Emory Law Admission Staffer Taking Questions Forum

[kalvano]

Is it good news, generally, if you don't hear back quickly on an application?

For instance, you thought you were an automatic decline, but you haven't heard anything after a couple or more months, while other people have gotten rejection notices?

Or is it already decided and just waiting for someone to send out a rejection notice?

Does it really take 2 or 3 months to review an application once it goes into review status?

[kp009]

Tag

[stratocophic]

Is it good news, generally, if you don't hear back quickly on an application?

For instance, you thought you were an automatic decline, but you haven't heard anything after a couple or more months, while other people have gotten rejection notices?

Or is it already decided and just waiting for someone to send out a rejection notice?

Does it really take 2 or 3 months to review an application once it goes into review status?

I don't actually have any questions, my visit pretty much took care of all of those, but I would like to say that Emory was the first school I went complete at despite being the last school to which I applied (because I was waiting for a fee waiver to come through, not because of reluctance ). That definitely speaks to the efficiency of your office, all of my other schools had up to a week's head start and I'm still not complete at any of them. The system works!

[idksomeone]

Based on LSN, it seems that Emory has sometimes offered very generous 32k per year scholarships to candidates who exactly match Emory's 75% LSAT score (166 last year). In fact, for last year's cycle there are 9 scholarships listed as 32k per year, and all 9 went to applicants with exactly a 166 LSAT. With the exception of Woodruffs no applicants who scored 167+ secured a 32k scholarship. As a candidate with a 170+ and 3.9+ is there anyway, outside of the Woodruff, that I might go about securing a 32k+ schoarship offer as some of the applicants with a 166 did in last year's cycle?

I am very interested in this also. Although my stats are higher than the median (and I haven't been admitted ) Emory is currently my first choice, but I'd desperately need $$$ to attend and it seems that people with stats similar to mine haven't gotten the big scholarship love.

Is this done purposefully? And if so, would you recommend an applicant with higher numbers to send in an addendum or communicate interest in attending somehow?

I am also very interested in the field placement program. Do you know approximately how many students participate each year?

EDIT: Thanks so much for taking the time to do this!

[forty-two]

First of all, thank you so much for taking the time to answer questions.

I am mainly curious about national reach, especially regarding the west coast. I know from your website that only a few people end up working near the pacific, but is that mainly due to self selection or lack of opportunity? Also, is Emory currently taking any steps to try to increase its degree portability? Thanks again!

[Emory_Rob]

Question:

1) If you could cite one general, subjective/intangble quality Emory Law Admissions seeks in an applicant - regardless of background - what would it be?

2) What are Emory Law's goals over the next three-five years, as an institution, and what can a student do (besides acheive stellar grades and make himself a good employment prospect) to help the school acheive them?

3) What changes, if any, does Emory plan to make in the way it teaches law? What is the philosophy behind those changes? What impact do you believe they will make on the law community and the community at large?

4) Is Emory improving its national reach?

Answer:

These are great questions. Honestly, questions 2 & 3 are probably better directed to someone like the Dean of the Law School than to me! (And knowing Dean Partlett, he’d love to discuss it with you if you run into him sometime.) I know he just completed an interview about this, and you can read his interview at http://www.top-law-schools.com/david-pa ... rview.html

As far as what we seek in an applicant, the bottom line with every applicant is whether or not that person is going to be able to do the work successfully. That being said, out of every four applications we receive from someone who can probably do the work, we will only have room to admit one. So of course we take into account LSAT and GPA, but we also look at the whole application. What did your recommenders say about you? What did you say about yourself in your personal statement? Did it give us insight into who you are and why you want to go to law school, and did it tell us why you are interested in Emory in particular? Our Dean of Admission really likes to see a good personal statement that answers those questions. I know the admission committee also looks carefully about the strength of your letters of recommendation. Not, who the recommender is, but more importantly, what they have to say about you. As I have said before, we read everything. The application tells us a story about who you are. Impress us!

