Why does TLS say the writing sample does not matter? Forum

[ikethegremlin]

One constantly repeated bit of advice around here is that law schools do not read/do not care about your LSAT writing sample. A thread I was just reading featured the claim that the writing sample is 'less important than the shirt you wore to take the LSAT in'.

Now, I'm comfortable with hyperbole. I know that poster does not literally think that the shirt matters more. However, this seems like generally misleading advice. Not everyone on these boards is aiming for HYS - but a decent number are, right?

And we know for a fact that Yale, at the minimum, reads your writing sample: http://www.admissionsdean.com/researchi ... a-rangappa - "We read your own work from your essays and your LSAT writing sample (and yes we do read it!)."

We also know that at Yale in can matter hugely in faculty review: http://blogs.law.yale.edu/blogs/admissi ... wered.aspx - "Some faculty are sticklers for the LSAT or your undergrad GPA. Some are more into your story. Some care only about what your recommenders say, because they feel that every other part of your application has been doctored. Some read every LSAT writing sample, and swear by it."

I get that Yale is somewhat special, but so are Stanford and Harvard. An Ex-Adcomm told me specifically that she read writing samples because they were (not verbatim, but close): "the only unadulterated writing sample they could get from a candidate", as in, they know very well that personal statements have been checked, proofread and run by every halfway intelligent person in a candidate's life.

Now, maybe this is not the case for the T14 outside HYS - I've heard the '2 minutes per app' figure from Chicago. But much of law school admissions is about the margins - there are many, many candidates who fit into each schools GPA range and everything you can do might make a difference. Given that law school success is based mostly on essay based, time pressured exams, I wouldn't be surprised if more people look at LSAT writing examples than everybody seems to think.

[banjo]

The writing sample is not a part of your LSAT score, so it's not factored into the U.S. News Rankings. That's the end of the analysis for all but a handful of law schools. Even at the margins, the writing sample is probably not a great differentiator relative to softs. How much variation is there between the essays of two 172 scorers?

You're right that Yale doesn't fit the mold, but Yale has the luxury of not caring about U.S. News. They do a lot of things differently.

[brazleton]

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[banjo]

If you're at the margins, you're probably facing sticker and shouldn't go anyway.

[bombaysippin]

Don't just not do it, but at the same time to answer your question, it's cause it really doesn't matter.

[jk148706]

If you're at the margins, you're probably facing sticker and shouldn't go anyway.

[ikethegremlin]

If you're at the margins, you're probably facing sticker and shouldn't go anyway.

Yeah but HYS is going to be sticker minus whatever need based FA you get soooo my question stands. I think we're giving people bad advice - if Yale claims they take the writing sample seriously, I suspect so do Harvard and Stanford, and so anyone wanting a spot at those schools probably ought to give it more consideration than the shirt they wear to take the LSAT.

[sundontshine]

It not really mattering in all but a very few set of circumstances and that you should actually try on it are not mutually exclusive. Everyone should obviously try to do well on it, but without thinking it's going to actually help you get in somewhere you otherwise would not have.

[bombaysippin]

Schools also say a bunch of things they don't actually mean

[yomisterd]

If you're at the margins, you're probably facing sticker and shouldn't go anyway.

Yeah but HYS is going to be sticker minus whatever need based FA you get soooo my question stands. I think we're giving people bad advice - if Yale claims they take the writing sample seriously, I suspect so do Harvard and Stanford, and so anyone wanting a spot at those schools probably ought to give it more consideration than the shirt they wear to take the LSAT.

TBH it's just a measure of whether you can take a position given a scenario and defend it well. It's persuasive writing, which you should be able to do since like 8th grade. I don't think it requires any serious prep outside of maybe looking at one or two sample prompts to get an idea of what you would have to do.

[A. Nony Mouse]

Also, I get that this is TOP-law-schools.com, but most people applying to law school aren't ending up at YS (where arguably the writing sample might be looked at). And people who are competitive at YS offer way more to a school than a good LSAT writing sample. So I suppose that yeah, writing a really crap essay might look bad to YS. But someone with a shot of getting in is extremely unlikely to write something bad enough to injure their chances.

(I suspect one of the main reasons to check the writing sample is just to figure out whether someone was coached on the rest of their application - if the essay is incoherent you could question whether the applicant got someone to write their PS for them, for instance. But that doesn't mean you need to spend time prepping for the sample.)

