I got my acceptance to University of Toledo. So, this law school thing is one step closer to being a "go". I got my LSAT results on Friday, completed my electronic application later that afternoon. Today, is Wednesday. So, really, a total of 3 working days and I got the decision.
I imagine that for the vast majority of folks applying, this is a pretty straightforward process. Schools can talk all they want about evaluating this or that, but ultimately, it comes down to undergrad GPA and the LSAT. I'm sure a small handful of students are selected who didn't line up, numbers-wise, but other than the truly elite and highly selective schools, the important questions are: can you fill out a FAFSA and did you meet our minimum requirements?
The guys at the Barely Legal blog make a great point. The reality is that for most reasonably intelligent people, there is a law school, somewhere in the country, that will accept you. If you want to examine the numbers a bit more analytically, I figure it this way:
Half the population is below average intelligence. Figure most (though not all) of those folks will probably not go to college. The odds of them graduating are really poor.
Roughly 30% of youngish people have bachelor's degrees.
Throw out the ones who went to University of Phoenix, or schools that give you college credit for "life experience" (seriously, what the hell is that all about? We all gain life experience. So, are they saying that basically, eventually, everybody has at least a BA's worth of life experience? Fair enough, but that doesn't mean they should get a BA. The whole point of a college degree was supposed to be that you learned something, not that you were alive. Really, that's what a baccalaureate is supposed to signify? That you are alive?)
Throw out the ones who barely scooted by and got out of school by the skin of their teeth yet managed to meet the minimum qualifications for a degree.
So, that leaves, what, maybe 15% of the population? 20%? The pool of people who are even thinking of applying to law school pretty much already eliminated the bottom 80% of the population. So, if you're thinking you want to go to law school, you're going to get accepted somewhere, in all likelihood.
Basically, being "good enough to get into law school" is really not that different than "good enough to get a bachelor's degree". If by "bachelor's degree" we mean schools where you go to class, take tests, etc.
Which brings up another thing that's been happening since I got my LSAT score: I've been getting e-mails from law schools all across the country. The schpiel is basically the same, "We notice you have a pulse. Wouldn't you like to go to school here?"
Well duh... OF COURSE I WOULD. I wish I were in a position to pick up and move to Ave Maria Law School on the Gulf Coast of Florida. I could spend the next 3 years getting an amazing tan, and oogling young, scantily clad women on the beach. It's not like I think it's appealing to live in the industrial midwest, snort sinus medicine from quart bottles every day and have to spend each day looking at a bunch of overweight, pasty-skinned midwestern troglodytes that are nearly as homely as I am.
Which of these schools sounds cool to me? All of them. The one in Portland, Maine, the ones I've heard of like Vaparaiso and Temple? All of them.
However, Toledo is going to be a perfect fit for me. I'm glad they accepted me and this is going to work with my life better than a lot of other options.
In any event, I doubt Toledo looked at much beyond my grades and LSAT. The applications as much as say so these days. A lot of schools only want a minimal number of letters of recommendation. Seriously, how many people can't find 4 guys who will say that the person is wonderful? Especially if the recommendations are from professors, you're going to know a lot more about what kind of student the person was by his GPA than by a couple of letters.
It does make me wonder about biglaw hiring, though. They're churning and burning a lot of associates. In a lot of ways, they are like the military: lots of new recruits, but their business model is based on most of those new associates either getting burned out and leaving, finding less-demanding work elsewhere, or not quite making the cut and getting the boot. Not everybody who joins the firm ends up as a partner making $700K a year.
I've known two women who worked biglaw. Two of the smartest, most organized, most ambitious people I had ever met. Really, you knew from spending about 10 minutes with them that they were a cut above. If they were new-hires in a fortune 500 company, they'd be vice presidents within a decade. They were that sharp. One of them lasted 2 years in biglaw. The other lasted 4.
They also aren't hiring much right now. So, their pipeline has been interrupted. If the economy picks up, my graduation year could be a good time to be trying to get a job because they'll need to reload and make up for a few years where they didn't throw enough bricks under the foundation of the pyramid.
