Hey there! So many questions now that I've started digging through apps...

Do people typically list hours/week on resumes?

When apps say "list all educational institutions attended," does that include high school?

Does a speeding ticket from 5 years ago count as a C&F issue? I know Emory says explicitly it does and should be disclosed. Should I be safe and disclose for other schools too?

Is there a good piece of advice anywhere on whether to do a GPA addendum? I'm leaning against doing so, because I don't have a great reason. (It'd be something like: I was very involved in a time-consuming extracurricular/didn't think I was going to school beyond undergrad/it's been 3 years since I've graduated and I've grown, yada yada...) AKA, I think it'd sound whiny and excuse-ridden.

And lastly, an unimportant technical question: on some schools' apps, LSAC auto-fills in a *****XXXX for my SSN. Should I re-type my SSN in full in the box below that?

THANK YOU

When I graduated undergrad I ended with no extracurriculars. Worked 35 hours a week with 15-18 credit hours most of the time. I'm planning to take this lsat January and March. And apply ED to a school. Hopefully a t14. Which I guess would put me to attend law school fall of 2020. I was wondering if I should just attend grad school/ post bacc in that time. I'd basically be doing nothing anyway and I feel like I may want to get a dual law degree. Also I feel as thought doing well in another program would make my UGPA look like less of a negative on my application. I need guidance.

I am trying to decide who to ask for letters for law school. I am going to ask one of my college professors, but since I have been out of college for about 5 years, I was also thinking about asking my boss, who managed me for three years. While I could ask another professor instead of my boss, I am not confident they'd be as capable of writing a great letter. Is better to have two professors or one profess and one manager?

I originally wrote a diversity statement about the challenges of being an ethnic minority but I wrote another after learning UCLA has a section for socioeconomic disadvantage. Most schools only offer a place for one diversity statement. I've been struggling with which statement I should send to the other schools.

Is a socioeconomic diversity statement or ethnic diversity statement more compelling? Would it be better if I consolidate both at the risk of eliminating detail and having a less cohesive statement?

Apologies if this has been asked, but I have been in a semi-spirited debate with my wife about this. I've been in the workforce for the past 14 years (5 years as a federal employee at a three-letter agency and 8 years in the Army with extensive leadership experience and a combat deployment).

I was medically retired from the Army due to a mental illness that manifested itself immediately after I redeployed in 2014. (I am considered a disabled veteran by the VA).

Is this something that is worth brining up through a diversity statement? I am a little worried that disclosing an issue like this could impact me negatively, despite the fact that I am able to live/function with a service-connected issue.

Thanks in advance.

The following is the wording of a question on the Character and Fitness portion of the application for the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah:

"Have you ever been disciplined in connection with any misconduct matter related to any educational, personal, professional, military, business, or employment behavior or activity? Being disciplined includes, but is not limited to, being sanctioned, placed on probation, suspended, dismissed, resigning in lieu of termination, surrendering a professional license, or having a civil judgment obtained against you."

Beings the wording of this question states "any misconduct matter related to ANY educational ... behavior or action," would that include disciplinary action in high school? There is a seperate question that specifically asks this type of behavior at post-secondary institutions, as well.

I am concerned because I was suspended for two days in my Senior year of high school for making a sexually suggestive joke toward a teacher. While I don't think it will keep me from being admitted if I disclose, any behavior related to misconduct of a sexual nature can be very detrimental to your show of good character. So does anyone think I should answer "Yes" to this question based on high school disciplinary action?

Thanks for the insight!

I submitted my transcripts to LSAC about a month ago. They have all been received without a problem. However, the OLSAS website shows that I have no transcripts on file. Is this normal, or do I need to call them?

Hey y'all -- thought I'd shoot this out out to the community because I need sage advice.

I applied to 8 Canadian law schools last cycle and was rejected by all of them. Ouch, I know. This was before I started my 7Sage journey. I wrote my first and only LSAT exam in December 2017, and went into it with all of my applications submitted and a vaulting sense of over-confidence (the ego bruises still hurt, friends). I scored a 143, didn't cancel my score because I was a rookie, and then watched as the rejections flew in one-by-one. LSAT score notwithstanding, I wholeheartedly believe that my applications (complete with my transcripts, letters of recommendation, and personal statements) were strong. With my second write taking place this November, I'm once again preparing my applications for each school (yes, I'm a shameless creature).

