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I received this email this morning and I thought it sounded interesting/informative so I'm sharing. Unfortunately I won't be able to watch this so maybe someone can post the highlights? FYI, I'm not associated with Kaplan.

Dear Future Law Student:

Good morning.

On Monday, August 19, 2013, from 8:00 to 10:00 p.m. ET, several of my colleagues and I will be participating in a mock admissions event being broadcast online by Kaplan Test Prep. We will be presenting several admissions applications. If you log in to this event, you will be able to ask questions and participate in the discussion. Our goal is to help prospective law students understand how the admissions process works and, in the context of reviewing actual files, to provide advice for those who are about to begin preparing law school applications.

The law admissions officers participating in this event are:
· Randi Garnick, Director of Admissions, university of pennsylvania law school
· Kenneth Kleinrock, Associate Dean for Admissions, New York University School of Law
· Anne Richard, Senior Assistant Dean for Admissions, University of Virginia School of Law
· Jessica Soban, Assistant Dean and Chief Admissions Officer, Harvard Law School

The event is free to attend, but you must register in advance. Please pre-register for this online event by going to:

http://store.kaptest.com/shoppingcart.j ... 1003422184.

And please remember to log in on August 19th!

Thank you.

Anne

Anne M. Richard
Senior Assistant Dean for Admissions
University of Virginia School of Law
580 Massie Road
Charlottesville, VA 22903
(434) 243-1456
arichard@virginia.edu
http://www.law.virginia.edu

I got this e-mail 3 times in the last 24 hours.

I actually attended the event as it was being filmed. It was relatively informative, and I was grateful that when asked about the importance of numbers, they didn't shy away from the fact that they are important because of ranking and such, which made me feel a lot more secure about what they said. They did emphasize the holistic aspect of application review, however, and as they went through the four "candidates" that were put together, the comprehensiveness of how the apps are considered was definitely emphasized. Some of the things that they addressed would be far from foreign to TLS (e.g. getting a LOR from someone who can't really speak of you but has a fancy position does not help, disclose everything, etc.), but some other things they discussed are as follows:

* On the CAS report (formerly LSDAS), they do take into consideration grade inflation/ deflation, as suggested by the school's grades distribution, as well as trends

* You want to make sure that your application as a whole matches up and makes sense. One "applicant" did a lot of community-oriented extra curriculars (particularly soup kitchens) and then spoke about her support of trickle-down economics in her PS and desire to go into something other than PI; they considered this a mismatch and questioned her motives for volunteering

* Your LORs should match up with the rest of your app in telling a story. For example, if you express a strong interest in international law (or what have you) and none of your LORs mention that, it's considered suspect


The main point, I think, is that your application should all tie together, and it is pretty holistic once you have the numbers (and/ or other strong softs). I may edit this to add a couple of additional points later when I can get to my notes, but I figured I'd mention a few things I got out of it now.

I wonder what criteria they used in deciding who to email.