As to our national reach, I do think its improving, but I think it’s already better than most of you probably realize. As you’d expect, the state with the highest concentration of our alumni is Georgia, second is New York, third is Florida, and fourth is California. If you counted Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C. together, that would actually rank third. We also have a big contingent in Chicago and Texas. If you wanted to practice law in Alaska or Hawaii, we have alumni there that we can put you in touch with (I would personally pick Hawaii over Alaska, but different strokes for different folks).

Questions:

Any stats on OCI?

Thanks a ton, I was wondering if you could talk about OCI this past year and in the next 2-3 years (best you can). Also, could you speak on Emory's reach (specifically up and down the east coast)?

Answer:

I spoke with Career Services, and they are still compiling information on 2009-2010 OCI. They did tell me they should have that completed “soon” but they weren’t sure how soon. Like everywhere else, there were not as many firms recruiting this past year because of the economy. However, we do have lots of statistics published on our web site from previous years, and I am told that the numbers from this year will be passed along as soon as they are compiled.

As far as our placement on the East Coast, I can tell you that nearly 85% of the class of 2008 found employment somewhere in the Atlantic coast and New England states. I don’t expect that to be much different for the class of 2009.

Question:

What are you shooting for as far as LSAT median this year?

Answer:

Our goal is to maintain or improve our medians.

Question:

Just wondering, if someone has applied for the Woodruff, will they still receive their "normal" scholarship offer at the same time as everyone else (or at least the same time that they would have otherwise), and then be notified later in March of their status with the Woodruff?

Answer:

Applying for the Woodruff will not put you at any disadvantage in our scholarship process. I’m not sure how Woodruff candidates will be notified of an award from the general scholarship pool, but in the end you will get at least the amount that you would have received if you weren’t under consideration for the Woodruff. We may wait until we know who the Woodruff winners are so we can give the regular scholarship money they would have received to someone else. I know that no one likes to wait, but either way you should know about any scholarship award before it’s time for you to start putting down deposits.

Question:

Based on LSN, it seems that Emory has sometimes offered very generous 32k per year scholarships to candidates who exactly match Emory's 75% LSAT score (166 last year). In fact, for last year's cycle there are 9 scholarships listed as 32k per year, and all 9 went to applicants with exactly a 166 LSAT. With the exception of Woodruffs no applicants who scored 167+ secured a 32k scholarship. As a candidate with a 170+ and 3.9+ is there anyway, outside of the Woodruff, that I might go about securing a 32k+ schoarship offer as some of the applicants with a 166 did in last year's cycle?

Answer:

I would caution you from drawing any conclusions about scholarship awards based on LSN. As you know, the information there is self-reported and may or may not give you an accurate picture. Secondly, the scholarship allocation is reevaluated every year, so what we did last year is probably not what we will do this year. And most importantly, the data on LSN only shows you two things (LSAT and GPA), while the factors that go into making scholarship decisions are far more complex. We look at many different factors beyond just those two things, and use a pretty sophisticated process to try to allocate our funds so that we wind up with the strongest class we can and enroll the right number of students. If we mess up and 500 people accept offers for the roughly 225 or so people we plan to enroll, then we are in trouble. So just remember that there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in LSN’s philosophy.

Question:

Many schools are willing to negotiate financial aid offers with prospective students depending on a multitude of factors including other merit based offers from peer schools. What, if any, policy does Emory have when dealing with situations regarding merit aid negotiation?

Answer:

Scholarship offers are final. If you get a better offer elsewhere and that’s why you choose to attend that school, we would appreciate you letting us know that. It probably won’t make any difference for you, but it may help us do a better job with our scholarship allocation next year.

Question:

You had briefly mentioned the TI:GER program which I am particularly interested in. I was wondering; is it a prerequisite, like it is to sit on the patent bar, for one to have a bachelors in a science related field in order to be nominated for the program? Or can an academically efficient, technologically gifted student still apply for the program and stand a good chance?

