1. LSAT prep. These last few weeks are critical, and study and practice for the LSAT must remain your number one priority.  (But don’t forget to taper during that last week — no practice tests after 9/27!)  If you haven’t taken a full-length timed practice test yet, you’re behind and you should do so immediately.  Remember that you want the entire test experience to be very familiar to you when you walk in the door on October 1st. If you’re considering rescheduling until December, let’s talk — email me for an appointment so we can discuss your options.

2. Get some things off your plate and onto someone else’s. In particular, get your recommenders working on your letters of recommendation and get your transcript request into the Registrar’s office. (IMPORTANT: You CANNOT request your transcript on SPIRE — you MUST request it in person or by mail.)  You can keep studying for the LSAT while your recommenders and the Registrar’s office are working for you.

3. Review the Application Check List to get a sense of what’s ahead in October. It’s all manageable, but it’s good to know ahead of time what you’ll be working on after the LSAT is over.  Do not worry yet about your personal statement and other materials — you’ll have time for those after the LSAT.  Keep your focus on the LSAT right now.

4. Schedule a meeting with the Pre-Law Advisor. If you haven’t met with me yet, a meeting might help reduce some of your stress.  If you just have a few questions, don’t hesitate to email me.

New Student Orientation for the class of 2015 begins today.  There will be pre-law info sessions every Monday and Thursday of orientation, at 10:15 and 11:00, in Machmer W21.  If you can’t make one of the sessions, here are a few basic tips and points of information for entering freshmen:

• Pre-Law is not a major! There are no magic classes to take or fields to major in to help you get into or succeed in law school.  Study what you love — you’ll get more out of it (and get better grades).
• Pre-Law is an advising office. Whenever you have questions about legal careers, law school or law-related activities, don’t hesitate to contact me. (And check out the website!)
• Don’t worry about law school, worry about college. This is a big transition you’re facing, and it deserves your full attention.  There is little you can do freshman year to either help or hinder your eventual law school admission chances.
• Explore law-related academics and activities. Not because they’ll help you get into law school (they won’t), but because you’re interested in law.  For a listing of some of the law-related opportunities available to you first year, click here (PDF).
• Get to know your professors. Don’t be intimidated by them — go to office hours, ask smart questions about their area(s) of expertise, let them get to know you.  It’s never too soon to start giving them something to write about in your eventual letters of recommendation.

Welcome to UMass Amherst!

Tuesday, Feb. 8th at 2:30 pm
Wednesday, Feb. 9th at 5:30 pm
620 Thompson

Juniors and others thinking of applying for Fall 2012 admission to law school are strongly encouraged to attend one of these sessions.  You’ll get a comprehensive overview of the admissions process, including deciding (for sure) whether you want to attend, researching law schools, LSAT prep, letters of recommendation, personal statements, and more!

Please attend one of the sessions before making a one-on-one appointment, if possible.

Updated with results from regional schools: New England, Albany, UConn, Northeastern (more to come)

Several of you have asked me about LSAC’s new online Evaluation Service — what is it, which schools require/request evaluations, etc. Here are some answers and some “I’ll have to get back to you on that”s.

Q. What is the new Evaluation Service?

This new service, which for the time being will work in parallel with the traditional Letter of Recommendation process, seeks to standardize and move online the candidate evaluation process.  It seeks answer from recommender/evaluators of very specific candidate qualities, and allows space for additional comments in response to each question. This well-hidden page on LSAC’s website does a good job of describing what the service looks like.  This PDF shows what the process looks like from the applicant’s, evaluator’s and admission official’s perspectives, complete with screenshots.

Q. How do I know whether the law schools I’m applying to require or accept evaluations?

From your LSAC account, access the LOR section (under Credentials).  On your list of schools, you’ll see, just below each school’s name, a link for “LOR/Evaluation Requirements” — click on the link and you’ll get the number of each that are required, recommended and accepted.  (Note that many schools don’t yet have their Fall 2011 applications up yet — look for them by the first week in September.)  Also by early September, there should be a list available of all schools’ requirements here.

New England Law / Boston: 0 required, 2 recommended, 4 accepted
Albany: We require two recommendations — either letters or evaluations
UConn: We do not require students to submit evaluations however, students have the option of supplementing their application with two evaluations. We continue to require 2 letters of recommendation.
Northeastern: In addition to the 2 letters of recommendation we require, we will accept one evaluation.

Q. How much weight will the schools give to evaluations vs. recommendations?

This is really unclear at this point.  Honestly, I’m not sure many schools know exactly how they’ll make use of this new service yet. In coming weeks, I will be speaking with a number of admission officials in order to get some sense at least from those schools that are most popular for UMass applicants.  I will post the results of my inquiries here on the blog.

