5

THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS

—EXECUTIVE SUMMARY—

Schools put enormous effort into considering each person’s application.

Most schools use rolling admissions and a fairly standard admissions model.

Understand the criteria that law schools evaluate: brains, legal potential, and
personal attributes.

—Remember that admissions professionals, mindful of
the need to fill classes with human beings
rather than data points, seek to understand who you are
as well as what you have accomplished.

The top schools also value diversity in their classes.

 

This chapter describes the mechanics of how schools make their admissions decisions and who makes them. In most cases, a school’s admissions professionals will determine whether to admit you or not based upon the whole of your application folder—your job histories, educational achievements, extracurricular and community involvements, honors and awards, personal statement and other essays, recommendations, and interview evaluations. Not every admissions officer will weight the different elements in the same way, or for that matter grade them in the same way, but the process is consistent for each and every applicant to a school. Although the admissions process at different schools varies somewhat, it varies much less than might be expected—partly because admissions officers at the various schools talk with one another about procedures—but probably owing more to the desire schools have to be thorough in their evaluation of candidates. Schools go to great lengths to be sure they have given every applicant a fair chance.

“ROLLING” ADMISSIONS

Most of the top law schools adhere to a rolling admissions process, in which applications are evaluated as they are submitted. The school begins to accept applications sometime in the fall (often October 1, but occasionally as early as September 1 or as late as December 1) and will continue to accept them for several months (usually through February 1 or 15). Applicants will generally learn of the school’s decision within a month or two (or three) of the completion of their files, although there is considerable difference in the speed at which various schools respond.

Note that your application will receive no attention from admissions officers until it has been completed, meaning that everything that is required has been received by the school. Thus, if your second (but still required) recommendation has not yet been submitted, the admissions secretarial staff will keep your file open until they receive the recommendation, at which time they will indicate to the admissions officers that your file is now ready.

THE STANDARD ADMISSIONS MODEL

WHO ARE THE ADMISSIONS DEANS?

The dean of admissions is typically someone who has worked in law school admissions for some years. At the top schools, this generally means someone who has had at least five years’ experience as a more junior admissions officer at the same school, or an equivalent amount of time in charge of admissions at a less prestigious school.

WHO IS ON THE ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE?

Generally, the admissions committee includes four to seven faculty members who have been selected either by the dean of the law school or the dean of admissions. The appointment of faculty members to the committee is on a rotational basis. The selected professors are most often tenured, and come from all different fields at the school. The school’s admissions director may sit on the committee; if not, he or she will be utilized as a consultant to it. In addition, a number of schools now include students on the admissions committee. They may be voting members or just advisors.

HOW ARE DECISIONS MADE?

There are several models for making admissions decisions. One that is commonly used has the dean of admissions be the first reader of all files. She will then immediately accept those she feels are outstanding, reject those who are clearly below the school’s quality cutoff, and forward a modest number in the “middle group” to the admissions committee. The faculty members on the committee will, among themselves, come to a consensus about which of these files to admit.

A variation on this model has each of several admissions officers give a first reading to various files, with each person having the power to accept or reject the obvious winners and losers but, once again, referring those on the margin to the whole admissions committee (or to other admissions officers). In this variation, it is common for the admissions dean to cast a quick glance over the various files he or she has not been assigned, just to make sure that nothing is amiss in the process.

Another approach has two admissions officers give a “blind” reading to an applicant’s file, meaning that each one reads without knowing what the other officer has decided. If both admissions officers rate the applicant as an “accept,” then no more work needs to be done: The applicant is accepted. Similarly, if both admissions officers rate her as a “reject,” the applicant is rejected. On the other hand, if they disagree about her, or both rate her as an “uncertain,” then her file will be considered further. At this point most schools have the admissions committee decide as a group.

Thus, the role of the admissions committee is typically to decide the hard cases, generally with the input of the admissions dean or other senior admissions officer—or to add perspective to the reading of a file when one or another of its members has specialized knowledge that can help illuminate a candidacy. For example, a faculty member on the committee who has taught in Italy may be able to interpret an Italian academic record more expertly than can an admissions officer.

THE CRITERIA

Chicago has explained what it looks for in candidates: “Our task is to select those candidates who appear to demonstrate exceptional academic and professional promise and, at the same time, put together a stimulating and diverse entering class.”