This brings me to my question: would you recommend that I reuse my same personal statement from last year for each of my applications this year? I'd like to keep the majority of it the same and make some minor adjustments, yet don't know if it'll reflect badly on my application...

For your consideration:

Things that have changed since I wrote my personal statement last year:

- I started an intensive LSAT study schedule with 7Sage (heeeey).

- I've (finally) learned to prioritize my mental and physical health/wellbeing through various new steps (mindful and balanced eating, implementing a daily running regimen). This is a huge part of my daily life and has had an enormous impact on my outlook and general health.

- I'm now officially a year out of undergrad, whereas when I wrote my personal statement before, I had just graduated and wrote from that perspective.

Things that have not changed since I wrote my personal statement (and are included in my statement already):

- I still work as an executive assistant for a local environmental firm (only now more hours)

- I'm still a regular volunteer at the plethora of places I'm involved with (the list is too long to type out here, friends)

- My professional goals and aspirations are steadfast :)

All advice is welcome -- I'm all ears!

As of now I have two LORs. One from one of my favorite professors and another from a Dean who mentored me throughout undergrad. Does the letter from the Dean in this case count as an Academic LOR?

Hi everyone,

I identify predominantly as Latina (Mexican-American and Spanish) but I also identify somewhat as Native American because my father (whose family I do not know well because he passed away a long time ago) have a lot of Native American blood. Because I am not in touch with his side of the family, I wasn't even 100% sure that I was Native American until I did 23andme and it proved that I was nearly 40% Native American. I am still in the process of getting more in touch with my Native American heritage and thus, do not have the paperwork to prove that I am Native American or which tribe I'm from. And to be quite honest, even if I were to reconnect with my father's family, they would likely not have any paperwork or proof to assist me.

The problem is: A school like UC Davis requires me to list which tribe I am part of and my Native American card number--all things I do not have. What should I do? Should I apply to other schools as Latina and Native American and just apply to UC Davis as Latina--or should I reach out to Admissions and explain my situation?

I am planning on writing a diversity statement and now it feels like I'm in an odd place because I can't identify myself as Native American on one application even though I know I have more Native American blood than some people who have the paperwork to prove it (no offense meant here--but I have met people who are like 12% Native American and have all their paperwork and it feels frustrating that I can't "prove" myself).

I'm currently finishing a PhD program and applying to law school for next fall. Since most of the people I interact with are professors or aspiring professors, it can easily get at least two academic letters of recommendation. However, I'm not sure if I should stop there. So, my question is whether it would be better to have three academic letters of recommendation only or two academic letters plus one non-academic. It seems like most people go with the latter option, but that might be because undergrads tend not to have as strong of a relationship with the faculty as graduate students usually do. What's more, because I haven't had a non-academic job for over eight years, it's not exactly easy for me to get a solid non-academic reference. So, what do you guys think? Would three academic letters be better than two plus?

Hi all -

I attended a Doctoral program in Fall of 2014, hated it, realized I had to make some serious career path changes, and withdrew after 1 semester. Unfortunately, while I attended all classes until the end of the semester, my grades were deplorable, as I was pretty checked out. And I mean deplorable.

Do I assume correctly that regardless of the fact I withdrew so quickly, I still need to send in my transcript to LSAC?

This period in my life is pretty well addressed in my personal statement and an addendum, but any other suggestions to remedy this? My Undergrad GPA is 3.56 so obviously I would hope this one crap semester shouldn't be indicative of anything to admissions officers.

Thanks very much.

Hello! I am going to my first law school fair next weekend in Boston — not the LSAC forum, that’s not until November, but there are 50ish schools in attendance. I am hoping to snag time with quite a few schools but was looking for any and all advice on how to stand out, what to wear, what to ask, etc. I am holding off on a few apps (BU, UCLA, BC, and some others) who I know will be there so I can have something to write in the “did we speak at an event” box (lol) since I don’t see a week this early making a huge difference. Anything is helpful!!! Also let me know if you’re going :)

TL; DR version: Start your apps early to ensure you know all of the requirements.

While attempting to nurse my bruised ego back to an acceptable level (thanks to yet another underwhelming LSAT performance), I started my actual LSAC school applications this morning. I'm applying to 3 schools, each of which I have researched exhaustively on their websites and on other forums. Only 1 of the 3 schools has a "Why X" requirement published on their admissions page, which, like any good obsessive law school applicant, I have already written. However, in each of the other 2 school LSAC applications, there are specific questions that lead to a "Why X" essay (and an additional "What ties do you have to the area" essay). I groaned when I saw these questions because I thought I was largely in the edit / revise phase of my application materials and now have to draft 3 more substantive essays (2 Why Xs and 1 What ties).

