The first step in applying to law school is to maintain a good grade point average (GPA). A grade point average above 3.7 will help a student gain admission into a good law school. If it is too late to produce a high GPA, the alternative is to have an upward trend in the GPA. This means a student did poorly for the beginning of his or her college career but has improved his or her grades upwardly.
The second step is to take the Law School Admission Test (LSAT). A high score on the LSAT, combined with a good GPA will allow an applicant to gain acceptance in the best law schools.
Get Law School Application Information
Once the GPA and the LSAT are known, an applicant should use some online law school predictor calculators to see which schools would be good targets. Several of these predictor calculators are available free online. Try Law School Predictor, HourMd predictor and the predictor located on Law School Admission Council (LSAC) website. These predictors use different data and algorithms to calculate a student’s chances of gaining admission, therefore several predictors should be used.
Prepare for the LSAT
While some schools take a holistic approach to accepting law school applicants, many schools continue to use GPA and LSAT as the main decision factors. Most schools weigh the LSAT score higher than the GPA when considering applicants. Therefore, a high score on the LSAT is crucial to gain admissions to the best schools in the US. It is recommended that the LSAT be taken in June, allowing the applicant more time to re-take should the score be low. Preparation for the LSAT will take several months and can be done by the applicant him or her self or by using a test course. For information on self-preparing for the LSAT use the Top Law Schools discussion board.
To see a small percentage of applicants who were successful or denied admission to a particular law school of interest, Law School Numbers offers data and graphs that depict admitted, denied, and waitlisted applicants for many cycle. Law School Numbers also offers information on scholarship money each applicant received. The data can be sorted by LSAT score, GPA score, Decision Date, and other factors. Law School Numbers is a database of self-reported numbers so there can be misleading information on the website. However, Law School Numbers remains a helpful tool for a prospective applicant to get useful information.
Now that the applicant has the information that helps him or her find the right schools to apply to, the applicant needs to develop a personal statement, get letters of recommendations, write diversity statements and fill out applications.
Personal Statements
Personal statements are important essays that help the admission committees get an idea of who the applicant is. These statements should be written, re-written, edited and re-edited several times. It is not uncommon for an applicant to write three or four statements before settling on the statement he or she uses. For help in personal statements, Top Law Schools offers samples, a free book, and peer reviews. Additionally, some schools allow applicants to write essays about how the prospective applicant would contribute the law school’s diversity. Top Law Schools is also a good resource for diversity statements.
The letters of recommendations are one piece of the application process the applicant has little control over. Once the applicant identifies the recommenders, he or she will send them the required form and then wait for the letter to arrive at LSAC. This process is time consuming and difficult to track. It is a fine line between reminding a recommender to write a letter and pestering the recommender. Also, the applicant will not see the recommendations and will not know how positive (or negative!) the letter is.
The application process is a lengthy one. The applicant should plan on starting in the February before the intended application season (which begins in the fall). By using some of the resources mentioned in this article, an applicant can be armed with the necessary information to have a smooth and successful application cycle.
Robin Crauthers - Robin is graduating with a major in Finance in 2010 and will be attending law school in the Fall of 2010. Robin considers finance and ...