Strong academic promise. “We seek indications that an applicant has the discipline and ability to handle a demanding program. The overall quality of the undergraduate school attended and its grading practices will often be important considerations in interpreting the GPA.”

Professional promise. “We will review the transcripts . . . to determine the difficulty of the courses taken and whether the college record has given the applicant an opportunity to demonstrate analytical skills and the ability to speak and write with precision, fluency, and economy.”

Diversity among students. “We make special efforts to ensure that each entering class contains students from a variety of racial, ethnic, educational, and geographic backgrounds. Such diversity provides students with new perspectives on the law and promotes informed discussions inside and outside the classroom. We are particularly interested in receiving applications from women and minority candidates, two groups traditionally underrepresented in the law.”

Other schools look for similar qualities. One easy way to learn what the top law schools want is to look at the recommendation forms they use. These often ask a recommender to comment on specific qualities or to check boxes in a grid, indicating whether the applicant’s analytical ability, for example, is in the top 2 percent, 5 percent, 10 percent, 25 percent, 50 percent, or bottom half of those the recommender has seen at similar stages in their careers. Leading schools ask recommenders to evaluate similar qualities. Consider Cornell and Columbia, both of which have particularly detailed forms. Using the Cornell criteria as a starting point, and “mapping” Columbia’s onto it, reveals how similar are their interests:

The picture that emerges suggests that these two schools are looking for candidates who are very similar to the Chicago profile. That profile could be summarized as: brains, demonstrated potential for the rigors of legal study, and outstanding personal characteristics.

THE EVIDENCE SCHOOLS EXAMINE

THE CRITERIA TRADE-OFF

The question inevitably arises: How do admissions deans determine whom to accept, given that some applicants will have outstanding job records or extracurricular credentials but unimpressive grades and LSAT scores, whereas other applicants will have the reverse set of strengths and weaknesses? In other words, how do admissions directors trade off the different admission criteria? There is no set answer to this. There are, however, three considerations to keep in mind.

First of all, it is important to understand that the top schools do not need to make many such trade-offs. The Yales, Stanfords, and Harvards are in the enviable position of having many applicants with sterling undergraduate records, impressive work experience, and significant extracurricular achievements, which negates the need to trade off criteria.

Second, schools will weight criteria differently depending upon the applicant. For example, someone who is still in college and has had one part-time job at a restaurant can expect to have his undergraduate record, extracurricular activities, and LSAT scores count very heavily. Someone with seven years of work experience can expect that somewhat less weight will be placed on the academic measures; her extensive experience provides a great deal of information about her, making her experience a much more important indicator of her potential than it was for the man still in college.

Third, different schools will have different priorities, causing them to apply a somewhat different set of criteria, and criteria weighting, to the process. Northwestern, for instance, is taking fewer and fewer students straight from college; it values the depth and nature of work experience more than other schools do.

THE IMPORTANCE OF DIVERSITY

Law schools believe strongly in the values of diversity. They feel that a mixture of races, nationalities, educational experiences, and job backgrounds in their student bodies enhances the learning process and also makes for a more attractive group of graduates, given that employers need a wide range of potential recruits. Schools express their desire for diversity partly by marketing intensively to hard-to-attract groups, partly by adjusting admissions standards for those it most desires (especially African-Americans and Latinos). Schools’ desire for diversity inevitably influences how they evaluate their applicants.

WHO YOU ARE IS IMPORTANT

Admissions officers have a lot of information about you when it comes time to make their decisions. Most applicants assume that the admissions process is devoted only to weighing applicants’ grade-point averages and LSAT test scores and they therefore make a fundamental mistake. Admissions offices are made up of human beings, generally those who have chosen to work in a human resources capacity, and consequently they are particularly interested in admitting real human beings rather than a set of statistics. You will find it hard to gain admission if you are just so many data points on a page. Applicants who can make themselves real, that is, human, are more likely to gain supporters among the admissions officers and committee members. You should therefore take every opportunity to distinguish yourself from the mass of the applicant pool and make your human qualities apparent. The reason it takes so much time and effort to accept or reject a given applicant is because admissions officers try very hard to understand the person, not just to glance at the test scores.

