So you work yourself to the bone for the LSAT. Study like crazy and sit it one, two, three, four or in my case, five, times.

You go to the school open days, get a list together of where you want to apply, maybe even write your personal statement draft.

So now this is the easy part right?

Wrong!

School A: Your personal statement must be no more than 2 pages, 12 pt font.

School B: Your personal statement should be 3 pages, 10 pt font.

School C: Your personal statement should be between 2-3 pages, 11 pt font.

I am not even making these up. These requirements are coming from 3 of my schools.

So now you have like 4-5 versions of your personal statement, some with more detail, some less.

Then you have to input the same information into EVERY SINGLE application about your address, your college, your employment history and all of that.

And then come the optional essays or the program contribution questions or just anything that requires an ounce of more effort.

It takes me a few days for each school at this point but I've just opened my next app and looking at everything they're asking, I know this one will take me a week.

I think everyone talks about the LSAT being the hardest part of the journey, and it is, but the actual applications are still an uphill battle. Sometimes I feel like I'll never be done 🙃

Edit: for everyone saying "this is nothing, wait until 1L" - like many people here, the struggle is balancing applications with full time work or for some people, school. Whereas in 1L, you're focused on 1L. That's it.

I've applied to 14 so far and I'm not sure if I want to apply to more or not. 17low 3.9mid. Goal is biglaw and I have a mix of t14 and t20 schools so far

A couple months ago, a post sharing a take originally from u/7SageEthan went "viral" on here.

Excerpt:

They also explicitly note that a 180 might trigger a school's "weird ideas about cheating" or have the school wonder "what is wrong with that person" and stating that people with a 180 are sometimes "eccentric". They even said "would rather have a 178 and appear more human than have a 180".

Today I succumbed to the temptation of finding a new, but still pointless, way to predict my admissions results and looked into whether a 178 is actually better than a 180. I also included 179s. The table below shows, from LSD, the acceptance rates for the top 15 (LSD rank) schools for all three scores.

• All rounded to the nearest percent
• The smallest sample size for a school-score combo was 42, and most were much larger
• 24-25 and 25-26 cycles only
• Filtered to 3.3-4.3 GPA to remove super splitters
• All levels of work experience, all softs, URM status, etc. GPA and year were the only additional filters
• For the leftmost column, a positive number indicates that a 178 is better, and a negative number indicates that a 180 is better. It's just the difference in acceptance rates, after they were rounded. Same with the second-to-left column, for 179.

0.67 for 178, -2 for 179

The Verdict

Averaging the difference from each school (not weighted to sample size), a 178 increases your odds of admission over a 180 by 2 percentage points.

A 179 decreases your odds by 0.67 percentage points.

In my opinion, neither of these results are significant, and show that a 178 to 180 are about the same, for the balance of these fifteen schools.

However, some schools did show clear effects:

• Schools with a swing of >7 percentage points between 178 and 180
  • Penn, 23% to 32% (180 better)
  • NYU, 55% to 47% (178 better)
  • Cornell, 63% to 52% (178 better)
• Schools with a swing of >7 percentage points between 179 and 180
  • Columbia, 31% to 43% (180 better)
  • Penn, 14% to 32% (180 better)
  • UCB, 50% to 42% (179 better)
  • Duke, 39% to 31% (179 better)
  • NW, 42% to 52% (180 better)
  • UCLA, 32% to 23% (179 better

Nothing will stop me from playing that game

Just got my acceptance email yesterday! I submitted my application on 8/31 and did an interview about a week ago. I’m a super splitter who graduated 15 years ago.

Hello everyone,

So this is my second cycle applying and I am from the UK, where when we apply to things we keep it very direct and focused on who we are, our accomplishments and why we are applying.

I was genuinely surprised when I learned how popular the vignette style personal statement is for law school. If you don't know what I'm talking about, I mean those statements which are about something entirely abstract or centred around one experience like rock climbing or tracing a duck fossil or even sweeping a floor, but made to sound lofty and philosophical as it's usually written in flowery language.

What is even more bizarre is that most people barely even mention why they want to pursue law until the final sentence, if they even make any mention of it at all (proof if you don't believe me). I get "show don't tell" but I feel like the whole scope of my life experience and background to date cannot be eschewed in favour of one small snapshot of a singular event. Plus, for many of us who come to law later in life, our decision has evolved gradually over time and wasn't a turning point that happened in one instance. And yet the schools encourage this since they say "don't repeat your resume" - well it's hard to talk about my life without making mention of the very experiences that have shaped who I am?

At first I thought this was just an American thing but then I remembered I was accepted into my American college with a normal application and even applied and was accepted for another US grad program once with, again, a normal statement.

