T14 Law School applicants

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC just went through the admissions cycle, with multiple T14 offers. My sense is that a cohesive narrative matters, but that it is a much less holistic process than undergrad admission can be -- the median GPA and LSAT of each school are very important markers of a candidate's competitiveness.

Summer jobs can matter in terms of:

(1) how they fit in with the overall narrative of how the applicant came to be interested in law -- the content should be consistent with the applicant's story, but does not need to be in any particular domain.

(2) will the experience help make the applicant competitive for first jobs in the future -- the hiring cycle has shifted to starting much earlier, so the pre-law school experience is more important now (hence the increased penalty for KJDs). A year or more of full-time employment post BA/BS is a real asset.

Excellent analysis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I studied abroad my junior year and travelled for 8 weeks in Africa for shits and giggles. I was admitted to three T14 schools. I honestly don't think an applicant's summer job is that important, although it's possible that things have changed since I went to law school. Nor, after nearly two decades of practice in big law and government, do I think that T14 is the golden ticket many believe it to be.

Difficult for me to accept that the above childish gibberish was written by an attorney or by an adult.

[Anonymous]

May I ask, how important is undergraduate class rank in law school admission? Say, a kid from T20-30 universities, with decent LSAT, does she have to be in top 5% or top 10% in undergraduate class? If not, what kind of law school can she get in?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I studied abroad my junior year and travelled for 8 weeks in Africa for shits and giggles. I was admitted to three T14 schools. I honestly don't think an applicant's summer job is that important, although it's possible that things have changed since I went to law school. Nor, after nearly two decades of practice in big law and government, do I think that T14 is the golden ticket many believe it to be.

+1 The summer after my junior year I stayed in the town where my college was located and worked two jobs, about 65 hours a week. Nothing glamorous or intern-y. Went to a school that was ranked #4 at the time (the rankings have changed a lot since then; it's still T14 but I'm not sure year by year where it falls anymore). I will disagree with PP in that I think T14 is a golden ticket in a lot of ways - it gets you interviews at firms that flat out will not talk to candidates from Rutgers, for example. But if they mean it's no guarantee you'll be a good or successful lawyer, I would agree with that POV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I studied abroad my junior year and travelled for 8 weeks in Africa for shits and giggles. I was admitted to three T14 schools. I honestly don't think an applicant's summer job is that important, although it's possible that things have changed since I went to law school. Nor, after nearly two decades of practice in big law and government, do I think that T14 is the golden ticket many believe it to be.

+1 The summer after my junior year I stayed in the town where my college was located and worked two jobs, about 65 hours a week. Nothing glamorous or intern-y. Went to a school that was ranked #4 at the time (the rankings have changed a lot since then; it's still T14 but I'm not sure year by year where it falls anymore). I will disagree with PP in that I think T14 is a golden ticket in a lot of ways - it gets you interviews at firms that flat out will not talk to candidates from Rutgers, for example. But if they mean it's no guarantee you'll be a good or successful lawyer, I would agree with that POV.

+1

The bolded portion is correct.