Top Law Schools

The pre-law club at my school hosted a tour of UNC. A 3L guided us around, spoke about the school, and answered our questions. At the end, we had a Q&A with an adcomm. The following is a list of shorthand notes I compiled during the trip:

The outside of the law building is underwhelming.
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The library archives old exams complete with student answers and the grades they received.
Mid-way through the first semester, 1L students take a 30 minute "practice exam".
The largest classroom holds 120.
(The classrooms are woefully depressing. The tables and chairs were most definitely bought on NC's stringent state budget.

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Tour guide said the profs were super accessible. Some even hosted dinners at their homes.
There's a new program for research/reading/writing.
There's a schoolwide lunch hour

The marching band and football practices can occasionally be heard inside the library, which is located next to the athletic fields.

There's 70% pro bono involvement amongst 2L and 3L
Most students live in Glen Lennox
Parking is nonexistent
Most people commute by bus

Not much fast food other than pizza
Franklin st. is the main source of restaurants (proper restaurants, not many chains).

The adcomm explicitly said they are biased toward GPA rather than LSAT (sorry splitters!)
He bad-mouthed TLS, pointing in particular to a poster that falsely posted about the time of length need for NC residency (it's 1 year)
Mostly K-JDs (I think median age of students was 23)

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Good call on the pics/commentary... I agree. I just posted about this in another thread ("bad impressions")... the facilities are none too impressive.

I went on a scheduled tour November 2013 just before submitting my application.

I was one of three prospective students on the tour and the only one without my mom with me. Also I was the only person who was from NC. I chose to sit in on a class and my overall impression is that the class was fine (CivPro). Even though it was almost the end of the semester the professor kept it going and I never spaced. That was a check ++ for the quality of professor. I was less impressed with the students in the class. Many were doing random stuff on their laptops and the Socratic method was practically nonexistent. It was painful to constantly have the professor answer his own question after practically pleading for participation. The students seem very collegial and thus no gunner behavior from what I witnessed. That could be good or bad depending on your view point.

The facilities were decent especially the offices. The classrooms were the worst I have seen but very clean and well maintained. I went to public undergrad so you get what you pay for. With UNC you can tell the tuition goes to faculty salaries and an awesome career center. If comfortable classrooms, integrated class technology, parking are high priorities then UNC scores low.

The people. Our group was lead by a 3L and a 1L. Both were very enthusiastic and very nice. Much of their focus was on quality of life as a UNC student which they rated very high. The 3L was very interested in PI law and had ample experience under her belt and was looking forward to starting her career in Charlotte after graduation.

The only thing that was weird for me was that when I first arrived I was mistaken as the tour guide by the admissions staff, which tells me they don't even know their own student ambassadors. Granted everyone has a bad day.

Another comment is one for fellow engineers. UNC was my fourth school tour and was the fourth place to push me toward IP/Patent law. I realize we few female engineers are rare law school applicants, but do I have to make a career choice based on the fact I can do something. Isn't it more important to have passion for what you do? I may really like IP, but I may not. I just want to figure out like the rest of my peers without all the pressure. Note: during the CivPro lecture there was a trite joke about lawyers not knowing math except for the few with a STEM undergrad major. FYI most engineers are not great at adding or multiplying either that is what computer programs do. Now if you are talking about product design, data analysis, identifying trends, querying complicated databases; we got that.

Food choices were scarce. I did see a couple students with lunch boxes. In fact between the small class size, lockers and everyone taking the same classes it was like high school.

Overall I thought UNC was a good public school choice and despite any negative factors it is my top choice because the things that really matter like cost of tuition, quality of faculty, and peers I world rate very high, outside of the T14.

pketpket wrote:I went on a scheduled tour November 2013 just before submitting my application.

Thanks for this super long report of your visit. Appreciate the feedback!