So when I say I got all of law school paid for, I mean all of it, all of the tuition dollars,
a stipend for books, I think, and a stipend for living expenses. And so I know you're
probably thinking that there's some super secret, sophisticated way that I got this
full scholarship and I'm gonna go ahead and disappoint you right away because getting
the scholarship, or I should say finding the scholarship is actually an incredibly.
Story getting the scholarship was a little bit longer, but I'll share with you the short
version of the story, the slightly longer version of the story. And then at the end,
I'm going to give you guys my best advice on how to go about actually finding and
getting these scholarships to law school, depending on where you are in the process.
So the short version of how I got a full scholarship to law school is
that I literally got a letter in the mail from this organization that offers full
scholarships to law school and letting me know that I could apply. I applied,
I interviewed, I got the scholarship, and that was it. The slightly longer [00:01:00] version
of that story is a little bit more melodramatic, a little bit more TV movie.
And the reason is because when I actually got that envelope, I didn't open it up right away,
and I don't remember exactly why I didn't open it up right away. I assume I was getting a lot of
mail at the time. This was January, February of the year I was heading into law school.
So I'm assuming I was getting marketing materials in the mail and brochures from.
Goals and application stuff and, and those kind of things. But the reason
that I remember I didn't open it up right away is because when I finally did open up
that envelope and look at the letter inside, it said that the scholarship
was due that day and it was a Friday, and I went into total freakout mode and I could.
Sort of barely think straight. And I remember going online and looking up what the application
required and just like pulling old personal statements and rec letters and resumes and
transcripts and all of the different things that I had used presumably for
other admissions or other scholarships. [00:02:00] And one of the things that
it did require, because I know I remember not having it was a passport style photo.
So I like got in the car, raised to Walgreens. Got a passport style photo
and then drove as fast as I could to FedEx to overnight this thing cuz you had to send it
physically in the mail. And so I remember sort of driving up to FedEx, jumping out,
running in, and the person at the desk told me that the last overnight pickup had just left.
And I was just beside myself. I like walked back to the car,
totally defeated and just started crying, and I just thought that I had screwed up
my whole future. I was such an idiot. And the only way that I could go to this law school,
which was SM U Law, was to get a scholarship because it was so expensive.
I don't remember what. Back then, but now with scholarships and fees, it's like $60,000 a year.
And so no way was I going to be able to pay that without a scholarship. And I remember
that I was in the car [00:03:00] crying and I called my sister who was, and still is an
actress in LA and at the time she had worked in a day job for a few years in recruiting.
And so I told her everything that had happened. And she said,
Angela, don't worry about it. She said, those deadlines that people make up for applications,
they're not real. They're not hard deadlines. Put a number on it, they put a date on it
so that people will turn in their stuff. She said, just send an email, let them know what
happened and that you're overnighting the application and we'll get there on Monday.
And so I didn't know whether or not to believe her, but it made me feel a
whole lot better. And it made me think that I might have a shot in the dark.
And so I did that and sure enough, on Monday I got an email back saying, yep,
we just got your application and we put it in the stack with the others and we'll let you.
What happens. So I don't really know what the takeaway from that is, but it's probably something
like, always listen to your older, wiser sister or you miss a hundred percent of the shots you don't
take or [00:04:00] never count yourself out, or, you know, don't take no for an answer or something
like that. Um, so yeah, I hope that, I hope that story helps someone who might be in a similar.
So that was the finding out about this scholarship. The getting of the
scholarship was a bit more complex, and so I remember getting an email sometime
later that I had been selected to interview for the scholarship,
and the interview process was like two or three days in Dallas, and so I had to drive up.
And we met with the other candidates. Uh, we met with the former scholars
of the scholarship. We interviewed with the entire board of trustees,
and so it was a pretty involved process. Now, the reason or reasons that I. Think
that I ultimately got the scholarship. They didn't tell me or anything, but what I assume
happened was my LSAT score in undergraduate GPA were higher than median for s smu.
And so I don't know what the numbers were at the time, but now in real time,
the median LSAT score is a 1 [00:05:00] 63, and the median undergraduate GPA is a 3.76.
And my median, or my highest LSAT score was a 1 65 and my undergraduate GPA. 4.0. So I
assume that those numbers helped. The other thing that I think helped, really helped my,
um, my application or my candidacy was the fact that I had worked in public policy in government.
And so this organization in particular, I should look up their mission statement,
but it's all about, um, sort of active democracy and, and working in public policy. And, you
know, um, individual representation and that kind of a thing. And so for the four years of college I
had interned or worked for, um, a representative and then a senator in the Texas legislature.
And so I think I was the only. One of the candidates who had actually worked in
government before, and so I think that really, really helped. I also do [00:06:00] think,
without trying to like humble brag about it, I do think I'm a pretty
strong interviewer. I don't know, I think I've gotten a lot better over the years,
so maybe I wasn't nearly as good as I thought I was back in the day.