THE USE OF INDEX NUMBERS

The most important differences in various schools’ decision-making processes concern the use of index numbers. See the sidebar for more information.

INDEX NUMBERS

Many schools use an “index number” to aid their selection process. This number is constructed by applying a formula to an applicant’s undergraduate grade-point average and LSAT score. One school’s formula recently has been:

(4.159 × UGPA) + (.24 × LSAT) + 2.0 = Index

An applicant with a 3.0 undergraduate GPA and an LSAT score of 170 would have an index number of approximately 55.3. An applicant with a 3.6 and 160 would have a roughly equivalent index number (approximately 55.4). (Thus, each LSAT point equates to about .06 GPA.)

These formulas are constructed by the Law School Admission Council (also called LSAC or Law Services) for the schools that choose to use them. The schools provide Law Services with the LSAT, undergraduate GPA, and first-year law school grades of the most recent first-year class. Law Services then determines what weighting of the LSAT and undergraduate GPA would have best predicted the first-year law school grades of that year’s class. Because the calculations are revised annually, and differ according to school, the weights accorded to the LSAT and GPA results can vary substantially.

Consider the case of three Washington, DC, law schools. Their index formulas at one time were:

Imagine two candidates applying to each of these schools. Martha has a high LSAT score (170), but a low GPA (2.64). George has a middling LSAT score (160), but a high GPA (3.90). Crunching the numbers reveals the following results for them:

In the year when these schools had the formulas above, one would have ranked Martha and George as equal, another would have ranked Martha first, and the third would have ranked George first. In other words, the differences in their formulas produced every possible result.

The lessons from this are several. Knowing the formula a school uses (and its relative emphasis on LSAT vs. GPA) can tell you a great deal about your chances. Martha benefited from formulas giving more weight to LSAT scores, whereas George benefited from those favoring GPAs. In fact, the greater the difference between your LSAT and GPA, the more impact the relative weighting of LSAT and GPA will have. (This was true of our candidates: Martha, for instance, had widely different LSAT and GPA numbers.) And yet, no school’s formula gives GPAs as much weight as it gives LSAT scores. In the example above, George’s very high GPA never accounted for as much as 20 percent of his score, even at the school that valued GPAs most highly, George Washington. In other words, the LSAT accounted for more than 80 percent.

That is not the end of the story. The ways in which schools use index numbers vary almost as much as the formulas they use. The devotees of easy decision-making use them as their primary decision-making tool. Those applicants with index numbers above a chosen cutoff are accepted; those below it are rejected.

Some schools use a refined version of this system. They adjust the GPA component of the index number for such things as the quality of school attended, the grading policy of the school, and the difficulty of the specific curriculum followed. Thus, someone who did mechanical engineering at the United States Military Academy (Army)—a very demanding major, at a top-quality school, with a very tough grading policy—would be treated quite differently from someone who majored in criminal justice at a local college. A 3.0 GPA for the former student would be impressive; a 3.0 for the latter would not be.

Other schools use an index number to select students for part of their class and a file-by-file analysis to fill the rest of it. Hastings, for example, has traditionally filled approximately half of its class using an unadjusted index number; it fills the other half by looking closely at people’s applications, not just their GPA and LSAT data.

A very common way to use index numbers is to consider people above a specified index number to be “presumptive admits”; people below a certain cutoff are considered “presumptive rejects”; and people with scores between these two will require a close, individualized look at their files. The files of the presumptive admits are examined to make sure there is nothing amiss—no troublemaking at college, no choosing the easiest courses on campus, no felony convictions, and so on. The vast majority of those in this category will be accepted. The same is true, in reverse, of those in the presumptive reject category. Their files are examined to see whether there are hidden talents and experiences. If not (true for the vast majority in this category), they are rejected.

Another, very common way to use an index number is to sort people’s files by index number, but not to rely on the number for decision-making purposes. Some schools using this approach read all files of a given index number at one time; they are trying to compare “like” with “like.” Others assign applicants’ files to admissions officers on the basis of their index number. One officer, for instance, will be given the top sixth of files (based, of course, upon their respective index numbers).