I realize its a first world problem, but still: Come on, man.

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Hi everyone. I'd like to get some thoughts about the topic of my personal statement. I have two potential ones in mind, and would love some opinions.

Background: I am a nontraditional student. I will be 50 when I start law school in 2019. I have been to law school before: I finished two years back in 1997-1999, before I decided to leave under financial pressure (from now ex-husband) combined with having one toddler and another baby on the way. Now that both kids are grown (youngest starts college this month), I am going back to law school because it is unfinished business, and all I've ever really wanted to do is be a lawyer. Before, when I was in law school, I pictured myself in a courtroom winning cases and being brilliant (ha). Now, after being a mom, and having both my kids be transgender, I'm very focused on wanting to focus on LGBT issues and civil rights.

Topic 1: my kids being transgender and how that has inspired my return to law school. Pro: it very much fits the overall theme of my application. Con: it's actually a very big topic to try to address in 2 page and still make the kind of impact a personal statement should make (?) There's no one moment or story to tell. I could address this in other places, such as a "Why X" statement (I'm looking at schools that have LGBT journals and/or clinics or other programs), and/or an addendum that explains my years away from work and school. So it's not like it will go unaddressed entirely.

Topic 2: This is the one my gut is telling to write, even though it doesn't speak to WHY I want to go to law school at my age. It's about how, after getting divorced and feeling very "not me," I picked the scariest, most difficult sounding trip in a travel brochure and went to Nepal to go trekking in 2004. I wanted to be out of my comfort zone and challenge myself, and to remember what it was like to feel successful. I'd never been trekking before and was out of shape. The Annapurna circuit is nothing but steps, and this incident is about how I got so far behind my group one day, that I just wanted to give up. I wanted to just lie down on the side of the trail and quit. And then it started pouring, and we (myself and the poor porter who spoke no English but had to stay with me) ended up on some random woman's front step, next to her chickens, while I fought off hypothermia. I had a moment of realizing that there was no giving up: no one was going to come get me; there were no cars to call up there, or any way for find an alternate way out. I had to just suck it up and keep going. And I did.

So I think topic 2 is much better personal statement material, and says a lot about me. But it doesn't tie in with my overall application theme.

Thoughts?

I wanted to share my story about transferring even though almost everyone will advise you against my approach and recommend instead that you take another year off to improve your LSAT score. I agree that you shouldn't go to a law school you wouldn't be comfortable graduating from, but also wanted to share my story on how I went to my 1L law school with the intention of transferring, and ended up successfully transferring. There isn't a lot of information about transferring out there, and I would have appreciated reading more transfer stories myself when I first started looking into it.

I decided pretty late in the 2016/2017 application cycle to apply to law school. I purchased 7Sage after a lot of research on prep courses and completed the ultimate course. I loved the course and found that it improved my score quite a bit, but it took longer than I was expecting and I soon realized by December that the February 2017 LSAT was my last shot to go to law school in fall 2017. By the time I completed the course, I only had time to do about 3-4 practice tests. I think around that time I was scoring close to 160, but with a 3.5 GPA (from a top 25 undergrad), I knew that I wouldn't have a shot at a T-14 school. The advice I got from everyone I talked to, and the 7Sage forum, was that I should delay a year and work and improve my LSAT score to get into a better law school. However, I kept thinking about how starting law school fall 2017 would already put me at 3 years between undergrad and law school (I did a master's in between). At that point I realized that I didn't want to take an extra year working in a random job after I had already made the decision to practice law. Despite everyone's advice, I decided that I would apply and go to law school with whatever I scored on the February test. I scored only a 156 and applied the day I got my score back with the help of the 7Sage admissions program. After hearing back from schools, my best option weighing scholarships with rankings was a school ranked 45-55 that gave me a half ride. Because I wasn't happy with my law school choice and the city it was located in, I started looking into transferring that summer and decided that my ultimate goal that year would be to transfer.

