Top Law Schools

What are people's views on visiting schools before applying versus after admission?

Pros and Cons?

I guess it depends on how many schools you are serious about visiting and how difficult it would be for you to visit them.

Personally, I would see what schools accept me before going to see them in person. The cost of applying (~$80 without waiver) is much less than the cost of visiting most schools I am interested in.

Edit: I definitely would visit a school before I commit to attending it.

I'd say if you have a ton of schools in the area and want to go on a trip, do it before. This was the case for me. I went out to see some friends in California with the intent of seeing schools in the range from Stanford to Pepperdine. After the trip I realized I wouldn't apply to a few because I really didn't like them...meanwhile I realized I would love to go to a couple of others. On the other hand, I would only go visit Chicago and NU after acceptances since those are the only schools I'm applying to in the area and it's brickcity out there.

Your choice though! Good luck.

As the above posters said, it really depends on the situation. For example:
I live in NJ, so visiting the city is pretty normal, and I can easily visit NYU and CLS both in a single day, assuming I'm not sitting in on any classes. In fact, a CLS visit was only part of my day the last time I went to the city just to hang out with some friends. I could probably swing Penn on a longer trip, maybe an overnight stay.

But what I also realized was: many schools will pay for you to visit admitted students weekends once you are in. Personally, I'm taking a road trip this winter break (unless my plans fall through) to Ann Arbor and Chicago to see Mich and Chicago, respectively. From another thread and this link:
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... =5&t=98776
I found out that Michigan does not pay for admitted students (only Darrow scholars), whereas the Southern route I would have taken (WUSTL, Vandy, Duke, UVA, and the DC schools in a big circle), most of the schools pay ASW stipends (WUSTL Vandy and Duke's all would've been enough for me, DC just would've been a stop on the way back).

So keep that in mind for the purposes of actually DECIDING on a school.
For the purposes of applying, it's really based on your discretion: If you really would like to go see a school and think it would give you a strong "Why X" essay at a school that's not a lock, go for it.

I only visited one law school before sending out my applications (out of ~15 that I applied to), and that's only because I'm an undergrad at that university. The schools I applied to (mostly with fee waivers) are all over the country so it would have been impossible for me to visit even half of them prior to applying. I'll visit my top choices once all of my decisions are in (ideally with travel stipends ).

In the realm of "do I want to go to law school" type questions, visiting the places is extremely helpful, so is talking to current students and attorneys in places you'd like to practice. I got lucky and got to hook a family member up by driving her car essentially cross country for her, and was able to stop at a bunch of schools I was planning on applying to. Of those schools, some of the visits made me lose interest and not apply, some got me very interested in schools I hadn't strongly considered in the first place. If you're busy at work and don't have a lot of time to do it, I'd say avoid it, wait until you're in, but if you can squeeze in a trip before you're in, I found it very helpful.

If you want to see what a law school is really like, visit before you get in. Once you're in, they're going to be a lot friendlier b/c they want you to go there but I think it's important to see what the school's really like before you get in since that's an indicator of the type of people you'll be spending 3 years around.

For many applicants, it is too costly to visit law schools prior to acceptance unless the schools are nearby. Regardless, since law schools are heavily scrutinized by various published sources, there is little need to visit before an admissions decision is made.

im visiting the schools after being accepted, except for the one school that is in my home city. I went to their general open house in the fall, literally a day before I submitted the application. I'm only visiting the schools I am seriously considering attending. If you have done your reserach before applying, you should have some sort of ranking system in place. Im going to visit these schools and then give myself a few days to digest all of the informatino before committing to one.

Fred_McGriff wrote:In the realm of "do I want to go to law school" type questions, visiting the places is extremely helpful, so is talking to current students and attorneys in places you'd like to practice. I got lucky and got to hook a family member up by driving her car essentially cross country for her, and was able to stop at a bunch of schools I was planning on applying to. Of those schools, some of the visits made me lose interest and not apply, some got me very interested in schools I hadn't strongly considered in the first place. If you're busy at work and don't have a lot of time to do it, I'd say avoid it, wait until you're in, but if you can squeeze in a trip before you're in, I found it very helpful.

I really agree with this concept. If you're thinking of doing a binding early app, I would say definitely visit first. I decided not to submit a binding app to one school after I visited. I still applied, but I was just nowhere near as excited about the place after I visited, so decided I wasn't willing to prematurely commit.