Two factors account for most of the variation in the use of index numbers. In general, the more prestigious and higher ranked a school, the less it will rely on an index number in its decision-making. (Many of the top-ranked schools make no use at all of index numbers.) State law schools, by the same token, are more likely to rely on index numbers in their decision-making than are private schools. Given their greater need to justify their decisions—to legislatures as well as applicants—using an index number confers a spurious precision and fairness to their decisions, making them more readily defensible.

Behind the use of index numbers, of course, lurks the specter of the U.S. News & World Report rankings, which place such inordinate weight on LSAT and GPA data. (See Chapter 4 for a further discussion of rankings of law schools.)

The grids displayed in the ABA-LSAC Official Guide to ABA-Approved Law Schools (showing what number of students with a given LSAT score and GPA apply, and how many are accepted) give a rough picture of the way various schools value LSAT score relative to GPA.

ADMISSIONS OUTCOMES

There are four different outcomes to admissions deliberations. You can be admitted or rejected, of course. You can also be put on a wait list. If the committee feels it needs more time in order to accurately assess a specific application, however, it may place the application in a “reserve” or “hold” category. This is most likely to occur to someone who has applied early in the application season and whose credentials put him or her on the margin.

THE LAW SCHOOL DATA ASSEMBLY SERVICE

Almost all of the American Bar Association–approved law schools require applicants to subscribe to the Law School Data Assembly Service (LSDAS). The LSDAS is administered by the Law School Admission Council (LSAC), a nonprofit corporation established to coordinate and streamline the law school admission process. All law schools approved by the ABA are LSAC members.

For each law school to which you are applying, the LSDAS prepares a uniformly formatted report. The report contains information that schools use, in conjunction with the individual application and personal statement, to evaluate your file. The information contained in the report includes:

➤ An undergraduate academic summary

➤ Copies of all undergraduate, graduate, and law school/professional school transcripts

➤ LSAT scores and writing sample copies

➤ Copies of letters of recommendation processed by the LSAC

The Law School Report, compiled by the LSDAS, must be received by law schools in order for your application to be deemed complete. This report provides officers with a standardized version of many elements in your file, including a summary of all academic transcripts (see below) and scores. Additionally, the report contains what is called the admission “index number” (discussed in detail previously) for schools that use indices and request them from the LSAC.

 

GRADE CONVERSION

The LSDAS simplifies your grades into a standard 4.0 system to make it easy to compare candidates. A common set of numerical values has been selected to represent the various grading systems used by different colleges. The LSDAS does not attempt to assess the value of grades earned at each college. Along with the converted grades, copies of all transcripts are included. It is important to note that only undergraduate grades are represented in the index number. Grades received in graduate and other programs do not affect it.

GRADE CONVERSION TABLE*

For a complete description of the nuances involved in this conversion process as well as the other elements of the report, consult the information given in the LSAT & LSDAS Registration & Information Book, provided by:

Law School Admission Council
Box 2000
661 Penn Street
Newtown, PA 18940-0998
Tel: (215) 968-1001
Fax: (215) 968-1119
www.lsac.org
lsacinfo@lsac.org

ADMISSIONS DEANS DISCUSS ADMISSIONS PROCEDURES

HOW THE PROCESS WORKS AT THEIR SCHOOLS

 

I read all the files and send a large portion (one-quarter to one-third) of them to the faculty for a final decision. Our entire faculty is involved in reading applications; up to four faculty will read each file. Each faculty member rates a file based on the factors he or she considers important. Megan A. Barnett, Yale

Files are read on a rolling basis, in the order they are completed. Each file is read by at least one person (in addition to me). Ann Killian Perry, Chicago

We look at files only when they are complete. Two or three people screen the file and either make a decision—which I will typically review as the final reader—or, in perhaps 15 to 20 percent of cases, refer the file to the whole admissions committee. The possible decisions are admit, deny, or reserve (which means that we need to wait because we have already made as many offers of admission as we are comfortable with and need to see how many acceptances there will be). Rick Geiger, Cornell

A file’s first reader has the option of accepting, denying, or holding the file for further review. If the file is held, it will be reviewed by a second reader and/or possibly the entire admissions committee. Monica Ingram, Texas

The admissions staff generally make 80-plus percent of decisions. Ten to 20 percent go to the admissions committee. Andy Cornblatt, Georgetown