Answer:

Yes! TI:GER is a great program, and contrary to the impression you might get, it is not strictly limited to students who are eligible for the patent bar or even students with a strong interest in IP. There are two tracks for law students, a “patent track” and a “technology track,” with half the students in each. TI:GER teams consist of a PhD candidate from Georgia Tech, an MBA student from Tech, and two law students from Emory, one from the patent track and one from the technology track. The patent track students have slightly different course requirements with a heavier IP focus, while the technology track students take more transactional law classes and a couple of soft IP classes. To tell you the truth, if you are interested in doing deals and working with small companies that have the potential to grow into the next Google or Microsoft, I would strongly recommend looking at the TI:GER program. It really is one of the jewels of the law school.

Question:

Is it good news, generally, if you don't hear back quickly on an application?

For instance, you thought you were an automatic decline, but you haven't heard anything after a couple or more months, while other people have gotten rejection notices?

Or is it already decided and just waiting for someone to send out a rejection notice?

Does it really take 2 or 3 months to review an application once it goes into review status?

Answer:

For the most part, the sooner you go complete, the sooner you get in line to get reviewed. However, from that point on, there is no hard-and-fast rule about what happens to your application. Depending on what’s in there, several different people may take a look at it. Before I got involved with it, I thought it was a much more regimented process than it is, but we do it this way because we want to make sure that every application gets a full evaluation. We are very conscious of the fact that every application is extremely important to the person applying, so we try our best to make sure we treat it just as importantly as you did in preparing it.

To give you the short answer, some people hear back quickly, some people won’t hear for a while, and you should not read anything into that. Once we do come to a final decision, we try to communicate it as quickly as we can. So if you haven’t heard anything and you’re application is completed, you’re still under consideration -- so hang in there.

Questions:

I am very interested in this also. Although my stats are higher than the median (and I haven't been admitted ) Emory is currently my first choice, but I'd desperately need $$$ to attend and it seems that people with stats similar to mine haven't gotten the big scholarship love.

Is this done purposefully? And if so, would you recommend an applicant with higher numbers to send in an addendum or communicate interest in attending somehow?

I am also very interested in the field placement program. Do you know approximately how many students participate each year?

Answer:

If we are your first choice, then I would strongly recommend saying that in your personal statement. If you did not and you’ve already applied, send us an addendum and let us know. I can’t promise it will help, but I can promise you it won’t hurt

And don’t worry just because you haven’t gotten a decision yet, assuming your application is complete someone is either looking at you or is supposed to be looking at you soon.

I will get you more information on the field placement program, but there is pretty good information about it on the web site.

Question:

I am mainly curious about national reach, especially regarding the west coast. I know from your website that only a few people end up working near the pacific, but is that mainly due to self selection or lack of opportunity? Also, is Emory currently taking any steps to try to increase its degree portability? Thanks again!

Answer:

I talked about national reach earlier, and mentioned that we have a lot of alumni in California. We also have sizable contingents in Colorado, Arizona, Washington, and Nevada. (Of course, we have alumni in all 50 states, but there are quite a lot out west.)

As far as increasing our degree portability, I’m not sure that we are doing anything with that specific purpose in mind, but I think it is happening as a result of other things that we are doing. I’m sure you all know that we have been steadily rising in the USNWR rankings over the last several years. Also, presumably most of you have figured out that personal connections are the best way to find a job, particularly in a challenging economy. Over the last four years the number of our alumni who are active in the Alumni Association has tripled in size, so there are more engaged Emory alumni than ever before for our graduates to work with and draw upon as resources.

I think that’s all the questions I’ve received so far, anyone else?

[WiretoWire09UF]

How would you rank the "community" of Emory?

Are students in split up into section? What kind of activities does the school employ to help foster close-knit elements?

[TTT-LS]

.

[Billy Batts]

I noticed all the LSN acceptances have been 166+. As a 165er, can we expect a wave soon?

[chicoalto0649]

Does Emory have any plans to establish a status checker, twitter account, or even emails notifying students of decisions rendered? Anything to keep its applicants updated as to what is going on with the admissions office would help. I know they generally do not tell you much, but it keeps applicants feeling like we are up to date.

