How strong is your application beyond the numbers?

Obviously, law schools care a lot about your LSAT and GPA. But they care just as much about other things: indications of who you are, what your motivation is, how you’ve proven yourself so far. Traditionally, these are called your ‘softs’ — everything admissions officers can see about you that isn’t just your LSAT and GPA.

If you head to /r/lawschooladmissions, you’ll notice lots of people expressing the strength of their ‘softs’ in a tier list that looks something like this:

T1 - Extremely rare - like being a Rhodes Scholar or a c-suite executive.
T2 - Rare but not extraordinary, like winning a Purple Heart, being a stand-out NCAA athlete
T3 - Not rare but not common, like being only an ordinary NCAA athlete
T4 - Common, like doing a congressional internship.

If you just read that list and are deeply baffled, you’re not alone! It’s a good-faith but exceedingly silly system that comes from a random, decade-old Reddit post. And yet this tier system, which thinks that having a legal internship isn’t particularly helpful for your law school application, has been repeated uncritically not only by Reddit users, but several admissions resource sites, much to the chagrin of admissions officers—and much to the disadvantage of many applicants.

At 7Sage, we like the project of attempting to break down soft tiers as a helpful exercise, but we see things very differently. Our definition of ‘softs tiers’ not only comes from the thousands of full-application data-points provided by successful 7Sage Admissions Consulting clients, but interviews we’ve conducted with admissions staff from Yale, Stanford, Columbia, Michigan, UVA, UCLA, Notre Dame, UT, Fordham, BC, Howard, Berkeley, and more.

The Three Questions Admissions Officers Actually Ask

Any consideration of how strong your application is needs to ground itself in the three most important questions admissions officers ask.

1. How much has this person proven that they're actually interested in the law? Call these your 'Pre-law' softs (e.g. legal internships, mock trial, etc.) Law schools care about these in order to suss out if you're likely to finish the program (figuring out if you'll finish the program is essentially an AO's primary job.)
2. How much has this person proven that they can obtain and keep a demanding office job? Call these your Professional softs (e.g. if you’ve had full time work, how prestigious that work has been, if you took time off). Law schools care about these as an approximation of your ability to do well in a Big Law recruitment interview or just generally how well they think you can lock things down post-grad. Employment outcomes are a far bigger rating metric than the LSAT.
3. How good of an addition is this person to a happy, interesting law school community? Call these your Personal softs (e.g. interests, hobbies, random impressive accomplishments & aspects of your personal history). The more 'elite' a law school is, the more likely they are to care about these as signs that you are broadly engaged, broadly intellectual, and broadly the kind of student they want on campus.

It’s not about rarity, it’s about reassurance

So let’s break down four tiers of softs based on these questions, which are really the four levels of how well your file is answering the questions an admissions officer is there to investigate. We center our system around ‘Tier 3’ softs being ‘par’ for each category — the threshold at which the question is basically satisfied for a T50 law school. With that in mind, let’s define each tier level:

T4 - Your experiences challenge your application. They introduce serious doubts that must be addressed or overcome if you're going to be admitted. In a typical year, you'll underperform your numbers.

T3 - Your experiences support your application. They don't hurt, but they don't help significantly either. Your experiences will likely be secondary to your raw numerical impact. In a typical year, you'll perform about as expected given your numbers.

T2 - Your experiences enhance your application. This is where you begin to stand out. Your résumé provides strong, incontrovertible reassurance to the particular question. These are the softs where in a typical year you start to do well even as a more significant splitter. Your résumé begins to be able to make up for other possible weaknesses. In a typical year, you’ll perform in the upper band predicted by your numbers.

T1 - Your experiences distinguish your application. Our metric for T1 softs is anything a law school would put in their marketing material—the kinds of accomplishments and backgrounds that a law school wants to brag about its incoming class possessing. In a typical year, you’ll perform better than almost everyone else with your numbers.

Okay, now let me break it down into an activity for you that will give you some actual productive steps to take on your application.

Figuring Out Your Softs Tier

## Step one - Determine your Pre-Law Softs

Pick the one that most closely describes you:

T4 - I have no direct exposure to the legal field beyond maybe routine membership in a pre-law society. An AO looking at my résumé won't find any obvious, significant evidence that I've gone out of my way to seriously learn about the legal profession in a real-world context.