New England Law / Boston: More weight to recommendations with evaluations as a supplement.  Will reevaluate next year depending on how helpful we find them.
Albany: Evaluations provide specifics on skills.  Both will be helpful in the overall file review process.  Not sure how many evaluations we’ll get so next year we will have a better sense of their value.
UConn: It is a bit early to tell. I think that it will take some time for the committee to get used to looking at an evaluation vs. a letter of recommendation. I anticipate some will love the process and others will not. I do worry that the evaluation appears onerous and as such will limit the number of faculty members who agree to complete the entire form. If there is buy in from recommenders the evaluations can be quite useful.
Northeastern: We review all files holistically and will review the evaluations as part of our complete file review.

Q. Should my evaluators be different from my recommenders? Should they be academic or non?

New England Law / Boston: I was thinking they would be the same.  At least one should be academic.
Albany: Either.
UConn: For students coming directly from undergraduate studies we highly suggest two faculty recommendations. In theory the evaluation service will provide a more robust picture of an applicant. The most useful evaluations will likely come from faculty members. However, since the evaluation service is optional, this may a good opportunity for students to provide information from a pre-law advisor, internship supervisor or employer.
Northeastern: Yes, preferably [different people]. We will accept either [academic or non].

Q. Will students who submit recommendations but not evaluations be at any sort of disadvantage in the admissions process?

New England Law / Boston: No.
Albany: No disadvantages.
UConn: Evaluations are optional for the 2011 cycle and no one will be disadvantaged by not submitting evaluations.
Northeastern: No, we require two letters of recommendation. If a student wants to submit an optional third item, they can submit an evaluation.

When you meet with your professor, internship supervisor or boss to ask for that recommendation, make it easy for them to say “No.” According to a new survey of law school admissions officials conducted by Kaplan, fully 87% said that they had received negative letters of recommendation for applicants.  This should not happen to you! Ask only professors in whose classes you did well.  When you ask, tell the potential recommender that you need enthusiastic letters to support your application.  Ask the person straight out to tell you if s/he doesn’t feel s/he can do that for you.  You would much rather have a professor tell you to your face that s/he doesn’t think as highly of you as you think s/he does (as painful as that may be), than to have a weak or even negative letter submitted on your behalf.

Check out the pre-law website for more suggestions about letters of recommendation, as well as for tips for new recommenders (or those new to writing recommendations for law school applications).

Bonus tip for underclassmen: It’s never too soon to start getting to know your professors.  Speak up in class.  Go to office hours and ask good questions about the class. Let your professors get to know you.  It’s a big campus, with large lectures, sure, but if you take the initiative, you can build productive professional relationships with your professors.

Recently asked and answered on the pre-law advisors listserv:

Q: Is it possible to edit a current recommender’s contact info [on the LSAC website], or do I need to recreate them?  I can’t seem to update this information any longer after generating the form.

A: (from LSAC) Applicants cannot edit the recommender information once it has been entered, but they may write the corrections on the printed form and LSAC will make the changes when the form and letter arrive.

Q: Is it possible to fax the LORs (to LSAC), or do they have to be physically mailed?

A: (from LSAC) LSAC will accept faxes that are signed, although originals are strongly preferred because it is easier to create a clear image of the letter to send to law schools.

From the good folks at LSAC:

LSAC’s Letter of Recommendation Service is about to change for the better. Gone are the complicated classifications “General,” “Targeted,” and “Inactive.” As of April 27, 2009, as letters are added to a candidate’s file, they will be classified as “Active.”

In order for a letter to be sent to a law school, the candidate must assign the letter to a particular school (or schools). Letters not assigned by the candidate to a particular school will not be sent to that school.

For more information, visit LSAC’s Letter of Recommendation page.

Students have raised a few issues about the application process recently that I think are worth sharing with everyone.

1. Remember that the applications process is a major time commitment. When planning your applications, try to reduce other major time commitments during application season. For example, if you are going to be applying during the fall of your senior year, that semester would NOT be a good time to take extra courses, or especially difficult courses, or undertake other major commitments such as jobs or extra-curriculars with long hours. This advice especially applies if you are going to be studying for the LSAT at the beginning of the semester (i.e., if you are taking the late September/early October LSAT).

2. If you are about to graduate and are planning to apply to law school later, how can you obtain faculty recommendations in advance? There are two options.
A. Join LSDAS immediately, get the recommendations now, send them to LSDAS, and pay their annual fees every year until you are ready. Note, though, that this costs money (the annual fee). Also, you should NOT use recommendation letters that are more than two years old. B. The other option: ask your favorite professors to send their letters to the U Mass dossier service, located in the Career Services Office. The letters can be held on file as long as you need them. When it comes time to apply to law schools, send the letters back to your professors, together with the LSDAS form, and request the recommenders to send the letters directly to LSDAS. If you wish, you can also ask your recommenders to touch up or modify their letters from the dossier service, especially if you have accumulated more experience or accomplishments that you would like to be mentioned in your letters.