YLS '16 happy to answer app questions Forum

[honeybadger12]

Re YLS or generally! Will only be free for the next three or four days.

[sublime]

What was your GPA in , , and s?

Where are you going after the next three or four days?

Are people from Yale so busy and accomplished that they only have one 3-4 day period with enough free time to post on a message board, only at the end of July or start of August? http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 7#p8775827





I'm jk. Hopefully this is helpful to some people. Thanks for taking the time to answer questions.

[maybeman]

Were you K-JD?
How would you rank your softs?
Numbers?

Thank you!!

[Barack O'Drama]

Why did you choose Y?

[xnsch]

Do you or your classmates have anything unique that you know of that may have set you apart to get into Yale? Obviously in law school admissions LSAT and GPA are super important, but once you get to the likes of Yale most everyone has the numbers, so what do you think set you and your class apart that made you appealing enough to admit? What would you want a current/future applicant to know about how to get that across in their application?

Also I second the why did you choose Yale over (presumably) Harvard, Stanford, etc.

[honeybadger12]

What was your GPA in , , and s?

Where are you going after the next three or four days?

Are people from Yale so busy and accomplished that they only have one 3-4 day period with enough free time to post on a message board, only at the end of July or start of August? http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 7#p8775827





I'm jk. Hopefully this is helpful to some people. Thanks for taking the time to answer questions.

Hahah--TLS was very helpful to me when I came through so I try to make it back once a year; usually have some down time in August. Clerkship starts Monday.

[honeybadger12]

Were you K-JD?
How would you rank your softs?
Numbers?

Thank you!!

1) Took one year off to travel, no work experience
2) Started a small business in high school, that's pretty much it
3) 4.0/174

[honeybadger12]

Why did you choose Y?

In my opinion, YLS is far and away the best school to go to professionally. Maybe (maybe!) not if you know for sure what you want to do with the rest of your life and there's some other school that specializes in it--but I'm not sure how you would know for sure pre-law what you want to do with the rest of your life.

The legal field is prestige-driven (it's kinda obnoxious). In addition to the fact that YLS is itself more prestigious than the other schools, it also sets up students for even more gold stars after matriculation. It's 1/3 size of HLS, which means that in general any given person is 3x more likely to get a particular thing. For example, 1/3 of the school is on our law journal, compared to 10% at HLS. Moreover, from what I remember of the stats when I was deciding a few years ago, and from my anecdotal experience, YLS has about the same number of clerks in any given selective judge's chambers as HLS (i.e. 3x as many per capita) and many more than SLS.

So if you (might!) want to do litigation, I'd say it's not even close.

I almost went to HLS despite all of that because I thought I would prefer going there socially. I'm not sure if I was right about that or not, but YLS is much less claustrophobic than I feared--there are a wide range of people and social groups, and I have many lasting friendships I wouldn't trade anything for.

[Barack O'Drama]

Why did you choose Y?

In my opinion, YLS is far and away the best school to go to professionally. Maybe (maybe!) not if you know for sure what you want to do with the rest of your life and there's some other school that specializes in it--but I'm not sure how you would know for sure pre-law what you want to do with the rest of your life.

The legal field is prestige-driven (it's kinda obnoxious). In addition to the fact that YLS is itself more prestigious than the other schools, it also sets up students for even more gold stars after matriculation. It's 1/3 size of HLS, which means that in general any given person is 3x more likely to get a particular thing. For example, 1/3 of the school is on our law journal, compared to 10% at HLS. Moreover, from what I remember of the stats when I was deciding a few years ago, and from my anecdotal experience, YLS has about the same number of clerks in any given selective judge's chambers as HLS (i.e. 3x as many per capita) and many more than SLS.

So if you (might!) want to do litigation, I'd say it's not even close.

I almost went to HLS despite all of that because I thought I would prefer going there socially. I'm not sure if I was right about that or not, but YLS is much less claustrophobic than I feared--there are a wide range of people and social groups, and I have many lasting friendships I wouldn't trade anything for.

So awesome! You are an inspiration

Thank you for your answer! I also would like to attend Y

[BradyBunch]

How did you approach the Yale 250? What was the topic you wrote about, and any tips on how to approach the Yale 250?

Thank you for your time!

[Nebby]

What ingredients do you put on a burrito?

[honeybadger12]

Do you or your classmates have anything unique that you know of that may have set you apart to get into Yale? Obviously in law school admissions LSAT and GPA are super important, but once you get to the likes of Yale most everyone has the numbers, so what do you think set you and your class apart that made you appealing enough to admit? What would you want a current/future applicant to know about how to get that across in their application?

Also I second the why did you choose Yale over (presumably) Harvard, Stanford, etc.

My classmates are very unique--all kinds of random and really cool backgrounds. I don't think it's a prereq to admission, though, so if you feel normal like I did when I was applying don't let that deter you.

I think was set me apart was that I worked incredibly hard for months to make my app as strong as it could possibly be. It was damn good. For me at least it wasn't that there was something categorically different about my app, it's just that I made sure every single piece of the app was A+. So you don't have to do anything otherworldly to get in. You just have to do normal things really well.

[xnsch]

So you don't have to do anything otherworldly to get in. You just have to do normal things really well.

Haha I really like that. Thanks!

[honeybadger12]

How did you approach the Yale 250? What was the topic you wrote about, and any tips on how to approach the Yale 250?

Thank you for your time!

I approached the 250 by spending three months agonizing over what to write about. Couple weeks before the March 1 deadline I started to get an idea but was vacationing at the time (until March 2) and couldn't get much work done. So I decided not to apply--I didn't think I'd get in anyway, and had already gotten into HLS and SLS. Then the LSAC website malfunctioned and they extended the deadline until March 4, so I got back from vacation and pulled an all nighter to submit three hours before the deadline.

So I wouldn't necessarily recommend emulating my 250 approach.

Substantively, though, the goal for the 250 is to pack as much intellectual firepower into 250 words as you possibly can. You have so few words that every single one has to be doing something really important. Zero wasted words. The best 250s signal, from start to finish: this person is very smart and this person is very thoughtful. I think the best 250s tend to be philosophically rigorous in some way and often demonstrate that the writer is a reflective person.

You should check out the TLS Operation 250s thread (mine is on there if you want to read it), but remember that accepted doesn't necessarily mean good 250. I've read some of my YLS friends' 250s and for a few of them my (internal) reaction is congrats on your lsat score.

[honeybadger12]

What ingredients do you put on a burrito?

That's a clown question bro.

Thanks, I've been waiting for a good chance to use that line. More seriously, it doesn't matter too much as long as you don't forget the guac.

[honeybadger12]

If I didn't fully answer anyone's question feel free to follow up!

[pretzeltime]

Did you have fun??

[Nebby]

Re YLS or generally! Will only be free for the next three or four days.

Best pizza in New Haven?

[honeybadger12]

Did you have fun??

I did! Great classes, great classmates. Law school isn't for everyone but for me it was a good time, very grateful for the opportunity.

[honeybadger12]

Re YLS or generally! Will only be free for the next three or four days.

Best pizza in New Haven?

Modern probably, though I was underwhelmed by New Haven pizza generally--thin pizza with burnt crust isn't really my thing. Apologies to those who consider that blasphemous.

[Nebby]

What type of food do you most often order for delivery? (pizza, Chinese, etc.)