Strong LORs Forum

[Dipsychus]

The answers to this question will be anecdotal, of necessity. Many anecdotes: not the plural of data. But long experience with the admissions process does matter.

I can bank on three VERY strong letters. Use of the upper case for the qualifier is warranted. Two academic, one from a recent employer.

How much does this move the needle, so to speak? That is to say, while excellent LORs obviously count for something in the admissions process, do they, in quantitative terms, shift your application up by let’s say an LSAT point or two?

The question pertains of course to all so-called “softs.” My guess is that the strength of softs begins to matter significantly at T14 or T6 schools once committees have to distinguish between qualified applicants who are equally strong in numerical terms but who are competing for very few spots.

This seems commonsensical to me. But I would like to know if people think this common sense to be real-world accurate, or, if not, why so. Do I need to be disabused here?

[The Lsat Airbender]

Probably won’t count as an LSAT point or two. Probably will get you the nod ahead of another marginal candidate with similar/identical numbers, which is a bigger deal than it sounds. Bear in mind that there are a lot of strong recommendations in T14 inboxes; almost nothing will make an acdomm’s eyes pop at this point

[cavalier1138]

Probably won’t count as an LSAT point or two. Probably will get you the nod ahead of another marginal candidate with similar/identical numbers, which is a bigger deal than it sounds. Bear in mind that there are a lot of strong recommendations in T14 inboxes; almost nothing will make an acdomm’s eyes pop at this point

This.

The only serious impact LORs can seriously impact your application is if you have a bad letter from someone. A bad letter can torpedo an otherwise ok application. A good letter basically does nothing because, as mentioned, everyone has at least two people willing to go to bat for them.

Edit: And to answer any similar questions you might have, nothing else in your application is worth 1-2 points on the LSAT. URM status is a possible exception, but even that isn't as simple as saying "Add [x] points to your LSAT if you're black."

[Dipsychus]

Bear in mind that there are a lot of strong recommendations in T14 inboxes; almost nothing will make an acdomm’s eyes pop at this point

So it’s essentially a crapshoot after the 172-174 point, eh? Ask Asha at Yale — but Yale is the exception and not the rule — says as much. The mood of the adcom readers, their sense of what matters for a particular cycle and entering class...

Constantly surprised at how heavily numerical this process is, or appears to be, given how law school websites insist/bleat (?) about how it really is not. I’m not being a naïf but wonder if the invariable insistence, in these fora, on the importance of the two base numbers in the application, is overly cynical — and, by remote implication, over-reliant on what is *available* as data (LSN and so on)?

[The Lsat Airbender]

Yale is hilariously numbers-focused. Their 25th %ile student has a 3.85 and a 170 - check out that compares to the 25th at other schools. You don't achieve that without ruthless winnowing. It's just that they're so small and sought-after that they can afford to be choosy about other things as well, and those are the factors that Asha talked about in her blog. Again, soft factors can make or break people on the margins. Yale is weird because even a 3.90/173 is a marginal candidate there.

Numbers aren't literally anything, but, by about an order of magnitude, they are simultaneously 1) the part of the application that has the most influence on outcomes, 2) the part of the application whose impact is most predictable, and 3) the part of the application over which an applicant has the most control. So of course advice for 0Ls is going to focus on LSAT and GPA.

[nixy]

If I understand correctly, too, Yale is different in that it has faculty very involved in the admissions process, where at other schools it’s usually all (or at least mostly?) staff, and faculty can be very unpredictable about who they want to admit.

[The Lsat Airbender]

On law-school websites telling lies: they can’t come anywhere near implying that there is a numbers-based formula or they’d be hit with lawsuits by a mixture of jilted rejects and people complaining about affirmative action. So there is a bit of a preaching about “holistic admissions” to justify their ability to make decisions at all.

Ask them directly and anyone in law-school admissions will admit that, first of all, GPA/LSAT is the best predictor of success we have, even if it’s imperfect, and, secondly, they face a lot of institutional pressure to keep medians up (along with diversity). You can infer how the calculus works from there.

[thriller1122]

I guess it depends what you mean by VERY strong. Like, are we talking you are applying to Harvard and have LORs from Kagan and Obama? That would probably move the needle A LOT. Or are you just saying you have undergrad professors and former supervisors that really believe in you? LORs depend pretty much on who wrote them (unless, like mentioned earlier, they are bad).

[nixy]

I guess it depends what you mean by VERY strong. Like, are we talking you are applying to Harvard and have LORs from Kagan and Obama? That would probably move the needle A LOT. Or are you just saying you have undergrad professors and former supervisors that really believe in you? LORs depend pretty much on who wrote them (unless, like mentioned earlier, they are bad).

Who writes them only matters if they are, say, Kagan and Obama, and they can praise you genuinely. A really glowing letter from an average person is better than an average letter from a luminary.

[Wild Card]

It has helped me significantly in the clerkship hiring process, but helped me only negligibly in the law school admissions process.

It may have helped me overcome some of the racism and sexism of the admissions process, but that may not apply to you.

[Stratus_Counseling]

The problem when you get past GPA and LSAT is that there are just so many variables for Adcoms to consider. First, as others have said, nearly everyone applying to top law schools will have very strong LORs. Most of these students are very good students in college (or at work) and know how to connect with, and stand out for, professors, and will only select the professors they are confident will deliver a great LOR (of course, a professor can go rogue and write whatever they want, but that is a rare case).

But assuming your LORs are better than other applicants, there are still many other factors that could counterbalance any such advantage beyond GPA and LSAT. The reputation/quality of your college, the rigor of your major, the quality of your personal statement/diversity statement, your resume, the challenges you have faced getting to where you are, if you have any negative aspects/disciplinary issues in your past etc. The only way you can isolate the positive impact of really strong LORs (like trying to convert it to LSAT points) is to assume all other factors are equal, which they absolutely are not. It is great that you were able to land some great LORs, but that is a necessary, not sufficient, condition, and I would continue to focus on strengthening all other aspects of my application as much as possible to ensure the greatest chances of getting into the school I want.