What’s Going On in the Admissions Cycle Right Now?
With Daylight Savings and their schools’ spring breaks in the rearview mirror, law school admissions offices have reached one of their busiest times of year – admitted student visit season. We discuss the importance of school visits on our admissions course and it’s worth fleshing out some key matters in more detail.
Let’s start with the obvious – why is it important for you to visit campus? It’s because there are a lot of aspects of each law school that are distinct, cannot be sufficiently explained in a brochure, and you just-kind-of-have-to-see-in-action to understand them. For example, it says something about a school’s culture if the faculty offices are right next to the classrooms; it says something very different if the offices are spread around campus. Or how about the vibe in the school cafeteria at lunch – are people hanging out and talking, or are they wolfing down their food while reviewing notes? Meanwhile, the admitted student packet claimed that there was a lot of housing within walking distance of the law school, but did they mean “my preferred walking distance” or “the theoretical distance that we would walk through a desert in order to reach an oasis and continue living”? You really have to visit to get a sense of this.
Visits usually come in three flavors:
1) The Admitted Student Day / Open House. This is the big program when schools really roll out their red carpets. Since they can expect a critical mass of visitors, admissions officers will put tons of effort into making sure that the school puts its best foot forward. You can expect class observations (or “simulations” if the number of visitors is too big to host in a normal classroom), tours, panels with faculty and students, lunch with members of the law school community, sessions about career opportunities, and more. Since the crowds tend to be bigger, you may not get as much individual TLC. On the other hand, you’ll also probably learn more than things in a more efficient manner then if you visited any other day. Speaking of which….
2) Another visit day. While schools highly encourage their admits to come to the big programs (since it makes it more efficient for the admissions office), many will still be open to visits on other school days. The way AdComms see it – while they’d love for you to come when everyone else is visiting, they also don’t want to lose out on an admitted student coming to their campus. The tradeoff for coming on a random day is that you may not get all the bells and whistles of the open house, but you may also get a more low-key view of the school. For example, maybe you don’t have a big lunch with tons of faculty, but maybe you can have lunch with the tour guide after they walk you around the building.
3) A ghost visit. Maybe you can’t attend the visit days that a school offers. Or, maybe you don’t want to feel like you’re getting a sales pitch (a point that we’ll return to in a moment). In that case, some students will just visit a school law unannounced and without making any contact with the admissions office. The benefit is that you can fly under the radar and not be beholden to the school’s schedule. But on the other hand, you are flying under the radar – since you never told anyone that you were coming, you likely can’t sit in on a class, go on a tour, or talk with any faculty or staff. Those are some critical things to miss!
And on the note of avoiding sales pitches, some students are leery of formal visits for just this reason. At the heart of their jobs, AdComms are recruiters – they try to encourage students to apply, admit the ones who they think are going to be the best fits for the school’s goals and mission, and then facilitate programming and connections to convert those admitted students into deposited students. While acknowledging that, most AdComms view that last component less as “sales” and more as “educating.” They want students to understand the distinctive features and strengths of their particular school and they hope that those qualities align with what the students want from their legal education. Put another way – they want students who want to be there! Those students will be happier for the next three years which, in turn, leads to happier alums who then – happily – contribute financially back to their dear alma mater. And thus does the circle of life continue!
And on a final and more technical note, let’s give some tips on what you can expect from a visit day (beyond the schedule) and how you can approach it:
- Be ready to learn. The schools are going to tell you about how sections are set up for 1Ls, what OCI looks like, all of their journals and clinics and externships, and more. So bring a notebook and a pen!
- Be professional. Most schools won’t have a dress code for visitors, but you can never go wrong with business casual. A button down shirt with a sweater or jacket, paired with khakis/nice jeans/skirt, and you’re all set. If you’re going to skew “casual” with any item in your wardrobe, let it be your shoes since you’ll be walking around a lot.
- Be ready to talk. Lawyers are networkers. Since that’s the case for lawyers, law students are also networkers. Since that’s the case for law students, applicants should also be networkers. Your professional identity starts taking shape during these visits. For the schools you attend, the faculty, staff, and students you meet will likely remember you (“Oh, hey, didn’t I meet you at the open house?”). And even for the schools you don’t attend, you may see one of those students down the road at a summer internship, or a moot court competition, or as opposing counsel at a pre-trial hearing. So be ready to be professional (as noted above!) and to give your elevator-pitch introduction. If you’re naturally introverted, remind yourself that you just have to make it to the end of the day!
- Be ready to follow-up. While you’re going to learn a lot during your visit, there are likely going to be some questions that didn’t come up. All that networking that you just did now comes into play – you now have a few people you can contact and see if they can chat.
- Be ready to soak it in. Remember all the stress and anxiety of assembling your application materials? Then there were all the fun updates from your lsd.law profile about your status checker at School X moving from “Complete” to “Under Review” and you fired off a post to Reddit asking “what does this mean?!” All of that work and all of that stress was so that you could have the opportunity before you. You owe it to your past-self to take a moment for a deep, cleansing breath, and then to tell yourself clearly and confidently - “This is so cool!”