Apparently, the University of San Francisco dropped 38 places in the newest US News law school rankings. The fact that this is even possible illustrates the colossal stupidity of the law school rankings game. Every year, I have a student who says something like “Well, I am going to choose School X because they are ranked 10 spots higher than School Y.” A student will do this even when school Y was offering him scholarship money, and school X wasn’t. But next year, as this student is studying for his final 1L exams, an entirely new set of rankings will be published. How’s that going to feel, paying full price at a school that has now dropped below the school that was offering him a full ride? The rankings will readjust again when he’s a 2L. And again during when he’s a 3L. And again and again, every single year of his legal career.

Every spring, the Internet goes all giddy with posts about “winners and losers” in the new law school rankings. I thought about linking to one such article, to illustrate the silliness, but I thought better of it. Dear students: Please stop making decisions about where to invest $200,000 based on a set of arbitrary rankings. Yes, there’s a major difference between Harvard and USF. But you already knew that, before looking at the rankings. And the “fact” that USF used to be ranked higher than McGeorge, and is now ranked lower than McGeorge, means absolutely nothing. Odds are, those rankings will reverse themselves next year.

I’ve got a great new crop of LSAT students grinding away on their preparation for the June LSAT. Some of them are also working on their personal statements and sending me drafts. One draft came accompanied by this question:

My long term goals include advocating for medical professionals who have assisted in “comfort care,” deemed as “euthanasia,” as well as working on “right to die” legislation. It is something that I believe in fully. The estate planning will be rewarding and also the way I pay my bills, but this other work is what I really care about. The reason I left it out is because right-to-die, physician’s assisted suicide, etc. is controversial. I worry that if I mention that in my essay and then get a really religious person reading my personal statement I am screwed. What do you think about this? 

Continue reading ‘Is my law school personal statement too controversial?’ »

A question from a student who just started my LSAT class in San Francisco:

Hey Nathan- I have some questions about the application process. I have already asked some of my professors if they would write me recommendation letters and they agreed, and I’m still polishing my personal statement. Do I need to wait until everything is done, or can I add stuff little by little? Or do I wait until after the test to upload everything on LSAC? Thank you!

Continue reading ‘When should I upload my documents to LSAC?’ »

“If given the opportunity to do it all over again, would they?”

That’s the key issue in Ann Levine’s second book, The Law School Decision Game.  For many lawyers, the answer is yes.  But for many others—myself included—the answer is a resounding no. If I had read this book before attending law school, I wouldn’t currently be $150,000 in debt.

Continue reading ‘“The Law School Decision Game”’ »

My LSAT classes and private seminars are heavily question-driven. Students can ask whatever they want, and I do my best to answer. I’ve always gotten a ton of questions that range away from the LSAT and toward the broader law school application process. (After all, the only reason to take the LSAT is to go to law school.) So I realized early on that my job wasn’t just LSAT preparation. It’s also to help people make good decisions about where to apply, when to apply, what to include in the application, and what offers to accept.

To that end, I just added a new book to my class curriculum. It’s called The Law School Admission Game, written by Ann Levine, former Director of Admissions at two law schools. I blew through it over the past two days–it’s a great read–and I decided immediately to give it to all my students from this point forward. It fills a huge hole in what’s offered by most LSAT prep programs, and I’m proud to offer it as part of my classes. In this post, I’ll give my thoughts (overwhelmingly positive, with a couple quibbles) about the book. But if you’re applying to law school you really should just buy yourself a copy, which you can do here:

I promise you’ll be very happy you did.

Continue reading ‘Winning “The Law School Admission Game”’ »

(Note: To make this post evergreen, I should add a note that makes the timeframe specific. This post applies to anyone thinking of submitting an application to law school any time between late November and the Spring of the following year. The time to apply to most law schools is very limited: September-October of the year before you want to start law school. If you’re thinking of applying any other time, then this post applies.)

It’s mid-November, and lately I’ve found myself yelling a lot in class about how it’s already too late for 2012 law school admissions. This shocks a lot of students, so I thought a clarifying blog post might be in order. If you haven’t already put in your applications for 2012, you should probably wait a year–and it’s not because the job market for lawyers is currently crap, although that’s also very true. Really, it boils down to one reason:

Several of my former students have told me, some of them weeks ago, that they’ve already been admitted for the fall of 2012. Many of these students have also told me that they’ve gotten big scholarships–six-figure offers are not uncommon. They have one thing in common: they all applied at the beginning of the admissions cycle, in early fall. If you apply now, you wanna guess who’s going to be paying the tuition for these students? That’s right–YOU are.

Continue reading ‘Why you shouldn’t apply to law school now’ »

Short answer:  No, not really. The problem is that everybody else has the exact same idea.

Continue reading ‘Can’t I just start at a shitty law school and then transfer to a better one?’ »

Every time scores come out, I get a few emails that sound something like this:

“Hi Nathan.  Scores just came out, and I got a 158.  Should I retake?”

The answer, as usual, is “it depends.” It depends primarily on whether that 158 is a good score, or a bad score, for you. And there are a couple other considerations as well.

Continue reading ‘Should I retake the LSAT?’ »

I’ve been getting a lot of questions about law school personal statements lately: “What should I write about?” “Should I do a different one for each school?” “How do I even get started?” “What’s the most important thing I should think about?” “Is it okay if I write about my dog/grandma/nationality/personal trauma/favorite TV show?” “This whole personal statement thing: WTF?”

My short answer to all of these is “Relax. You’re overthinking it. Get it done, and get back to studying for the far-more-important LSAT.”

Much longer, much less sarcastic answers below.

Continue reading ‘Law school personal statements–WTF?’ »

I try to convince my students to apply to 30 law schools.  Those that follow my advice almost always end up with lots of offers of admission, and very frequently they end up with scholarship money as well.  Those that don’t follow my advice get fewer offers of admission, and little to no scholarship money.  It’s as simple as that.

Applying to 30 law schools can be costly–on the order of $3,000.  But you must view this expense in light of the $150,000 bomb that you’re about to drop on law school.  If three grand gets you a $150,000 scholarship, then that’s obviously a good investment.  As a matter of fact, if three grand has even a slight chance of winning you a $150,000 scholarship, it’s still a good bet.  So save your pennies, max out your credit cards if you have to, and apply broadly.  You can thank me later.

And if you really can’t scrape up the money for those applications, you might have another route.  Welcome to the magical world of fee waivers.

Continue reading ‘How can I afford to apply to so many law schools?’ »