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#What qualifications do I need to get into Stanford Law School?

Aside from a few requirements (i.e. a bachelor s degree), there s not a single set of qualifications that will necessarily get you in. Instead, the Dean of Admissions will holistically evaluate several pieces in your application. The best answer I can give is that to qualify to get into Stanford Law School, you have to have the right fit with the school. This holds true at most other law schools in the country.

Law schools will ask for a few things in an application, each presumably providing information that the school weighs in making an admission decision. Stanford, and most other law schools, will request all post-secondary transcripts, an LSAT score, a resume, two or more letters of recommendation, and a personal statement. The transcripts and LSAT scores allow schools to objectively evaluate each student relative to the pool of applicants. The LSAT purports to evaluate an applicants logic, argumentative, and reading comprehension skills, while a GPA shows how well a student performed in college. You can find the general range of scores and GPAs that students at each school entered with by checking out the US News World Report s Best Law Schools rankings, which is also available at top-law-schools.com (although I would recommend not paying too much attention to the forums there). Looking at the ranges gives a good picture for where you should be aiming for when studying for the LSAT.

While LSAT scores and GPAs are important everywhere, each school weighs the various pieces of an application differently. Stanford is known to weigh LSAT less heavily in its decisions than peer schools. First-year students at Yale, Harvard, Columbia, Chicago, and NYU tended to have higher LSAT scores than at Stanford.

In 2012, most first year students at Stanford had a GPA somewhere between 3.72 and a 3.93, and had LSAT scores between 167 and 172. If you want to have a decent shot at admissions, this as close as you can get to identifying qualifications. These are just ranges, however, and having higher or lower numbers doesn t necessarily decide whether a student is admitted or not.

Schools try to admit people who also seem to be thoughtful, interesting, and good people. It would be boring if schools only admitted the applicants with the highest numbers, Letters of recommendation and the personal statement allow schools to evaluate these more subjective traits and to learn about who a student is as a person. Make sure that they are well written, and draw a clear picture of who you are as a person. It s the only opportunity the Dean of Admissions, Faye Deal, has to meet you.

Faye runs The Fayemous Blog ( http://blogs.law.stanfor d.edu/ad. ) that explains the processes that go into making her decision. Here, she describes the nature of her evaluation:

Reading takes concentration and focus and it needs 100% attention. Some files are easy to read and the decision comes easily – there is depth to the application and everything ties in together. Things are connected and I am able to get a really good sense of who you are – how you think, what you think. Others, however, I labor over because I’m not able to easily put together the puzzle pieces and have to really dig to get to know you. It just depends on the file. Sometimes I can’t quite put my finger on it, but my Spidey sense starts tingling and those files take longer as well. Sometimes I come across a personal statement that is enthralling and that makes me push the file into the admit group. Sometimes I come across a personal statement that is appalling and that makes me push the file into the deny group. Sometimes everything falls into place and I jump up and down and start clapping – not literally, of course, but I will smile and you know which group this file ends up in. My critique of applications could be visualized, I suppose, along the lines of the San Francisco Chronicle’s Little Man icon for movie reviews. And, yes, sadly, there are times when an empty chair is appropriate.

The Dean of Admissions at Stanford is tasked with admitting people that will share in learning for 3 years. Faye has explained that she tries to bring together diverse ideas and experiences. As trite as it sounds, it has been true for me that the best teachers in law school have been my classmates; not only are they interesting, they are all much smarter than I am and have done way more impressive things.

One other common trait I have noticed through most, if not all, students, is that they are all generally good people. You may hear stories about how law school is a harsh environment, but Stanford has a reputation of consisting of really nice students who wouldn t make life harsh for each other, and who instead work together to make the process easier. I don t know of any other public place in the world where a person can leave an expensive computer filled with months of class-notes out in the open and unattended without fear of having it stolen, but that happens on a daily basis in the Stanford Law Library. Having that sort of cultural fit is important.

Of course, make sure to check the page on applications at http://www.law.stanford.e du/prog. for all the technical requirements.

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