Get Accepted to Cornell School of Law [Episode 590]

Show Summary

This week, Linda Abraham welcomes Dean Shane Cooper, Senior Associate Dean for Admissions, Financial Aid and Student Services at Cornell School of Law. Dean Cooper shares insights into the admissions process at Cornell Law School, emphasizing the mutual goal of finding the right fit between the school and the applicant. We discuss the benefits of small class sizes, close faculty interaction, and strong international programs. Despite its Ithaca location, the school offers abundant opportunities for experiential learning. Dean Cooper explains that Cornell accepts LSAT, GRE, or GMAT scores without preference, with financial aid linked to the strength of these scores. He highlights the importance of diverse experiences and well-rounded characters in applicants, and we explore how interviews, re-applicant growth, and the Why Cornell essay play significant roles in the admissions process. Dean Cooper underscores Cornell Law’s commitment to opening doors for students and making a positive impact on the legal community.

Show Notes

Thanks for joining me for the 590th episode of Admissions Straight Talk. Are you applying to law school this cycle? Are you planning ahead for later? Are you competitive at your target programs? Accepted’s law school admissions quiz can give you a quick reality check. Just go to www.accepted.com/law-quiz and complete the quiz. You’ll get not only an assessment but also tips on how to improve your qualifications and chances of acceptance, and it’s all free.

For today’s interview, I’m delighted to have Dean Shane Cooper, Senior Associate Dean for Admissions, Financial Aid and Student Services at Cornell School of Law, on Admissions Straight Talk for the first time. Dean Cooper earned his bachelor’s from Holy Cross University and then became a nuclear submarine officer in the US Navy. You might be the first former submarine officer in the US Navy on Admissions Straight Talk also. He came to Cornell for the first time to earn his JD, which he did in 2003. He then returned to the Navy, serving with increasing responsibility in the Judicial Advocate General Corps until 2021. During the last two years of his service, he was the commanding officer of the Naval Justice School. Since separating from the Navy, he served initially as associate dean for admissions and enrollment at UNH Franklin Pierce School of Law, and then joined Cornell Law School in January 2024. And today he had his responsibilities increased to include student services because before it was just admissions and financial aid. So congratulations on joining Cornell and your promotion.

Dean Cooper, welcome to Admissions Straight Talk. [2:35]

Thanks for having me.

Can you give an overview of the more distinctive features of the Cornell JD program? [2:41]

Sure, absolutely. I’ll share a few ideas here. Just to note that I’m an alum of Cornell Law from 2003, so for me it’s been a great experience to come back to the law school just about seven months ago and see it through a new set of eyes as part of the administration. So what really stands out to me about Cornell, it’s amongst our peer schools, one of the fewer smaller schools. We only bring in about 200 JD students per year, which leads to a really small, close-knit collaborative community of students who support each other. So I think that that’s distinctive about us. Something I noted as a student and I still see here today is just the strength of our faculty. I think the strength of any educational institution really is about the faculty and we have some great faculty that both are hardworking in their scholarship, advancing legal thoughts in society, but also just great teachers.

We have small sections here of about 30 to 35 students per section who get to work with these faculty and then the faculty will work with them as teaching assistants and research assistants. And so in a small town like Ithaca, the faculty really are never far away from the law school so that’s a distinctive part, they’re not off about outside in the city or something like that. And then surprisingly, even with the smaller student body, we have a ton of student organizations. We have a lot of clinics and practicum experiences here in Ithaca. And I think the last thing I’d touch upon is the strength of our international programs. We have a lot of exchange opportunities abroad, a lot of foreign students that come here to Cornell and study with us alongside our JDs, which I think really adds to the community.

As I mentioned to you before we started recording, I’ve been to Ithaca. It’s absolutely gorgeous and the Finger Lake district is magnificent. How would you respond to an applicant concerned that it’s far from any major city, they might fear the location could limit opportunities for experiential learning or internships? [4:25]

Sure, I get that question quite a bit.

Let me just say I lean into the beauty of Ithaca, and I lean into those winters. People from warmer climates ask about that as well. I’m a huge fan, and I think anyone, regardless of what climate you come from, can enjoy Ithaca and the law school. But to your specific question, to your point, I think that’s why you see that we have for this upcoming year, we’ll have 28 clinics and practicum experiences here at the law school, which is an amazing number when you think about it; there are only 600 students at the law school in general.