[DportIA]

b/c it doesn't matter. at all. literally at all.

An above poster is right. If a school reads it to decide between admitting you or another candidate, then you are definitely going to be paying sticker price. And if you have taken ANYTHING away from TLS-- it should be never, ever pay sticker for law school ITE.

[star fox]

Just half-ass the writing sample like everyone else. Don't write the LSAT is stupid in giant letters but it's so unimportant that it's not something to sweat.

[Nelson]

It's not that it doesn't matter, it's that it's impossible to write something so superlative that it stands out from the bulk of applications. Most writing samples are going to be very polished and largely indistinguishable. Don't do a bad job on it because that will stick out, but it's not going to make or break your application even at HYS. Your resume is a much better differentiation point for those schools than a writing sample.

[SamSeaborn2016]

I sat on an admissions committee for 2.5 years at my law school and we looked at and discussed the LSAT writing sample but at the end of the day, it didn't make or a break an application unless the applicant just didn't do it. Take it seriously and then forget about it. We recognized the time constraints, the need to handwrite and the fact that it comes at the end of a long day. We only really used it to get a sense of how great a difference your polished writing looks like from your rushed analysis. Occasionally we'd take a longer look if the applicant's PS and DS seemed "off" or wildly inconsistent.

[sunbai1029]

One of my friends actually didn't write anything because he said he was so fried that he just drew squiggly lines and put his head down. He had to explain it to some schools, but FWIW he's sitting at UC Berkley.

[TheSpanishMain]

It's not that it doesn't matter, it's that it's impossible to write something so superlative that it stands out from the bulk of applications. Most writing samples are going to be very polished and largely indistinguishable. Don't do a bad job on it because that will stick out, but it's not going to make or break your application even at HYS. Your resume is a much better differentiation point for those schools than a writing sample.

I think this is probably right. When people say "Don't sweat the writing sample, it doesn't matter" the unspoken caveat is "although it could still hurt you if you decide to troll and write NO ONE IS READING THIS LOLOLOLOL I HAVE TO POOP!" Assuming you turn in something that is reasonably coherent and logical, it probably makes no difference.

[Mal Reynolds]

Because it doesn't.

[t-14orbust]

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[ymmv]

Our adcom claims they use it in an attempt to screen out sociopaths, but TBH I doubt they would ding an axe murderer with a 180.

[sunbai1029]

Our adcom claims they use it in an attempt to screen out sociopaths, but TBH I doubt they would ding an axe murderer with a 180.

What school are you referring to? And did they actually say that? That sounds like a very clear ethics violation and I would be interested in hearing her justification for that. I'm sure it was an off-the-cuff comment, but psychoanalyzing patients through their writing statements is absolutely unethical.

[Mal Reynolds]

Our adcom claims they use it in an attempt to screen out sociopaths, but TBH I doubt they would ding an axe murderer with a 180.

What school are you referring to? And did they actually say that? That sounds like a very clear ethics violation and I would be interested in hearing her justification for that. I'm sure it was an off-the-cuff comment, but psychoanalyzing patients through their writing statements is absolutely unethical.

Lol what ethics violation. They aren't patients.

[anyriotgirl]

Our adcom claims they use it in an attempt to screen out sociopaths, but TBH I doubt they would ding an axe murderer with a 180.

What school are you referring to? And did they actually say that? That sounds like a very clear ethics violation and I would be interested in hearing her justification for that. I'm sure it was an off-the-cuff comment, but psychoanalyzing patients through their writing statements is absolutely unethical.

yes a school official definitely said that verbatim and meant it in the clinical sense

[Ti Malice]

I think we're giving people bad advice - if Yale claims they take the writing sample seriously, I suspect so do Harvard and Stanford, and so anyone wanting a spot at those schools probably ought to give it more consideration than the shirt they wear to take the LSAT.

I would honestly be surprised if Harvard bothered to read the writing sample, given both the sheer volume of apps they have to process (without the benefit of assigning some of the work to faculty members) and the fact that they've frequently been dipping down to 3.5x GPAs to save their LSAT median. Dean Deal at SLS may care -- or she may not. I'd pretend that she does just to be safe. Berkeley is odd enough that I wouldn't put it past them entirely.

As for the other schools, all of which have increasingly whored themselves out to splitters in order to arrest the slide of their LSAT medians, I have a hard time believing that they would suddenly take a principled stand on something that isn't measured at all. But yes, of course, at least write English sentences.