Applications are not evaluated by our admissions committee until all required materials have been received, and are generally evaluated in the order in which they are completed. All files are read by at least two admissions officers. The Columbia system does not recognize any applicant as either a “presumptive admit” or “presumptive deny” based solely on the quantifiable indices of LSAT score and undergraduate grade-point average. Jim Milligan, Columbia

We have a large team that reads applications, including faculty and admissions staff. Every file is read by at least two readers, some by as many as five readers, so we get a lot of different opinions.... We have a very active faculty admissions committee. Everyone who is admitted is reviewed by a faculty member and by me as well. (Plus, I’ll have interviewed them, too.) It’s a pretty thorough review. Josh Rubenstein, Harvard

After files are complete, they are reviewed by the director of admissions and then assigned to our graduate readers and the admissions committee comprised of faculty, deans, and a law student. The graduate readers read files with an eye toward looking for diamonds in the rough for which they can act as advocates to the admissions committee. Chloe T. Reid, USC

Every file is reviewed by at least two people on the admissions committee. If both agree that the candidate should be admitted, he or she is. If there is disagreement, the file will be reviewed by another committee member, typically the admissions dean or faculty chair of the committee. Rob Schwartz, UCLA

All files are initially read by me. I will then pass certain files on to the committee for another review. There are no presumptive admits nor are there presumptive denies. I treat each individual part of an application as a piece of a larger puzzle. A careful read allows me to see how those pieces fit together. Faye Deal, Stanford

 

THE VALUE OF POLITENESS IN THE ADMISSIONS PROCESS

 

We understand that applicants are very anxious to receive their decisions, but calling and checking won’t get the decision made (or communicated) any faster. Tell us once, in a polite way, if you are facing a deposit deadline at another school.

It is always in the applicant’s best interest to be polite to the admissions office staff. If you’re rude to anyone in the office, I’ll definitely hear about it. Megan A. Barnett, Yale

Expressing your interest in a law school is a good thing, but don’t overdo it. Repeatedly sending emails or letters or stopping by the office at all hours will tend to be counterproductive. (You’re going to be a graduate student, so having your parents intervene on your behalf is also likely to be highly counterproductive.) Rob Schwartz, UCLA

If someone needs to reschedule our interview, I understand; things happen. But occasionally people handle this rescheduling unprofessionally or don’t answer the call at a scheduled time. Law is a profession and this is a professional school. Applicants should understand that when dealing with admission professionals. Josh Rubenstein, Harvard

 

COMPOSITION OF THE ADMISSIONS COMMITTEE

 

Our committee includes professors and faculty. The committee routinely has third-year student members, who review files and make recommendations on admission. Monica Ingram, Texas

There are five faculty members, the dean of financial aid, and myself on the admissions committee. There are also two students on the committee who are involved in policy issues but do not read applicants’ files due to privacy concerns. Sarah C. Zearfoss, Michigan

The committee consists of me and sometimes the dean of students, four to six faculty members, and several students. The students have input on matters of policy but are not involved in actual file review for reasons of confidentiality. Rick Geiger, Cornell

We have faculty, current students, and admissions professionals on the committee. Rob Schwartz, UCLA

All of the members of the admissions committee are admissions professionals. Todd Morton, Vanderbilt

 

THE USE OF INDEX NUMBERS

 

We don’t use an index formula for any purpose whatsoever. We read every file. Kenneth Kleinrock, NYU

We have an index based on Law Services’ regression analysis, which takes into account the correlation between incoming students’ GPAs and LSAT scores and their grades in law school. While this is the single best predictor of first-year performance, it is too rough a gauge to rely on very heavily and is always evaluated in the context of the full range of information contained in the file. Todd Morton, Vanderbilt

We calculate an index number, but each file is individually read and numerous other factors are considered. Our very wide range of LSAT scores (25th to 75th percentile) indicates that we look at many factors beyond the index number. Rob Schwartz, UCLA

There are no index numbers or formulas used in our decisions. I would say that, in general terms, GPA is roughly equal to one-third of the decision (by the way, there are multiple components to a GPA), LSAT is one-third, and personal and other factors are one-third. If each applicant is trying to jump over a bar, the GPA and LSAT together serve to set the height of the bar: The rest of the application needs to be however good or OK to get over the bar at that height. Everybody gets to jump; everybody has to jump. Andy Cornblatt, Georgetown

