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Has anyone ever used Law School Admission consultants ?
GenGen85
Free Trial Member
I’m thinking of hiring a law school admission consultant, and I was wondering if anyone has any recommendations. I’m interested in Ann Levine, but I heard there are somw other options out there. Any experience or thoughts ?
Comments
How much do they charge, just curious?
7Sage offers these services.
https://7sage.com/admissions/enroll/
From what I’ve seen it’s $3-5k if you want the full cycle package including scholarship negotiation.
How can that not be a scam?
I paid for one hour of consulting from a different website. It was expensive, but it did relax me.
Ann Levine gives free initial consults.
The more important thing is why do you think need a consultant. There is so much free information and books/articles out there that can help you with the process. Unless you are in a truly unique situation (ex- you have things that can be red flags), you don't need a "consultant."
Save your money. Do the research.
Doesn't that same reasoning apply to test prep?
No. Test prep (ie 7 sage) provides resources like all of the prep tests, explanation videos, etc. Admissions advisors provide nothing aside from just telling you which PS idea of yours works and which doesn’t, some proof reads, and just peace of mind. They really don’t provide any tips and tricks that aren’t on the forums. I do agree that in person courses, like admissions advisors, are more or less useless. Some benefits, but not necessary. Some advisors will even steer you toward applying to lower ranked schools that you aren’t interested in just so the advisor can say that they got people into schools with full rides.
Spivey is good. I think that consulting only makes sense for those who can easily afford consulting. The advice that they give is certainly better and you can rest assured that your application will be significantly better with their advising. If you just want a return on investment, you can never guarantee that you'll see that money returned on the other end. But I am the type of person that would rather buy and not have to wonder what would have happened if I did get consulting.
While groups such as 7Sage and Spivey do an amazing job (really!!) I would suggest looking into free routes as well. Are you in undergrad? I know my university has an undergrad pre-law advisor who has been very helpful to me and others!
Has anyone ever heard of BlackAcre consulting? They claim to be created/run by Yale Law grads but they are fairly new and I can’t find any reviews online. Information is also very scarce on their website. Their packages are definitely more affordable, but im nervous about wasting money on people who don’t actually know much more than applicants on this forum in regards to admissions.
I feel like, aside from having some additional school under their belt, they’re not much different from any of us 0Ls who have been lurking TLS forums for 1-2 years. They can’t know substantially more than us (re admissions) as law school grads. They just know what worked for them specifically to get into law school. I think 7sage is the only option for affordable and reputable, all the other companies have no reviews and don’t have anyone who actually worked in admissions at a law school.
I am using the 7-Sage admissions Consulting program and it is not a scam. The writers that work with their clients are serious professionals. It is not inexpensive, and if you have the time to dedicate to doing the work yourself you can probably do a decent job. But if you have time restrictions and you want to rely on smart veterans of the application game you may want to consider the 7-Sage admissions assistance.
For general information, the Spivey Blog, ThinkingLSAT podcast, Yale Law Admissions Blog, and Law School Toolbox have free commentary, plus the archived webinars on here, but definitely ask the individual questions of a consultant or other professional advisor.
My personal feeling is that professional editing on your essays can be very helpful, but unless you have really specific circumstances (like are an extreme splitter, or aiming for schools way above your numbers), the full consulting is really all that necessary. 7sage seems to have very very good writers on staff, so I think even just their editing packages could be really useful. I think that's particularly their strong suit, from what I've heard.
Edit: OOPS, I meant "... isn't really all that necessary."
But that said, there are also lots of folks around here or other LSAT/law boards that will do essay swaps with you and help you out. There's something to be said for your essay being a true example of your writing skills, without professional help.
Yeah Leah M B makes a great point. What separates a quality consultant from a less than stellar one is how much work they make you do. You want your work to be yours, not the representation of what some professional thinks you are. That is certainly an important item to consider. Any consulting firm worth your money should make you do the work. They should help you understand the parameters of you subject and keep you focused. That certainly can be done with the help of essay swaps and law boards. If you find a firm that you trust, there are two questions to ask yourself;
1. Can I write my needed essays without their help and get the same or a better result? If you can great, but then consider this;
2. Do I have the time to vet my work and the work of others on my behalf? If the answer is once again a yes, then save yourself the $.
I like the consultants that have actually been on the admissions committee. I am an outside of the box candidate, so I am going to go with Spivey.
Spivey’s consultants are former admissions officers, but they are not professional writers. 7Sage consultants all have strong professional writing background. I personally went with 7sage Admissions for two reasons. First, my PS and DS topics are potentially controversial, and I had to tread a fine line. I wanted to balance bringing out my voice while not offending anyone. And 7sage helped me to do just that. I’m very happy with what I have. Another reason is that I wasn’t totally impressed with the sample personal statements in the Spivey blog. They were good essays, but they didn’t feel “special.” I’ve read those “special” essays that moved the mountains (a friend of mine got into Harvard with a 3.3/173 as a non-urm. Another non-urm friend to another Top 3 with similar stats. They did not have extraordinary work experience or achievements. But they had killer essays). So I’ve witnessed that the essays can do a lot and wanted to work with a consultant with a strong writing background. I’m so far happy with that decision.
