I am in my zoom drop-in office hours. All of the seniors are asking me a variation of the same question: What should I be doing now, to maximize my chances of admission to my top law schools?
It can be very confusing at this time of year for applicants. There is no strict fall deadline for applications, as it rolling admissions, and yet many applicants want to turn in all of their applications in the fall, rather than waiting for final deadlines in the spring. Some are confused as to when they should apply.
There is also no cutoff for when you can take or retake the LSAT in the fall—some recommend using summer scores and applying as soon as applications open; others recommend waiting to apply until you get the highest score possible, even if you are on the later end of the cycle.
Just as there are many grey areas in law school admissions, with no absolute right or wrong choice, there are some general guidelines that I personally believe help applicants achieve success.
Here are some tips:
- When to apply: Many applicants try to apply by Thanksgiving.If it is approaching late fall/early winter, and yourLSAT score or GPA is still not where you want it to be, I would suggest taking a professional development year, and applying in the next cycle. A huge percentage of applicants to law school take a year off before applying. In general, if you work on applications in the summer, September and October and apply by Thanksgiving, you are in good shape, timewise.
- When to take the LSAT: I personally consider November to be the last LSAT to ideally take before applying, and still be in the early part of the cycle. I’ve seen later LSATs sometimes affect admissions, unless the applicant’s score went way up. Preferably, you would take it the summer before you apply, and then retake if needed in the early fall. Consider whether to sign up for score preview. Score preview allows you to see your LSAT score, then decide whether to keep it or cancel it.
- When to ask for recommendations: Make sure to give your recommenders 3-4 weeks to complete your recommendations. I’ve seen this hold up many applicant’s files from being complete. In the aforementioned zoom office hours I held, many applicants had started to work on personal statements, and had taken the LSAT, but several had not started asking for recommendations. Professors are very busy in the fall semester.
- Your personal statement: I’ve seen applicants delay writing their personal statement for months because they thought that they needed a unique topic. Having read thousands of personal statements over the years, I can tell you that a well written essay will always be unique in its own way, because it is written from your unique perspective. Write on a topic that is of importance to you, and that you relate to, rather than worrying too much about being completely unique.
- Connect with admissions:Take advantage of opportunities to meet admissions officers. Thankfully admissions events that had been cancelled for years, or only offered by zoom are now back in person. Attend information sessions when law schools are visiting your campus. Go to the LSAC Forum (see www.lsac.org for details) in your region, where you can meet with admissions representatives. While zoom is a very convenient platform for meeting with people, this is the first application cycle in years when nearly everything offered in person.
Hillary Mantis consults with lawyers, pre-law students and law students. She is Assistant Dean of the Pre-law Advising Program at Fordham University and author of career and admissions books, including The Essential Guide to Law School Admissions https://www.amazon.com/Essential-Guide-Law-School-Admissions-ebook/dp/B0BTDVYZ8C
Questions? Write to Hillary at altcareer@aol.com.
