Accepted? Rejected?

If you get accepted in one of your top choices, great.
Now what?
Check if they offered any scholarships? If yes, then how much? Check your other acceptances, see how much money they give you. Compare them. Sometimes you can negotiate with schools to match scholarships.

You got rejected?
Thats fine, sometimes you can contact the school and ask for a reconsideration. It probably won't work, but it is worth a try.

What do you do with all the rejection letters? BON FIRE.

My last advice about this topic is that the highest ranked school you got accepted at is not always the best choice for you.
I say visit the schools, talk to administrators and see how you like it, then make your decision.

Applications

The single most important thing about your applications is doing them as early as possible. I believe LSAC starts accepting them around July 1st every year. That is when you should have your application done.

Most law schools work on a rolling admission cycle. They do NOT wait until all applications come in, and then decide who to accept. What they do is accept people as they come in, so if you are boarder line, they will more likely accept early on in the cycle rather than later in the year.

Applying early is very very important, it can make the difference of acceptance or rejection.

To apply go to www.lsac.org and fill out your universal application. Then when you choose a school to send that application to, you can customize it for that specific school. Pretty slick. You can also have different personal statements for different schools, in fact you can upload as many as you want. Most schools also want a resume.

A couple things about Personal statements and resumes.
Admissions committees do not want to hear about how you want to save the world, or that you want to be a lawyer because your dad is a lawyer. They want to hear why you think their school is good and why you will be an asset. This does not mean to start blabbing about yourself, and saying "I did this, I did that...." That's Bologna. No one wants to hear you talk about yourself just like in real life.

HOWEVER, sometimes, a real life story about overcoming adversity or hardship will do the trick. Or if you were underprivileged or something, they like that sometimes.

But remember to research the schools you are applying to so that you can incorporate some of that into your letter. Your personal statement is the only way admissions committees can know who you really are, and that could work to you advantage. Or maybe not :-)

For resumes, the only thing I can think of is contact the career services office at your prior school and have them help you to make you resume more professional.

Welcome lawschooldiscussion.org readers

Welcome, I hope this blog is helpful to anyone trying to go to law school.
The latest topics are on the top, and the oldest ones are on the bottom.
I havent figured out how to reverse that yet. If anyone knows how, please tell me.

LSAT, all you need to know

There are a few ways to approach this topic, I will try a couple.

First, what is the LSAT?

LSAT stands for Law School Admissions Test. All ABA accredited schools require you to take it.
It has 3 types of sections. Reading Comprehension, Logic Games, and Logical reasoning.
The tests has 5 sections on it. 2 logical reasoning, 1 Logic games, 1 reading comprehension, and 1 wild card that is not graded. This could be one of the three types of sections above.
It also has an essay quesiton, which you write by hand.

you start at 8 am and finish around 1 or 2 pm.
go to www.lsac.org for all LSAT information.

How is it graded?

The lowest possible score is a 120 and the highest is a 180. Why isnt it 1-60? I have no clue, its just they way they do it. The score you get is based on your percentile for all other test takers of the test for the past three years.

What do I need to get in?

In order to get into any law school, you are probably going to need atleast a 145, maybe 140. Now the school you get into with a 145 is not going to be pretty. It is going to be hard as hell, and very competitive.

In order to get into a second tier school (more on rankings in another post), you will need above a 158.
To get into a top 20 school you are going to need around a 165.
Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia and NYU (the top 5) you will need atleast a 170 give or take.

How do you prepare for it?

I took KAPLAN, it helped a lot. At kaplan, they have an instructor who has taken the test before and has done pretty well. the instructor we had took like 40 lsats before and has done very well on all of them. They also have a library of practice exams and old LSATs to go through. They give you books and homework. If you have time for it, and are not neccesarily good at taking standardized tests, then you should look into it or something similar.

I know people who have taken only a couple practice tests and done very well on their LSATS. It depends on you. You can order practice LSATs from www.lsac.org and try a couple of them. see how you do. If it is not as well as you wish, you should probably look into a test prep class.

Anything else?

There is a lot I can say about the LSAT, but some of it I don't remember, and some of it I don't want to remember. If you have any specific questions, post a comment, I'll get back to you.

Undergrad: What should I major in?

First off, to get into law school you don't need any prerequisites. You can major in whatever you want and take what ever classes you want.
Other professional schools, like medical school or dental school, require that you take certain classes in undergrad.
Since you can major in anything, you now have a big decision to make. So, the question becomes what should I major in?

