College Confidential’s forum system contains many comments on what prestigious law schools look for. However, I would appreciate a thread that collects a large number of such comments from current or former law students at such schools. In other words, if you were accepted into a prestigious law school (Yale, Harvard, Stanford, Michigan, Chicago, Northwestern, UCLA, etc.), I would love to hear your story and how you got in. A separate thread for these posts means they are conveniently collected in one place; requiring respondents to be real students at these institutions means we will get advice from those who have first-hand experience. Please feel free to respond to this thread if:
- You have been admitted to a prestigious law school. If you have relevant experience in this area as someone who actually got accepted, please consider helping the rest of us by telling us what worked for you.
- You are interested in hearing from such admittees. If you agree that this thread would be helpful, fell free to comment below so others see the level of interest in this topic.
- You know of a previous thread just like this one. Well, maybe someone else already had this idea...and you know that I'm reinventing the wheel. Please enlighten me!
Let me go ahead and sum up every answer: the person had a good LSAT, good GPA, or a combination such that the person was above the school’s medians. For Northwestern they also had at least a year of work experience. For Yale they had some special snowflake quality in addition to great numbers.
Bookmarking this thread because I’m interested in people’s personal experiences in the application process. I’ve done extensive research on law schools and the basics of getting in, but I’d like to get to know some individual circumstances. 
@Demosthenes49: Thanks for the response. What is your connection/source of knowledge on law school admissions?
@ImamoratiAnon: Glad to know you share my interest!
The relevant experience is reviewing years of data on law school admissions. The irrelevant experience that people seem to really care about, for reasons I cannot fathom, is personally attending a T14 law school.
I appreciate your input. At the risk of sounding ignorant: From what source did you access the admissions data?
You can find a fair bit on the TLS forums. I am also very fond of the website Law School Numbers.
Good information…thanks for your help.
I’m in category #1. My law school days were almost 20 years ago, though.
What worked for me:
- I had a GPA above 3.8 from a top 10 LAC
- I had an LSAT score (and just one score, as I took the LSAT only once) at the median (as per US News) of the best law school that I got into
- I met with Harvard and Yale alumni in person and asked them how they got in, and they all said that it was necessary to have some “twist” to your life that you could describe in your personal essay and that GPA/LSAT numbers alone wouldn’t necessarily work. I wrote my essay about my life’s passions at the time, which were shown through my coursework, major and places I’d lived, and I showed how a JD would tie into those passions.
At top-5 schools at least there are more qualified applicants than places available so don’t count on a good GPA and LSAT score alone to result in admission; those may put an applicant into a “sufficiently qualified” category but if they’re around the medians for the school, the school may then look to other factors (such as work experience) to pick who to accept from among the “sufficiently qualified” applicants. Only if GPA/LSAT numbers are above the school’s medians will they alone pretty much result in admission.
@HappyAlumnus Thanks for commenting!
I got accepted to most of the Top-14, including one of HYS this year. I had a solid GPA and LSAT, but I outperformed my stats— I have to think because I had some interesting work experience (and a good personal statement).
If you’re gunning for the top law schools (and have the stats for it), here’s what I think is the right strategy: Apply to basically the entire T14, including schools you might not be that interested in because of location or whatever else. This gives you the best shot at getting a big merit scholarship. Even if it’s from a school you don’t love, you can then use that offer to leverage more money out of a school you’re more interested in. They have no way of knowing how serious you are about accepting that competing offer. Application fees can add up, so email and ask for as many fee waivers as possible.
HYS only do need-based aid, not merit aid. But I found that the formula for need-based aid can be a bit subjective, and I was able to squeeze a little extra money out of them by showing them my biggest merit offer from a lower-ranked school. Don’t apply ED anywhere because it kills any negotiating power you could have (unless you know you want to go to Northwestern, which offers a full-ride to ED admits).
Also — if a school has an optional essay, you should do it. I was dumb and skipped most of those. I still got in to those schools, but they didn’t offer any merit aid.
Check out the profiles on LawSchoolNumbers, and you can get a good sense of how various applicants do. MyLSN is a site that aggregates the info from LawSchoolNumbers, so that can also be useful to play around with. The basic takeaway is that, unless you’re an URM or have special “softs,” you want to shoot to be above a school’s medians for GPA and LSAT. Law school admission is more numbers-based than undergrad — but there can still be some quirky results.
Edit: Also FYI, Top 15 isn’t really a thing for law school. The Top 14 schools according to US News (Yale - Georgetown) are considered the top tier. UCLA, Texas, Vanderbilt, etc are all strong schools, but they’re considered more regional. A degree from a T14 carries more weight nationally and gives you the best shot at working at a big law firm (if that’s what you want).
@SlippinJimmy: Thanks for the information!