Th question you posed, coupled with your username is quite ironic

[chicoalto0649]

Does Emory have any plans to establish a status checker, twitter account, or even emails notifying students of decisions rendered? Anything to keep its applicants updated as to what is going on with the admissions office would help. I know they generally do not tell you much, but it keeps applicants feeling like we are up to date.

Th question you posed, coupled with your username is quite ironic

we call that eponysterical

--LinkRemoved--

I thought that was a word that's actually in the dictionary....not the urban dictionary

[nyyankees]

Id like to echo the thanks for stepping up and doing this. It is undoubtedly a great resource

Much has been written about how the current cycle's additional test takers ended up manifesting themselves in more applications but a relatively steady number of applicants. How do you think this will affect the medians? and Do you expect to keep a deeper waitlist this year?

[Ragnar]

tag

[lawschooliseasy]

**bump**

[Vincent Vega]

Dear Rob,

I am interested in what it takes to join an admissions office after graduation. I am somewhat enamored with the process, it seems. Do you have to attain a certain class rank or be really involved with any particular activities or employment? Do people usually get legal experience first or go straight into admissions? Is the pay wonderful, good, meh, or poor?

Thanks!

[Emory_Rob]

Question:

How would you rank the "community" of Emory?

Are students in split up into section? What kind of activities does the school employ to help foster close-knit elements?

Answer:

Students are divided into sections of 35-45 people. Students in these sections will take most of their classes together, and some classes will be combined with another section as well. Sections become your family during the first year, and the Emory Law Student Bar Association (our student government) sponsors section parties, socials and contests.

There are a number of clubs and events available for students to socialize and explore common interests, from the Legal Association of Women Students to the Environmental Law Society to EPIC (Emory Public Interest Committee) to the Black Law Students Association and Asian Law Students Association to Moot Court to Mock Trial and many, many more. There are also purely social organizations like the Emory Food Club, and our Student Bar Association organizes bunches of social events such as weekly “bar reviews” as well as Thursday afternoon kegs and cokes on Bacardi Plaza. (Yes, the CEO of Bacardi Ltd. is an Emory Law alumnus!) We also have the infamous Harvest Moon Ball in the fall and the more regal Barrister’s Ball in the spring. Student organizations also host social fundraisers, like charity auctions and bowling tournaments. And, for all of you budding comedians, we also have the Law School Follies annual comedy revue.

Honestly, there are more things to do just within the law school community than any one person can do and still maintain a respectable GPA. That doesn’t even touch on all the things that are available in Atlanta itself, including everything from professional sports to great opportunities to see live music pretty much every night of the week. I don’t know that you’d have more opportunities to bond with your classmates and do fun things at any other school in this part of the country.

Question:

While you've mentioned that OCI statistics are still being compiled, I wonder if I could add the following question to the list of those that might be addressed by such stats: What percentage of the class of 2011 (i.e., your current 2L class) will be working as paid summer associates at NLJ250 law firms this summer?

Answer:

At this point in the process, even the students themselves don’t know the answer to that. Spring OCI is still yet to come.

Question:

I noticed all the LSN acceptances have been 166+. As a 165er, can we expect a wave soon?

Answer:

It may seem like we’re doing these in waves, but actually, we are sending out acceptances at a fairly steady rate as we complete our reviews. More acceptances are coming, and I don’t think they will correspond with applicants’ scores as much as the discussion here seems to indicate.

Question:

Does Emory have any plans to establish a status checker, twitter account, or even emails notifying students of decisions rendered? Anything to keep its applicants updated as to what is going on with the admissions office would help. I know they generally do not tell you much, but it keeps applicants feeling like we are up to date.

Answer:

We are very sympathetic to the fact that waiting is very stressful, which is part of why I’m here answering questions on this board. Implementing a status checker is something we’ve discussed as a possibility for the future. As I mentioned last week, this is our first year going “paperless” so we didn’t want to introduce too many new features at once because the most important thing is making sure that our processes are accurate. I will definitely pass this on for further discussion.

