Strong vs Weak softs Forum

[anubis1911]

What makes a soft strong/weak. I know that being a Rhodes' scholar is a strong soft, but what are some other examples. Is being bilingual (English/Russian)? Founding school clubs? School Senate? Give me some good examples of both please.

[rinkrat19]

Strong softs are things that the school can brag about. "Our incoming class includes an Olympic silver medalist, a bestselling author, a founder of a successful social networking site, five Rhodes Scholars, an African child soldier refugee, the first blind woman to climb K2, a decorated Green Beret, a founder of a large-scale non-profit, a professional opera singer, and an Emmy-winning actor."

Average-to-good softs are impressive things that a significant but finite number of other applicants will have. College sports, owning a (boring/small) business, extensive volunteer/charity work, average military experience.

Weak softs are things that a large portion of other applicants have, which really aren't that impressive: Student government, school clubs (unless really remarkable in some way), bilingual.

[jbagelboy]

Schools clubs and school leadership are very weak softs unless your club became a well known non-profit.

Multiple languages can serve as a soft if you work it well into your application/PS/legal focus. I can find you a few hundred facebook friends that are bilingual english/korean or english/chinese from childhood that would mean nothing to adcoms whatsoever.

Moreover, rather than list a bunch of strong softs that would separate you from the law school here, Id say 1) very rare/selective and prestigious/known entities to whic few others can claim to be a part or have done, and 2) use the search function there are hundreds of threads on this

[Toby Ziegler]

the first blind woman to climb K2

This would be most impressive! Haha

[rinkrat19]

the first blind woman to climb K2

This would be most impressive! Haha

I was just making shit up. But apparently blind people have climbed Everest, at least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Weihenmayer

[hephaestus]

Try the search function. The short answer is that sorts are good of they are the kind of a thing a school would brag about on their website when profiling their entering students. So TFA, prior military, PhDs etc. No school is going to put "we have a student that was president of the pre law society starting at the law school" in marketing materials.

[Toby Ziegler]

the first blind woman to climb K2

This would be most impressive! Haha

I was just making shit up. But apparently blind people have climbed Everest, at least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Weihenmayer

That's awesome. I think it's funny that one of the strong softs you listed was 5 Rhodes Scholars, Yale's 2015 class has 4.

OP here is a list of soft factors that the 2015 class at Yale boasts:
http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/profile.htm

Not all of these are strong softs, however. But you can pick out the ones that are pretty easy (e.g the Rhodes Scholars, fullbright fellows etc...).

[haus]

the first blind woman to climb K2

This would be most impressive! Haha

I was just making shit up. But apparently blind people have climbed Everest, at least.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Erik_Weihenmayer

That's awesome. I think it's funny that one of the strong softs you listed was 5 Rhodes Scholars, Yale's 2015 class has 4.

OP here is a list of soft factors that the 2015 class at Yale boasts:
http://www.law.yale.edu/admissions/profile.htm

Not all of these are strong softs, however. But you can pick out the ones that are pretty easy (e.g the Rhodes Scholars, fullbright fellows etc...).

Thanks for the link, it was interesting to see what they opted to focus on. Looking back upon my own life with this in mind, I am trying to pick out accomplishments that might fit nicely on such a list, off of the top of my head I can think of:
- US Marine, enlisted
- Marathon runner
- Masters Degree from evening program at very well known school (earned while working full-time+)
- Over a decade of experience in IT/InfoSec
- Currently managing a Security Operation Center (SOC) for a Federal Government Agency

None of this is earthshaking, but I am hopeful that it will be a bit better than par even among the other nontraditional students aiming for slots in part-time programs in the DC area.