T3 - I have a bit of solid exposure to the legal profession, most likely through things set up for students. I did one or two summer internships related to the law or have demonstrably serious legal volunteer work. If I've had a real job in the legal field, it's at a small family firm or organization that an AO probably isn't that familiar with.

T2 - I've had a real job in the legal field, like being a paralegal at a large firm, for at least a year. I've had sustained, serious professional interactions with lawyers, and that's obvious on my résumé.

T1 - I've had impressive experiences in a real job in the legal field. E.g. I was a demonstrably excellent paralegal at an important firm and clearly already have a robust legal network. I've obviously taken every opportunity I've had to understand that the life of a lawyer is right for me and excelled in those contexts.

## Step two - Determine your Professional softs

Pick the one that most closely describes you.

T4 - I have never had a full time professional job and/or there are obvious post-college gaps in my résumé.

T3 - I've had full time professional jobs, but not really ones in large offices where my primary interaction was with other professionals. Looking at my résumé, an AO would think that I could probably get and keep a legal job, but that I've yet to truly learn the level of white-collar decorum you need as a lawyer.

T2 - I've had full-time professional jobs where my primary interactions have been with other professionals. I've clearly had to learn the decorum required by people working in law, finance, consulting, etc.

T1 - I've had significant professional experience in a household name kind of company, like FAANG or a Big Four or MBB. Looking at my résumé, an AO would be immediately assured that I have already thrived in a truly top-level professional environment.

## Step 3 - Determine your Personal softs

Pick the one that most describes you.

T4 - There is nothing particularly noteworthy about my hobbies or random other accomplishments. I do what I like and don’t make a fuss about it.

T3 - My résumé demonstrates that I'm someone who is committed to their interests. I'm involved in organized athletics. I do community theater. I was a leader of an interesting college group. Basically, my interests have brought me out into the world to connect with people, and that can be represented in a recognizable way.

T2 - I'm so committed to my interests that they've basically become my second job. Often, they've literally been my job. At college, I organized new, impactful activities. I've gotten to professional-level skill in an art, and my résumé proves it. These aren't just things from my past, I have a record of continuing this level of engagement wherever I go. Looking at my experiences, an AO would assume I'd be a pillar of the campus community.

T1 - My interests have brought me to the level of national accomplishment. I've achieved demonstrable excellence in the kind of highly competitive environment an AO would recognize as prestigious and impressive. I had a serious role in an off-Broadway play. I won the world championship in collegiate debate. I qualified for the Olympics in fencing. I’ve done fascinating and impactful research. Basically there is a huge feather in my cap that has nothing to do with the law, but proves that I both have exceptional talent and can fully commit to something.

## Putting your results together

If your only goal is to compare yourself to other applicants and have something to put into your flair, figure out your three sub-rankings and then take the median one. This is as-good-as-any estimate of how good of a candidate you are. Examples:

Amy was a team lead at McKinsey (T1) and a regionally accomplished cellist (T1). AOs would probably overlook that she never even went near a pre-law fair (T4.) She's clearly amazing (T1).

Billo has spent two years working in the front end of a regional bank (T3), doesn't seem to do anything else with his time (T4), but very seriously participated in mock trial in college (T3.) He's not a great applicant, but not terrible either (T3).

Rex worked in finance after graduation (T2), did a couple of legal internships back in college (T3), and plays the blues guitar Wednesday nights at that little place downtown with the brick walls (T2/T3). Seems interesting! (T2/T3)

Now, these are all reductive approximations, and there are important caveats. These days, professional softs are clearly the most important category to master. If you don't have pre-law softs, you can make up for it with the right narrative, but you'll have some convincing to do. Places like Yale and Michigan care much more about prestigious personal softs than regional schools like Ole Miss. But don’t be tricked into thinking they care about those things to the exclusion of the more fundamental questions.

More than anything else, what you should do is use this activity to spot-check your weakness and plan your application narrative. Which of those three fundamental questions are you currently failing? That's what you need to focus on. To go back to the examples, Amy doesn't need to convince law schools that she can do difficult things excellently, she needs to convince them that applying to law school isn't a random quarter-life crisis. Rex stands out less, but his case is in some ways easier to make. And our Admissions Consulting program has worked with many students who’ve fought their way back in from an initial T4 rating—at the end of the day, an application is an act of persuasion. If you know what first impression your résumé makes, you can figure out what story your file should tell.