I'm not the ideal biglaw candidate because of my age, but I am starting to wonder, how much do they care about that? I mean, they can't ask your age, and technically, they can't use that as a hiring criteria. (We know they do, but they can't do it overtly.)
I bet it's pretty much a numbers game for them, too. They probably have thresholds. If it's this school, they need to be in the top 20%. If it's this second tier school, they need to be in the top 10%. If it's these other schools, they need to be in the top 2 or 3 graduates. (That's just a personal WAG. So, don't think there's any actual data behind those numbers.)
Granted, they probably don't hire everybody they interview, but frankly, if you've seen the personality of a lot of top law school grads, you know they aren't hiring based on interpersonal skills, either. I bet the bulk of their decision comes down to just class rank and the school you went to, period.
In any event, I'm in at my #1 choice. It's also my stretch school and my safety, too. If I had not gotten accepted, I would not be going to law school, period. So, I'm happy.
They have a new student orientation next week. I don't know if it's required, but I think I'll go. After that, I need to start writing checks for deposits.
Barring some unforeseeable calamity, it looks like this is going to happen. Though I take nothing for granted these days since a lot of unforeseeable calamities seem to have happened in the past couple of years.
Showing posts with label LSAT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label LSAT. Show all posts
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Tuesday, March 8, 2011
After the LSAT
I got my LSAT results on Friday. Did very poorly compared to what I should have done, but I know why. Now, I'm just waiting while my two applications are snaking their way through the admissions boards at University of Toledo and Case Western Reserve.
I will end up going to UT if I am accepted. My life is such that I really don't have the luxury of going anyplace else. I am applying at Case because that's where I got my MBA, and because that appears to be roughly the caliber of the best law school I could get accepted to. It won't mean much, but it'll be my way of knowing that I could have gone there if things were a little different.
Schools, even the state supported ones, are basically businesses that exist to put butts in the seats. With law schools, there are a handful at the very top. They are commonly referred to as the "top 14", where they are essentially all the most prestigious law schools in the country and your ticket is punched if you attend any one of them.
You need a stratospheric GPA and LSAT. Once you're in, you have a considerable advantage in grabbing the brass ring over people who attend other schools.
There's a tier below, and I put CWRU in that bunch. It's the schools that are basically very competent, but that will get passed over if a person can get into, say, University of Michigan or Stanford, instead.
Admissions are competitive, but not overly so. You don't need a perfect GPA or LSAT score, but they need to be solid. They deny admission to some candidates who probably would have attended and done just fine in the school. If you do very well at these schools, by, say, graduating in the top 10%, you can probably get a biglaw job and put yourself in position to do very, very well.
The biggest difference between these schools and the top 14 are that the vast majority of T14 grads are going to get jobs and most of those jobs are going to be good. For the grads of the next lower tier, finishing in the middle of your class is almost certainly not good enough to get you a monster job. You might very well end up employed at wages that are considerably less than what you had expected. (Not BAD wages, mind you, but maybe something in the $60,000 range, versus the $160,000 range.) Those at the very bottom of their classes may really have difficulty finding a good job.
Now, folks in the know will immediately raise the objection (see? I'm using law words!) that US News and other ranking systems put 25 schools in the "top tier". Yes, that's true. I'm sharing an opinion here. Within legal circles, the T14 are considered a cut above the rest of what US News would consider top tier.
If you go to Berkeley or Cornell, you're just in a different strata than if you went to University of Minnesota. Sorry, that's just the way it is. If you went to Notre Dame, your employment prospects aren't substantially different than the prospects for folks who went to Loyola Marymount.
So, instead of tiers of 25 schools, each, personally, I'd say the reality here is more like 14 schools in the top tier. (Perhaps with an uber-tier of the top half of those 14 schools.) Maybe 50 or so in the tier below, and frankly, no matter where your school is in that tier, your prospects after law school really aren't that different.