Question:

Much has been written about how the current cycle's additional test takers ended up manifesting themselves in more applications but a relatively steady number of applicants. How do you think this will affect the medians? and Do you expect to keep a deeper waitlist this year?

Answer:

The easy answer to both of those questions is I am not sure. If I had a dollar for every time we have discussed these issues, I could probably retire and go live on a tropical island somewhere.

My impression is that your premise is essentially correct, there are many more tests being taken, and while there are more applications being submitted, people also are applying to more schools because the marginal effort of applying to additional schools is fairly low. Because many schools will consider only your high score, it is very common to see people taking the LSAT multiple times. What that means is that there are somewhat more high LSAT scores to go around. We really aren’t sure what that is going to mean as far as the medians go.

It is too early in the process currently to predict how we will handle wait lists. We are certainly seeing a lot of outstanding candidates this year. I can tell you for certain that those of you who do choose to come to Emory next year are going to have some really amazing classmates – not just people with great scores, but people who have done some really amazing and interesting things.

[Cupidity]

Sorry, question asked and answered, thank you!

[Bikeflip]

I was looking at Emory's 2006-2008 employment stats, and I did not see many grads going into the mountain west. I was wondering if this was because students were not choosing to accept offers from there, if firms from that region did not focus on Emory or if other factors were coming into play. Could you shed some light on this area? Thanks in advance!

[Vincent Vega]

Dear Rob,

I am interested in what it takes to join an admissions office after graduation. I am somewhat enamored with the process, it seems. Do you have to attain a certain class rank or be really involved with any particular activities or employment? Do people usually get legal experience first or go straight into admissions? Is the pay wonderful, good, meh, or poor?

Thanks!

You didn't answer this, and I re-read it and it came off somewhat sarcastic, I think. I really am interested in hearing your experience with this. You can PM me, if you like.

[entrechatsix]

i'm interested in coming to visit the campus. what exactly happens at the "information session" and what attire would you suggest?

[timelovesahero]

What opportunities does Emory offer for students interested in public interest?

[Emory_Rob]

Sorry I haven’t been able to answer questions for a few days, we are even busier than usual right now. In case you are wondering (and I know many of you are), we still have over half of our planned acceptances to offer. So don’t worry if you haven’t heard anything yet, there are still plenty of places in this year’s class.

Question:

I am interested in what it takes to join an admissions office after graduation. I am somewhat enamored with the process, it seems. Do you have to attain a certain class rank or be really involved with any particular activities or employment? Do people usually get legal experience first or go straight into admissions? Is the pay wonderful, good, meh, or poor?

Answer:

I’m not really sure that there is a particular career path into admissions. You do have to be the type of person who is very organized, can effectively multitask, and who has good judgment and is very discreet. It helps to have experience, of course, but it’s also a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I don’t think there’s any hard-and-fast rule about what type of background you have to have, that probably depends on the school and what they prefer. I can tell you that it is rarely boring!

Question:

I was looking at Emory's 2006-2008 employment stats, and I did not see many grads going into the mountain west. I was wondering if this was because students were not choosing to accept offers from there, if firms from that region did not focus on Emory or if other factors were coming into play. Could you shed some light on this area? Thanks in advance!

Answer:

Well, I think that there are two factors that determine geographic placement. Our graduates tend to return to their hometowns, or where the jobs are. In fact, many of our graduates choose to stay here in Atlanta where more than 40 percent of our alumni base is located since there are many opportunities to find a fulfilling job here in the metro-Atlanta area. Our graduates also migrate to larger cities with significant alumni bases such as New York, Washington, Chicago, California, Dallas, and Houston. Furthermore, while we typically have incoming students from all over the country, the mountain west area is not overly represented, so we don’t typically have a lot of graduates looking to go back there. That being said, we do have a good alumni presence in those states, and there are Emory alumni to network with if you are still interested in going there after you graduate. Graduates from the class of 2008 went to 25 different states, which is quite a lot when you consider that we keep our classes small and more than 60 percent of the class went to either New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, or stayed here in Georgia.

