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WHO GOES TO LAW SCHOOL?

Nationwide there are about 44,000 seats in ABA-approved law schools. There are twice as many applicants as there are seats, but this statistic is misleading. It is so easy to apply to law school that many do it to see if they'll get into a certain place without being very serious about really wanting to go. Others apply to places without seeking proper advisement and so are rejected because they were too ambitious. Almost all Manhattan College students who avail themselves of pre-law advisement here get into law school. Those who apply on their own have more mixed results.

Every year between eight and fifteen seniors from Manhattan go directly to law school. Another ten graduates from previous years will also enter law school in that same year. Delaying application to law school either to earn money or to gain experience in the working world is not frowned on by law school admissions committees. In fact, it may be considered an advantage.

WHAT IS REQUIRED TO GET INTO LAW SCHOOL?

There are no required courses for law school admission. There is no major that is preferred by law schools over any other. All applicants must have graduated from college and have taken the LSAT (Law School Admissions Test), which is offered four times a year--in June, October, December, and February. Law schools do not conduct personal interviews. Some application forms call for letters of recommendation; others do not. All application forms ask for a personal statement.

JOINING THE LSDAS

HOW LAW SCHOOLS MAKE DECISIONS

Grades. Students with GPAs lower than 3.0 will have difficulty gaining admission to law school, even with a high LSAT score. A high LSAT and low grades translate into "smart but lazy,"--something law schools have little interest in. Law schools read transcripts carefully and notice whether the applicant has taken hard upper-level courses, gone into a difficult major, or double-majored.

BE WARNED!! Because Manhattan did not have minus grades until the fall of 2004, for previous semesters a B+ numerically equals a 3.5 and a C+ equals a 2.5. However, in order to accommodate the many schools that do award minus grades, the LSDAS automatically converts your plus grades to 3.3 and 2.3. Minus grades have a .7 after them: A-=3.7. Be prepared if you have a lot of plus grades to see your average adjusted downward by the LSDAS.

LSAT Scores. The LSAT tests three different kinds of ability: reading comprehension, logical reasoning, and analytical reasoning. The test is very important and law schools trust it. An extremely high grade point average and an average LSAT will rarely translate into admission at one of the top law schools. Students may take the LSAT more than once, but scores will be averaged.

LSAT scores usually correlate quite closely with SAT scores. LSATs are scored from 120 to 180 (which corresponds to the 200-800 range of the SAT). If you earned an average of 500 on your verbal and math SATs, you can expect a 150 on the LSAT; an average of 570 on the SAT will probably mean a 157 on the LSAT. (You need only remove the terminal zero of the SAT score and add a one in front of it to arrive at a presumptive LSAT score: 460=146). Scores over 160 are practically essential for admission to the top 25 law schools.

Preparing for the LSATs is essential. There are a number of ways to do this. None of them have been proven to raise scores dramatically, but the data indicate that students who do not prepare at all score considerably lower than those who do. Do something: buy old LSATs from Law Services; buy review books from bookstores; buy a computer tutorial program; or take a review course. Above all, do not go in cold.

The review courses are expensive (over $600) and often make students feel overconfident, but many who have taken them say they needed the discipline imposed by the courses and that they received valuable tips from their instructors. A recent study conducted by Law Services concluded that students who take review courses score on an average of one point higher than those who prepare using other methods.

The best time to take the LSAT is in June after the Junior year. At this time you are out of school and have had a month to prepare. In contrast, the work load at school is always very heavy around the October and December test times.

Personal Statement. This element of the application is more important than many people think. It demonstrates whether or not you know how to write well. If your essay is memorable, it singles you out as special. It is important to work with the Pre-Law Advisor or another reliable second party on your statement. You do not want to sound like everybody else. Two model essays are included at the end of this material.

ADVICE FOR DECIDING WHERE TO APPLY

Be realistic. Pick six or seven schools you really think you have a chance at. Make sure to pick one safety school. Do not assume when Columbia says that it took four who had the same LSAT and grades that you have that this means that you have a chance. Those four were probably exceptional cases: a Congressional Medal of Honor winner, an Olympic athlete, a successful Hollywood screen writer, and the child of a benefactor of the school.

See the Pre-Law Advisor. THIS IS VERY IMPORTANT!  The Pre-Law Advisor has data going back several years showing where every MC graduate who applied to law school was accepted or rejected. Included are those students' GPAs and LSAT scores, so you can see which law schools take which kinds of MC students.

Consider Leaving the New York City Area. Law schools like geographical variety. Of two students with equal grades and scores, law schools will prefer the one who is not local. Some local law schools may tell you that they have high pass rates for the state bar exams and that it is better to stay in state. DO NOT BE INFLUENCED BY THIS. Go to the best law school you can get into. Everyone takes the review class for the bar. DO NOT CONFUSE A GOOD LEGAL EDUCATION WITH PREPARATION FOR A TEST ON THE SPECIFICS OF STATE PRACTICES AND REGULATIONS.

