One of the most overlooked strategies in terms of strengthening law school applications is engaging in contact with the schools of your choice. By actively interacting with a law school as a prospective applicant, you are showing both initiative and a genuine and strong interest in attending the school.
Although many prospective applicants connect with the admissions committee and attend events geared toward prospective applicants, other forms of contact with law schools can be effective in strengthening your application. Interacting with current students, alumni and professors can provide you with information that you can use in your application to strengthen your candidacy.
In this week’s post, I will discuss how you can gather information from professors and students or alumni and use that information to strengthen your application.
[Check out important questions to ask law school staff and alumni.]
Professors
If you know what area of law you are going to focus on in law school, such as tax law or entertainment law, it’s great to get to know a professor who specializes in that field or his or her work.
Although professors are generally much less personally accessible than current students and alumni — they’re busy people — admissions offices often allow prospective students to sit in on a class. If you are not able to have personal contact with the professor, look up his or her publications and get familiar with his or her scholarship and approach.
Any information you have about a professor’s work can be used in a personal statement in which you describe your interest in a specific area of law. It can also be used in supplemental essays that ask applicants to explain why they are applying to that school specifically. Wait-listed students can also use it in letters of continued interest to display a strong interest in attending that school.
One of my clients who was interested in a specific area of international law researched his area of interest and incorporated a professor’s work into his personal statement targeted at the school where the professor taught. He was admitted to the school and eventually took an advanced seminar with that professor.
[See three common reasons law school applications get rejected.]
Students and Alumni
Students and alumni are generally much more accessible and easier to contact than professors. Prospective applicants can find students and alumni to talk to in many ways , such as through social and professional networking, by visiting campus, or by contacting the admissions office, which often will have a database of both current and former students who are willing to talk to prospective applicants.
Current students are the best resource for understanding what your experience will be like as a student at that school. They can give you an accurate and detailed sense of the nature of the student body, the availability and quality of extracurricular activities, and the school’s academic environment.
Alumni will have a less detailed knowledge of the current student body and student experience , but are still a valuable resource. Alumni will help you understand the value of a degree from their alma mater as it pertains to the job market and can often help you get in touch with alumni whose career paths are similar to the career path you plan for yourself.
[Explore the benefits and drawbacks of using online law school forums.]
It is less common for applicants to mention encounters with current and former students in their personal statements, but mentioning them in supplemental essays and letters of continued interest will enable you to present a compelling case for your interest in attending that school. Such encounters will also enable you to argue that you will be a good fit on campus and will contribute to both the academic and extracurricular life of the school.
For example, one of my clients was admitted to several schools that she applied to, but was wait-listed at her top choice school and was able to use her knowledge of the school’s culture in a letter of continued interest to help gain admission from the waitlist.
How are you interacting with professors and students to strengthen your application? Let me know in an email or tweet me.
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Interact With Professors, Students to Strengthen Law School Applications originally appeared on usnews.com
