Watch 7Sage Admissions Committee Review Applications Live! [FREE]
Join Sam Kwak (Stanford, Northwestern), Tajira McCoy (Berkeley), Jake Baska (Notre Dame), and the coordinator of 7Sage's admissions program as they review user-submitted applications. This is your chance to see how applications are read in real test conditions. Ever wonder how admissions officers make decisions behind closed doors? Come be a fly on the wall. If you'd like us to consider reviewing your application, please submit it to us <a href="https://coda.io/form/7Sage-Reviews_d0rAuqNSFhx>here. We will also take questions at the end of the class.
About the instructors
Sam has been involved in many areas of the legal education ecosystem for the past 20+ years, including most recently as a Consultant and Director of Strategic Initiatives at Spivey Consulting Group. Prior to consulting, Sam served as the Data Storyteller at LSAC and Manager of Legal Education and Assessment at the Section on Legal Education and Admission to the Bar at the ABA. Sam was also a law school admissions officer at both public and private law schools, including Northwestern, Stanford, and Indiana University - Bloomington. While serving as the Senior Associate Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Northwestern, Sam interviewed candidates, reviewed JD and LLM files, coordinated scholarships, and traveled to Europe and South America to recruit international students.
Sam graduated with honors from Duke Law School. He began his legal career as a corporate associate for Simpson Thacher & Bartlett LLP in New York and Palo Alto and Fenwick & West LLP in Seattle. Sam was a CLEO scholar during law school and served as a CLEO summer teaching assistant. Sam also worked as a summer associate at law firms in Seoul and Tokyo.
Sam is proud to be a first-generation college student, graduating Phi Beta Kappa with a double major in philosophy and political science from the University of Washington. Even though he currently lives in Chicagoland with his wife, Grace, he remains a loyal 12 (Go Hawks!) and attends a road game each season. Sam is an avid golfer during the summer and has started to warm up to the long Chicago winters by learning to ski. Sam takes delight in adventures on the open sea through cruising, snorkeling, ziplining, and discovering new places and food worldwide!
Jake is an admissions consultant at 7Sage, and over the last few years he's helped hundreds of students gain admission to their dream schools. Before that, he worked in undergraduate and law admissions for over a decade and has reviewed tens of thousands of applications. He most recently served as the Director of Admissions and Financial Aid at Notre Dame Law School. In that role, he was responsible for all matters related to recruitment strategy, file reading and decision making, yield programming, scholarship modeling, and connecting admitted students with faculty, alumni, and current students. Additionally, Jacob has been active in the law admissions community, serving on panels and subcommittees for the Law School Admissions Council. Despite a great deal of experience working on macro strategy for law schools, his most rewarding moments have always been connecting directly with students to help them achieve their goals, especially those from non-traditional backgrounds and marginalized communities.
When not working, Jacob spends a great deal of time with his family, coaching one daughter's Girls on the Run team and serving as the cookie manager of another's Girl Scout troop. He is an avid BBQ aficionado and never shies from sharing his strong opinions about the St. Louis Cardinals.
Ethan started working with 7Sage after completing his MFA at the University of Iowa, the country's top program in program in creative writing. Every year, he reads hundreds of over-performing applications in order to decode how schools actually make admissions decisions. When not at work, you can find him digging for quahogs in Rhode Island's tidal waters. He's currently finishing his first book.
Tajira (Taj) worked in law school admissions for ten years, most recently as the Director of Admissions and Scholarship Programs at Berkeley Law. At Berkeley Law, her primary responsibilities included recruiting and advising prospective law school applicants on the application process, evaluating applicants for admission and incoming scholarship opportunities, managing the scholarship reconsideration process, and supporting diversity recruitment and yield efforts.
During her tenure in law admissions, her recruitment efforts spanned JD and LLM programs at four law schools, including public and private institutions, a Jesuit institution, and an HBCU. Taj built and cultivated relationships within the law school and pre-law communities, often speaking on panels about the admissions process, diversity in law schools, personal and diversity statement workshops, and financial aid talks. For the Law School Admissions Council, she served on the Misconduct and Irregularities in the Admissions Process Subcommittee, the Subcommittee on DiscoverLaw Plus Programs, the International Outreach and Recruitment Work Group, the Annual Meeting Planning Work Group, and the Diversity Committee. She also evaluated submissions to the LSAC Diversity Writing Competition, and she presented at several Annual Meeting Conferences and numerous LSAC Forum events. Following her time in admissions, she served as the Director of Career Services at the University of San Francisco School of Law and has served as an application reader for Loyola Law School (Los Angeles).
Taj received her bachelor’s degree from California State University, Northridge, and her JD from Southwestern Law School. In addition to admissions consulting, she is a literary agent representing creatives in the publishing industry. Taj is also a rom-com author with MIRA Books of HarperCollins.