Hi,

I will be visiting Univ of Madison law school coming Friday. I will be meeting the Asst. dean of admissions, a law student and visit coordinator. Any suggestions on what type of questions should I be asking?

Thanks

Oh well. I visited the school today. The asst. dean of admissions spoke to me for around 20 minutes and then one of the students took the 3 visiting prospective students on a tour. I had written down some questions to ask about the law career, financial aid, law specializations that I was interested in. I was in jeans, business casual full sleeve shirt and dress shoes. Good experience...

Thanks for the update! Got any examples of questions you asked?

For future reference, it's much better to visit during the actual school year.

Some of the questions I asked were:

How many students do you admit per year?

What is the admissions criteria? Things like GPA, LSAT etc.

What if my undergrad GPA is less but the grad GPA is really good, will it be considered?

Any consideration to work experience?

I am interested in IP so I asked some questions about specialized programs in IP and about professors who specialize in this area.

Financial aid. Of Course who wouldn't ask!

What is fastest time duration a part-time student can graduate?

Why do a good number of people with a law degree don't work with in the legal field (or legal related field) at all?

Thanks, I will keep this in mind as I am planning to visit another school.

In my pre-admissions visits I found it more useful to just entirely skip the generic questions (how many students do you admit, etc) in favor of personal ones which might leave an impression. Basically go in with the attitude that you are dying to attend but are concerned with your application. Identifying you own weakness and ask them the best ways to compensate in an application (eg: I'm a little concerned about my GPA being X, how effective are addenda?). Ask about journal and clinic access. Be as mature and professional as possible, while basically seeking advice. Asking a bunch of question that can be found online and don't really matter isn't going to help your cause. Beyond that if you have any actual questions that you couldn't resolve with research, by all means ask.

So basically you asked a lot of question that you could have easily found the answer to by doing even a very limited amount of research on your own. Were those questions supposed to make you look interested in their school? Were they intended to create an impression? I suspect the only impression asking question like what is the number of admits or GPA or LSAT score is going to make them think that here is someone that really doesn't have any interest in our school at all.

+1

Sit in on a class.

I would say don't waste your time sitting in on a class... Every professor and class are different and what will sitting in on one class do? You might be in the best class with the most engaging professor the school has and be lulled into a belief that that is the best school ever when it could be that all the other professors and classes are crap... Or it could go the opposite way and be the worst class and scare you away from a good school.

If you want to do something useful, go spend time in the town around the law school... I only say that because when I went to law school I visited both Harvard and Yale.... both places I only did the class room, campus visit.... and at the end of the day I was put off by Harvard's look which was more like a high school so I crossed them off the list. IF I had spent time around town I would have realized that Yale, regardless of its reputation and how cool the buildings look, is sitting in the middle of the trashiest scariest city on the eastern seaboard, it should have been the one I crossed off the list.

You will be in the class rooms a few hours a day 5 days a week, you will be living the town for 3 years... look at the town and don't be sucked in by professors or buildings.

I didn't say sit on a class and then you're done. Yes, you should be familiar with the neighborhood. But attending a class is a great opportunity to talk to current students and ask questions. True, one prof doesn't comprise a big enough sample to draw conclusions, but 20+ students do. People matter, and they're not the same at every school.