Starting college next fall. Best way to prepare for law school starting day one?

Graduate School Law School
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<p>Hi there,</p>

<p>Starting Fall of 2010 I will be a proud college freshman and will thus start the next big step in my goal to enroll into Law School and become a lawyer. I have done a lot of reading on the matter of preparing for Law School both online (places like top-law-schools.com, this forum) and by reading books too. However, I would appreciate it very much if anyone could point me in the direction of some good older posts here on this forum or a website or a book that could help me start college properly so that I could get into a top law school (perhaps there's a good website or post that I have missed!). Maybe even write an original post on what I have to do to become a competitive candidate for places such as U of Chicago, Duke or maybe even Yale (that is my dream but I do realize that it is a very hard to attain dream).
I of course do realize that the main thing is a good GPA and high LSAT score but I am also interested in the ECs that you feel are more valuable than others, for example, I've always liked the idea of trying student government in college. I am going to be attending Pacific Lutheran University (a small private college in the state of Washington) and plan on double majoring in Economics (or maybe a Business related field) and Political Science. My only worry with that is that I plan on talking more to people who have majored in Economics to see how difficult is the math component of it because even though I tend to do pretty well in math I do realize that I am not the most gifted of mathematicians. </p>

<p>So basically any tips, advice, anecdotes on what to do in college so to better prepare for the time when I'll be applying to Law School would be very appreciated! Perhaps there are things you regret not doing in college that you know would've helped you when applying to Law School?</p>

<p>Cheers!</p>

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<p>Work hard and get a high GPA.</p>

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<p>Don’t focus too much on ECs, but demonstrating leadership through them is slightly helpful. Getting substantive work experience over the summers helps, too; an application is also greatly improved by the Rhodes, Fulbright, Marshall, Truman, etc. However, I fear that the work experience and fellowships are out of your grasp because of your school.</p>

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<p>How so flowerhead? From what I kept hearing was that unless you’re in HYPS it doesn’t matter to Law School admissions boards as much what college you went to. But from what I understood from your post is that you think PLU isn’t prestigious enough for me to be able to get work experience or get into a fellowship?</p>

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<p>Top law schools cull the best students from the application pools using two main criteria. GPA and LSAT.</p>

<p>Elite law school usually know a great deal about the top feeder schools simply because so many students apply and enroll (<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2997104-post25.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/2997104-post25.html&lt;/a&gt;). Therefore, law schools weigh GPA and LSAT about the same for them.</p>

<p>However, top law schools know much less about small schools that don’t send many undergrads to elite law schools. Therefore, students from these schools must have very high LSAT to prove that they are among the brightest of the brightest and catch the attention of top law schools.</p>

<p>Work experience, and especially majors, are essentially weighed only for applicants on the edge of getting in.</p>

<p>Lastly, majoring in Econ at the undergrad level hardly requires any math. Taking one calculus class would suffice at most colleges.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>Thanks IvyPBear! That was some good info right there :)</p>

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<p>As far as I know, prestigious employers holding highly sought summer programs don’t look for students from your school. Regarding the fellowships, I’m pretty sure none of them have ever taken a student from your school.</p>

<p>I don’t think this will be particularly detrimental; however, it pretty much means that you’re locked out of a school like YLS, no matter how high your numbers are.</p>

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<p>[Undergraduate</a> Colleges](<a href=“http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/apply/undergrads.html]Undergraduate”>http://www.law.harvard.edu/prospective/jd/apply/undergrads.html)</p>

<p>Even though it is probably only one person, it is still one person from Pacific Lutheran. Harvard Law isn’t Yale Law of course.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately for you, HLS admissions is significantly different from (and relatively easier than) YLS admissions…</p>

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<p>[Yale</a> Law School](<a href=“http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/profile.htm]Yale”>Profiles & Statistics | Yale Law School)</p>

<p>Your university is not listed here…</p>

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<p>Oh thank you for that link! I kept trying to find the list of undergrad institutions represented in Yale Law but for some reason wasn’t able to!</p>

<p>It isn’t yet, but some other universities that are not ranked that much higher than PLU are which is why I’ll still try of course :slight_smile: Besides I never thought that it would be realistic or easy, I’ll put in my best effort and if it won’t be enough then it just won’t. There’s plenty of other law schools that I would be more than ecstatic to get into, Yale is just the obvious dream school for most people :slight_smile: </p>