So we know that we need to bring those legal experiences to the campus here, either through in-house clinical faculty or through our other practitioners who do the practicums with us. So if one were to look at our website and look at the 28 different topics we cover, they really span a wide array of different topics and issues of interest. Of interest to our 1Ls is that in our spring we have an elective, which is an actual immigration law and advocacy clinic, which is pretty rare to have a clinical opportunity in your 1L year. And so we have a limited number of spaces for that opportunity.

Beyond that, we have externship programs, really robust externship opportunities where we work with students to craft perhaps a semester where they won’t be with us here in Ithaca, but they’ll do a full-time externship off campus somewhere. And then we have a really exciting partnership with Cornell Tech, which is for our graduate students at Cornell here in Roosevelt, I say here, it’s in Roosevelt Island just a few hours away in New York City. For some of our students, by the time they are 3Ls and they’re craving some of that city life, then they can look at Cornell Tech. We are three and a half to four hours away from Manhattan; we have a Cornell Campus Connect bus. We’re four to five hours from Philadelphia, five hour drive to Boston, and five and a half to Washington DC. So I think there are students, I always say, “Hey, you’ll come to Ithaca, really get to focus on your legal studies. And then when you are craving that weekend to get back to the city life for just the weekend, there’s that opportunity for sure.”

Let’s turn to the application. The site says that applicants can apply with LSAT, the GRE or the GMAT. Is there any preference? Do you find them equally predictive of success in law school? [6:57]

I find that they are equally predictive, and then I would say that the vast majority of our applicants use the LSAT and that a smaller minority will use the GRE. And to be frank, I don’t see much of the GMAT at all or anymore. And so that’s something I’m looking at with our admissions committee for the future. So if we focus primarily on the LSAT or the GRE, what I would say is that we weigh either of them equally when they come in. However, there may be applicants that will submit both scores and I would say for that, the LSAT takes primacy. There’s a reporting requirement for medians and so for those students that ask me that question or we get that question quite frequently, if you have reportable LSAT and GRE scores, we’re going to focus on the LSAT. If you submit one or the other, I would just say based on my experience here with the admissions committee, we’ll look at either of those with equally predictive strength and weigh it accordingly.

Is there any difference in the likelihood of receiving financial aid if you take the LSAT or GRE? [8:03]

No. What we do is look at the strength of the scores of the LSAT or GRE. And GREs are also reportable at certain volume levels within the ABA reporting as well. So we will calibrate our scholarships if it’s based on merit, based on the strength of either test.

Are you anticipating any changes to the application process for the 2024/25 cycle? [8:28]

Broadly speaking, no. So for those that went through and were very patient with this last cycle in all of the other law schools, there was significant change across the industry, particularly with the essays and the prompts. And so we followed suit as well and had changed our prompts pretty significantly. We are anticipating for this upcoming cycle, no major changes at all. In fact, we’re in the final stages of updating our website, our FAQs, and we’re starting to get some questions already from those that are looking ahead. We’ll have that updated on our website shortly. But to calm anybody’s concerns out there, they won’t have to update their essays necessarily if they had been working it.

I should comment for anybody who listens to this later on, today is August 1st so by the time this airs, the changes that Shane is talking about will probably have already occurred.

It really depends on the nature of the applicant and where they’re at in life when they come to see us. So I’d say that all of the above that you said, those are all positive factors. So for example, you could have a student who doesn’t have much time between undergraduate school and law school, so they won’t have as many professional work experience opportunities. And there we would look at what volunteer opportunities they had, internships, anything they’ve done in the time, in the summers and that so that we can see what their work ethic might be like. We can see the different experiences that they’ve maximized with the time or even limited time that they had.

And then if we encounter an applicant who has been out of school for a year or two or longer, then absolutely you will be considering their resume looking at their work experiences. It’ll be interesting to read letters of recommendation from work supervisors, but it all really boils down to us trying to get a better sense of the character, the professional character of that student, and really the future employability and their talent and potential for being a great lawyer out in society.

