transfer possibilities
Posted: Sun Jun 07, 2015 4:49 pm
Hello, all,
Just thought I would throw my hat in the ring to hear some thoughts on transfer possibilities. My long-term professional goal is to become a legal academic, which is why I have been encouraged to transfer. My two mentors at my current law school seem very optimistic about admission to Harvard (both studied there for their law degrees and one taught there/remains close with many of the faculty), but I (not surprisingly) am feeling a bit more skeptical.
I applied to slightly fewer than a dozen schools, ranging from Harvard and Yale to Georgetown and Michigan. I selected the list of schools under the guidance of one of my mentors based on which schools had faculty members with academic interests that overlapped with my own. I am the first in my family to attend graduate school, and, frankly, I wasn't sure of the exact number of schools to which I should submit applications. I understand that this may have been entirely overzealous; please do not feel impassioned to tell me so.
I am currently at a law school in the Boston area. The ranking of the schools falls into the ~25th position. I am ranked second in my section (there are three sections within the 1L class) with a GPA of a 3.94. This also places me within the top 5% of the overall 1L class. I hope I will be offered a position on Law Review, but that may not be especially relevant because all my applications have already been submitted. As far as pre-law school background goes, I attended an Ivy for undergrad (3.75/4.00) and spent two years working with a national teaching organization as a teacher. While teaching, I obtained an M. Ed. I published an article this year in the journal Signs, which took an interdisciplinary approach to a legal issue through a queer lens (my undergraduate and graduate work before law school were in continental philosophy and sexuality studies). The article was well-received by the journal committee. I was offered my second opportunity to publish this summer, writing a chapter of a book on American federalism that Oxford University will publish.
I received four letters of recommendation, two from my mentors (with whom I have very close relationships), one from the Dean of Intellectual Life at my current institution, and one from a younger faculty member who very generously asked whether he could write on my behalf. I do not know if this remains relevant, but my LSAT score was a 165. That score and my background earned me a scholarship of about three-quarters of the tuition at my current law school. I am not concerned about having to pay back loans. I have wanted to be an academic since I was very young, so that is my priority. I would like to teach in a city on the East Coast, so this is the market within which I will be competing for legal positions.
If more information is necessary, I am happy to supply it. Thank you, all, for your thoughts.
Just thought I would throw my hat in the ring to hear some thoughts on transfer possibilities. My long-term professional goal is to become a legal academic, which is why I have been encouraged to transfer. My two mentors at my current law school seem very optimistic about admission to Harvard (both studied there for their law degrees and one taught there/remains close with many of the faculty), but I (not surprisingly) am feeling a bit more skeptical.
I applied to slightly fewer than a dozen schools, ranging from Harvard and Yale to Georgetown and Michigan. I selected the list of schools under the guidance of one of my mentors based on which schools had faculty members with academic interests that overlapped with my own. I am the first in my family to attend graduate school, and, frankly, I wasn't sure of the exact number of schools to which I should submit applications. I understand that this may have been entirely overzealous; please do not feel impassioned to tell me so.
I am currently at a law school in the Boston area. The ranking of the schools falls into the ~25th position. I am ranked second in my section (there are three sections within the 1L class) with a GPA of a 3.94. This also places me within the top 5% of the overall 1L class. I hope I will be offered a position on Law Review, but that may not be especially relevant because all my applications have already been submitted. As far as pre-law school background goes, I attended an Ivy for undergrad (3.75/4.00) and spent two years working with a national teaching organization as a teacher. While teaching, I obtained an M. Ed. I published an article this year in the journal Signs, which took an interdisciplinary approach to a legal issue through a queer lens (my undergraduate and graduate work before law school were in continental philosophy and sexuality studies). The article was well-received by the journal committee. I was offered my second opportunity to publish this summer, writing a chapter of a book on American federalism that Oxford University will publish.
I received four letters of recommendation, two from my mentors (with whom I have very close relationships), one from the Dean of Intellectual Life at my current institution, and one from a younger faculty member who very generously asked whether he could write on my behalf. I do not know if this remains relevant, but my LSAT score was a 165. That score and my background earned me a scholarship of about three-quarters of the tuition at my current law school. I am not concerned about having to pay back loans. I have wanted to be an academic since I was very young, so that is my priority. I would like to teach in a city on the East Coast, so this is the market within which I will be competing for legal positions.
If more information is necessary, I am happy to supply it. Thank you, all, for your thoughts.