How to Really Read a Law School’s Website

We’ve all been there. You’re perusing a school’s website, reading, and wondering to yourself, “How much of this can possibly be true?” You’re seeing statistics on class size and graduation rates, looking at law school rankings and reviews, and all you can wonder is whether you’re being given the old run-around. How do you know what to read into and what to take at surface value? After all, law schools are marketing.
Well, won’t you be happy to know that I intend to use this blog to impart some of the knowledge I’ve picked up in my search for law schools? Now isn’t that convenient?

So here goes:

1. Watch out for numbers. Numbers represent the hardcore facts in a law school’s information, so they comprise the bulk of the stuff you’ll read. Unfortunately, they’re also some of the hardest facts to check up on. To debunk the numbers, especially those like average class size and student to faculty ratio that you can compute yourself, do the math. Find the number of students and faculty members, and the number of classes offered each term, and do the math. These other numbers are readily available on the website. Other numbers, like graduation rates and acceptance rates, are published by the LSAC and organizations like it.

2. Check up on dates. To further debunk the numbers, make sure that the data you have is the most recent. When it comes to job placement and average graduate starting salary, especially, a lot of law schools would prefer you see numbers from 2007-2008, when the law job market was still high.

3. Look out for anywhere on the website current students are offering their opinions. If there’s a way you can e-mail someone, do it. Student blogs are the motherload. Students blogging about their law schools can be expected to be about half-honest. You know that they were chosen to blog because they like where they are, and you’ll never read a blog written by someone who has had a bad law school experience. The students who do blog, however, can tell you a lot about day-to-day life at that school. They’ll tell you about their classes, their professors, and their fellow students. Even if the website shows just quotes, they can be really valuable tidbits of information if you take them with a grain of salt.

4. Read the news that’s not on the school’s website. Many law schools post news stories on their home pages to show you what they and their alumni are up to. Go ahead and read those stories, but also google (or whatever search engine you prefer) the law school and the story to find out more.

5. Check out the page for the library and other current student resources. Law libraries are supposed to be some of the best in all universities, and the more resources they have for students and the more opportunities they have to talk to librarians, the more helpful (and good) they’ll be.

6. Check out the Facebook page, if there is one. See how quickly the school is responding to questions posted by other prospective students and check out the comments people leave. You can also look through pictures (though expect everyone to be smiling) and follow any links they may have posted.

Of course, there are tons more things you can do to debunk the myths posted online. These are only a few. But, the more carefully you read the better off you’ll be. And that’s good for both of us!

Where I’m Applying to Law School

At the beginning of October, I went to the New York law forum with the pre-law society. There, I sat in on a panel and heard some shocking news: apparently, the average law applicant applies to upwards of 15 schools.

When I decided I wanted to go to law school, Dr. Devine had me make a list of all the things that were important to me in the school I went to, and then showed me where I could look up schools that had those characteristics. (For reference, the LSAC publishes profiles on all the law schools they accredit.) I used the book and came up with a list:

1. Georgetown law (my absolute dream school)
2. Harvard Law
3. New York University Law
4. Notre Dame Law
5. Pitt law (I can’t wait to visit!)
6. Washington University in Saint Louis Law

That’s 6. Not 15. Naturally, I was a little worried right off the bat. I mean, if I’m supposed to apply to 15 schools and I have only 6, I must be doing something wrong, right? Maybe my criteria were too specific, maybe I was looking for entirely the wrong things, and maybe I just had unrealistic expectations.

But, as I walked through the forum and asked questions, the answers I got comforted me. All of the law schools I talked to were really upfront about answering my questions, so while many of them brought up new programs I had never heard of and sounded awesome, many also said that maybe their programs weren’t the best for me. One alum even suggested somewhere else for me to look.

So, while the average law school applicant may choose 15 schools, I have decided to stick with my 6 unless something jumps out at me. You never know, it might. Carnegie Mellon did. And if it doesn’t, that means I picked the right six initially.

So what do you think? Where are you applying?

Why I Chose a JD/LLM

Before we get too much farther, I feel like I should catch you all up on my law school decision process. I decided to go to law school in first grade, when my family would play “court.” I know, I know, it was ridiculous, but on days when we didn’t have school and they had to work, my parents would drop me and my little sister off at our grandparents’ house so they could watch us. Inevitably we’d eat peanut butter and banana sandwiches on white bread (which, let me tell you, was a commodity since my Mom never let us have anything but wheat at home) and play court. My Grandpa would pretend to have committed some terrible crime – which were typically no more terrible than taking too many free samples at the grocery store – and we’d put him on trial. My sister would judge, my Grandma would be the defense attorney, and I’d play the part of the hardball prosecutor with a vendetta against societal wrongs.