Oh, thanks for highlighting that. No, legal experience is helpful so I may see a student who works as a paralegal at a big city law firm and now they’re applying to law school and they tell me in their application they want to work for a large law firm when they graduate. I have a better feeling about that student knowing what they’re in for and what they want to do with themselves. But I’ll have students that have a broad array of work experience in education or other service opportunities that have nothing to do with the law, but I can see that that’s making them a well-rounded individual because something about the legal industry, it’s all really about people in many ways. So we’d like to find well-rounded individuals from all walks of life.

As you mentioned, Cornell has some very specific prompts in lieu of their traditional personal statement. I’m going to focus on prompt number two for a second. Can you give listeners some tips for that?

That’s a long prompt. [11:39]

It’s a long prompt. Does it sound like a law school exam question? I shed a little light on these prompts, this was produced by law professors who helped us reshape our prompts last summer. And broadly speaking for the audience, there are four prompts that we offer. We offer up to five pages, which is a little unusual, I imagine, and you don’t have to use all five pages, but we offer the five pages of space and four prompts of which you can address any or all of those prompts. The fourth prompt is sort of a catch-all question so frankly you could talk about just about anything. But I have to say, when I first arrived at Cornell, I saw the prompts. I thought to myself, “Oh, I feel like a 1L with my law school exam here and all the other ways I could take this.”

I thought you were going to say that you felt lucky you didn’t have to answer them when you were applying. [13:29]

But let me say this, I have reviewed applications in my past on other, what I would say more generic prompts. And now I had a great cycle to look at thousands of applications using these prompts and seeing how all the applicants took various directions and approaches to it was very enlightening as well. And particularly prompt two for me, and it’s interesting that you focused in on prompt two as well, it really speaks to the core of the institution itself at Cornell and how it was founded is that for any person, any study standards, and what I found in the response or what I’d advise an applicant is that gives you the great opportunity to speak about yourself in an authentic and genuine way. And if there’s one thing I could leave with a law school applicant, at least a tip that I think is important to me, so I’ll speak just for myself as one file reviewer, is that authenticity is really the coin of the realm here.

If you can stand out as an applicant, and I have a better feeling of who you are, not who you think you want me to think you are, but who you are, I think that will serve you really, really well because admissions is a two-way street. You’ll want to be accepted by the right law school for you, and if they know who you are, that helps and then you’ll want to then fit in and thrive there. So in response to that prompt, I’ve seen a number of just tremendous essays and stories about personal experiences from various individuals in all different directions, it could be about their family background, it could be about a very specific event in their life that impacted them and then altered the trajectory of their life and then why they are pursuing the law or a career in the law. And so for me, it’s been a privilege to read thousands of applications and just essentially meet or learn of all these people with all their experiences and then what’s driven them to apply to Cornell.

Anecdotally, I’ve been an admissions consultant for about 30 years, and when I first started, law schools typically had just a generic two-page personal statement. We’ve worked with a variety of graduate and undergraduate programs and business schools, and MBA programs had much more demanding application essays. Over time it’s reversed, but when I started, I always found it very perplexing that the law schools had relatively little writing requirements in their application 20 years ago. If you think back to when you applied and the business schools at the time, again, that’s changed, they were much more demanding and learned much more about their applicants than they do today. [15:30]

Yeah, that’s interesting. Thanks for that insight because I want to just be upfront for people that are trying to understand at least how Cornell’s doing in the admissions front. I’ve been doing admissions for about three plus years, so it’s a different perspective. I spent a career of professionally developing young attorneys back in my military background, so I think of it from a practitioner’s lens. So as we approach this admissions cycle and I work with our admissions committee and our faculty, we have all different viewpoints.

But I will say this, that when I pair up my experience just initially with those more generic prompts and then I see what we’ve done here in the past year, the amount of information we’re able to elicit and provide the opportunity for the applicant, I think is much better in my opinion, from the quality of what I read and hear or see from people in these statements compared to the old. I found it to be very helpful for our committee.

I would assume it makes it much easier for you to differentiate between applicants. [17:10]

Yes. I will say this, for those that are interested in Cornell or maybe any other school with unique prompts, you can kind of tell when it’s been cut and pasted and it’s not necessarily your prompt.

