CATEGORY - LAW SCHOOL GUIDES

December 31, 2009

Admissions Blog: Yale’s (203) Admissions Blog

Last week we discusses Stanford Law School’s recently released admissions blog; the week before we highlighted Harvard in Focus. This week, we’d like to point out yet another admissions blog that students can use as a valuable resource.

Yale Law School, like Stanford and Harvard, provides an admissions blog that discusses a range of topics - various categories of topics discussed include, “Applying,” “Bad Ideas” and “Student Life.” The blog - entitled the (203) Admissions Blog - is a great resource for students considering applying to Yale, as the various posts provide an insider’s look at different aspects of the admissions process, Yale curriculum and student life. It’s also just as good a resource for students already intend on applying - the information gained from reading to blog will be valuable when writing your personal statement and during interviews.

For additional information about Yale Law School, make sure to check out the Clear Admit’s Guide to Yale Law School. Inside, you’ll find information on student body demographics, independent research opportunities and study abroad offerings.

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# posted by admin @ 8:00 am in Admissions Blogs, Law School Guides, School: Yale

December 7, 2009

A Look Inside: Yale Law School Guide

Finishing our glimpse into the first set of the new Clear Admit Law School Guides, we are excited to discuss our Yale Law School Guide!

As with our other guides, the YLS edition provides comprehensive information on the renowned school and in-depth research into the many ways in which YLS differs from other leading programs, such as the curriculum’s subtle emphasis on preparing students for careers in law teaching and scholarship.  Yale’s Writing Requirement is a manifestation of this feature, and we begin to demonstrate how the written work requirement at Yale differs from those at other schools thus:

“Despite the near-ubiquity of this requirement among U.S. law schools, Yale’s Writing Requirement stands out from requirements at many of its peer schools because YLS strongly encourages students to publish their writing in a peer reviewed law journal instead of treating the writing requirement solely as preparation for legal work. This focus on scholarship likely contributes to Yale’s reputation as the preeminent law school for students who seek to become legal scholars, and students approach the writing requirements with seriousness and ambition.”

This slightly different academic focus, as the New Haven, Conn. school often advocates theoretical legal discourse more than peer programs, is also reflected in career placement trends as well.  Along with graphs illustrating the various industries to which students graduating from YLS have flocked in recent years, our YLS guide touches on the prevalence of judicial clerkship placement:

“It is interesting to note that the trajectory that Yale students take after graduation is diametrically opposed to that of most of its peers. While the percentage of the Yale class that enters private practice following graduation is significantly lower than that of its peers, over 40% of the Class of 2007 took jobs as judicial clerks. That Yale graduates are so successful in obtaining clerkships is no surprise given the frequency with which Yale alumni go into legal academia, since working as a federal or state clerk for one to two years is commonly part of a law graduate’s path toward becoming a law professor.”

Along with the above examples, interested YLS applicants can find information on Yale’s preferred teaching method and grading system, research opportunities and application evaluation procedures, among other topics.

If you’ve missed our previous “look inside” entries over the past month, please review our U. Chicago Law School, Columbia Law School, Harvard Law School and NYU School of Law posts, respectively.

The Yale Law School Guide is on sale now at the Clear Admit Shop, along with guides from Chicago, Columbia, Harvard and NYU!

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# posted by admin @ 8:00 am in Law School Guides, School: Yale

November 30, 2009

A Look Inside: New York University School of Law Guide

In the fourth installment of this series examining our new Clear Admit Law School Guides, we are pleased to offer a glimpse of our New York University School of Law Guide!

The NYU guide contains in-depth information about NYU’s J.D. and graduate programs, and also compares the school to other leading programs.  It’s a great tool that makes background research easy for busy prospective applicants and, further along in the process, allows applicants the opportunity to tailor a personal statement or optional essay to highlight particular aspects of NYU School of Law’s program that fit with the applicant’s story.

One such point of comparison distinguishing NYU from peer programs is the comprehensive instruction in  practical legal skills provided to NYU School of Law students through its 1L Lawyering course, which we describe in part as such:

“NYU’s professional skills course, simply called Lawyering, is one of the most rigorous and innovative of any offered by a comparable school, standing out from peer schools’ courses in a number of ways. The most obvious difference is that Lawyering demands a great deal of time; it is held during both semesters and meets three times per week for a total of 4.5 hours each week.

Lawyering professors present a hypothetical situation that focuses on a common intellectual question that practicing lawyers deal with on a daily basis, and assign texts, such as court cases, that present varying interpretations. Then, students discuss the case in small groups and complete a series of mini-exercises that require them to create legal arguments, conduct informal trials and devise appeals to test their arguments. Following these mini-exercises, each student writes a memo or brief articulating their argument in detail, incorporating the nuanced legal reasoning gleaned from the small group discussions. The exercise is concluded with a critique, in which the small group that has collaborated for the mini-exercises meets with the Lawyering professor to review each student’s work.”

