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.
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I think this is a pretty clear one!
In general, admissions officers expect to see any job you’ve had starting frosh year of college and moving to the present. You can make exceptions for truly part time or one-off gigs (example - I used to help a family friend bale hay but it was every now and then so I wouldn’t put that on my resume). But a 30 hour a week gig WHILE going to school? Oh yeah! That should be there.
In my professional opinion, that all seems very logical and reasonable! If I were you, I’d start the explanation with academics and professional outcomes, and then pivot into the more personal matters. That would also give the impression that you’re making a mature decision rather than a purely emotional one.
Historically, Harvard, UChicago, and Stanford haven’t done their first rounds of admission until January so you have a little more grace. NYU and Columbia have been a little earlier. And to be honest, NYU has had very significant issues processing apps the past few years - it’s just a matter of the huge app increase combined with their staffing. So if you wait until December to apply there, you may not get a decision until May. If you’re holding off just for an LoR and a resume item, I’m not sure it’s worth it.
But as a suggestion, this is a good question to ask schools if you go to a law fair. If they share my “meeeeeeeh, I wouldn’t hold up your app just for that” opinion, then you’ll feel like you have some clarity!
@zunair PHEW!!! Glad I’m not contradicting myself!
And maybe to clarify what they said but I’m just spit balling:
If you apply with a future LSAT pending, but
You politely ask a school to review your app NOW before that future LSAT arrives, then
You are signaling that you feel confident that you’re competitive for admission at their school without a higher LSAT.
@KSki You would have to make a call on informing them of that future LSAT. Then, if your plans change, you would have to email the admissions office with the updated information. It’s not a huge deal to do this, but it’s one more thing to do.
So let me throw this out there to you - if you’re going to take that pretext at the end of September, why not just apply then if necessary? There’s no benefit to applying on September 5th vs October 5th so you have time!
To keep it short and sweet, this is a very normal thing to provide in an addenda because you're giving me the necessary context so I can understand your transcript. And speaking of "short and sweet," do just that on your addenda. I just need to know the basic context (struggling with Zoom U and working fulltime, additionally undiagnosed ADHD). That tells me all I need to know!
@pinky Hmmmmmmm, are you sure it isn't "mid-September 2027"? Because a CAS registration is usually good for one admissions cycle. But LSAC has surprised us before....
Regardless, purchase it when you know that you'll be applying this cycle because that's what's going to let you start filling out applications!
Mmmmmmmhmmmmmmmmmmm. You are (almost) correct. You'll get three or four free CAS Reports but then you'll pay $45 per school for the remainder of your apps.
Woof!
Hi All! Just giving you an update on our updates to the app instructions page here.
The update is simple - we're still on it! We're going in order by 1) when the app opened (so updating the August 15th open dates before the August 22nd open dates before the September 1 open dates), and then by 2) US News rank. Regarding that second one ... what can we say? That's a reflection of you all - the most popular pages that you all check out are typically the highest ranked schools.
In the meantime, how can you tell which schools we've updated?
1) You'll notice app deadlines that reflect this current admissions cycle.
2) When you open the school's info page and go to the "Requirements and essays" tab, you notice the notation under the app fees, deadlines, and all that which indicates that we've updated it for this cycle.
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Updates are rolling so do feel free to keep checking!
@KSki 1) Merci!
2) Double check every school's policy for how they consider reviewing apps that are complete if not for a pending LSAT (ie, "I think it may be best to apply to safety and target now"). They may just hold your app until that later LSAT arrives. Additionally, LSAC will inform them that you have a pending LSAT and will also automatically update the schools with the new score when it arrives.
@Kyle180 Agreeing to all of this - it's really school-dependent for the Canadians. Just double check each school you're applying to. If you can't find clear information on their website, give them a call.
@ArjanAiden I'm going to ask you a question that should help us figure out if this is a strategy question or an anxiety question:
[clears throat]
What if I were to say, "yup! you're cooked!"? Would you not even submit apps even if these are the dream schools?
[clears throat again]
Of course you would still apply! It would be bonkers to NOT apply to dream schools WHERE YOU HAVE AN LSAT OVER THE MEDIAN just because you were concerned that it took you four times to get that score. While I acknowledge that it would have been better if you had obtained this score in fewer test administrations or without that big of an increase, you have the score. It's not like you can take a time machine to go back and get this 176 on your first or second test. So you only now have the choice about whether or not to apply and - heck! - the choice seems pretty easy to me.
(And please read all of this in a "coach giving an inspiring halftime talk" voice!)
@RaffiG "End of October" is also just fine because law school admissions officers will be very busy traveling to law fairs until the final week of October. Pound for pound, if you apply in the last week of October, you should be fine.
If you end up being "not fine," then this year will have been so crazy that there's really not much that a reasonable person could have done!
From an admissions standpoint, I would say that it is a given to write an LSAT addenda to explain a 17 point increase! That's an easy one!
As far as the actual explanation goes, yup!, it's alright to effectively say "To be honest, I realized after my first two tests that my preparations weren't going well and that I had to reevaluate things. I did X, Y, and Z and am very proud of the 169 and 176. I believe this better reflects my abilities." Easy peasy!
There are going to be a lot of variables in there, @Madisonb2, not least of which being what kind of schools you're targeting. But let's put this in different terms. If you eventually want to do this, what are you going to have to do now in order to put yourself in the best position to do this come December? Given that the November LSAT is two months away, not only do you need to do your LSAT prep, but you should also get your app materials into a good position in the next few weeks. That would then at least put you in a position in late-November/early-December to apply to schools if you want to. Emphasis on those last few words! Because you can at least then assess the situation based on what's happening at the time rather than what we project to happen (and what we're projecting is for apps to go up again this year...).