WHEN TO START THE PROCESS

WHEN TO APPLY

Many law schools have rolling admissions, so applying early is in your favor. However, the most competitive law schools often wait until after the application deadline has past before sending out acceptances. Practices vary from school to school; ask the admissions representatives about their schools' specific practices.

FINANCIAL AID

TWO MODEL ESSAYS

The first essay was written by a student applying for admission to a veterinary program, but it is an excellent example of what a personal essay should be. IT IS ORIGINAL, SPECIFIC, and IT TELLS A STORY. Remember as you write your statement that thousands of other applicants are doing the same. Pick those facts and episodes out of your life that distinguish you from everyone else. AVOID PLATITUDES like "I want to go into law to help people" or "I've always admired my uncle who is a lawyer."

When I was six, my father came across a fox cub caught in a trap on our property. We had not set the trap and assumed that it belonged to our neighbor, who was a hunter. My father called him, then brought me down to see it. The fox was lying down by a stump on which the chain from the trap was caught.

Our neighbor arrived, apologizing profusely as he loaded his pistol. My father tried to cover my eyes, but I pushed his hand away; I had never seen a fox before--or a gun. When he fired, I didn't cry, or pass out, or throw up like many six-year-olds might have done. I just watched as the terrified fox collapsed and was put in a plastic bag.

"Don't worry," my father said. "He's not in pain anymore."

I looked at him, puzzled, and replied, "Of course not, Daddy. He's dead."

Now, fifteen years later, I am a very different person, but I still maintain many of the characteristics of that sardonic six-year-old, leading to an outlook on life that many might think unusual. For example, I am a vegetarian, but consider myself in a slightly different class from many of the neo-hippies and health fanatics with the same diet. I care very little if the person across from me eats steak or tofu, and I toss mice to my pet reptiles without shedding a tear. I view it as perfectly normal to be carnivorous, but I have personally chosen not to be.

In my science classes, I don't abstain from dissections like some of my fellow students, knowing that if I am ever to enter a scientific field, these are the things I must do. At the same time, I discourage my teachers from forcing anyone unwilling--or even uninterested--to dissect animals, for I feel it is a waste of life unless anything beneficial in the long run is learned.

I support such organizations as The Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Federation, but I loathe more radical organizations which raid labs and try to horrify people into supporting them, without accomplishing much.

Some people feel I am being much too casual about what are supposed to be my moral views, but I have always been proud that I could mix my bleeding-heart tendencies with realism. I have worked at an animal hospital for five years, and people often ask me how, if I love animals so much, I can deal with their being "put to sleep" all the time. I explain that we don't euthanize animals for fun, but only if they are in terrible pain or terminally ill. The response is usually along the lines, "Well, at least they don't suffer anymore…."

And, of course, they don't. They're dead.

The second essay is especially good because it deals very well with the discrepancy between the student's very high GPA and her rather mediocre LSAT score. It is generally not a good idea to make excuses about a lackluster LSAT. Law school admissions committees are not impressed by the "I'm just not a good tester" line; they hear it too often. However, this student is quite persuasive.

I was never so embarrassed as on the day I was told by my review course instructor, a Greenwich Village comedian/banjo player, not to be embarrassed about being in the "slow" group of the Princeton LSAT Review course. The word "slow" was what had stung. I had never been "slow" at anything. In the third grade I was promoted to the advanced reading group. In grammar school I was the second fastest sprinter (including boys). On my summer vacations I would read eight books a week. By the time I was eleven, I was not only bilingual in Spanish and English, but I had taught myself to read Spanish. In both high school and college I was number one on the tennis teams. So how, may I ask, was I "slow"?

Having been a straight "A" student from grammar school to college, I found the word "slow' registering with a deafening thud. Yet, try as I might in my LSAT course exams, my results were consistently below average. Was I stressed? Was I indeed "slow"? Why were people who had always done worse in school than myself doing well above me on the LSATs? I'm not going to say the test was ambiguous--or that it discriminated against Hispanic females, because I had always succeeded by the system in the past, including on standardized tests.

So why was I, a student with a double major in English and history with a GPA of 3.885, a MAAC All- Academic Athlete, scoring so poorly? The discrepancy frustrated me. Then one night I realized, as I was taking some un-timed test sections, that I was able to complete 35-minute sections in 40-45 minutes and be 80% correct. Yet when I did them timed, I was lucky to be 50% correct. Thus I realized that it was the time factor. Had I had seven extra minutes a section, I know I would have done much better. In a sense, I was "slow."

I do not, and I state this emphatically, feel that my LSATs are indicative of my potential as a student. I have taken on the rigors of two heavy reading and writing majors and excelled in each one. I feel that these successes are better testaments to my potential and ability of not only being a competent law student at ---------Law School, but of being an above average one.