With summer officially upon us, law school admissions officers continue to round out their classes with a little waitlist activity, develop their applications for next year while wondering whether a SCOTUS case will upend their work, and try to sneak a little R&R into the schedule where appropriate. But while balancing the needs of the incoming class along with the upcoming admissions cycle and their need for a break, AdComms are also taking some time to work with another cohort—transfer students. Since this is a hot topic being weighed in on by leading admissions experts (and, yes, this is a shameless and naked plug for the one time this author has been quoted by U.S. News and World Report), let’s take a few minutes today to discuss this process further and to perhaps plant some seeds for students who may wish to consider this process next year.
As with most matters, the law school transfer admissions process began with one set of intentions but has since morphed into something altogether different. Back in the day, law schools had transfer admission for two main reasons. First, schools used transfer admission to fill available seats in the returning second-year class. Academic attrition was a real thing. A story I’ve personally heard from more than a few old-school lawyers is how they used to be told—at orientation!—that a quarter of their new classmates and friends would not be there after the year concluded. Law schools tend to be a bit warmer and fuzzier (and supportive!) now! Another reason was to help facilitate students who had to move locations. Ruth Bader Ginsburg famously transferred to Columbia Law from Harvard because:
- Her husband had graduated the year before from Harvard Law,
- He had gotten a job in New York City,
- And the Dean of Harvard Law refused to let Ginsburg complete her classes remotely or via a visiting student arrangement with Columbia Law.
Considering her career trajectory after this decision, it seems like she did alright!
While transfer admission still serves that function, it has also become a strategic enrollment management tool. For instance, Georgetown Law typically enrolls over 100 transfer students every year per their ABA 509 reports. Yet, GULC typically has fewer than 10 students transferring out from their 1L class and they rarely lose a student due to academic attrition. If they aren’t replacing lost students, what’s going on? Well, it’s entirely possible that they could enroll a bigger first-year class if they wanted to … but perhaps they choose not to do that. Maybe it would be more difficult to maintain a higher GPA and/or LSAT median for that bigger class. Maybe they don’t have enough scholarship budget to bring in those extra students. If true, then it would make sense to try and bring in those additional students as 2Ls instead of 1Ls. U.S. News rankings have never incorporated the undergraduate GPAs and LSATs of transfer students. Additionally, most law schools’ scholarship budgets are designed to assist with the enrollment of the incoming 1L class. It’s rare to have scholarship funding directed towards incoming transfer students—i.e., the incoming transfers will pay full tuition. All in all, it’s not a bad deal for the law schools!
This does, however, lead to the question of whether transferring is a good deal for the student. The clear-as-mud answer is “it depends.” The students for whom transferring makes the most sense are those whose career goals or personal background align better with a new school. For example, perhaps a student is currently attending a law school in California but wants to work long-term in Chicago. The job search process may be easier if they transfer to a law school with a bigger alumni network in the Windy City. Or maybe the student would really like to clerk after graduation and their current school’s career office doesn’t really have a lot of support for that professional path. Or, to use Justice Ginsburg’s example, perhaps a student’s personal circumstances make them a better fit for another school. In all of these cases, it could be worthwhile to the students in question to pay more in tuition dollars in order to find the right professional, academic, and personal fit for them.
Being able to articulate their clear and compelling reasons for transferring is also actually half of the student’s fight to be a competitive candidate. The other key ingredients are the student’s academic and professional potential. While U.S. News doesn’t count transfer students’ undergraduate GPAs nor LSATs in their rankings formula, they do consider a school’s employment outcomes (and they actually placed an even greater weight on that in their new formula this year). As such, AdComms reviewing transfer applications want to be assured that the student will do well academically and find a job after graduation. The best predictors for those matters are the student’s law school grades and their 1L summer employment plans. If a student has a solid GPA and has already lined up a nice gig by the time they submit a transfer application, they have a good shot to be competitive.
Regarding timelines, potential transfer students are going to find a wide variety of instructions from schools. While the 1L application timeline tends to be pretty uniform—apps open around September 1, decisions start rolling out in the fall and early winter, etc.—schools approach the transfer process in far different manners. Some applications open as early as February or March so that students can be considered for admission as early as May. Law schools may do this in order to be the first ones to admit the best transfer students and also to help those incoming transfer students have their best chance at on-campus interviews for the upcoming summer (because—after all—if one benefit of transferring is improved employment prospects, doesn’t it stand to reason that the law school should ensure that the incoming students maximize that possibility?). Other schools may not open their applications until May. These typically are higher-ranked law schools where the issue of maximizing incoming students’ employment prospects may not be as important as having the students’ entire 1L transcripts available for review during the admissions process.
So as a current applicant enrolling in law school this August or as a prospective student beginning to cobble together your application materials this summer, what can you do with this knowledge? First, just know that the process exists and is a viable path to your reach schools. The preferred path—of course—is via 1L admission since that also gives you the possibility of merit scholarship and being at your dream school for three years instead of just two. However, if you have T14 dreams on a T30 GPA/LSAT combo, transferring may be a more realistic path towards your eventual goal. Second, be sure to take full advantage of your 1L school’s academic and networking opportunities. Attend professorial office hours, form a study group, learn how to outline, and talk with the 2Ls and 3Ls who had your Torts prof a few years ago to learn about their quirks. Meanwhile, connect with your school’s career services and alumni offices. Don’t hesitate to reach out to alums to talk with them about your goals and to learn about what they do. This is going to be your best path towards that job between your first and second years of law school. And finally, remember that the grass isn’t always greener. If you end up with great grades and a sweet summer job because of the awesome alumni network at your school … then does it make sense to transfer? What if you also have a nice scholarship at your current school? And if your study group has become not only an academic resource but also your closest friends? And all those conversations during office hours have turned into some incredible mentoring relationships? To return to our shameless plug, law schools are receiving fewer transfer applications now because a lot of top students see the benefits of staying put. Being a bigger fish in a smaller pond can be pretty nice! So feel free to file this information away and focus on the more immediate task at hand—take full advantage of your 1L year!