The tier below that are the schools that essentially accept all qualified applicants. They won't take just anybody, but if you have a GPA and LSAT score that indicate that you have the potential to graduate, you probably will not be denied admission. I don't mean any disrespect to any of the schools in this tier, and especially no disrespect to my likely alma mater, University of Toledo, when I describe the schools this way. However, I think most people would say this is a fair assessment.
Contrary to what some folks say, it IS possible to land biglaw jobs from these schools. At least it is according to two people I met throughout the years who worked biglaw. However, instead of graduating in, say, the top 10%, you better be looking at graduating like top 2 or 3 in your class.
After those top handful of graduates, employment prospects start to plummet dramatically for the rest of the graduating class in these schools. You will read a lot of accounts of recent law school grads who say things like, "law school isn't worth it" and "there aren't any good jobs" and "I took on a mountain of debt for nothing". These folks are, by and large, the folks who did poorly at the 2nd tier schools and the folks who didn't graduate at the top of their class from 3rd tier schools.
There is a fourth tier below that. I'll basically call them open enrollment schools. If you can fog a mirror and fill out a FAFSA, you're going to get in. If you graduate at the very top of your class, you stand a shot at a good job. If you don't graduate at the top of your class, you're hosed.
In California, because apparently the place is under-lawyered, they managed to come up with a tier even below 4th tier, which is the non-ABA accredited schools. Say what you want about schools in the 4th tier, but at least they are fully accredited by the American Bar Association. California is known for having the worst bar passage rate of any state in the country. That is hardly surprising when they let so many people sit for the bar who don't even meet the basic education requirements to sit for the bar in any other state.
Anyway, so that's what I'm thinking about as I ponder my chances of admission. I have one application in at a second tier school, although it's extremely unlikely my life circumstances will allow me to go. I have one application in at a third tier school. (Again, these don't correlate to the US News tiers.) I am basically completely out of the running to even apply to any of the first tier schools, and as a practical matter, half the second tier is probably out of my reach, too.
However, a funny thing is happening. Apparently, the LSAT folks share your LSAT with schools and I've been getting "application waivers" from a bunch of law schools. If not for my present circumstances, I'd probably be looking to go to school at Texas Tech or Florida State. As is, I am hoping to get an acceptance to UT, to get me into law school, and an acceptance to CWRU as an ego-boost.
Every day, I get e-mails from the admissions folks at some pretty cool and interesting schools. For me, it's just nice to think about. I don't really regret the way I've lived my life, but it has been a crooked path. There are times when I wish I would have applied to, say, Temple, and tried to land a biglaw job in Philadelphia.
So, there's not a lot to do while I wait for the admissions decisions. Once those come in, if I'm accepted, I can go to the financial aid office and see what I need to do to afford to take this little detour. Until then, I'm just waiting on a notification.
I will end up going to UT if I am accepted. My life is such that I really don't have the luxury of going anyplace else. I am applying at Case because that's where I got my MBA, and because that appears to be roughly the caliber of the best law school I could get accepted to. It won't mean much, but it'll be my way of knowing that I could have gone there if things were a little different.
Schools, even the state supported ones, are basically businesses that exist to put butts in the seats. With law schools, there are a handful at the very top. They are commonly referred to as the "top 14", where they are essentially all the most prestigious law schools in the country and your ticket is punched if you attend any one of them.
You need a stratospheric GPA and LSAT. Once you're in, you have a considerable advantage in grabbing the brass ring over people who attend other schools.
There's a tier below, and I put CWRU in that bunch. It's the schools that are basically very competent, but that will get passed over if a person can get into, say, University of Michigan or Stanford, instead.
Admissions are competitive, but not overly so. You don't need a perfect GPA or LSAT score, but they need to be solid. They deny admission to some candidates who probably would have attended and done just fine in the school. If you do very well at these schools, by, say, graduating in the top 10%, you can probably get a biglaw job and put yourself in position to do very, very well.