Question:

I'm interested in coming to visit the campus. what exactly happens at the "information session" and what attire would you suggest?

Answer:

On Mondays and Fridays, an Admission Officer gives a brief overview of Emory’s programs, the opportunities available at our school, as well as the admission process. There will be plenty of chances to have any questions answered. After that, a current student will give a brief tour of our classroom facilities and the law library (the library in particular is a really nice place). Then, you have the opportunity to sit-in on a first-year class. (I heard that some visitors actually get called on!)

There isn’t any particular dress code, but most people seem to show up in nice casual or business casual dress.

If you are an admitted student I strongly recommend visiting for Admitted Students’ Weekend on April 9-10. There will be plenty of faculty, current students, and alumni around for you to talk to and find out what it’s really like to attend Emory, and get a first chance to meet your future classmates.

Question:

What opportunities does Emory offer for students interested in public interest?

Answer:

I referred this question to our in-office public interest expert, and here’s what she said - and there is information on all of this on our web site:

The Emory environment is generally quite encouraging of public interest, and there are several strongly-involved public interest faculty, from a housing policy researcher (Frank Alexander), a stringent animal-rights and health law advocate (Ani Satz), and one of the foremost feminist academics (Martha Fineman), to several strong international law voices (Johan van der Vyver and Abdullahi Ahmed An'Naim), criminal law advocates (Morgan Cloud) and courtroom practice tutors (Paul Zwier).

One of Emory’s greatest public interest assets is Sue McAvoy, the public interest career advisor. Most students who come to Emory expressing public interest career goals are assigned Sue as their career adviser. She's got advice for people seeking work in national and international arenas, and is a great sounding board for ideas.

EPIC (the Emory Public Interest Committee) is one of the strongest student organizations in the law school, with approximately 1/3 of the class as members. There are many opportunities for leadership within EPIC and within the many other student organizations. In each of the past three years, student-led efforts have raised more than $100,000 for summer public interest grants, allowing for wide-ranging internships. This has allowed students to work on prison research in India, legal reform in Liberia, projects in death penalty appeals, and others.

Emory is close to all of Atlanta's employers, both public and private, and the internship (field placement) program allows students to get credit for working in hands-on placements. There are usually about 30 different public interest placement opportunities each semester, and I haven't heard of any student not getting one of the placements in which they are interested.

There are also opportunities available at the Barton Child Law and Policy Clinic, the Barton Juvenile Defender Clinic, and the Turner Environmental Law Clinic, where students actually get a chance to practice law in a clinical setting under the supervision of real lawyers.

Keep the questions coming!

[chicoalto0649]

How well are Hispanics (in particular Mexican Americans) represented at the law school? The Hispanic population is booming, especially in the south, but very few qualified Hispanics matriculate into law school.
Your website was not very specific about this .

[BearTerritory]

Hi,

First, thank you for taking questions. I live in Los Angeles and plan on practicing in California after graduation. I have always been really interested in Emory but am afraid that it will be hard to find a job in California after graduation. Do you have any idea what percentage of students move to California after graduation and the overall job prospects for students that do plan on moving to Los Angeles? Thanks

[Gatorbull84]

Thanks a lot for answering questions, I was actually about to call Emory when I came across this thread. I am a engineer from the University of Florida with a undergrad GPA of 3.01, and I am currently in a very competitive medical masters program through USF's medical school. My graduate GPA is a 3.9 and its about to go up(3.93ish). I know my graduate GPA isn't calculated in but does it help at all? I was president of a club and a member of others with a good amount of volunteering. I am interested in applying for 2011 and I was wondering if there is a certain LSAT score that will make me competitive? I understand that my undergrad GPA is pretty low compared to the average and it is not the traditional pre-law background, but is there a good chance of being admitted with a certain LSAT?

I want to go into IP, and if there is anything else that I should be doing please let me know. Thank you ion advance for the help