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Wondering how the law school admissions process works?
Want to learn more about the process from an insider.
Stay to the end as I explain what you need to apply to law school and then how your application
is handled by law school admissions.
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Hi, this is Beau Baez, and today I want to discuss law school admissions.
Having served on a faculty admissions committee for several years, I’ve seen lots of student
files and talked to many law school applicants.
Documents.
Law schools use the services of the Law School Admissions Council, or LSAC for short, to
compile most of the required admissions documents into a standardized report.
You will send LSAC your official transcripts from all colleges, graduate schools, and professional
schools you’ve attended.
Some law schools require letters of recommendation, which you will also send to LSAC.
Finally, if you’ve taken the Law School Admissions Test, or LSAT as its generally
referred to, the LSAC report will provide all LSAT data from the previous five years.
Though the vast majority of applicants take the LSAT, more and more law schools are accepting
the GRE as an alternative to the LSAT.
Though unless you are a math whiz, I recommend you take the LSAT.
In addition, law schools will want the following documents sent to them directly rather
than through LSAC: an application, a personal statement, resume, and an application fee.
Once your file is complete, then the law school will review your application.
Sorting.
Because of the large numbers of applicants, law schools sort students into three groups
based on LSAT and GPA.
There are the presumptive admits, the presumptive denies, and then the maybes in between.
The presumptive admits get admitted, unless there are any red flags in their files, such
as a serious crime or academic dishonesty issues.
The presumptive denies are rejected quickly.
When I review the presumptive deny files I glance through them in less than a minute.
So don’t expect your volunteer service or work experience to overcome a low LSAT and
GPA.
Admissions Work.
Most of the work by the admissions are those applications in the middle and the presumptive
admits with the irregularities.
The law school wants to admit the most qualified group it can get but they also need to fill a
certain number of seats for its entering class.
This is where the game of cat and mouse begins.
If you are in this nether world, you might not hear back from the law school until April
or May.
Also, the law school knows from prior experience that not everyone it accepts chooses to attend,
That’s where the waitlist comes into play.
The waitlisted applicants are kept in reserve so that the law school can fill in
vacancies as the occur
throughout the summer, and even through the
first week of classes.
When I attended Georgetown, someone in my section left during the first week of classes
when Harvard pulled him from the waitlist.
Letters of Recommendation.
Make sure you get a letter from a trusted source.
This person needs to speak about your knowledge, skills, and abilities.
Some students will find a Senator or a Congressman to write a letter as a favor to a relative.
But these letters are practically worthless, as they don’t address the applicant’s
knowledge, skills, and abilities.
In other words, a letter from the President of the United States in your application file isn’t going to
make up for a low LSAT and GPA.
One of the oddest letters I’ve read involved an applicant’s next-door neighbor.
The letter mentioned that the applicant was a nice person, and did a great job mowing the lawn.
Now, in law school, mowing the lawn is just not one of the skills and abilities we're looking for.
Interviews.
Some law schools will ask you for an interview, while at other law schools you can get an
informal interview by just showing up at the law school.
This is your chance to shine, especially if you are in the waitlist group.
For those of you that are in the presumptive admit category, the key is to just not say anything
that's going to cause the interviewer to have concerns about you.
Follow the process.
When you apply, work with the admissions department.
Don’t go outside of the process unless your parents have a special connection with
someone at the university.
For example, if your parent was the roommate of the college president, then your parent may make
a call to that person and try to get you admitted.
Now law school admissions departments are used to these kind of admissions and
they always reserve a few spots for these applicants.
I know someone who decided the day before classes began that she wanted to attend, so
her father made a call and was admitted without any documentation in her file.
The documentation came in after classes had already begun.
Even though I was on the faculty admissions committee, I was not the point person for
applicants.
Yet each year I would get emails from applicants, explaining to me their special circumstances.
Even worse, a couple of times an applicant’s parent would call me on the phone and plead their adult
child’s case to me.
That’s just never a good thing to do.
As you make plans to attend law school, I wish you well.
Make sure to watch my other video on law school rankings, which will help you understand how
to use the rankings to get you into a better school.
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