OP, I've been working with 7Sage consultants since the start of summer. It was not an easy decision to make, but I'm very happy with the experience so far. I'm not being paid to share any of this just like I'm not being paid to sing the praises of 7Sage's LSAT prep services. However, I know how much misinformation, conflicting opinions, and ambiguity is out there and I think sharing my experience can help others make their own choices.
Editing. This is, in my opinion, the #1 reason to hire a consultant. Our essays are important because they bring our applications to life. Our scores and GPAs alone rarely differentiate us as candidates much (besides safety schools) unless we're working with a 3.8+ and 175+, which we're almost certainly not. When I compare the first, unedited draft of my PS with my final, polished product I know the service was worth the money. That first draft didn't sound like me. I found it hard to bring my voice out on the page. The editor cut away the fluff, called out my "thesaurus speak", and let me know where I needed to beef up the writing. The end result was my story in my voice.
The same process played out in Why X and other supplementals. He also guided my approach to those other essays including GPA/LSAT/C&F addenda. I've now applied to each of my top 11 schools. Had I not used 7Sage, I don't think I'd have all these materials finished by now and I know they wouldn't have been as strong. I know others have suggested PS swaps but I wouldn't want another amateur writer giving me feedback on the writing itself. Maybe they are more helpful during proofreading or brainstorming ideas.
I think it's easy to call these services a waste of money just like it's easy to call LSAT prep courses (like 7sage) a waste of money. I know when I started preparing for the lsat, I thought these $1k+ prep services were snake oil and I could find lots of people online who shared that opinion. If I'd listened to them and prepared solely with the help of the bibles, I'd be applying with a 159 instead of a 174.
The truth is that most professional writers use editors themselves. My girlfriend is working on her second book and has been published in dozens of peer-reviewed academic journals. She uses an editor. She put together a journal edition last year and guess what? She edited all the articles published in it.
I can't speak for other services, but if you can afford the cost, 7Sage is worth it.
Did you find that your essay generally received thorough editing of grammar, sentence structure, adding your voice, and making it sound better overall or was there specific assistance you received that was somehow particular to a law school personal statement? I’m just trying to gauge if consultants do the equivalent of what professors do when they read over/critique a research paper or if there’s something they do that makes it different.
@"Michaela.Pratt1"
Are you asking whether the editing service would be any different than using a college professor of, say, descriptive writing?
Basically, yes.
@"Michaela.Pratt1" I can't really say. I've been out of school for 7 years so that thought never crossed my mind. Assuming you had professor available to you who was a professional writer in a field where the writing style was relevant (your physics professor who has published his results in a science journal probably won't help), that may be a useful approach. However, the 7Sage consultants promise a 48 hours turn-around for emails/reviews. Meaning that when you submit a draft, they promise to have feedback within 48 hours. In my case, the feedback almost always came within 24 hours even on weekends. This sort of pace would seem unlikely with anyone who was doing this editing on the side.
If you are curious about their "inside knowledge" and how that helped my PS, it did although that knowledge became much more useful in my addenda and Why X. I don't think a college professor of descriptive writing would have much feedback on whether or not you are approaching a Why X correctly.
Can you describe their background and profile, particularly the one you mention as non-urm with 3.3 gpa? what kind of "non-urm"?
I used David Busis, and I was extremely happy with his application advice and essay edits. David gave very thorough edits on both technical grammar/sentence structure and on big picture themes. This is extremely valuable advice since having a key message/story is crucial to a strong application. My applications would not have been as strong without David's advice, and I think his consulting package is well worth the price.
For those who don't know @"Accounts Playable", he's a 1L at Harvard Law School!
@lsat2016 I can’t get into too much detail, but this person is an orm (over-represented minority). Humanities major, and background in human rights work (1 year). Wrote killer essays that’s one of the best PS and DS I’ve ever read. Much better than ones in the spivey blog. Another person had 0 percent chance according to LSN and got in to a top 3 school. And this person literally wrote the best PS and DS I’ve read. Small size sample, yes, but essays matter. Strong writers tend to overperform their numbers. (We can argue correlation vs causation here, but you know what I mean).
Have to say this really doesn't sound believable without any further context as 3.3 is too much below the HLS GPA floor for non-urms or orms. There is not a "verifiable" data point where a non-URM has got in with that gpa to harvard even though anecdotally people say a lot of things that really don't hold up during scrutiny, when those suggesting such things start to change story or mention other exceptional factor that truly show the reason why someone got in. Most likely it's one of those situations.
@lsat2016 Believing or not believing is up to you. The said person went to college with me for four years. I know her situation well. There was no exceptional factor, although she did write a GPA addendum, just as anyone with a low GPA would write a GPA addendum.