Before you sign on any dotted lines and send in your deposit to go to law school, remind yourself that you DO NOT HAVE TO GO.
DO go to law school if you want to be a lawyer (based on what knowledge?
Anna Ivey gives you ruthlessly practical admissions advice
Around this time of year, many applicants have been hearing back from law schools. While a final decision is usually welcome (even a rejection eliminates the frustration of waiting...), there are some situations where a school's response does nothing but add to your uncertainty.
Typically, these "limbo" responses from schools fall into two categories: waitlists and holds.
We recently received this awesome testimonial for our colleague Greg. In lawyer circles, we call this an "excited utterance":
GREG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I got into Upenn law early decision!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
So i will be withdrawing from all the other schools.
My co-author Alison and I are thrilled to announce that our college admissions book is officially up on the Barnes & Noble site and ready for pre-orders. It won't hit the shelves until August, but it's starting to feel real! We're very excited and will post more updates as they happen. Stay tuned!
Today’s Boston Globe ran an interesting story that you should read if you are hoping to secure a job in the future. So that means pretty much everyone.
The takeaway: your online footprint is easy for people to discover, and potentially very dangerous for your future.
It’s great to hear that schools like Boston University, Boston College, Brandeis, and Northeastern are taking the issue seriously.
An article from last Thursday’s Atlantic Monthly — "Law School Applications Are Collapsing (as They Should Be)" — has caught the attention of a lot of people in the legal profession. I’ve had it sent to me by a half dozen friends and colleagues since it came out, and discussed it with attorneys who are practicing in private firms and the public sector.
If you’re even considering the possibility of applying to law school, you should read it too.
What are admissions officers looking for when it comes to activities? They are looking for evidence of the “Core Four” – passion, talent, initiative and impact. That’s why we encourage you to always look for opportunities that would allow you to show admissions officers that you’ve got the Core Four.
For many students, how to show “initiative” is a bit of a stumper.
What am I supposed to be doing about college right now? This is a GREAT question and it is one of the questions I get asked all the time. As you are returning to school following the winter holiday, here are the “To Do’s” you should add to your list – organized grade-by-grade. Get these done by the end of the school year and you’ll be right on track!
Check out this profile in the L.
NYU is planning some major changes to its 3L curriculum. Here's the nutshell from the NYT DealBook:<!--break-->
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Working on your personal essay for the Common Application? Want to avoid the critical mistakes that too many applicants make? Then steer clear of what I call the 7 Deadly Sins!
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Your essay is expected to be your work, and if an admissions officer figures out that your essay is not your work, she will reject you.
Here's a question I hear all the time: "Should I write about [topic X] in my law school application essay?"
That's the wrong question to be asking, but I completely understand why people ask it: essay prompts in the applications can be bewildering.
Here's a real example of what a non-bewildering essay prompt looks like:
If you're applying to law school this coming fall, you probably already know that you'll have to submit recommendations for most of your applications. When you're setting up your LSAC account, though, you'll see references to "recommendations" and "evaluations," and you might wonder why they're using those two different words.
It's important to understand the distinction between an "evaluation" and a "recommendation," because when you enter information about your individual recommenders in your online account, you'll be asked to label each one as an "evaluator" or a "recommender.
I'm trying to figure out my timeline for applying to law school. Harvard, e.g., opens their application on September 15. Is there any advantage to submitting on the 15th rather than the 22nd? If not, at what point in the calendar does the "earlier the better" maxim become relevant?
Great question, and I know you hear a lot of conflicting advice out there.
As part 5 of my series on getting yourself into tip-top shape to apply to law school this fall (you can catch up with parts 1, 2, 3 and 4), I bring up a topic you'd probably rather not deal with: disclosures. And for that, you'll need to get a head start on thinking like a lawyer.
As future lawyers, one of the tasks you will get really, really good at (and very, very bored with) is called document review.