What this used to be was you’d cut and paste the basic essay, and you would have a paragraph about why this school. [17:26]

Yes. So I get that too and I understand it. We are one of however many a student decides to apply to. I will say that those that differentiated themselves by the level of effort and how much they were really focusing on our prompts and our essays in addition to our Why Cornell essay, which you might touch on a little bit later, which we’ve changed our approach a little bit on that, that I think helps the applicants really stand out.

All right, since you mentioned it, let’s touch on the “Why Cornell?” essay. [18:00]

Yes. So I know in the law school world or what I hear from Reddit or other places is the dreaded Why X essay or something like that. And we do at Cornell have a Why Cornell. And it used to be in a text box prompt of number of characters you filled out and the decision was made last cycle to require a one-page standalone Why Cornell essay.

And what I found is that it’s extremely helpful to us and something that we do pay attention to. I’m a big proponent of the fact that in order to thrive or succeed at law school, you’ve got to go in with a mindset like this is a place I want to be. And so the Why Cornell’s help us start to differentiate amongst our applicants, those that have researched us well and really are very strongly interested in Cornell. And I get that we’re not everyone’s top choice, but I will look at those Why Cornell’s and statements and that’ll allow us to identify a particular applicant that one piece might help them in that case as someone that we would want to pursue.

If applicants had a bad semester, drop in grades, took the LSAT more than once, should they write an addendum? Are there other reasons that you would encourage people to write an addenda? [19:04]

Sure. So there are certain, what I would say required addenda based on application instructions at various law schools and ours, for example, for character and fitness issues one raises for the law school application that will require an addenda that we would need in the application, and that’s for various bar exam and bar certification purposes down the road as well, as well as our own admissions committee. But for the example you raised, and by the way, if it’s an academic misconduct or infraction, that as well would fall under the umbrella of character and fitness that would need to be discussed.

For GPA or academic performance issues, I think it’s at the discretion of the applicant. I think the effective ones that I’ve read might describe a bad semester based on maybe circumstances, a particular odd course with a grade that stands apart from anything else going on in the record. So those can be helpful. Something that’s more generic across the entire four years, maybe not. I have seen other effective ones from those, although it kind of stands out on its own already that someone who was younger struggled in their undergraduate several years of work experience, life experience, perhaps a successful graduate degree, and then they might explain, “Look, I was young naive, not prepared.” Those make sense to me as well.

I assume for somebody who had family issues and was working to support their family the whole time, that would also provide context around a lower GPA. [20:35]

Yes, and I should address that too. We do see LSAT addenda and in those cases, we usually haven’t found many of those to be extremely helpful except maybe there’s one outlying score perhaps lower that you want to explain. We here at Cornell looking at your highest LSAT score, but I could see if you had a really aberrant low low score that you want to explain the difference for that might be helpful. And then gaps in resume can also be helpful. I’m going to be looking at your resume and trying to piece together the chronological order of how things have gone leading up to law school. And every once in a while we’ll notice there’s this missing year or two and those that write the addenda that explain what’s going on in that year or two, it’s extremely helpful. Most commonly we would see that during COVID perhaps or taking a pause to help with caretaking for an individual back at home, those sort of circumstances.

The Cornell Law website says that, “Interviews are at the request of our admissions committee only.” What percentage of admitted students are interviewed, and why would you request an interview if it’s less than a hundred percent? [21:46]

Thanks for giving me a chance to talk a little bit about that because we’re going to slightly update our FAQ and the website regarding the interview process. But I will describe what we do here is we rely on an online assessment platform run by Kira, K-I-R-A, it’s a company and a few of peer law schools will use Kira. We’ve been using it at Cornell for about eight years, and it had been used in various ways in past cycles, but what I can say, at least for now going forward, and in this most recent cycle, I’ve been ensuring that anyone who’s going to be admitted to our school will go through the Kira online assessment process. And to be transparent with the audience, to speak about the last cycle, approximately one-third of our applicants were invited to take part in a Kira online assessment. About 90% decided to go through with the assessment, and then about two-thirds of those that took the assessment were then offered admission.