Um, but I think I have pretty strong interview skills. Seemed very much like there were,
because there were so many conversations and kind of so many interactions with the
current scholars and the board of trustee members and even some
faculty members. I assume maybe that that skillset also helped me out.
So that's my best guess as to why I got the scholarship and. I'm happy to answer any
questions you guys have about it. Feel free to drop them in the comment section below.
Um, and, uh, and I'll answer them. Now. I am by no means a law school scholarship expert,
but I'm more than happy to share with you guys what I've learned along the way and what
I would've told my former previous self, depending on where I was in the process.
So if you are currently in college, the number one thing [00:07:00] that you can do to make
yourself competitive for as many scholarships as possible is get your undergraduate GPA as
high as you can. Now, I know that's probably advice you've heard before,
but you'd be surprised how many people don't know that their undergraduate GPA is a top two factor.
In not only law school admissions, but law school scholarships. And because law
schools are the number one entities that are giving out this scholarship money,
it's really important to to know what it is that they take into account. So your undergraduate gpa,
getting that as high as possible, that's a whole conversation in and of itself.
But one of the things, one of the tip. That I can give you guys is that I would,
every time I get asked the question of what should I major in an undergrad, the answer is
always major in something that you're actually interested in. And the reason for that is if
you're actually interested in it, you're way more likely to put in the energy and effort in time.
To get your GPA as high as possible rather than majoring in something you think you should
or or the law schools you think the law schools wanna see. [00:08:00] Because the beautiful
thing about law school is that it's agnostic when it comes to what you majored in. So law
schools do not care if you majored in political science or physics or communications or art.
They really don't care. But that number, that undergraduate GPA number goes into law school
rankings, which is why law schools value it so much and, and take note of it as much as
they do. The second thing that I would say for people who are currently in college to focus on
is to get as much work experience slash internship experience slash volunteer experience as possible.
Now, this is bias because of course, my internship slash work experience, uh, absolutely. Contributed
to me getting the full scholarship that I did. But honestly, that's also what I hear from law
school admissions experts, is that work slash internship slash volunteer experience is what
law schools really, really value after, um, the number piece of the application.
And the other thing that really helps you [00:09:00] do not only does it look great
on your resume, but it also creates a lot of content for you to draw from. When it
comes time to create that narrative. And so even if, for example, the the work or
internship or volunteership that you're doing, you don't really know what that through line is.
You don't really know how this connects to why you wanna go to law school or if
you wanna go to law school, that's okay. If you're accumulating these experiences,
you are then able to have sort of fodder to be able to create that through line to
create that narrative down the road when you need to.
Articul. Why you wanna go to law school, why you wanna practice law, or why you'd be a great
candidate for fill in the blank scholarship. Now, if you're in the process of studying for the lsat,
the number one best thing you can do for your future self is to get that LSAT score
as high as possible. And I know that's probably really frustrating to hear, and I know you've
probably heard that a thousand times, but I think it's important to underscore because.
Think that everyone understands, cuz I know I didn't understand at the time. [00:10:00] Just
how powerful that ROI or return on investment is. The time and effort
that you put in studying for the lsat, preparing for the lsat, and taking the
LSAT can return not only tens of thousands of dollars, but hundreds of thousands of dollars.
And I'm not just talking law school admissions, but also law school scholarships and your LSAT
score is the number one factor that law schools look at when they're making. About admissions and
about scholarships. And the main reason for that is the law school rankings. That might
change in the future, but nobody seems to think it will change anytime soon.
And by extension, a lot of the organizations that also give out scholarship money are
looking at that number two, and potentially valuing it just as highly. And so I know
that I mentioned before that I don't actually know why I was selected for
the scholarship. That I was selected for, but if I were a betting person,
I'd say the LSAT score and the undergraduate GPA were really, really high up there.
And so again, if you're just looking for the best return on investment, [00:11:00] the best
use of time and energy, getting that LSAT score as high as possible is going to be a hugely powerful
factor for you going forward. If you're about to start the process for applying to law school,
the best piece of advice I can give you is to apply as early as possible.
And the reason for that is because every single law school operates on a rolling basis,
a rolling enrollment cycle, which means that they're making acceptance decisions
as. They go and because there are a limited number of seats for every
class and there's a limited number of acceptances they can give out.
The earlier in the enrollment cycle and the application cycle that you apply,
the better chance you have of getting one of those. Seats, and that's specifically for the
admissions piece, but they also allocate scholarship money on a rolling basis. And
so if they wanna try to incentivize you to come to their law school, the earlier in the process
that you apply, the less the fewer number of students that you're competing against.
And the better chance you have of getting. Some scholarship money and
being able [00:12:00] to increase that number and get as much scholarship money
as possible. And so the earliest I've ever heard of someone being able to apply for the
law school cycle is September one of the year before you're actually going to go.