Although we do use index numbers, we make subjective adjustments to them. For engineering and science courses, for example, we expect lower GPAs. Thus a 3.6 in political science is comparable to a 3.2 or 3.3 in engineering. People who attended the top colleges get a little added “star”—although you can’t quantify it—because they have faced tougher competition. Don Rebstock, Northwestern

There is no such thing as an automatic admit. The file is read in its entirety and a decision is reached based on a composite of factors. Faye Deal, Stanford

We do not use an index number in any capacity. It is just too hard to boil a person down to one number. Did the low GPA come from an engineering major? Did the applicant earn those grades twenty years ago? Was the LSAT taken by a service member who flew out of hostilities to take the LSAT and then flew right back? An index number would not allow us to take into account these special considerations. Jason Trujillo, Virginia

We do not use an index during the admissions process. We do not have automatic admits/denials nor do we have presumptive admits/denials. We review applications the old-fashioned way, by reading them. Monica Ingram, Texas

The process is driven by the index numbers. We separate candidates into three groups on the basis of their numbers. The top group is assumed to be admissible. We read their file primarily to see if something is wrong. For example, did they take only soft courses? We examine their personal statements and recommendations, looking less to see if they are academically qualified than to see if there is some other reason to deny them. The bottom group is assumed to be inadmissible, unless something special is found in their applications. The middle group is where we put much of our effort. We look here to diversify our class in terms of geography (American and international), undergraduate major, race, ethnicity, and religion. Elizabeth Rosselot, Boston College

 

WHAT DIVERSITY MEANS TO THEIR SCHOOLS

 

Diversity is important. The exchange of ideas among people with varying perspectives is more important in law than perhaps any other profession. Diversity is almost always talked about in racial or ethnic terms but also includes, among many others, gender, geographic origin, educational background, political ideology, age, and work experience. Jason Trujillo, Virginia

When you craft a class you have to think of diversity in its broadest sense: geographic, cultural, ethnicity, work experience, socioeconomic background, undergraduate major, and so on. The objective is to seat a class where there is going to be a dynamic and engaging classroom conversation. Renée Post, Penn

Diversity for us incorporates ethnic and gender diversity, sexual orientation, and many other things that make people unusual and interesting, thus enriching our educational environment. We look for candidates who reflect the broad and rich diversity of our society. For instance, one who grew up in a military environment or one who worked in an unusual capacity after college or one who has overcome personal adversity would all constitute diversity in our class. Chloe T. Reid, USC

We are committed to diversity, with “diversity” defined broadly. We seek to recruit individuals of different ages, backgrounds, and professional experiences, as well as individuals who have overcome personal hardships and challenges. Thus, we have people who have been out of college ten, twenty, or thirty years mixed in with students coming straight from undergrad. For us, diversity means a great deal more than just a matter of race and ethnicity. Anne Richard, George Washington

 

THE VALUE OF DIVERSITY

 

Because students learn as much from each other as from professors and casebooks, it’s important that we have people with diverse knowledge and experiences in the class. Megan A. Barnett, Yale

Having a diverse student body is unquestionably an important part of law school pedagogy—it’s valuable to have interesting, different voices in the classroom. Diversity in this sense encompasses a large number of factors; it’s by no means limited to just race or ethnicity. Sarah C. Zearfoss, Michigan

We want people from all over the country, in part to spread our reputation across the country. Don Rebstock, Northwestern

Law students can learn as much from their classmates as from faculty. That learning is maximized when a great depth and breadth of backgrounds is present. Study groups are great when they have a twenty-two-year-old and a forty-two-year-old working together. One of the advantages of attending a school with both a full-time and a part-time program is that the latter ensures there are a large number of established professionals in classes. Anne Richard, George Washington

The reality of law school is that much of the learning occurs through the discussion and exchange of ideas. Having a wide range of talent and experience in the class is highly desirable. The benefit of challenging others’ beliefs, and having your own challenged, is heightened when your classmates have had substantially different life and work experiences. Renée Post, Penn