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by Charlton D. Rose
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Hearing from the Law Schools

Rejections

The worst kind of correspondence, of course, is the rejection letter: "We are so sorry, but we had many more qualified applicants than we could possibly accommodate."  This letter has disposed of your file, at least for the current year.  The only kind thing that can be said about rejection letters is that they usually are unequivocal.

As disagreeable as these letters are, you must reconcile yourself to receiving at least a few of them. If you've chosen your law schools wisely, you will be favored with a few acceptances to offset the disappointment. And remember that you need only one acceptance; you can't attend two law schools, after all.

Can I ask why?

If you have been rejected, you may want to inquire as to the reason. On rare occasions you will be rejected because a request for additional information was not answered. You may not have received the request, or the recommender or registrar may have failed to send out the requested information. In this case, you might request that the law school reconsider your file after you have personally delivered the missing information.

It is more common for late applicants to be rejected because there were no seats left by the time the application was complete. Some admissions officers will inform you of this in the letter of rejection. If you know you applied in the last month before the school's deadline or that your file was not complete until after the application deadline, you should contact the admissions officer and ask whether you might receive a favorable decision if you apply earlier the next year.

In some instances, the law school will reply that you would do well to re-apply early, and perhaps with a slightly higher LSAT score. If you wish to re-apply, make sure you take the LSAT in June. Schools have been known to look askance at applicants who were told to apply early but waited until the next December to retake the LSAT.

If you know your application was complete, and at a reasonably early date, there is no reason to request reconsideration of your file this year.

Can I Transfer In Next Year?

In response to the volume of questions about transferring after your first year, I made that my only interview question at the 1997 DC Law Forum.  Here's what I learned:

• In general, you can transfer only at the end of one year of fulltime study at an ABA-approved law school.  
• You will require a Dean's certification that you are a student in good standing (so you can't hide your intent to leave).
• The more difficult it was to get into a school, the more difficult it will be to transfer in.  

As with all other aspects of law school admissions, the generalizations end quickly, and the individual answers take over.  The following table shows the results of my interviews with 47 schools. (We have answers for another 80 schools in our files, but this should give you an idea of the range of answers.)

As applications have increased the transfer game has been complicated by the fact that some schools have no room for transfer applicants.  This is discussed in the Application Trends section.  

A final word of advice:  don't count on transferring; it isn't easy. If you won't be happy at this year's law school, you'll be better off fixing your file and re-applying than counting on transferring out.  

Can I reapply?

If you already applied and were rejected, you won't be accepted next year unless you strengthen your file. That almost certainly means a better LSAT score. Did you adequately prepare for the LSAT? If you know you didn't spend enough time preparing, find a way to make the time. If you didn't take a prep course, take one. If you took one, shop around for a better program. A higher LSAT score is the strongest persuasion you can offer to the law school.

The second best change you can make is to write a better personal statement. Did you honestly deal with those aspects of your file that need addressing? Was the statement well-written and edited? Did it tell an interesting story? Did you take risks, show some vulnerability? Perhaps more important, did it answer the questions the law school posed? In writing a new personal statement, you need to be sure not to contradict anything you said previously; however, you can give fuller explanations of problems, or address a wholly different topic.

For many of you, the answer will simply be "wait a few years."  As of 2005, it seems that applications are beginning to decline, but it will be at least three years before they decline enough to move your file from the reject pile to the admit stack.  In that time, you can acquire work experience, and put some distance between your application and any less-than-stellar grades.  

Finally, you must decide whether law school is really the path for you. If you've done everything possible to strengthen your file, applied to the most lenient schools, and still been rejected, you may have to face the fact that law school isn't in your immediate future. Perhaps a few years of work experience or an advanced degree will make a difference, but for now you may have to set this idea aside.

If you're not willing to give up this goal, but can't find any other options by yourself, contact us; we'll give you an honest assessment of whether you can get into any schools, and what you might need to do so.