Top Law Schools

Hello, I have been lurking on this site for months now researching law school and figuring out whether law school is right for me. I am finally 100% sure that I want to attend and go to a t-14 school, particularly H, CCN, Penn, Berkeley, Virginia, or Duke. Outside the t-14, I'm looking at UT, UCLA, and Vandy. I am an upcoming Junior with a 3.72 GPA, which will most likely be a 3.8 or higher when I'm applying to law school. I am not trying to make a "what are my chances thread," but merely giving some background info so y'all know where I currently stand. My question is regarding volunteer/work experience. I have been working at a retail store since the start of my Freshman year to pay for college, but I haven't really had time to do any volunteer work. I know that gaining volunteer work won't really help my application in any significant way, but I'm trying to figure out whether not having any will hurt my chances in any way, especially in the t-6. Also, every time I see something pertaining to "work experience" it always has to do with post-graduate work experience, rather than work experience obtained through UG. Ultimately, I'm trying to figure out whether my work experience will cancel out the fact that I don't have any volunteer experience? Also, will any of this really matter if I'm above the GPA/LSAT median? Any comments will be very helpful to me. Thanks, I'll be posting more in the upcoming year!

Retake

Most law schools (everyone but Y and S) care almost exclusively about things that they can report (primarily UGPA and LSAT for USNWR rankings) when admitting students. Schools also care about things like WE, whether the applicant attained a higher degree, and whether the applicant did PC/TFA/Fulbright because they also report these in their incoming class profile along with other demographic information like URM status, gender, and age.

With that said I don't think your WE will really count as such but rather will be considered by the school as mitigating factor since you were helping to support yourself through UG (this is asked by many schools in their applications). I also don't think the lack of volunteer experience will mean anything at all. More important will be whether you can paint an appealing picture of why you want to go to LS and even more importantly what your numbers are.

Chrstgtr wrote:Most law schools (everyone but Y and S) care almost exclusively about things that they can report (primarily UGPA and LSAT for USNWR rankings) when admitting students. Schools also care about things like WE, whether the applicant attained a higher degree, and whether the applicant did PC/TFA/Fulbright because they also report these in their incoming class profile along with other demographic information like URM status, gender, and age.

With that said I don't think your WE will really count as such but rather will be considered by the school as mitigating factor since you were helping to support yourself through UG (this is asked by many schools in their applications). I also don't think the lack of volunteer experience will mean anything at all. More important will be whether you can paint an appealing picture of why you want to go to LS and even more importantly what your numbers are.

This is a very long winded way of saying only Y and S would care. And given that you're probably talking about some trivial ho-hum undergrad volunteer work, even they won't care much. The only softs that other schools care about are out of your control now--URM, military, female to a lesser extent.

Chrstgtr wrote:Most law schools (everyone but Y and S) care almost exclusively about things that they can report (primarily UGPA and LSAT for USNWR rankings) when admitting students. Schools also care about things like WE, whether the applicant attained a higher degree, and whether the applicant did PC/TFA/Fulbright because they also report these in their incoming class profile along with other demographic information like URM status, gender, and age.

With that said I don't think your WE will really count as such but rather will be considered by the school as mitigating factor since you were helping to support yourself through UG (this is asked by many schools in their applications). I also don't think the lack of volunteer experience will mean anything at all. More important will be whether you can paint an appealing picture of why you want to go to LS and even more importantly what your numbers are.

Thanks for the quick response! That's the vibe I've been getting in my research, but I wanted to make sure that lack of volunteer experience or other soft factors wouldn't matter that much if I was above both medians and had to support myself throughout college. I decided not to apply to Y or S because I feel that they generally rely more on soft factors to fill their class size

seespotrun wrote:Retake

No

You've been lurking for months and you haven't figured out that it's all about the GPA/LSAT? Did you not know or didn't want to know?

pancakes3 wrote:You've been lurking for months and you haven't figured out that it's all about the GPA/LSAT? Did you not know or didn't want to know?

I know it's mainly about that, which is why I talked about it in my post. I have a high GPA and plan on getting a high LSAT score. I was just wondering if lack of volunteer experience would adversely affect me and if my UG work experience would even it out, that is all.

Retail work does not count as meaningful work experience.

encore1101 wrote:Retail work does not count as meaningful work experience.

I know, I never said it did. I was just wondering if it would compensate for my lack of volunteer experience.

GMasters5 wrote:

encore1101 wrote:Retail work does not count as meaningful work experience.

I know, I never said it did. I was just wondering if it would compensate for my lack of volunteer experience.

No, it won't. Find a volunteer experience to put on your resume. Most of them take like two hours a week on average.

spleenworship wrote:

GMasters5 wrote:

encore1101 wrote:Retail work does not count as meaningful work experience.

I know, I never said it did. I was just wondering if it would compensate for my lack of volunteer experience.

No, it won't. Find a volunteer experience to put on your resume. Most of them take like two hours a week on average.

Thank you!