p>For the “mere mortals” I think it definitely helps to have good faculty recs. Yale seems to like folks who are genuinely interested in learning and who were active participants in class. I’m not talking about the kind of folks who talk to hear their own voices, but the kind who actually make thoughtful comments and are known to profs for doing so.</p>