The biggest difference between these schools and the top 14 are that the vast majority of T14 grads are going to get jobs and most of those jobs are going to be good. For the grads of the next lower tier, finishing in the middle of your class is almost certainly not good enough to get you a monster job. You might very well end up employed at wages that are considerably less than what you had expected. (Not BAD wages, mind you, but maybe something in the $60,000 range, versus the $160,000 range.) Those at the very bottom of their classes may really have difficulty finding a good job.
Now, folks in the know will immediately raise the objection (see? I'm using law words!) that US News and other ranking systems put 25 schools in the "top tier". Yes, that's true. I'm sharing an opinion here. Within legal circles, the T14 are considered a cut above the rest of what US News would consider top tier.
If you go to Berkeley or Cornell, you're just in a different strata than if you went to University of Minnesota. Sorry, that's just the way it is. If you went to Notre Dame, your employment prospects aren't substantially different than the prospects for folks who went to Loyola Marymount.
So, instead of tiers of 25 schools, each, personally, I'd say the reality here is more like 14 schools in the top tier. (Perhaps with an uber-tier of the top half of those 14 schools.) Maybe 50 or so in the tier below, and frankly, no matter where your school is in that tier, your prospects after law school really aren't that different.
The tier below that are the schools that essentially accept all qualified applicants. They won't take just anybody, but if you have a GPA and LSAT score that indicate that you have the potential to graduate, you probably will not be denied admission. I don't mean any disrespect to any of the schools in this tier, and especially no disrespect to my likely alma mater, University of Toledo, when I describe the schools this way. However, I think most people would say this is a fair assessment.
Contrary to what some folks say, it IS possible to land biglaw jobs from these schools. At least it is according to two people I met throughout the years who worked biglaw. However, instead of graduating in, say, the top 10%, you better be looking at graduating like top 2 or 3 in your class.
After those top handful of graduates, employment prospects start to plummet dramatically for the rest of the graduating class in these schools. You will read a lot of accounts of recent law school grads who say things like, "law school isn't worth it" and "there aren't any good jobs" and "I took on a mountain of debt for nothing". These folks are, by and large, the folks who did poorly at the 2nd tier schools and the folks who didn't graduate at the top of their class from 3rd tier schools.
There is a fourth tier below that. I'll basically call them open enrollment schools. If you can fog a mirror and fill out a FAFSA, you're going to get in. If you graduate at the very top of your class, you stand a shot at a good job. If you don't graduate at the top of your class, you're hosed.
In California, because apparently the place is under-lawyered, they managed to come up with a tier even below 4th tier, which is the non-ABA accredited schools. Say what you want about schools in the 4th tier, but at least they are fully accredited by the American Bar Association. California is known for having the worst bar passage rate of any state in the country. That is hardly surprising when they let so many people sit for the bar who don't even meet the basic education requirements to sit for the bar in any other state.
Anyway, so that's what I'm thinking about as I ponder my chances of admission. I have one application in at a second tier school, although it's extremely unlikely my life circumstances will allow me to go. I have one application in at a third tier school. (Again, these don't correlate to the US News tiers.) I am basically completely out of the running to even apply to any of the first tier schools, and as a practical matter, half the second tier is probably out of my reach, too.
However, a funny thing is happening. Apparently, the LSAT folks share your LSAT with schools and I've been getting "application waivers" from a bunch of law schools. If not for my present circumstances, I'd probably be looking to go to school at Texas Tech or Florida State. As is, I am hoping to get an acceptance to UT, to get me into law school, and an acceptance to CWRU as an ego-boost.
Every day, I get e-mails from the admissions folks at some pretty cool and interesting schools. For me, it's just nice to think about. I don't really regret the way I've lived my life, but it has been a crooked path. There are times when I wish I would have applied to, say, Temple, and tried to land a biglaw job in Philadelphia.
So, there's not a lot to do while I wait for the admissions decisions. Once those come in, if I'm accepted, I can go to the financial aid office and see what I need to do to afford to take this little detour. Until then, I'm just waiting on a notification.
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