What is required for a law school application?

Law schools consider your LSAT score, your undergraduate GPA, your personal statement, your letters of recommendation, and your resume.

What is the law school application process like?

It’s expensive, time consuming, and painful. It also forces you to really reflect on your college career, your skill and abilities, and your reasons for applying to law school. It shows you what you’re made of.

How much does it cost to apply to law school?

If you thought that law school was expensive, consider the cost of the application alone. Signing up for the Credit Assembly Service (CAS), which is mandatory for any law school application, will cost $195.

Then, you’ll need to pay for the Law School Application Test. In order to take the LSAT just once, you have to fork up another $200. (You’ll get a refund if you have to cancel the test for some reason, but the refund will only amount to $50.)

Generating a single law school report for just one law school results in a $45 report fee from the Law School Application Center.

And of course, there’s a fee on the law school’s end too, averaging $60. That brings the total cost for a single law school application to a whopping $500.

The law school industry is sending a clear message: applying to law school is no joke. And if you don’t have $500 to spare, think it over, because you’ll likely be tens of thousands of dollars in debt when you graduate.

Taking the LSAT

I took the LSAT twice. This means that I spent a total of $400 on the test itself. I considered my second LSAT a very worthy investment as my score improved and, as I will elaborate on in another post, I ended up getting an 80% scholarship.

I might not have had to take the LSAT again if I had studied harder the first time. That being said, the circumstances of my life didn’t allow me to devote much time to preparing for the LSAT. I was graduating early with a double major and looking for a job. On top of this, I was dealing with some of the worst depression of my life.

You can take practice taking the exam all you want, but nothing is better practice than the real thing. Investing in getting a high score, no matter what that means for you, will pay dividends when the scholarship offers are made.

Writing Your Personal Statement

Here’s my advice when it comes to writing your personal statement:

Coming up with the topic of your personal statement should take no time at all. Drafting and revising your personal statement should be time intensive.

Generally, a personal statement answers the question, “Why do you wish to attend law school?” This answer should be easy for you. If something doesn’t immediately come to your mind, then you’re doing this for the wrong reasons.

Write a first draft. Word vomit all over the page (screen?) and then leave it alone for a week. Come back to it and make it better. Have a trusted peer or relative read over it and give you feedback. Rinse and repeat.

Though I wrote the first 500 words in about ten minutes, the process of perfecting my personal statement took approximately three months.

Letters of Recommendation

Get one really, really good one.

There’s no way to cram for this. By the time you’re applying to law school, you should have a solid mentor of some kind. When it comes time to ask this person for a letter of recommendation, give the individual lots of advance notice. Make sure to ask thoughtfully and respectfully.

It’s important to let your “recommender” know exactly what you hope his/her letter will convey. If he/she wants to include more than that bottom line, so be it. I sent mine a copy of my resume and some additional resources about writing law school recommendations.

This LOR could make or break your application, so invest the time in ensuring that it is carefully crafted and meaningful in the right ways.

Conclusion

There’s no perfect formula when it comes to applying to law school, but it’s important to understand that this is a painstaking process. If you aren’t motivated every step of the way, then you should reconsider the choice that you are making. If you want to go to law school so badly that the journey feels exciting rather than exhausting, then you’re crazy and I love you.