(◕◕) Essays written: UVA: Why UVA? Michigan: Why Michigan? Berkeley: Why Berkeley? Duke: Optional Essay #1 (Why Duke and why law?) Georgetown: Top Ten List Stanford: Three songs 🎶 (◕◕) General advice: I did much better than I was expecting, and I attribute much of my success to fact that I was able to provide…
Applicant wisdom
Advice applicants left on their LSD.Law profiles, searchable by topic, school, and stats.
277 entries
Admitted to Harvard UniversityLSAT: Give yourself more time than you think you need to study. If you can swing it, a tutor or course is a great investment into your future because just a few LSAT points can mean a huge difference in where you are accepted and/or scholarship amounts. (I used 7Sage and PowerScore.) If you think you left points on…
A few words of wisdom… Do not take advice from anyone on Reddit. No one on there knows what got them into a school or what got them rejected. The only people that know that are AdComms. Listen to “Navigating Law School Admissions with Miriam and Kristi.” Dean Ingber and Dean Jobson actually read applications and…
Didn’t write any optional essays in addition to my personal statement, unless you count the mandatory Yale 250-word supplement (in retrospect, this definitely hurt me at UVA, Penn, and Columbia, where I was above 75th for both stats and didn’t do a good job demonstrating interest) T4 softs, did some research at my…
You want to think about the value add of each item for your admissions package as a piece of the puzzle. The resume highlights your professional experience and skills, your transcripts highlight your academic interest from college and the academic rigor you’ve taken on, and the LSAT?GRE standardizes your academic…
Based on my experience, soft factors and essays are VERY important in law school admissions, especially at T-14 schools (I believe that the more you go up in the rankings, the more softs and essays matter). Strong numbers matter a lot too, but they’re usually not enough on their own to give applicants a strong shot…
Other than the LSAT, nothing I did throughout undergrad/post-grad was solely for my law school application. To me, law school is an opportunity to learn how to solve problems that I am already working on in a way that would otherwise be inaccessible (and in a way that aligns with my strengths). My resume and essays…
Stealing this recap format from TroutLawyer, my fellow URM splitter! Going through this process as a STEM undergrad who never considered law school growing up, it always felt like I was drinking from a firehose. The lawschooladmissions subreddit and LSData are helpful for learning the ins and outs of the process,…
Turn on CRS & make a law school email filter! I literally was only going to apply to like 11 schools but got a surprising amount of fee waivers from CRS and I am so so grateful I opted in. The spam is annoying but you literally can just unsubscribe from schools you are not interested in! Try not to compare yourself…
This cycle truly sucked, and I certainly did not manage it perfectly, but I feel like my successes all shared some common traits that are important to note. I went into the process with a very clear vision for my future: international trade law at a firm, followed by trade policy work. This was clear in all my…
My resume had no demonstrated interested in law school. I had no internships, no law-related research/classes, but what I did have was a cohesive narrative and personal mission that all of my extracurriculars/research spoke to. I was easily able to maneuver that mission for why I should go to law school. To…
Softs: Teach for America- Coach youth sports Getting a MEd in curriculum and instruction Part-time jobs for nonprofits (in college and now as second job) Student government stuff Club sport + black belt in martial art founded a non-profit research interned at a state agency, legal non-profit, and for a union Random…
Chose HLS for unicorn PI placement and the LIPP/LRAP. Aid figures are all first offers - did not negotiate. I had a far better cycle than I expected. I did not have any conventionally prestigious fellowships or softs, my extracurriculars were pretty standard, my interview skills are subpar. I suspect what helped my…
Softs: 4+ years of work experience in progressive advocacy, 2+ of which have been at a legal org that has worked on multiple Supreme Court cases Letters of Rec: 2 from professors (one of whom was my thesis advisor) and one from my direct supervisor. ASK EARLY. I gave my professors a heads up in April, sent the…
There are many paths, none of them will make you happy, only you can do that.
LSAT: Took it twice (both Flex): 171 (August) -> 180 (November). Used a combination of PowerScore Bible trilogy and 7Sage for PTing/blind reviewing/videos. I think that overstudying and burnout is definitely a thing – I took 6-7 weeks off and barely studied between my first and second take, and I think that actually…
Pretty happy with how my cycle went as a reverse splitter. I think I had the benefit of having relatively in-depth work experience to write about in my PS, and having likely strong LORs from two professors as I was only one full year out of college when I applied. I originally planned to apply to a lot more schools,…
Think more, write less
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