Your applications are in and you’re waiting to hear from your law schools.  And yikes…you just read that it’s not unusual for law schools to cost more than $150,000, what with tuition, books, housing, transportation, food, etc.  So…what if your primo school does realize what a great addition you’ll be to their class?  You’ve heard that most law schools don’t allow 1Ls to hold employment, and you’ve already accumulated student loans from your undergrad years.  Have you thought about how you’re going to pay for three years of law school tuition, not to mention living expenses, while you’re buried in the stacks?  Unless you’ve recently had a major Powerball hit, you need to start your financial planning for law school!

It will be great if you get a scholarship award, but you need to be realistic. Competition for both law school admission and financial resources is tough. The three most common ways people pay for law school are: loans, scholarships, and grants. These days, with rising tuition and living costs, most law students find themselves relying on loans; these have to be paid back.  All graduate professional students (and this means you – the potential 1L), are considered independent for the purposes of determining your federal financial aid eligibility.  Even so, many law schools will still require your parents’ financial information for the purposes of determining their own institutional financial aid for which you may be eligible. Each law school determines its own financial aid application deadline.  Pay attention to them; create a spreadsheet to stay on track with each school’s deadline!  The reality is that more than 80% of law school graduates come away with some sort of loan debt. 

The federal government is the largest provider of grad school financing, offering two basic types of loans: subsidized and unsubsidized. Most law schools have a financial aid advisor who can help you understand your aid options; your law school officer will advise you of how much federal aid you qualify for at each school.

To be considered for federal aid, the very first thing you need to do is complete and submit your Free Application For Federal Student Aid form (the FAFSA). It’s available at http://www.fafsa.ed.gov/ . In order to submit a timely FAFSA, you should file your federal income tax return as early as possible. (FAFSA is available in the fall, but it cannot be filed until January 1.) When you complete your FAFSA, you will indicate the law schools to which you are applying. Once you’ve been accepted by a law school, it will analyze your FAFSA to determine your financial need, what part of your legal education you will be expected to pay, and scholarships, grants, and loans for which you may qualify. Be aware that each law school’s federal aid assessment will be different because each school’s costs are different.

The Law School Admission Council (LSAC) provides a wealth of valuable information on financial aid at: http://lsac.org/Financing/financial-aid-options.asp. 

A number of law schools also have great web resources for law school applicants.

• Iowa State University has a resource to help you develop a timetable for your
  financial aid process. It’s available at:  
  http://www.las.iastate.edu/academics/prelaw/financial_aid.shtml.  
• University of Michigan has good info available at:
  http://www.careercenter.umich.edu/students/law/applying/financialaid.html
• Michigan state has some really great info at: 
  http://www.law.msu.edu/admissions/scholarships.html

Next week: Loans and your "financial house"

Law school admission deans place a lot of emphasis on "numbers", and, because law schools typically do not conduct interviews, the personal statement serves as the applicant’s "interview".   Considering how competitive these factors make the admission process, it’s critical that each applicant think strategically about what schools to apply to.  A common mistake occurs when an applicant builds the school list just by consulting school ranking lists, such as those found on-line or in magazines.  So much advertising ad publicity is given to rankings and marketing, it’s often difficult to separate fact from the PR sound bites. Even if you think you’ve identified the real story about a particular school - meaning you’ve dug around and gotten its bar passage and job placement rate at nine months post-graduation, these things aren’t the whole story.  Too often, law school applicants set their sights too narrowly when building their schools list.

Be flexible:
The more specific you are about where you’re willing to attend law school, the more you will limit your options. Often great applicants will limit themselves to a single metropolitan area when choosing a law school.  Some applicants get hung up on a specific geographic location- say they only want to be in New York City, or Boston, or DC, or California. While it’s certainly reasonable to keep geography in mind when thinking about where you eventually want to set up practice, you should still think broadly enough to give yourself real chances of securing an admission offer. There are many very fine law schools throughout the US. Take the time to investigate a range of great schools.

Know yourself:  what kind of law school setting is important to you?
As you’re already finding, the law school application process is highly competitive.  In turn, law students, in general, can be seen as also highly competitive. That said, there are varying degrees of competitiveness in law school. Some schools will place more emphasis on competition; indeed, in some schools, competition is nurtured mainly by the law students themselves, even though the administration might prefer the setting to be more congenial.  If you know you prefer a more collaborative, team-based environment, then look for a law school that has more of that "feel". Talk to admissions people; talk to faculty. But most important of all, reach out to current students and recent alumni to get their feedback about what kind of learning environment a school offers.  Maybe you thrive on competition; if so, you want to be sure this is valued at the school.  Know yourself and what you want, and get to know as much as you can about the schools you’re considering.

Find and use available resources:
The American Bar Association has a great resource available through the Law School Admission Council (LSAC) web site. There, you can access school-specific information, including details about GPA and admission test scores for recently admitted classes at ABA-approved law schools. Check this out at http://officialguide.lsac.org/ One of the really cool features on this site is a link where you can enter your GPA and LSAT score and do a search to see how your numbers compare to those of recently admitted students at specific schools.  You can compare your numbers to the median, 25th and 75th percentiles of a recent entering class. This search feature will help you build your schools list. You can also access information about each school, to learn more about its educational mission and philosophy, and application and financial aid deadlines, etc. So plug in your numbers and get started on building a list of schools where it your numbers will give you a pretty good competitive edge.