The older I got, however, the less I wanted to be the prosecutor and the more I wanted to be the defense attorney. After all, who actually wants to have a vendetta against societal wrongs? I began to want to help people, not necessarily to get out of crimes, but to right some wrong society had done to them. On top of that, both of the grandparents who so graciously let me rant my little heart out at six years old about people who broke the rules were immigrants to the United States, and their stories inspired me. By the time I graduated high school, I wanted to be an immigration lawyer.

Immigration law is an interesting field, or so I’ve learned. It involves a lot of cases and a short amount of time, and most of the time you don’t get to help any one person too much. That, I suppose, is its downside. It does, however, still give me the chance to go to court and rant a bit, and I get to know people whose backgrounds and experiences are quite different from mine. I get to be a part of the transition process, answering all those questions that people think are really inane and in actuality are quite helpful, and I get to go home at the end of the day feeling like I contributed something. I’ve had a very global experience to boot, so I am more than willing to foster travel and time abroad.

So the JD/LLM. Joint degree programs in law schools are a great way to not only combine interests, but also direct your law experience toward a certain career. To recap, the JD is the actual law degree (a juris doctorate,) while the LLM is a masters-level degree in law. It doesn’t lead to a bar exam, but it does allow you to study the laws of some other country. So, in being an immigration lawyer with a JD/LLM I’ll be well versed in American immigration law and hopefully the legal system of another place so I can specialize. It just made sense for me. And hopefully that’s why I’ll make a lot of my law school decisions: because they make sense.

LSAC GPA Weighting and How it Helps YOU

This week I took a big step: I added all of the schools I’m applying to to my Law School Admissions Council (henceforth abbreviated LSAC, because even when typing that’s not fun to say) homepage. It may be important to note right off the bat here that the LSAC does more than just the LSAT. LSAC maintains online applications for a lot of law schools (kind of like the Common App for undergrad) and is also the primary body that sends in law school applications.

The LSAC also maintains data on all accredited law schools, including the LSAT scores and GPAs of each school’s admitted students. On the website, you can run a search by GPA and LSAT score, and the LSAC will produce the chance you’d have of getting into each school on the list. You can then save schools you’re interested in to your homepage to access their applications quickly.

So I was talking to Dr. Devine last week (as part of the Oyez! editors meeting), and somehow (and I never quite remember how) the topic of searching for law schools came up. My question for him (and now for the LSAC, as he had no answer) was what GPA I should use in my searches, my weighted GPA from the LSAC or my Carnegie Mellon GPA. So far, I’ve submitted the question, and now we just have to wait for the answer.

Here’s what I do know, though:
The LSAC weighting system substantially helps Carnegie Mellon students. It’s based on the caliber of your undergraduate institution, so considering the toughness of our school they give us a break. And that’s awesome.
And, if the LSAC suggests I use my weighted GPA, that takes a bit more pressure of the LSAT. (Which, if you will recall was knowledge tidbit number 2: the LSAT is hard.) And that’s always awesome.

(P.S. Have you noticed that I really like parentheses?)

Hello World!

Hey, guys. My name is Eleanor, and I am applying to law school! Besides sounding like I’m constantly attending a pre-law anonymous meeting (henceforth abbreviated as pla, my very own acronym!) I will be updating you on the application process and all the really neat things I’m learning. Here’s what I know so far:

1. Getting into law schools is hard. Some people say it’s all about the LSAT score, others say it’s a general combination, but any way you look at it, law schools are very sought after right now and a lot of people are applying. That means that my applications (or yours, if you’re applying my ramblings to your own life) have to be as good as humanly possible to get in. (And we’re talking Steve Martin in his SNL days good.)

2. The LSAT is also hard. It’s designed to make you think and test your logic skills, which means it’s one of those standardized tests that actually makes you think. When I took the LSAT (the first time, anyway), there were kids in the hallway who were already planning to cancel their scores by the break. And what other test includes a “cancel my score” section on the last page?

3. Applications are intimidating. Now that I’ve settled into my school routine, I’ve begun to look over the applications for the schools I want to apply to. So far, they’ve all been pretty long (and we’re talking essay test long, here) and knowing that law schools already started accepting applications makes the pressure that much more. (As a matter of fact, many law schools started taking applications October 1, and every single admissions person I’ve talked to has advised I get my applications in early. Ack!)

4. Carnegie Mellon is awesome. No, really. There are a thousand resources on campus for students applying to law schools (and of course, Dr. Devine tops that list), but there’s also a trade value that comes with a Carnegie Mellon diploma. I’ll go into more detail next time.

So that’s what I know for now. I’ll be keeping you updated as I learn more, so here we go!