Constitutes "outstanding" extracurricular achievement? Forum

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starspangled

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Constitutes "outstanding" extracurricular achievement?

Post by starspangled » Mon Mar 14, 2022 11:23 pm

Are there any particular extracurricular achievements that stand out in a K-JD situation for T-14? Does receiving a prestigious scholarship (Truman, Marshall, etc.) drastically improve odds at admission enough to make up for lower quantitative factors? Would the same apply for being elected to local city council or as student body president?

BrainsyK

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Re: Constitutes "outstanding" extracurricular achievement?

Post by BrainsyK » Tue Mar 15, 2022 9:49 am

Rhodes (not the other scholarships that you listed). Starting a charitable organization that raises $50m+. Olympian (doesn't have be a medal or anything). Holding patent(s) (like for insulin or something).

nixy

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Re: Constitutes "outstanding" extracurricular achievement?

Post by nixy » Tue Mar 15, 2022 10:16 am

I think the Truman and Marshall scholarships would count as well. Maybe not *drastic* improvement of your odds, but helpful. But of course if you get one of these, you’re already going to have strong academic and extracurricular achievements.

Being elected to local office would maybe be interesting but it’s not an academic achievement and given some of the elected officials out there it doesn’t guarantee intelligence or ability to succeed in law school. It would help make for an interesting PS/overall narrative to your application but I doubt it would make up for weaker numbers in a material way. (Student body president even less so, although I suppose for a really huge university there’s a fair amount to it. But you’re not competing with the rest of the community the way you would for local government.)

The thing is that none of these are really things you do to make your law school application better. They’re difficult to achieve and really need to be pursued for their own sake as an expression of your own interests and talents. And if you’re doing any of these things, then you have interests and future plans that aren’t related to being a lawyer, so best just to focus on those goals for a while.

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Wild Card

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Re: Constitutes "outstanding" extracurricular achievement?

Post by Wild Card » Tue Mar 15, 2022 2:12 pm

I've seen many Fulbrights, Trumans, and Marshalls at Georgetown.

It's a very good law school, but you would expect better outcomes.

I know two Rhodies at HLS and two at NYU. Give how selective the honor is, at least befofe identity politics seeped in, you'd expect an autoadmit to YLS, but, no.

Access

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Re: Constitutes "outstanding" extracurricular achievement?

Post by Access » Tue Mar 15, 2022 3:20 pm

Wild Card wrote:
Tue Mar 15, 2022 2:12 pm
I've seen many Fulbrights, Trumans, and Marshalls at Georgetown.

It's a very good law school, but you would expect better outcomes.

I know two Rhodies at HLS and two at NYU. Give how selective the honor is, at least befofe identity politics seeped in, you'd expect an autoadmit to YLS, but, no.
NYU at least makes sense (probably on full ride). HLS means didn't get into YLS. Still, acceptance to T15 with any of these scholarship seems likely.

Nit- these are all grad school scholarships. Doesn't KJD refer to ug straight to LS?

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