So hopefully those numbers will give some context. I would tell people, and I just recorded the welcome video for the upcoming cycle for the Kira when you take it, and I explain it’s not a make or break part of the application; it’s one of all the entire pieces of the application that we take in holistically. So I’ve tried to lower the stress a little bit about it. Then we really appreciate the online assessment platform because it really takes the interviewer out of it, it’s really not meant to be a two-way street. This is really all about allowing the applicant to express themselves on an equal playing field. Everyone gets to use the same opportunity to provide us with information. And we also mix in verbal responses, but then written responses to written questions as well.

So when you talk about an interview, it’s just the Kira interview. It’s not like you and I are speaking now. It’s certainly not in person in Ithaca and about a third of applicants were invited to interview. Is this something that you’re testing out to see if you want to add it for all applicants? Is there a reason that you invite some people to interview? [23:40]

I think that’s a great open question about whether we expand one day to everyone. We’ve had an approach here where it was only offered in a limited fashion for just those that we are very serious in moving forward with. And I think in terms of efficiency, our thought process is not to open it up to the entire applicant pool right away, that we would go through and do a first rough screen of the applications that we have, those that we know that we’re serious about considering for a possible offer and then go into that assessment process. I think in thereby, I would imagine it eliminates a little bit of the time for the applicant who are applying to several law schools. And then from a sheer efficiency standpoint for our admissions committee, it lowers that number.

But I am really open to, as I’ve told our team here, we’re open to all sorts of ideas and continue to assess our process and improve. I am aware of other peer schools that will offer a Kira, I think voluntarily or to everybody, or in our case, we are selective in how we do the Kira right now. And you’re right, even to use the word interview, I need to change the language really. It’s more like an online assessment. It’s really not a two-way interview, right?

But if you are going to be admitted, you will do the Kira interview. Obviously, not all interviewees are admitted. That makes perfect sense. [25:10]

That’s right. And I think that that was an open question because of the way in which Cornell in the past before I got here had been using the platform. I personally just feel strongly that I want to ensure that everybody that ends up at orientation that I’ll see here in a few weeks, they’ve all gone through the same process, if you will.

Your site says that the entering class in 2023 had a median LSAT of 172, and the median undergrad GPA was a 3.9. It also says that you received roughly 4,000 applicants. You mentioned earlier that the total school is 600 people, which means that the entering class is roughly 200. Those are pretty stratospheric stats and tough odds. I’m guessing that you reject people with stats at that level or even a little higher, not that they can go much higher, and that you admit people with stats lower than the median because that’s the nature of a median. What transforms a competitive application into an accepted application? [25:39]

Thanks for the opportunity to highlight some of that. I think through those that have been admitted with us and there’s so many wonderful people that we have not had the ability or to be able to admit and accept and are going to go on and do great things. I’d say the word complete comes to mind when I think about an application. It’s really a well put together application that at every aspect and phase of it that we’re looking is really a well-done complete application. So whether that is from well-crafted personal essays that are authentic and allow us an insight into who they are that are geared towards our prompts, a strong Why Cornell statement so we understand why that person is thinking of joining us here at Cornell and that we can envision them here in Ithaca, New York.

And then you move to their resume and you can see some great experiences there. And also just a well put together resume so we have a sense of how they’ll be employable down the road when they graduate from us in a few years. Letters of recommendation from their professors or supervisors in work and just getting a sense of maybe a 360 degree view of the applicant from a different way. And also understanding who the applicant worked with and chose for the recommenders, that’s also kind of a thing in the background to consider. And then down to, if I need to, looking at LSAT test writing samples so I can kind of compare the writing in that to the personal statement writing. And then the Kira online assessment where I get to see their verbal responses to questions where they’re thinking on their feet and then writing impromptu text-based answers to random questions that we put to them as well in Kira.

We hope in this process it’s imperfect for sure that we can learn as much about an applicant, and those that I think that have been successful, the ones that I think through that stand out to me or those that I just tell was – it was a complete package. They cared about that application knowing that they had many to put together during that time and that they cared about joining us here at Cornell.