Apart from a discussion of NYU’s J.D. and various LL.M. curriculums, our NYU guide touches on life on the Greenwich Village campus, financial aid data and information on the School of Law’s international law offerings, among other topics.  For example, we explore NYU’s international legal scholarship reputation, based on the Hauser Global Law School Program (HGLSP).  Here is a segment of our HGLSP discussion:

“Like many other law schools, NYU seeks to be at the cutting edge of international legal scholarship. However, NYU has taken a more aggressive tactic than many of its peers, which have thus far simply added international scholars to their permanent and temporary faculties and broadened their selection of courses on international legal systems. The HGLSP’s scope and ambition has led its leaders to pursue the goal of fully integrating the study of foreign legal systems into all aspects of the law school curriculum, so that every NYU student develops an understanding of the interplay between legal systems in a fully globalized environment.”

For other preview posts, please see the previous series entries covering the University of Chicago Law School Guide, the Columbia Law School Guide and the Harvard Law School Guide.

The New York University School of Law Guide is on sale now at the Clear Admit Shop, along with law school guides from Chicago, Columbia, Harvard and Yale.  Please visit us again next Monday for our final “look inside” of this first quintet of guides!

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# posted by admin @ 8:00 am in Law School Guides, School: New York University

November 23, 2009

A Look Inside: Harvard Law School Guide

This week, our “look inside” series for the first-released set of Clear Admit Law School Guides turns its attention to our Harvard Law School Guide!

(For previous entries, in which we looked at the Chicago and Columbia Law School Guides, respectively, please click here and here.)

Our HLS guide serves as a key resource for any applicant interested in learning about the program in detail, and for those who want to see the educational and employment opportunities that HLS provides.  As we indicated in our post announcing the guides’ release, these publications can assist prospective students at all stages of the application process, from those who are just starting background research to applicants who seek to strengthen personal statements with school-specific details.

One detail appearing in our HLS guide touches on the significant curricular changes that have been approved for the Cambridge, Mass. school:

“The new curriculum was developed over 18 months by a committee of HLS faculty. Authorized in December of 2008, it will go into effect for the Class of 2012, and represents the largest overhaul in Harvard’s law curriculum since the nineteenth century…. [To develop] successful twenty-first practitioners of the law, the faculty committee agreed that Harvard needed to update the system of law education in three areas: international law, problem-solving as part of the daily practice of law, and adding more flexibility to the upper-level curriculum.”

Additionally, HLS hosts one of the largest clinical programs among leading law programs, as 29 alone are run by the school, in addition to other community, national and international clinical opportunities.  Further, as we explain in our guide and epitomized by this example, HLS’s clinical programs are uniquely tied to coursework:

“Most clinics at HLS are offered in conjunction with classroom courses or workshops. This sets Harvard’s clinical program apart from those of many of its peer schools, which instead rely on the clinical professors and supervising attorneys to impart the applicable law to students at clinic sites. The HLS classroom courses attached to clinics are organized so that students are able to apply the concepts learned in class directly to actual clients. For example, students in the Predatory Lending and Consumer Protection Clinical Workshop spend much of the semester learning about bankruptcies in class while they represent clients filing for Chapter VII bankruptcy through the Predatory Lending/Consumer Protection clinic.”

And, as with all of our Law School Guides, the HLS edition includes details on the school’s international exchange offerings, clubs, student journals and graduates’ career statistics, in addition to many other topics.

The Harvard Law School Guide is on sale now at the Clear Admit Shop, along with law school guides from Chicago, Columbia, NYU and Yale.  Please visit us again next Monday for another “look inside!”

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# posted by admin @ 8:00 am in Law School Guides, School: Harvard

November 16, 2009

A Look Inside: Columbia Law School Guide

Continuing our glimpse into the new Clear Admit Law School Guides - which began with our post last week that takes a gander into the University of Chicago Law School Guide - we are excited to next look at the Columbia Law School Guide!

For any applicant who wants detailed information on CLS and is interested in seeing how CLS compares to other leading programs, this guide is a critical resource.   As we indicated in our post announcing the guides’ release, these publications are useful to prospective applicants at every stage of the application process, providing information for exploratory research into specific law schools for those who are just beginning to think about where they might want to apply as well as for applicants who are looking to strengthen their personal statements and “Why School X” essays with school-specific details.

For example, to give Columbia applicants a sense of what to expect once they arrive on campus at the start of 1L, the CLS guide contains information about Columbia’s’ pre-term Legal Methods course:

“Columbia’s 1Ls are required to arrive on campus in mid-August before the formal start of Autumn Term for a Legal Methods course that exposes them to the skills they will need to be successful in their law school courses. These skills, which include learning to critically read statutes and understand cases within the context of Anglo-American legal thought, are commonly developed at other leading law schools in the process of learning about civil procedure or constitutional law during the term, which puts pressure on 1Ls to quickly understand not only the legal issues their cases focus on, but also how to find and interpret those issues.”

