Today we're joined by Alice Foley, Associate Law School Consulting at S. Montgomery Consulting, and Jimmi Nicholson, Director of Admissions at the University of Kentucky J. David Rosenberg College of Law as they discuss the factors that go into building your law school list and how DEI plays a role in that decision process. They cover questions such as:

How do you decide which schools to apply to?

What are the most important yet often overlooked parts of the application?

What is the perspective of the person behind the desk and what signs are they looking for?

Episode Highlights

• If you are a non-resident applying to a state school (out of state school), make sure you communicate it well in your personal statement, addendum, or other additional essays because sometimes admissions just have no idea why you're trying and aren’t seeing the connection to go there

• Be a little more open to where you’re willing to travel to for law school. Maybe that school is a good environment and a good setting for you to thrive, and reach the goal. 

• Remember these things when it comes to asking for an increase in scholarships:

  • Recognize that you’re not negotiating. The more appropriate term should be asking for your scholarship to be reevaluated or reconsidered. 

  • You should never approach a school about an increased scholarship if you don't plan on enrolling there,

  • You should not ask for it without doing some research and some math on your own. Oftentimes what will happen is law school A may offer $55,000 while law school B offers $12,000. You have to ask yourself, what is the at-cost, not the tuition fees. Once you do the math, you realize that both of the schools are giving the same percentage of scholarships

  • Look at the stipulations on the scholarship, what does the school ask you to maintain that scholarship? What are your chances of keeping it?

• Check out resources like accesslex.org that give information on outside scholarships to apply for

• Applying to law school is all about the early bird getting the worm. Law schools do what is called rolling admissions. So when applications open up in August or September, once admissions receives a critical mass of applicants, they start reviewing files and making admissions decisions. What that means as an applicant is, what looks good to admissions in September and October may not look good to them in November or December. The earlier you apply, the more chances for a competitive scholarship.

• Some applicants are considered “splitters” because they are seen in both directions: low GPA, high LSAT; low LSAT high GPA. If both are well below a certain percentile, it may not be viable. However, one factor that will drive the incision is looking more closely at the reasonings behind them. That is where you tell your story in an addendum, not in your personal statement, but in an addendum about your academic performance or your LSAT performance.

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