My 1L year started before everyone else's. I bought E&E's and started prepping about 4 weeks before school started. I read Getting to Maybe, completed LEEWS, skimmed Planet Law School and the Delaney books, and then worked through parts of the E&E's. Looking back on it I wouldn't recommend doing the E&E's before, because it's really so dependent on your professor, but I do recommend reading the other books before starting 1L. I think going into 1L thinking about transferring the whole first semester really motivated me. There were times when I wanted to go out and not study, but each time I kept reminding myself how much1L grades matter, how I really didn't like the city where my law school was located, and how badly I wanted to transfer. I think this worked for me at least as added motivation. After I got back my first semester grades, I was pleasantly surprised and realized that my plans to transfer were feasible. I asked 1L professors for recommendations in February and submitted apps to some schools ranked 14-25 by March. The benefit of applying early was that I heard back from all of those beginning of May, which took the pressure off a little bit for exams second semester. I committed to one of those schools and submitted a deposit, but once I got my second semester grades back and realized I did just as well as I had first semester, I decided to apply to my dream law school. I was so shocked and happy when I got in in July, and it felt like all my hard work 1L year had finally paid off. I am now at a T-6 law school---a school that I would have probably never had a shot at even if I had spent another year prepping for the LSAT by virtue of my undergrad GPA. My experience so far is that there hasn't been a transfer stigma at my new school, and I had a pretty good outcome at OCI and will be working at a V10 firm next summer, so there doesn't really appear to be transfer stigma among employers at my new school.

Although I didn't get in the conventional way, I couldn't be happier with my decision to do it the way I did. Obviously, this approach will not work for most due to the curve, but I just wanted to provide an example of how it can work for some people, and how your LSAT score doesn't always have to be the final determinant for which law school you graduate from.

(Final note: I have a friend that transferred to a T-3 this year and was able to get a substantial grant from the school, so although financial considerations may be another reason to not transfer and improve your LSAT score instead, it might still be possible to receive need-based grants as a transfer).

Is it acceptable to request a fee waiver with no LSAT score? I am thinking of having all of my applications ready to submit when scores are released and would appreciate having this out the way? Thoughts?

UC Irvine's application states:

Other than the LSAT, have you taken another standardized test? If so, please provide the following information below...

Is this in reference to other graduate school entrance exams like the GRE/GMAT/MCAT? Are we required to report college entrance exams like the SAT/ACT/AP tests?

I am realizing now that many of the truths that hold for an academic CV may not apply for a law school application resume. I was hoping to get some clarifications on some aspects!

do you include dollar amounts for grants/funding? A lot of the grants I got during my masters to conduct research are above 5k, and one is 17k... on a CV dollar amounts are a must to show you are able to get significant funding, but since that is not the case in law school is it too pretentious? Also, should I list every award I've gotten? It takes up half a page which is normal for academia where your CV can be like 20 pages, but it seems to take up too much room for law school applications.

In my CV, conferences organized and conferences presented at are two different categories. Should these become one larger category? I also have a separate volunteer work section.

I just explored LSN, and found that no one with my numbers has ever gotten into my first dream school, and only less than 10% have gotten into my second dream score (UChic, UPenn). I don't know what to think about this. They're also not on the LSAC official guide either. Should I even bother ED with a school that has never accepted a student with my stats, or put it somewhere more realistic?

Hi guys!

Any advice on choosing a final schools list when I don't have a reportable LSAC GPA? I got my undergrad education outside the US and my CAS report gave me the "above average" categorisation. My graduate degree is also non-US and was categorised as "superior".

Obviously you can't compare these directly to a UGPA, because it's not the same fine detail. So my question is; should I consider UGPA a wash when looking at schools? Am I right that my transcript is unlikely to help, nor hurt my chances? In which case, should I judge reach/target/safety status on LSAT score alone?

Thanks.

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Is it necessary to have a final list of law schools before requesting an academic letter of recommendation? Or can the request be sent while in the process of creating/finalizing the list?

What are your thoughts on modifying the list after requesting a letter?

Please let me know the pros and cons for the above and where you got the advice. I haven't been able to find anything on the topic so far.

Okay, so I am glad you came into this discussion. First off I lied this may not be the an awesome personal statement, but with your help it could be. I need someone to take apart my paper and make sure it has all of the elements needed to make this a awesome personal statement. Please be critical so I can go back and make revisions on this paper. I appreciate anyone willing to take the time and evaluate my work.

Hey all. Would love to swap subject essays and get some feedback. Hit me up if interested and thanks!

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