<p>By the way, you wouldn’t happen to have a link to Stanford’s undergraduate representation…? Can’t find their list either</p>

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<p>They don’t post one, as far as I know. The general impression I got from the admitted students weekend was that Stanford greatly prefers students from prestigious undergraduate institutions. This observation is purely anecdotal, however.</p>

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<p>Oh OK. Thank you for all the info flowerhead!</p>

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<p>As stated earlier, undergraduate econoimcs has a very small math component. Anyone whose taken Calculus BC (and passed) in high school has more than enough knowledge. </p>

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<p>In my opinion, false. </p>

<p>I would argue that there are definite tiers set up, among which HYPS are at the top, accompanied by MIT, Caltech, the other Ivy Leagues, and a few other Top Schools (including but not limited to UChicago, Northwestern, etc). In my opinion (and those of others on this board who have supported me making this statement in the past) there is virtually no difference between a Harvard applicant and someone at the bottom of this tier (perhaps a UChicago applicant), unless the two students were EXACTLY the case (which is never the case). </p>

<p>However, the difference between a UChicago and your school would be much more notable, as would be say a UCLA and your school, and that could make a difference to a Yale or a Stanford. To say that everything below HYPS is equivalent though is to me blatantly false. </p>

<p>As far as fellowships and job opportunities go, I’m going to have to side with flowerhead. Although I don’t necessarily agree with the policy, statistics have already shown that especially in light of the recession, employers have tended to lean more strongly towards students that yield from higher end universities. For fellowships, these have historically gone to students at higher end universities (particularly those with the money to encourage high level research which so often produces great fellowship candidates). </p>

<p>HLS and YLS have two completely different admissions systems; HLS is almost purely numbers based while Yale (largely due to its smaller size) has almost a requirement of strong soft factors (such as EC’s, WE, and school name) to distinguish oneself, since virtually all competitive applicants have strong numbers. Evidence of this can be seen by analyzing the admit classes through the links you have provided. Let us use a fairly easily distinguishable set of colleges – the UC schools – to differentiate between the two schools. If you are not familiar, there is a clear hiearchy of UC Berkeley/UCLA being the top UC schools, with UC San Diego and UC Davis arguably being the next best, and the rest of the UC’s falling below them. At YLS, we can see how (out of 76 colleges represented), only UCLA and UC Berekely had students attend. However, at Harvard (with 283 colleges, more than the amount of students in YLS’s class), the top seven UC’s were represented.</p>

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<p>I think there are several exaggerations in this thread that are doing the OP a disservice. </p>

<p>“an application is also greatly improved by the Rhodes, Fulbright, Marshall, Truman, etc. However, I fear that the work experience and fellowships are out of your grasp because of your school.”</p>

<p>Disadvantaged - yes- out of reach - no. The Rhodes, which is probably the most elitist fellowship in terms of favoring prestigious undergrads, took people from the University of Arizona, Regis University, Pitt, Louisville, and Truman State this year. Fulbright is a huge program and takes thousands of people every year from all sorts of backgrounds. Good read the bios on their website. </p>

<p>“However, top law schools know much less about small schools that don’t send many undergrads to elite law schools. Therefore, students from these schools must have very high LSAT to prove that they are among the brightest of the brightest and catch the attention of top law schools.”</p>

<p>Not really. Go to lawschoolnumbers.com - probably the best tool for anyone considering law school. If you graph applicants by GPA/LSAT you will see that most people get into the same schools as other people with their numbers, regardless of where they went to undergrad. There is a slight boost for people who went to Ivies, but nothing like what you are describing. </p>

<p>“you’re locked out of a school like YLS, no matter how high your numbers are.”</p>

<p>According to their website, this year Yale took people from Arkansas State, Birmingham Southern, Florida A&M, Furman, CUNY, Loyola Marymount, Milsaps, Montclair, Morgan State, CUNY, Rutgers, Taylor University, Kansas, Mary Washington, and a bunch of other schools you’ve never heard of. To say that the OP has no chance no matter how high his numbers are is disingenuous. </p>

