Career Center, Career Files, Pre-Law

A 4-Week Calendar for December LSAT Takers

If you’re in college, your final exams have been winding down–and if you’re a working professional, the holiday parties and lax hours have begun–so it’s time to start using your time wisely in order to submit your law school applications in mid-January.

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law_school1-e13663075495591-RFIt’s mid-December, and you’ve had a week to get over the post-LSAT slump and any anxiety you might have had about canceling or keeping your LSAT score. If you’re in college, your final exams have been winding down–and if you’re a working professional, the holiday parties and lax hours have begun–so it’s time to start using your time wisely in order to submit your law school applications in mid-January.

First: Register for CAS. Then, send all of your transcripts to LSAC. This can take a while, especially if you attended multiple schools. A list of all of the transcripts you’re required to send is here.

Second: Letters of recommendation. Make sure your letters of recommendation are on their way to LSAC. It’s an amazing thing that LSAC now accepts letters electronically–a technological wonder. It makes it seem like we were still using handwritten applications before this admission cycle. Letters get posted quickly upon receipt, but you may need to prod your recommenders to send in their letters before the holidays.

Third: Get your resume in order. Use it to account for your time since graduating from high school, and use descriptions to show the responsibilities you handled, things you accomplished, and hours you worked per week during school. For non-traditional applicants, if you have had more than one career, you can separate out headings for different industries or be creative in other ways about presenting the breadth and depth of your career(s). Make sure the formatting is consistent, that it’s easy to read, and that there are no errors. I see a lot of resumes where the errors are in the headings–it’s like no one ever reads that they’ve typed “EXPRIENCE” instead of “EXPERIENCE.”

Fourth: The dreaded personal statement. Yep, there’s no more avoiding it. You have to write about yourself. If you have a dramatic story to tell, tone it down and tell it in a mature, thoughtful way. Actually, even if you don’t have a dramatic story to tell, you can’t go wrong with a mature and thoughtful approach. Show why you’ve made the decisions you’ve made, what you’ve learned from them, and how it has shaped who you are and (perhaps) why it has made law school the right direction for you.

For more tips, see Winning Personal Statement Topics for Law School and this podcast on How to Write a Law School Personal Statement.

Fifth: Explain the weaknesses. If you have any character and fitness items to report, instead of spending time wondering whether to report them, just write them up. Find out the dates and pertinent facts, explain the outcome, and provide only enough context–not too much. The fact that you had just broken up with your girlfriend is probably not relevant to being caught in the dorms with a beer. Youthful indiscretions will be forgiven. If you have a more involved history, showing the time that has passed since the incidents and how you have grown, will be crucial.

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Sixth: Decide about diversity. Many law schools offer the opportunity to submit a diversity statement. This causes a lot of confusion and angst among applicants. If you’ve written about your diversity in your personal statement and a diversity statement would only be repetitive, don’t submit a diversity statement. You will still “get credit” for being diverse. If you are not sure what you would write about in a diversity statement, then you probably shouldn’t be writing one! Good topics for diversity statements include financial self-reliance, socio-economic disadvantage, significant family issues (such as the loss of a parent at a young age resulting in a major life change), military experience (although this would probably be fully addressed on your resume and in your personal statement so it wouldn’t require a diversity statement in most cases), being an immigrant or the child of immigrants, or being a member of a minority ethnic or religious group, etc. The world has, thankfully, progressed enough that being gay might not–in itself–warrant a diversity statement, unless you grew up in a place or family that was hostile toward homosexuality. If you overcame an obstacle, or have a unique perspective to offer that the law schools might not otherwise be aware of, feel free to use this opportunity. My general rule of thumb is “if it feels like a reach, it’s a reach” and you shouldn’t write it.

Seventh: LSAT score release. If you’ve done all of the above, then when scores are released on or before January 5, you will be ready to (1) pick schools and (2) decide whether to write an LSAT addendum to explain multiple scores or underperformance on standardized tests. Once you’ve done these two things, you should be ready to move on quickly to the 8th and 9th steps.

Eighth: Check each school’s requirements. Does a school have a personal statement prompt that asks (like in the case of University of Minnesota, University of Iowa, and Santa Clara University) why you are interested in the law school or in law school in general? Beware of schools that ask something else entirely–like the University of Florida. Make sure you’re answering the question being asked. Also, if there are optional essays that apply to you (such as reasons for your interest in that school or the fun Georgetown University Law Center 250 word essays), be sure to take time to do them thoughtfully and carefully.

Ninth: Submit applications. But before you do, look through the PDF versions and make sure things aren’t cut off awkwardly, that you’ve punctuated things correctly (I see a lot of careless address capitalization, for example), and that it looks professional and is free of errors.

It’s absolutely doable to accomplish all of this in the next 4 weeks. The trick will be getting it done without stressing out your family and friends over the holidays. Keep a smile on your face–this isn’t the biggest challenge life will throw at you. It’s nothing you can’t handle.

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Ann K. Levine is a law school admission consultant and owner of LawSchoolExpert.com. She is the author of The Law School Admission Game: Play Like an Expert (affiliate link) and The Law School Decision Game: A Playbook for Prospective Lawyers (affiliate link).

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