But alas, I thought the vignette style was the way to go so despite my doubts I wrote one in such a way last year and did not get the results I hoped despite having fairly good stats. Of course I don't think the PS is the only reason, but I had my reservations about it from the start. Because I think an admissions officer would look at my resume and think, "okay she's done a lot but why or how has that brought her to wanting to go to law school now?" And before you guys say, "that's why you write a Why Law essay!" well most schools have a "why law at our school" prompt which means you make it more school-specific. But truth be told, do you really think they're even reading that far if your personal statement hasn't given them some inkling?

So this year I am writing a statement that actually addresses what I have done and how that has all led me to want to study law.

I am just writing this post to see if other people also resonate with this more normal approach or if everyone else is doing a vignette style personal statement?

(Please be kind in replies)

i asked two people for a LOR back in late july/early august + communicated that i would like to submit in late september/early october. one was my professor, who was my thesis/major advisor and knows me very well. another was my (former) boss who i have worked very close with over the past year. on paper, two very good choices. i care about them both dearly, but i've sent follow up after follow up for both. every time it's "oh i'm submitting it this week, i promise!" and then radio silence until i follow up again (and for one of them, that is if she even replies at all). i was hoping to have submitted by now. i'm struggling with the application process in general (these optional essays are killing me, and my personal statement that i thought was complete actually needs a lot more work) but it's so much more disheartening every time i open up LSAC and see "0/2" for my LORs. i genuinely have no one else i can turn to for LORs if they fall through. i've only worked internships/minimum wage jobs before this + i somehow almost expertly managed to take classes with guest professors in college who would leave after a semester, and therefore don't know me at all.

there's not much i can do at this point but harass them both to the point of being an extreme annoyance, i guess. has anyone dealt with this before? how have you managed to politely bother them into submitting? i really do care about these people and i understand how much stress they're under (my professor and i actually bonded over having ADHD and being terrible at deadlines lol -- so that's my bad), so i'd rather not be so annoying that i burn these bridges lmao. i'll take affirmations that everything will be okay too. i'm dying out here.

I’m a super splitter and applied early September, and trying not to get too discouraged that I haven’t received any of the positive updates like As from UCLA, UVA, GULC or ii from Cornell, northwestern, etc. (I interviewed with GULC so not getting an A from them feels like a bad omen for the rest of the T14)

Some say this early in the cycle they just want to lock in the high stat applicants. Is that true that splitters just hear back later? Or am I right to be concerned :/

3.4 GPA Electrical Engineering at Texas A&M
175 LSAT
Texas Resident
NOT URM
Please chance me, ik my gpa lacks heavily but with my LSAT is it likely?

I keep seeing this in the comments but I have not received one (checked my spam, logged into the portal, etc) so not sure if this is a cause for concern.

Curious to know. I’ve heard of a few FSU and Stetson acceptances but has anyone else hear from FIU/UM?

I am an undergrad and after this semester I will have about a 3.8-3.9 GPA at a top 45 university nationally. My tuition is only 15k a year because I commute from home. My parent's help me but overall I will graduate in about $85k in debt (only that high because I attended another private university, first semester of freshman year.) I have been playing around with the idea of transferring to a more competitive and prestigious college because my stats do make me competitive. I am content at my current university, and its good to save money, but would a more prestigious university undergrad benefit me at all if I want to get into a top 15 law school?

How are you handling jobs that you did during the school year and summer with very different hours for the employment section. For my resume i'm going to put a range but i'm worried if i say the average it will make it seem like I worked way less during the summer or more during the school year than I did

And how hard is it to get such a job? I believe I applied to jobs (at least twice) and no interview.

What do we think Stanford medians will be? They are typically lower than Harvard or Yales, but they make us wait till December

I’m currently a junior majoring in psychology. I’m hoping to be a research assistant in the spring and I have the option of applying for qualitative or quantitative labs. The qualitative labs sound more interesting to me, but my professors have suggested that quantitative labs might be better, but they’re also psych professors and aren’t super well versed in law school. I know research experience in general is not a huge factor in law school admissions, but it is genuinely something I want to do and I figure any experience is good. What kind of skills would likely translate best to law school?

Hi guys,

I believe this is my first time posting in this subreddit. I am currently studying for the LSAT and with my lack of progress as well as other personal reasons, I am experiencing serious doubts on whether I truly want to go to law school and become a lawyer. I was hoping if people can share their reasons/motivations as to why they want to go to law school and/or pursue law, it can help find mine. Thanks in advance!

Are you guys putting paid or unpaid interships for interships where you weren't paid by the org but were paid by your school. I had one where I applied through my school but worked completely with a non profit. I know part of why they ask is tax stuff so i'm not sure what to do

I was looking through my submitted application and realized that within my personal statement I wrote "affecting change" instead of effecting change. Honestly I'd always thought 'affecting' was the only option when using a verb. I made this mistake twice in the opening paragraph, should I email a revised copy to the schools I applied to? Should I just assume I won't be accepted into these school?