And while the New York City location and numerous recruiting programs are alluring to career-oriented applicants, CLS is additionally well-known for its international study opportunities.  In our guide, we take a look at the details of Columbia’s international study offerings to examine the reasons why CLS has developed this reputation:

“Columbia Law School offers more opportunities for study abroad and international dual degrees than any other leading law school in the U.S., and it actively encourages its students to take advantage of these programs to help them develop linguistic, cultural and legal experience in an international context. A pioneer in the study of international law since the mid-nineteenth century, CLS seeks to instill in its students an understanding of legal systems throughout the world.”

In addition to these examples, the guide touches on CLS curricula, clubs and conferences and financial aid options, among many other topics.

The Columba Law School Guide is on sale now at the Clear Admit Shop, along with law school guides from Chicago, Harvard, NYU and Yale.  And check back next week for another look at the remaining publications!

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# posted by admin @ 8:00 am in Law School Guides, School: Columbia

November 10, 2009

A Look Inside: University of Chicago Law School Guide

Earlier today, we proudly introduced the Clear Admit Law School Guides, our newest resource for law school applicants.  These detailed publications are designed to provide law school applicants with information about their target programs and comparisons to other leading law schools for use throughout the application process.

As part of this release, we are pleased to offer a glimpse of what interested applicants will find in these guides, beginning with the University of Chicago Law School Guide.  For instance, our analysis of  the benefits of the program’s size relative to its peers begins thus:

“Chicago is one of the smallest of the leading U.S. law schools, with just 190 students in each class. Now that Yale Law School has increased the size of its class to over 200 students, only Stanford is smaller than Chicago.”

This guide is a valuable resource for applicants who are curious about all aspects of Chicago’s program, including student life on this tight-knit Hyde Park campus and employment information.  With regard to the latter, our Chicago Law Guide offers an examination of the concentration of graduates who decided to start their post-law school career at a private law firm versus a state or federal clerkship.  We also delve into the aspects of Chicago’s program for which it is famous to highlight exactly how these offerings set it apart from its peers.  For example, in our coverage of Chicago’s “generalist’s” legal education we start with the following statement:

“Unlike other leading law schools, which push students to specialize in one practice area after completing the 1L foundational courses, Chicago encourages its students to sample as many areas as they like during 2L and, in particular, to focus on taking courses that will broaden their intellectual horizons.”

From deciding whether to apply to Chicago to incorporating detailed, program-specific thoughts into the personal statement or preparing for the rare Chicago interview, this guide is beneficial in all steps of the admissions process.

The Chicago Law School Guide is on sale now at the Clear Admit Shop, along with law school guides from Columbia, Harvard, NYU and Yale.  Check back throughout the week for glimpses into those publications as well!

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# posted by admin @ 6:45 pm in Law School Guides, School: Chicago

Clear Admit Introduces Law School Guides to Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, NYU and Yale!

After months of comprehensive research, we are happy to announce the release of an exciting new resources for prospective law school applicants: Clear Admit Law School Guides!  The guides are available for immediate download in the Clear Admit shop.

We here at Clear Admit believe that success in the law school admissions process starts with identifying programs that are a good fit with one’s academic and career interests. Too many applicants skip this step, instead targeting schools that aren’t right for them or underestimating the importance of demonstrating in their application how they could best contribute to each school’s class. At a time when leading law schools select their incoming classes from among  thousands of applications, and applicants who possess GPA and LSAT scores at or above their target schools’ medians are not guaranteed admission, it is imperative that applicants illustrate that their interest in each school has been informed by a carefully considered appreciation of the school’s unique merits.

Of course, we also realize how difficult it can be to conduct in-depth research on even one program in addition to writing personal and diversity statements, studying for the LSAT and holding down a full-time job or undergraduate courseload. In light of exactly this concern, we’ve researched and composed a set of definitive and comprehensive guides for the discerning law school applicant!

The Clear Admit School Guides cut through the marketing materials and reputations to give you the hard facts about a program, and then put these school-specific details in context so you can see how programs compare. In the guides, you’ll find detailed, comparative information on vital topics such as:

-Student demographics
-Application information
-Tuition, financial aid and loan repayment initiatives
-The 1L core and lawyering curriculum
-Leading professors in key fields
-Student clubs and conferences
-International learning programs and clinics
-Full-time job placement

We’re confident that applicants in all stages of the law school admissions process will find the Clear Admit Law School Guides, with reliable, centralized information, to be valuable and time-saving resources, and are pleased to announce that our Chicago, Columbia, Harvard, NYU and Yale Law Guides are ready and available for your reading pleasure. For more information about the overall project and previews of the contents of each guide, please visit the Clear Admit Shop!

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# posted by admin @ 7:30 am in Law School Guides, School: Chicago, School: Columbia, School: Harvard, School: New York University, School: Yale