I promised a screen shot of Accepted.com in 1996 and here it is. I feel like I’m displaying my high school year book picture. How dorky and dated can you get? Fortunately, Accepted.com wasn’t created to advise on graphics or web design. Its mission was, is, and will be to enable applicants to achieve…
LAW SCHOOL ADMISSIONS
Personal Statement Tip: What’s Memorable?
I went to my daughter’s awards ceremony last night. She’s graduating high school, and the school has a separate ceremony a couple of weeks before the graduation so that the graduation isn’t too terribly long. In any case, I watched a lot of girls get awards for leadership, excellence in a particular academic subject, theater,…
Changing Associates’ World
CollegeJournal again has posted an excellent article on the changing interaction between associates and the large law firms that hire associates for big bucks and long hours. Once again the story focuses on increasing dissatisfaction and attrition: "The rate of associate attrition we’re seeing today at big firms is the highest level we’ve ever seen,"…
Personal Statement Tip: Umbrellas, Passion, and Resilience
Two unconnected events catalyzed this blog post: I had lunch yesterday with Rahul Choudaha , the Admissions Manager at the Indian School of Business. (That lunch will have its own post in the next few days.) He mentioned that ISB wants applicants with a passion for what they are doing, have done, and want to…
Latest US News Grad Rankings for 2007
The latest US News rankings are out. Here are the top 10 in a few categories: Business: Harvard Stanford Wharton Sloan (Tied with Kellogg) Kellogg (Tied with Sloan) Chicago Columbia (Tied with Haas) Haas (Tied with Columbia) Tuck Anderson Law Yale Stanford Harvard Columbia (Tied with NYU) NYU (Tied with Columbia) Chicago Penn UC Berkeley…
Kaplan Testing Podcast
Kaplan has recently started producing podcasts for test preparation and admissions. They currently have segments for college applicants, LSAT takers, and MBA applicants. I listened to the MBA segment on MBA recruiting. It was a good start, but wasn’t quite as in depth as MBA podcaster segments have been.
Personal Statement Tip: Dealing with Hardship
A friend of mine was recently going through a hard time. Things were going wrong, seriously wrong in her life. She wryly labeled these experiences "character building." It is a sad truth that tragedy and trial build character strength and develop wisdom. Most of us would rather be weaker and stupider than have character building…
Metaphors in your Personal Statement and Application Essay
You can use a metaphor as a phrase in your essay or as a whole theme that envelopes your essay. In either case, if used well and thoughtfully, metaphors will add color to your essay and anchor it with concrete images. I wrote previously about using metaphors in phrases as well as other techniques to…
Personal Statement Tip: Topic Choice
Up and down. Up and down we went. My husband and I huffed and puffed up a ridge, down into a lovely canyon, and then back up and down, descending and ascending over 1500 feet during our 6 mile hike last weekend. It was a spectacular, clear day. From the high points we could see…
Litigation Art of Visual Persuasion
If you are interested in a career as a litigator, check out the New York Law School’s Visual Persuasion Project, founded and directed by Professor Richard K. Sherwin. The project showcases “best practices” in the visual litigation services field. Its website features a broad range of visual techniques, from 2-D and 3-D animations to accident…
Law School Seniors Have Senioritis
According to the Law School Survey of Student Engagement 2005 Annual Survey Results conducted by the Indiana University Center for Postsecondary Research, the first two years of law school are more demanding compared with the final year. Third-year students neither work as hard as their counterparts nor do they discuss legal issues and ideas outside…
Cost of Student Debt To Go Up
Congress passed a spending bill that will significantly raise the cost of student aid programs. According to the CollegeJournal, the fixed rate on Stafford loans, the most popular kind of financial aid, will climb from 4.7% to 6.8% on July 1. The rate on PLUS loans will be fixed at 8%.
California Bar Bites
Law school is only a prelude to legal practice for most pre-laws. And on the way is the bar exam, a hurdle that has to be surmounted. The Wall St. Journal reports today that California’s bar frequently bars the way to legal practice, or at least causes even the talented to stumble. According to today’s…
Personal Statement Fatal Flaw #4: Superficiality
(Continuing my series on essays that sound like baby talk and are frequently application killers.) When you write superficially you tend to blend into the great mass of applicants who on a superficial level are very much like you. They have the same goal. They have prepared similarly to gain acceptance. Of course, blending in is…
Personal Statement Fatal Flaw #1: Lack of Substance
At the end of last month I compared certain personal statements and application essays to my grandson’s efforts at expression and identified 5 fatal flaws in your essays: Lack of substance – nothing demonstrating the qualities claimed. Failure to answer the question. Clichéd. Superficiality. Muddled thinking. Let’s explore them over the next several days one…
Admissions Essay Tip: 5 Fatal Flaws to Avoid
A little over six months ago I wrote about my lousy mood after the departure of my daughter, son-in-law, and worst of all, one and only grandchild. I’m in the same funk now for the very same reason. After a wonderful four-week visit in Los Angeles, where I live, my children had the audacity to…
Low Undergrad GPA for Non-traditional Law School Applicant
Blawg Wisdom posts an inquiry from a low school applicant, "Doc," who struggled academically during his undergrad, but has excelled academically since then, earning a masters and PhD in English since with a high GPA . He also anticipates a 170+ LSAT. He wonders if law school admissions is so numbers driven that it won’t…
MIT Sloan, Starting Bloc Help Young Applicants
Starting Bloc and MIT Sloan have set up a program were six Starting Bloc Fellows (college seniors) are accepted to MIT Sloan’s MBA program for deferred admission. The Starting Bloc fellows will work in social or private enterprise for one to two years before matriculating at Sloan. The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at…
“These are really good essays!”
As a result of my being quoted in that front-page Wall St. Journal article yesterday, (OK. OK. I’m milking it.) I received a call from a client I worked with in 1996-97. We haven’t spoken in several years, and it was great hearing from him. We worked closely on his application, and he was accepted to several schools,…
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