Does Cornell Law consider update letters at any point in the process? This is from applicants who have something significant to tell you after they submit their applications and before hearing back from you or perhaps if they’re waitlisted. [28:27]

Absolutely. We will welcome correspondence to the office. They can email it to the JD admissions inbox. And then we also have introduced a feature on the online status application feature, there are ways for you to upload documents. In fact, we’ve been asking applicants this cycle to upload those letters of continued interest or other update letters because it ensures that it gets into their file. So there’s absolutely a line of persistence to going beyond that line for any admissions team. And I think it’s fine to be politely persistent, and people, you’ll have to use your own intuition to judge what that line is, and those that get it right, I think it works well with the admissions team.

And you mentioned waitlist and we call it reserve list here, but it’s the same thing. I’ve noticed that there have been candidates this summer who we encourage them in our emails that we sent to like, “If you have an update or you want to send us a note to say you’re still here and you’re still interested, let us know.” That’s helped some of the applicants out, gets our attention and we take another look and we’ve brought some wonderful people here to the class over the summer.

Do you have any advice for re-applicants to Cornell Law? [29:55]

What I would say is that we do have access to their last application and we will take a look at that. So it would be helpful if they would update their application with any new information. And I think even in the personal statements, I’d recommend not necessarily just recycling it completely that at some point something’s changed in the past year that would be worth talking about that would help you update your personal statement as well. So my general advice, and I know it’s extra work, but my general advice is that you don’t want to just cut and paste and send in what you had last year. Some updates would help. That’s a great point. Yes. And yes, we’ll have more file readers and other people that see it for sure from different angles, but at the end of the day, I know when I’m looking, if there’s absolutely nothing that’s changed from the last year, that tells me something too.

One of the most frustrating kinds of conversations I have as a consultant is somebody who is a re-applicant, and it goes with any program and they say, “I know my test score was the problem. My essays were good. I improved my test score.” And I’ll say something like, “What have you done during the last year?” They’ll say, “Well, I did this and this and this and this.” Look, the schools want to see not just that you got a better score, they’ll definitely be interested in that, but they’re going to want to see that you grew, that you’ve matured, that you’ve done something, contributed something, had some impact. You need to show them that otherwise you’re not only showing them that you’re not dynamic and growing other than the test score, you’re showing them that you’re lazy.

You don’t want to commit the effort necessary to present this new and improved you. And every so often I make a dent, and sometimes people just are like, “I don’t want to do it.” I know they just don’t want to hear it. And for me, it’s personally very frustrating. When I hear somebody like you say a little more courteously than I just did, I’m cheering here because I think it’s an important message that has to get out there. Some people won’t hear it because they just don’t want to hear it, but for those who are thoughtful about the reapplication process, I think it’s a really important message. [30:51]

Agreed, hopefully it helps.

What advice do you have for transfer applicants to Cornell Law? [32:19]

I think it’s on our website as well that we really aren’t historically known to have many transfer applicants at our law school. We had two last year, we had three coming in this summer so it’s not a huge number. So what I’d say for the transfer applicants is we’re going to look of course at their underlying application from when they were applying to law school because it usually recycle some of that information, LSAT or GPA. But we’re really going to focus on how they performed at the law school that they’re at.

So we’re looking for good strong academic performance at the law school they’re currently with, and then an understanding as to why us and why now, and what can we do at Cornell Law to help further their ambitions and their career goals. And again, I’m speaking to just my experience here as the new admissions’ dean, I work extremely closely with the associate Dean for career development here. And in fact, candidly I’ll say we don’t bring anyone in until I double check with the career services’ dean, that we both feel strong and confident that we can help this person with their employment outcome. And once we both feel assured about that along with their strong academic performance, those are the ones that are successful to join with us here.

What advice would you have for somebody who’s not planning to apply this cycle but is planning to apply in 2025 or 2026. Perhaps they’re in college, perhaps they want to work for a year or two. What should they be thinking about doing to prepare themselves to apply to Cornell Law? [33:44]

Well, I applaud them for thinking ahead like that, which is really good because from speaking with the applicants or others that are in the application process, the sense I get from talking to many of them is that everything seems to speed up and catch up on them very quickly. And so even as well-prepared they are, it still doesn’t feel like enough time. Few things if they haven’t been to an LSAC Forum where a hundred plus law schools will be in one place in one major metropolitan area, and they can walk by the tables and pick out different schools and just meet different law school admissions professionals who all have different opinions and different points of view and experiences and start to get a sense of feedback from not only just one person, but from several different points of view that I think is helpful. If they happen to still be in college and they have a pre-law fair that’s happening at their particular school where 30 to 40 or 50 law schools are there, I think that’s extremely helpful as well.

