Law school personal statement & letters of recommendation????

cybersharque

The recommendation letter will depend more in its contents than on which professor or dean wrote the letter. The idea is that you need to stand out from your competition. The best letter will be the one that exemplifies your strong points, whatever they are.

With a 3.3, you are in trouble seeking to get into a Tier One school. If you nail the LSAT (top 1/2 percent) your chances improve greatly, but even a real strong score, top 2%, is unlikely to overcome the 3.3 for Tier One unless you have something outstanding. Perhaps you can improve the diversity of the class. Perhaps you have some extraordinary experience, a la Erin Brockovich, that makes you a star already.

Do not overlook the strong tier 2 schools in the area where you want to practice. In Texas, SMU is outstanding. In New York, Fordham and Brooklyn place a great many lawyers into the top firms. Do your due diligence and don't let the marquee of a top tier school blind you to the realities: a dean's list student out of Fordham will make more during the first three years out of school than a bottom-quarter grad from Columbia.

scottrc5391

As far as I know, most people get professors to write them letters of recommendation, and sometimes employers. They might actually require something like two out of three letters to be from your professors, with the other one up to you... at least I have read that at certain colleges' admission sites. Anyway, in order to have the best shot at a good letter of recommendation, you should try to make friends with your professors, or at least develop a little deeper relationship than just showing up to their class. It might be a superficial relationship yes, but you have to play the game if you want law schools to take you seriously. I don't want to discourage you, but a 3.3 GPA might be a little low for tier one, depending of course on what school you are graduating from (like it or not, the admissions committees tend to place a greater value on more prestigious universities). You definitely need to focus on getting a killer LSAT score, and excellent letters of recommendation. If you can, it might help you a lot if you take a graduate level class or two in your major, and then get the letters from the professors who teach those courses. Taking higher level classes shows the law schools you are ready for some heavy coursework. I'm not sure on the personal statement, but I am willing to bet GPA/LSAT is weighted the heaviest in their admission decision (used as an initial screen), followed by the letters of recommendation, and then the personal statement. Obviously your plan is to just do as best you can on each. Good luck.

goz1111

unless you know some big wigs the best chance to get into a tier one law school will be your LSAT score no if and or buts

while a 3.3 is a good GPA, their will be people applying with higher GPA for the top law school, now if you went to a top undergrad with a top law school you may have a better chance in getting into your law school

B Green

The best letters of recommendation can come from three sources.

(1) people who know you well (no matter who they are or what they do) as long as they are willing to write long and detailed about your personal ethics and commitment to succeed etc. In this category I would ideally be looking for respected members of the community, clergy etc.

(2) perhaps the most important category are people who have wealth, power and influence. Almost every applicant will submit a letter from a professor, but the ones who will stand out will have letters from sitting or former politicians and/or judges, and/or prominent members of the business community. These are people that will lead the admission committee to believe that if you are associated with them you will be as successful as they are and/or contributions to the school will go up.

(3) last but not least, never underestimate the power of an alumni reference.

People in politics help, congressmen, state representatives, governors, etc.

You may also have some of your current professors write recommendations.

If you want to go to a tier 1 school I recommend you take an LSAT prep course.

Ravenfeather

Why not ask professors? Ask the ones that know you and whos classes you did well in.

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