There are two courses of action here:
#1: You are 100% positive you want to go to law school and become a lawyer.
#2: You are considering law school, but if it is too hard to get into, you don't mind doing something else.

#1: If you are darn sure you want to go to law school then I say major in the easiest thing possible. There is no need to make undergrad harder than it has to be. Some people may say "you have to major in English or Political Science to do go to law school or do good on the LSAT." BOLOGNA. Anyone, with enough determination can get into law school or do good on the LSAT.

Major in whatever you want, whatever you enjoy. Basically, do whatever you will do good in, that is, whatever will get you high grades. Half of what schools look at when they decide on accepting students is your UGPA.
If you major in something hard, you probably won't fair too well. But if you major in something easy, you will probably have a high GPA. So, if you are sure you want to go to law school major in physical education, bussiness management, exercise science, basketball science, communications, community studies, sociology, OR WHATEVER, as long as it is easy and will get you high grades. I have found out the hard way that schools will not take into consideration WHAT you majored as much as HOW YOU DID. I majored in Biology.

#2: You would like to go to law school, but you are not sure yet. If you are at this stage, then I must say that you should major in something that will get you a job when you graduate. If you decide not to go to Law school, then at least you will have something to fall back on. Find out what you like, and what the job market is looking for. See what pays well and research it. Ask people what they majored in and if they would suggest it.

When I started college I always thought I wanted to go to medical school that is why I majored in Biology. Well, as you can see, that didn't work out. Luckily I had enough brains to apply to law schools. If I had tried to get a job with a Biology degree I would have had a very very hard time.


In conclusion, if you are sure you want to go law school, major in something extremely easy that will get you high grades. If you are not sure, but are considering it, then major in something that will get you a good job.

Let's get things started!

Anyone interested in going to law school must know a few things before seriously pursuing this life long adventure.
Myths about law school and the legal profession in general:

1. Law and Order is what being a lawyer is all about.
WRONG: First thing to know is that Law and order is based on the criminal justice system. In the US there are two main justice systems, criminal and civil. In the criminal justice system, cases are brought to court by the government (state, city, federal). this is the prosecutors office. In the Civil justice system, cases are brought by private individuals (also companies). While the Criminal courts are huge, the civil courts are also huge.
Most cases in both the criminal and civil systems never make it to court. They are either settled (civil court) or plea bargained (Criminal court). Cases can also be dismissed or a verdict directed for one of the parties.

In conclusion, Law and Order, and other tv shows like it, maybe realistic for cases that actually go to court, but the real world is A LOT less dramatic.

2. It is easy to get into law school
Probably: If you really wanted to go to law school you could probably get in somewhere. A lot of schools accept people with low scores but flunk them out after their first semester or year. The general rule is like this: If your law school was easy to get into then it is hard to finish it.
However, if you law school was hard to get into, then it should be easy to finish it.
Some words of caution, when I say easy, I don't mean as easy as brushing your teeth, I mean it is relatively easy when compared to a school that was easy to get into. You would have to be completely careless and idiotic to flunk out of a "hard to get into" law school.
I will talk about law school grading system in a later post.

3. LSAT and undergrad GPA are a good predictor of who does good in law school
False: The only thing that LSAT and GPA predict are good study habits and hard work. Except for those rare einstein like class mates you have, anyone who puts in enough effort and hardwork can do good in law school.

4. Law School teaches you the LAW
Not really; law school teaches you how to become a lawyer. It teaches you how to use any given law not what the law IS.
You do however learn basic law in all subjects.

5. Law school is expensive
This is mostly true but not always.
if you do well on your LSAT and your UGPA, you should be able to get a scholarship somewhere.

Thats about all I can think of right now, if you have any specific questions leave a comment and I will try to answer it.

Why this blog?

I am making this blog to help people like myself if they want to go to law school.
If you want to know what the law school experiences is like you should read my other blog Ammar Goes to Law School http://aveammar.blogspot.com

This blog will tell you what you need to know to get into law school.


The outline will be like this:
- Undergrad, what to major in, and how well you should do.
- LSAT, how to study, and what you need to get in.
- Applications
- acceptance/you suck letters
- deciding where (or if) you go
- survivng first year

I will be doing in it part by part, not all at once.

I know it is almost June, so I might do some of the applications stuff first.

Till Next time