Avoid
them at all costs, or suffer the consequences...
by Ezra Goldschlager. April 30, 2008.
■ Being
modest. There
are times and places for modesty, but your law school
application is not one
of them.
Avoid the classic mistakes of underselling yourself,
understating
your accomplishments and roles in organizations, and not communicating
the true extent of your aspirations. You should, of course,
at
all times be completely honest. By no means should you
stretch
the truth. But if you, for example, managed a team of
fundraising
volunteers, don't say
"I helped my organization raise money." Do
say "I led a group of 35 volunteers, raising $18,000 during the annual
fund drive. My
daily duties included team- and motivation-building.
Under
my management, our team far surpassed our fund-raising goal of
$10,000."
■ Failing to address weak spots or red flags. When you're ready to submit your applications, ask yourself: If I were reading these materials without knowing anything more about me, would I have any open questions, or would I notice anything that makes me scratch my head? Try your best to resolve these questions or issues by incorporating the necessary information into your resume, personal statement, or optional essays. If that won't work, write an addendum.
■ Taking the LSAT without proper preparation. Treat the LSAT with respect. Your score matters, a lot. Even if you are a standardized-test superstar, there's simply too much riding on the exam to not at least ensure that you'll have the mental stamina necessary to perform at your best on test day. Many applicants will want to take a prep course (beware: some are much better than others), but even if you don't, make sure you sit down and take more than a few recent, real LSATs under testing conditions.
■ Applying late in the admissions cycle. Plan to submit your applications in September or October. The "rolling admissions" schedule is not your friend if you don't get your applications in within the first few months. Although applying late will hurt your chances at some schools more than at others, don't risk it. When your application reaches admissions offices can significantly impact whether you receive acceptances, or are wait-listed into oblivion.
■ Asking for a letter of recommendation from someone who can't write one based on first-hand experience. It's easy to fall into the trap of asking for a recommendation from someone with a big name or impressive title. The only time you should consider someone's fame or position when weighing possible recommenders is to break a tie. Your first criterion must always be the extent to which potential recommenders would be able to write about your ability to succeed in law school and the likelihood that you would contribute positively to the law school community, based on their personal knowledge of you. If you are choosing between two potential recommenders who know you equally well and who you believe would be able to write an equally impressive letter on your behalf, only then should you consider their relative reputation or title. If you're deciding between a letter from a visiting assistant college professor who knows you well, and a prominent judge or alumnus of the law school whom you've never met, choose the professor.
■ Submitting a resume that hasn't been custom-tailored for the law school application process. Law schools don't care about your computer skills! Although your standard resume might include skills or abilities that are relevant for a job hunt, these items should be removed from your law school application resume. Of course, there are exceptions: If an item indicates something positive about your character or work ethic, list it even if it isn't particularly relevant to law school.
Remove work or volunteer experience items when doing so is necessary to explain your most impressive experiences in sufficient detail. If you need to remove one of two items that are, in your estimation, equally impressive, remove the one that less fits the overall theme of your application.
■ Forgoing the "optional" essays. It's true: Writing an optional essay does take time and energy. But you care about where you go to law school, and it's a BIG mistake to take a shortcut when doing so puts a dent in your admissions chances. Submitting optional essays helps for more than one reason. It signals to the admissions reader that you're really interested in his or her school (that's always a good thing), and it gives you a chance to present additional arguments for your acceptance (i.e., your application package will contain more material that might catch the eye of an admissions officer). Treat the optional essays as mandatory. This is a (relatively) easy way to differentiate yourself from the pack.
■ Writing an addendum attempting to explain a poor LSAT score or GPA, without a compelling reason. With increasing frequency, applicants are submitting addenda regarding low LSAT scores and GPAs. Before you go this route, carefully examine the situation. How strong a case do you have that your LSAT score, for example, should be given less weight than it otherwise would? If all you have to say is that you don't do well on standardized tests, you're out of luck. You would need to argue, and show evidence of the fact that your standardized test scores aren't a good predictor of your ability succeed. For example, you would need to show that despite low SAT scores, you went on to do very well in college. If you want to explain a terrible semester in college, you can't simply explain that you partied too hard during that term. If you suffered from temporary health issues, say so and offer evidence to corroborate your explanation.
■ Choosing the wrong job or summer opportunity. Many applicants are under the misconception that summer or post-college experience in a law office is so helpful to your admissions chances, that it's worth choosing for that reason alone. To be clear, it's not a mistake to work in a law office if that sounds appealing to you (perhaps because you want to get exposure to the realities of practicing law, or a particular area of practice); the mistake is choosing to work in a law office over some other opportunity that is genuinely more interesting to you, or fits your likely career path more closely. So, if you're strongly interested in issues related to the environment, do yourself a favor and find an interesting opportunity at a company or non-profit organization related to that field. Law schools will make the connection between Green Peace and environmental law.
■ Ignoring location in school selection. Compared to almost any other degree, and certainly compared to a college degree, location matters much more for the usefulness of a law degree. If you earn your degree on the west coast, expect to have a much easier time finding work there than on the east coast (and vice-versa). This effect becomes more prominent with decreasing school rank (a degree from a third-tier school won't travel nearly as well as a degree from a first-tier school). Because of this, when you're selecting a school, you must give serious thought to the part of the country in which you'd like to live and practice. If facing a decision between school A, ranked #50 but located in a part of the country that's unappealing to you, and school B, ranked #70 but located in your dream city, it very often makes sense to choose school B. Do your research: Talk to students, alumni, a knowledgeable law school admissions counselor, and / or the schools' career offices, to find out where the schools' alumni end up practicing.