<p>Full disclosure: I’m a law school applicant with very high numbers and a non-prestigious undergrad.</p>

<p>As for the OP’s original question. 80-90% of your application will consist of your undergraduate GPA and LSAT score. The best thing you can do for yourself at this point is to start getting A’s. In three years, it may well turn out that you aren’t good enough to get the LSAT necessary for a top school. At least you will have a strong GPA to fall back on. </p>

<p>A couple other points (remember that these are far, far less important than GPA/LSAT). Become heavily involved in 2-3 service-y activities on campus and try to set yourself up to lead them after a couple of years. Even better, found your own organization. You have three summers in college. Make use of them - internships, research, etc. Finally, consider taking 1-2 years after college to do something interesting. A non-profit job, working abroad, and fellowships are all good options.</p>

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<p>Yes, but again, PLU is no University of Arizona, Pitt, etc. Moreover, the vast majority of Rhodes recipients come from prestigious universities. The odds are incredibly stacked against the OP as it is for a Rhodes, going to an unknown school makes those odds even worse.</p>

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<p>It really depends on the school. As I said earlier in this thread, SLS, YLS, and Boalt seem to weigh one’s undergraduate institution heavily. Especially at YLS, where professors review applications, it is indubitable that a prestigious name will carry an applicant further than would a no-name school.</p>

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<p>Unfortunately, as YLS used to do, the list doesn’t indicate the numbers. They were probably “1” for each of those schools. But even for those ones, how do you know their circumstances? Were they URMs? What do you know about them and what they’ve done? That list doesn’t really prove what you want it to prove. Of course, nobody should speak in absolutes like, “you’ll never get in.” There are always exceptions to the rule. I routinely tell people with 150s not to bother with Boalt, but three years ago, a non-URM 150 was admitted there. Would I still stick to my claim? Definitely. One exception doesn’t really disprove my claim: The odds are YLS are incredibly stacked against the OP, moreso than they would be for an applicant coming from an Ivy, or even a school like UT-Austin (which is excellent, and sends many people to all the top law schools). </p>

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<p>Well no wonder you’re arguing this.</p>

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<p>Not sure if this was directed at anything I said, but just to clarify myself to some of samonite16’s points: </p>

<p>1) My point regarding UG prestige was more aimed at WE than it was at fellowships, but if you noticed I did not completely discount the possibility of the OP getting significant WE or a fellowship, I just noted (which in my opinion is completely valid) that the chances are largely stacked against them and that history has shown students from less prestigious UG’s often do not have the resources to compete for such jobs/fellowships.</p>

<p>2) As far as numbers and UG reputation go, I made a good point to show that UG school is a soft factor which is slight compared to LSAT and GPA. However, at a school like Yale where the admit class is so small and standards are so high, many applicants often fall between a very condensed middle 50% of LSAT and GPA, meaning soft factors become much more relevant (unless you put yourself above this category, which is completely possible). </p>

<p>The main point of my post was to not disillusion the OP into thinking that UG school does not matter at all; their post that all schools under HYPS gave me the impression that they were. I was trying to show that there are most definitely tiers of schools lined up below HYPS, and that these do make SOME difference (albeit a small one), and that difference is slightly more important for schools like Yale and Stanford which have a history of placing a high level of importance on soft factors.</p>

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<p>One major advantage of going to a LAC is that you can get to know your professors really well, and probably come out with strong recommendations. If you have good numbers, these recs can help set you apart from applicants who have attended more prestigious colleges. (I went to an even more obscure LAC in the northwest and got in to every law school I applied to, including Boalt Hall - though this was decades ago so things are probably more competitive now :)) Internships and jobs that demonstrate your ability to operate in the real world can also help you a lot. And don’t forget that you have an excellent public law school in your own backyard, in case the elites don’t work out for you. Meanwhile, try to enjoy college while building your credentials!</p>

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<p>Thank you samonite16 and FauxNorm for the confidence boosting information! I also felt that not going to the most prestigious school might disadvantage me but not make it impossible… I’m just going to try my hardest and see how I do instead of sit around crying that my school isn’t prestigious enough!</p>

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<p>…you could also work super hard and try to transfer.</p>