According to an old wives’ tale, law school applications rise and fall with the applicant’s LSAT score and GPA, marginally aided by a personal statement. However, work experience is becoming increasingly important when applying to law school, with some schools openly stating that they prefer applicants a few years removed from college.
Yet, some applicants prefer not to wait and apply to law school while still in college. So how does such a student leverage their extracurricular activities to compete with applicants coming in with a few years of work experience under their belts? Here are a few tips.
[Read: Pros, Cons of Applying to Law School as an Undergrad.]
Think outside the box. Intuitively, one might seek to highlight law-related activities when applying to law school, such as moot court, debate team or a prelaw society. While these all look good on your application, do not exclude other activities just because they’re not directly connected to the legal realm.
Remember: Law schools do not expect you to come in knowing much about the legal system. They evaluate your application based on the traits you’ve shown more than on any actual knowledge gained during those activities. Being the captain of a varsity team or the president of a sorority or fraternity all show skill, ambition and social involvement that schools love to see on the application.
Show depth, not breadth. Some applicants tend to overcompensate for a lack of work experience by including dozens of extracurricular activities on their resume. First, the admissions committee doesn’t really care that you won third prize in your school chili cook-off. Ask yourself if that activity showcases qualities that the law school would value in a student — culinary acumen probably isn’t one of them.
Second, by listing a plethora of activities you run the risk of the committee skimming over all of them rather than focusing on the important ones. Treat your extracurriculars like jobs. Just like you wouldn’t list 15 different positions on your professional resume, limit yourself to the most significant activities, preferably the ones which you’ve been involved in for a long time.
[Read: Choose the Right College Major for Law School.]
Leverage all parts of the application. A resume doesn’t always leave much room to elaborate on the specifics of your achievements. Therefore, you should use every available tool to discuss the skills learned and used as part of your involvement in an activity.
Ideally, you could weave in a specific example of your work into your personal statement or optional essays to control the narrative of the activity. Another option — especially important for schools actively looking for students with work experience, like Harvard Law School or Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law — is to point out relevant activities in an addendum.
Use the addendum to acknowledge that deficiency in your application — which might win you some Brownie points for showing honesty and maturity — and then address it by describing your most significant extracurriculars, noting your part in them and making parallels to comparable work experience.
[Read: Do’s, Don’ts of Writing a Law School Application Addendum.]
After all, even applicants with work experience likely held entry-level jobs, so some positions you had while still in school may have involved more responsibility and pressure than those of a recent graduate.
Finally, be prepared to discuss your lack of experience in interviews. When a question touching on that comes up, don’t get defensive; instead, use it as a platform to discuss the experience you do have. In fact, if a question about your lack of work experience doesn’t come up, use another question as an opportunity to discuss your extracurriculars, which the interviewer is sure to make a note of.
Be careful discussing political organizations. Involvement in a political organization, whether as a summer intern, volunteer or member of an on-campus club, shows the admissions committee social conscientiousness and dedication to one’s beliefs.
While it is fine to discuss your role, how you’ve gained experience and what you’ve learned, try to focus on the actual work done rather than turning your application into a political manifesto.
You’re welcome to discuss your political affiliation. Unless your beliefs are extreme, no school will reject you based on them. However, try to avoid substantive issues, especially sensitive ones.
You never know who sits on the admissions committee and what they feel strongly about. Try as they may to remain objective, keep in mind that preaching on your application might hurt your chances of being offered admission.
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How Law School Applicants Can Discuss Extracurricular Activities originally appeared on usnews.com