Connect with your Prelaw Advisor at your institution:
Your advisor at your undergraduate institution probably has a copy of the Law School Book of Lists, which is made available to prelaw advisors through their professional advisor organization.  This book provides lots of helpful information to advisors (and which they can share with their applicants) about specific academic and clinical programs at law schools. So, for example, if you have an interest in communications law, or maybe intellectual property law, this book will help you find law schools that have dedicated programs of study in these areas. Additionally, it has information about different student groups and other resources.

The bottom line:
Okay…you’ve done your homework, explored law school web sites, talked to admissions people, networked with current students and alumni, and you think you’ve got a pretty good idea of what the schools are like.  It’s time to put this all together. Use the LSAC UGPA calculator to start building your lists. What’s your dream school? What are some schools where your numbers make admission a pretty "safe bet"? Finally, what’s your "bottom line" school – i.e. one that will provide you a good, solid law school experience?  That is, if the only admission offer you end up getting I from your "bottom line" school, would you accept it?  Remember, as much as this application process is about you, it’s also about the competition.  Especially in a recession, when the job market is particularly tight, more college graduates will apply to professional and graduate school.  Think holistically and creatively as you work on building your law school list. In the end, you should have a list that includes one or two "dream", or "reach", schools; some "safety" schools; and a couple or few "real safety" schools.

Next week:

How am I going to pay for law school?

<p>You’ve finally wrapped up your  LSDAS application and hit "submit." Now you’re working hard to finish up your  individual law school applications, tweaking your personal statement for each  school. Your undergraduate years are winding down, and you’re beginning to  dream of spring, when you can kick back and decide which of those great  admission offers you’ll accept.</p>
<p>But wait….there are more  details you need to take care of before you can relax. It’s important to  remember that the game’s not over till it’s over.  As a law school applicant, for all practical  purposes "over" means that you have mailed your acceptance form and your deposit  to your chosen law school.  Right now,  there are some things you can do to increase your chances of getting an  admission offer (and you also should start thinking about how you’re going to  survive financially as a 1L).<br />
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<strong><em>First things first,</em></strong> the most  important thing right now is to ensure your law schools have received all the  possible available information that will help your personal file make its way  to the top of a huge pile of applications at each school. It’s critical that  your law schools have the most current information about any academic work  you’ve completed after you submitted your initial transcripts. If you’re still  in college, you need to arrange to have your official grades from fall 2009  sent to the assembly service. LSDAS will incorporate this most recent  information into your report and make it available to your law schools.  If you’ve already graduated, but have taken a  course in the States or abroad, you also need to get official transcripts to  LSDAS.<br />
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To get your most recent grades to the service, you’ll  follow the same protocol you used before.  In order for LSDAS/LSAC to correctly process  your current official transcript(s), you need to supply your university’s transcript  office with an LSAC Transcript Request Form.   Just like before, this Request Form is available from your LSAC.org  account. Log into your account and <strong>go to Apply/Credentials/Transcripts; select the  appropriate link for your institution and the form will be downloaded with  preprinted information for your undergraduate school.</strong><br />
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For more specific info about  requesting updated transcripts, take a look <a href=”http://lsac.org/Applying/lsdas-requesting-transcripts.asp” target=”_blank”><strong>here</strong></a>:<br />
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<strong><em>You’re retaking the LSAT in  February ‘10– how should you handle this?</em></strong><br />
Your newest score will be made  available to your selected law schools. Unless you let you schools know to wait  for your February test results, they may well make their decision based on the  scores they’ve already received for you.   If it’s really important to you for schools to consider your February  2010 score, then you should contact them and ask them to hold on making a  decision until they have received your latest score. But do be aware that  waiting for the results from the February test (which won’t be available until  some time in March) will make your application late for many schools.  Unless you really believe you have prepared in  a way that will see you doing significantly better on the February test, then  you might want to consider letting the schools evaluate your file without  waiting for the February score. If you only raise your score by a point or two  it probably won’t make much of a difference to your schools. And, there’s  always a chance that you might get a lower score!<br />
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Next, it’s important that you  have a broad range of schools on your list. In any year, there are hordes of  qualified applicants who apply to law school; many great applicants are not  accepted. Think strategically:  it’s  critical to build for yourself a list of schools which will give you some solid  chances for receiving admission offers.   Keep in mind that the process of applying and enrolling in law school is  highly personal – there’s no"one size fits all" process or "best fit."  There are many wonderful law schools "out  there." You will serve yourself best by exploring options, and being creative  and strategic about selecting your schools.  </p>
<p>Next week……</p>
<p><strong><em>What’s the best law school for you?</em></strong></p>

Some of my clients have been asking me whether it is too late to apply to law school if they take the LSAT on February 6th.   I’d like to share my answer with you.

The Admissions Committee has been accepting applicants for a number of months; hence, fewer seats are now available.  But they are available.  Many schools set deadline dates of March 1st or March 15th because they know that qualified applicants will come out of the February test administration.    

So, yes, you still have time to apply to that school.  However, I highly recommend that you submit your application before you take the LSAT.  This way, the Admissions Office will have time to set up your application and request your LSAT score, academic transcripts and letters of recommendation from LSAC.  Once your score becomes available, LSAC will send that packet of information to all of the law schools to which you applied.  Once the law school receives your packet of information, your application file will be complete and be sent to the Admissions Committee for review.  You want to make sure that your application is in that first batch that is completed.

For a school with a February 1 deadline date, I suggest that you call the Admissions Office to clarify whether this means that the application must be completed by February 1, or only received by February 1.  If it must be completed by February 1, then it is too late for you to apply there if you’re taking the LSAT in February.  If your application need only be received by February 1, then confirm that the Admissions Committee will accept the February test and go ahead and apply.