This won't be the first time admissions officers see this, @spitfire-6, so don't worry about it!
If the question is "Have you ever been arrested ..... ?" then you'll have to answer "Yes" and provide an explanation.
And as far as the explanation goes, just give us the who/what/when/where/why of matters. For example, "I was arrested and charged in May 2025 on suspicion of illegally impersonating a birthday party clown. Later, the police realized that they had arrested the wrong person - their warrant was for spitfire-7 rather than me, spitfire-6. The charges were immediately dropped when the police realized their error. Please let me know if you have any further questions about this matter."
We'll be updating the Canadian school app requirements list in the coming days just like we're doing with the American apps. We usually wait to do these updates until Sept 1 because that's when most of the US schools open their apps. So just hang tight! In the meantime, the best resource is always the individual school's website.
Regarding how the schools are looking at your GPA, here's our page that lists each school's policy about what they count.
I know I'm all over these message boards encouraging people to apply pre-Nov 1 because of the likely high numbers of apps this year, but the #1 rule is always that you should apply when you believe your app is at its best. If you believe you can do better in November, that could be a very reasonable reason for holding your apps back a smidge.
So here's another way you can think this over. It's a two-pronged test.
1) Do you have reason to believe you can do better? For example, you were consistently practicing higher than a 160 when you took the August LSAT. If so, it's reasonable to think that you could do better in November. On the other hand, if you were PTing closer to the mid-150s, that 160 represents a high point and I wouldn't say it's reasonable to expect to score higher in two months.
2) Would an increase make a difference? For example, if you're targeting schools with medians in the 150s, moving from a 160 to a 162 probably won't make a substantive difference for admission but it may lead to a little more scholarship. But if you're targeting schools with medians in the low 160s, moving from a 160 to a 163 may make a substantive difference just for the purposes of admission.
I hope that helps!
I'd only list the hours/week for a job if the application instructions specifically require it. That's pretty rare, but just keep it in the back of your mind to read the instructions.
And for the schools that ask for this, just do the best you can. They asked for it, so they want it, and they're going to get some odd things like "Seasonal - 60 hours/week during high periods, 5 hours/week during quiet season." But in general, it's not odd to see someone work more hours during the summer versus the academic year. While it may be wonky to write it out, the admissions officers will understand it.
@AF2187 Far be it for me to ever say you should go to somewhere other than 7Sage (NEVER!), but the ultimate authoritative source for each school is the school themselves. Most T14 apps are open today and you can go check them out on LSAC's website and we'll be updating our website shortly. But if the school's app isn't open yet, you can always check out their admissions page. Do an internet search for "[school name] law, admissions instructions." The next thing you want to see if there are dates that clearly reference the 2026-2027 cycle. If you see those dates, you can safely assume that their information is up to date for the upcoming cycle.
Put it all together and - yup! - if looks like you HAVE to do Stanford's previously optional statement about an agreeable disagreement AND you can't just tell them about three songs that have been in your head recently.
Heck, there are a good amount of times when admissions officers don't know what's going on in the admissions office. One example - the year when my dean told me that we were going to start accepting the GRE for admissions ... which was totally fine and the dean's prerogative ... except it was already late-September and our app had been open for a month ... so I had to change the app on the fly AND loop back to everyone who had already applied to ask them follow up questions about the GRE ... and the dean's directions were just "figure it out." #preciousmemories
@zunair Eeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhh, I'd quibble with that a smidge (and far be it from me if this was one of the podcasts where I'm the one who said those exact words :-) ). Here's my reason - I wouldn't even be reading the app until after the future LSAT came in. My school's policy was that we'd hold the app until the future LSAT arrived. So in this scenario, I'm reading your app sometime in November (because we didn't start reading until we were done with law fairs in Sept/Oct), I'd see that you submitted the app on September 1, but then had the Sept LSAT score arrive at the end of the month. I wouldn't assume anything from that other than "I guess they had their app ready to submit on Sept 1." That's it!
And PS that people cancel scores for all kinds of reasons. Admissions officers won't assume anything about a single cancel. You could have gotten sick during the test, there could have been disruptions in the test center, you could have Score Preview'ed it, etc. One cancel is not a problem at all!
@PrincessDi This is because of logistics on the side of the admissions office!
Here's what's happening in admissions offices literally right now ...
September 1st just happened so our application is open. Am I reading apps RIGHT NOW? No, because...
I have to do my standard ABA reporting about the incoming class which is due in a month and is a pain in the neck. But why am I doing that now instead of in a few weeks? Because...
Our travel schedule of law fairs and recruitment events is about to kick into gear. From mid-Sept through late-Oct, my staff will be traveling to the four corners of our country to attend lots of events. We won't all be back in the same place at the same time until Halloween at the earliest.
That's why there's really no substantive benefit at most schools (emphasis added because - yes - every school does things differently but we're just speaking in generalities here) in applying September 5th vs October 5th.
"But," you may say, "don't admissions officers read the apps in order by the date submitted?"
Not necessarily! Our review queue is like a big sortable Excel spreadsheet. I could read in order to date submitted. I could also read in order of date completed, by LSAT, by GPA, alphabetically by first name, etc.
I hope that explains things! And again, this is very much general advice. Every school is a smidge different! And this is different from my advice all over these messages boards that you want to apply pre-November 1. That's because you definitely want your apps to be there in the first batch once the admissions office is done with their recruitment travels.