Law School Admissions

Class Location: Anywhere with an Internet connection.

Description:  This class will go over the law school admissions process.

Prerequisites:  Willingness to learn.

Required Text:  None.

Objectives:

1. Find out how rewarding it is upon completion of law school.
2. Find a law school which fits you individually.
3. Find out whether a part time law school program is right for you.
4. What to do if you get waitlisted.
5. Find out whether the Masters of Law degree is worth your while.

Before applying to law school, you need to understand more than just the requirements for entry. You should also understand the current law school admissions environment so that you know what challenges to expect and what you’re getting yourself into.

As with many other graduate programs, admission into law school is becoming increasingly competitive. The top schools are receiving record numbers of applications each year. While you might not want to hear this as an aspiring lawyer, it makes sense in the current economy. First, in a sagging economy, law school provides a three-year reprieve from the working world. Second, those students graduating at the tops of their law school classes are earning an average starting salary of $160,000 in private practices—pretty appealing even considering the law school loans you’ll have to pay off.

Making the situation even more difficult for college grads who want to go straight to law school after finishing college, many law schools are increasingly interested in older applicants—those with a couple of years of post-graduate work experience on their resumes. This doesn’t mean that traditional fresh-out-of-college applicants don’t have a chance. It just makes it even more important for you to show your leadership potential through part-time work and extracurricular activities during your undergraduate years.

Before rushing headlong into law school, first consider the fact that many recent law school graduates leave the field soon after they enter it. They make it through law school only to discover that law isn’t really right for them. That’s a lot of years of study and a lot of dollars dedicated to something only to realize you made a big mistake.

Even if you decide law really is the right profession for you, you still need to make a good case for this when applying to law school. If you can’t convince an admissions committee that you want to go to that school for the right reasons, you might get a rejection letter despite your qualifications.

Law programs vary from school to school, so it’s important that you find the program that’s right for you. You’re going to perform the best and learn the most at a school that suits your attitude, interests, and career goals. There’s more to a law school than its name. If you don’t thrive in a highly competitive environment, don’t go to a school that has one, even if that means foregoing the word “Harvard” on your law degree.

Applying to schools based solely on their rankings will also hurt your chances for acceptance. An admissions committee knows how to recognize when a candidate isn’t right for its program. Even if you have the qualifications, a school probably won’t accept you if it feels that both you and the school would be better off if you selected a different program. You’d be much wiser to find a school that’s a good fit for you and have a productive three years than suffer through three years of misery at a school where you’re destined to be unhappy—provided you can get into it in the first place.