And then ultimately though, most people are going to be taking the LSAT and I would say study, prepare, study, study, study and prepare. If you have one minute to spend left, and you asked me how to spend the minute, I’d say spend it on the LSAT preparation. So getting ready for that test, which is extremely important for law school admissions, whether or not we believe that it should be that high of a priority, and I’m coming at it from a relative newcomer here, but I also understand the importance of LSAT. So that’s how I would advise my own family, and that’s what I would say to the applicant out there.

What would you have liked me to ask you? [35:39]

Well, I think that we sort of touched upon it, which is just the impressions of a relative newcomer to the field and coming into this. I could share a little bit of the background maybe as context to what will likely be a rambling answer, we’ll see where it goes. But what I’d say is I went to college, ROTC, Navy, submarine career was wonderful, and I had always thought law school would be somewhere possible and the Navy made it possible. There’s a funded law education program that I went through, and at the time, the admissions’ dean, Rick Geiger, here at Cornell Law took a shot on me because I’ll be candid, I’ll just throw it out there, my scores are not at the medium here, but I got here and as a veteran, or yeah, I was a veteran at the time as well, I had a great time here at Cornell Law with a young family. And then for me, it was now I live this institution, it’s been on my resume, thinking the legal profession where you go to law school is with you for the rest of your legal career, it’s extremely important. And so I’ve been proud to be associated with Cornell Law in that way.

Fast-forward years later is a great career in the judge advocate general corps. Towards the end, one of my opportunities was to work with the Naval Justice School where I supported the training and development of young attorneys coming from all over the country at various law schools. And that kind of focused me on the idea of mentorship, professional development, and giving back to the next generation of lawyers. And so by happenstance, I had an opportunity with the University of New Hampshire School of Law, which I’m very grateful for them giving me my entry point into law school and law school admissions. And I just fall in love with it because now I’m dealing with even slightly younger generation of people who are pursuing a legal career.

And so what I’d say is that you walk into a law school admissions industry that has certain expectations and certain ways that we’re all corralled. Unfortunately, due to, in my opinion, the US News and World Report rankings and all sorts of other pressures on the industry, here I am really looking for just good individuals that are going to be great lawyers out in society, which is what Cornell Law is trying to produce. There’s a motto here at Cornell that our founding principles, were trying to create lawyers in the best sense, and we’ll try to repeat that phrase often to our students. And that is not just being lawyers, but good lawyers in society is what we’re trying to train here. And so I’m always looking for potential and talent, people that we think that are going to be like that. And while yes, the numbers are important, we’re really hoping that it doesn’t have to just be about that as well here.

And so this is going to be a continual journey for me professionally as I work through the law school admissions world because of the different constraints that already exist in our industry, and we hope here in some small way with our Cornell law team that we can maybe make a few adjustments here and there that will impact the industry particularly, I don’t mean to sound promotional, but I might as well take the moment, we recently changed our loan repayment assistance program to help those that want to get into public interest law, which frankly, Cornell many students, for great reasons, will look to us for large law firm, big law firm outcomes, which we’re very good at here.

But with our expanded loan repayment assistance program where we’ve increased our caps on salary for loan forgiveness, I think that we’ll be able to incentivize those students that also want to pursue a public interest career. So the way I look at it here is Cornell, is that we can help you open any door. So if we can just keep making these small adjustments here and there, hopefully we’ll make some positive impact on our legal community.

Right. Somebody told me a saying once, “If you want to lead the way, you have to first start with a step.” Something along those lines. [39:40]

I agree with that.

Dean Cooper, this has been delightful. Where can listeners learn more about Cornell Law? [39:53]

Thank you. They can go to our website, lawschool.cornell.edu. We have a JD admissions page there with several FAQs, and as you pointed out, hopefully updated by the time that listeners hear this, with some updated FAQs there. And they can reach out to our team at any time. We’ll have a law school ambassador standing by to engage with them and our admissions team as well.

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