And so if you're already signed up for the lsat, uh, studying for the lsat,
Start to get your admissions materials together and get those application materials together
so that when September hits, you're already ready to go. You can apply to all the places
you wanna apply to give yourself the best shot of not only getting into law school,
but also getting as much scholarship money as possible if you have already
applied to law school and you're starting to get acceptances back.
I have three pieces of advice for this stage of the process, and the first one is that I
have never found or heard of a database. All of the law school scholarships by all
of the organizations out there ever. If I ever do hear about that, I will drop
it in the description below so that you guys can, can grab it and take a look.
But at the very [00:13:00] least, lsac, L S A. C does have a very short list of at least some
scholarships that are out there for incoming law students. So I will drop that in the description
below so you guys can check it out. And the second piece of advice is to do what? Well,
not to do what I did because I didn't do this, but if I were going back in time, I was curious.
If I could have done this, and the answer is yes, and that is to just
Google the name of a law school that you've been accepted to or that you're interested in,
followed by the word scholarships. So I Googled SMU law scholarships just
to see if the scholarship that I applied to would have shown up. And the answer is yes.
And not only is the scholarship that I applied to on the list,
there are 12 to 15 full scholarships available to incoming SMU law students,
and I did not know that. And so if you just give it a Google, I don't know how SMU stacks up. In
comparison to other law schools. I don't know if that's a lot, if that's a little,
if other law schools give more, if they give none, um, but it's definitely worth [00:14:00] a Google.
And the other crazy thing that I noticed when I checked out the
scholarship page for SMU was that not all of these scholarships require separate
applications. There are a handful that require the same application,
so you don't even have to do this thing multiple times. So definitely check that. Uh,
because it would've been nice to have known that full scholarship options were even available.
And then the third piece of advice is a little bit more complicated,
a little bit more logistically in the weeds,
but check out this video here that I did with Anna Ivy. She's a law school admissions expert,
and basically what she walks through in that video is the process of scholarship negotiations.
So if you have gotten an acceptance from a law school and they've offered you some scholarship,
And then you have another acceptance from a comparably ranked law school
or slightly higher or slightly lower ranked law school that has
either offered you no scholarship money or less scholarship money.
You can use scholarship [00:15:00] A as ammo essentially to request. That law school B,
reconsider your, your lack of scholarship or your scholarship offer, and see if they will increase
it to match scholarship in law school. A basically as an incentive to get you to,
to go to their law school. And then Anna has some logistical tips for how to go about doing that.
Um, but yeah, definitely a process I was not aware of. Uh, but. It actually works and the
earlier in the process you can do it, the better chance you have of it actually working out for
you. So definitely check that out if you haven't already. If you're an incoming zero L, meaning
you're starting law school this fall, then the number one piece of advice I can give you in terms
of scholarship money is to learn the strategies to get as high in your class ranking as possible.
And the reason is because law schools will give additional scholarship money.
To incentivize you to stay as opposed to transfer to a more highly ranked
law school. And I didn't even know that [00:16:00] this was a thing,
but it absolutely is. And so if you can get as high as possible in the class, you have
a much better shot of being able to request and negotiate additional scholarship money.
And so if you guys are interested in learning what those strategies are to get you as high as
possible into that class ranking, then comment me below because I have a free masterclass coming up
where I breakdown what these strategies are, and I'm happy to send you the. Now the last
age of this process is that if you are a one L, two L or three L, there are still organizations
that give scholarship money out while you are currently going through law school.
And so my favorite story around this, I actually heard from Jasmine Robinson of Jazz Talks Law,
and she was saying how she went to law school with a girl who would go to the
library an hour early every Friday morning before class and just mass apply to these
scholarships. So she would Google and apply Google and apply Google and apply.
And she said that she, after a while, she started getting a rhythm down, and a lot of
these scholarships have overlapping requests in [00:17:00] terms of personal statements,
resumes, cover letters, recommendation letters,
transcripts, that kind of a thing. And so she got this really systematized,
and by the end of law school, she actually had paid for law school is scholarship money.
Now, I don't know the particulars in terms of what was the average. Grant of each scholarship
that she was given or how much money she needed in order to get law school completely
paid for. But if that story inspires you at all, feel free to grab onto it and,
and do something similar and personalize it sort of to, to your situation.
Because even if it is just a thousand dollars here or $5,000 there, you'll get a hell of a
lot closer than, than not doing it. So those are literally all of the things I know about
law school scholarships and where they live and how to find them and how to get them.
I hope that was helpful. Hopefully it gave you a little bit of a data point
you didn't know already or maybe inspired you to take action even in a small way.
And so if any of you guys out there know of other [00:18:00] scholarship opportunities
that are available, Databases or spreadsheets or other things that have worked for you,
definitely let us know in the comment section below. Um, that would be crazy
valuable information to have. And with that guys, yeah, this was a fun one to talk about.
I, I hope it gave some inspiration to somebody and I will see you guys in the next one.