Going to Law School
Going to Law School
The Law School Application Process
Planning and preparation are important ingredients in the process
of applying to enter law school. Ideally, you should start
preparing in your junior year or earlier to develop a list of law
schools you intend to apply to and investigating their programs
to determine whether they meet your criteria for selecting a law
school.
You should plan to take the Law School Admissions Test or LSAT
(see below) in the June preceding your senior year or in October
or December of your senior fall term. Most law schools require
the LSAT to be taken at the latest by December of your senior
year for admission the following fall.
Your first step in initiating the law school application process
should be to visit the Law School Admissions Council web site
(see links below) where you will find information on two
important elements of the application process.
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The Law School Admissions Test or LSAT is a half-day
standardized test required for all applicants to
ABA-approved law schools in the U.S.. The LSAC site
provides information about the LSAT, how to register to
take the LSAT, test dates and locations, and offers copies
of old tests for sale as preparation materials.
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The LSAC offers a centralized process known as LSDAS for
standardizing your undergraduate records to simplify the
law school admission process. By registering with LSDAS,
this process will prepare a report for each law school you
apply to that includes an academic summary, copies of your
academic transcripts, your LSAT score(s), and letters of
recommendation. Once your file is complete, the LSDAS will
submit these documents to each of the law schools you list
in your LSDAS account. You will still need to prepare and
submit law school applications directly to your chosen law
schools.
Preparing for the LSAT
The LSAT is a standardized test that most law schools place great
emphasis upon in the admissions process, and the better your
score, the better your chance of admission to a particular school
as well as to top ranked schools.
Most students find that taking a commercial preparation course
specializing in the LSAT is vital to enhancing their prospects
for getting the best score they can on the LSAT. You should plan
to take the LSAT only once, maximizing your score on that test,
since retaking the LSAT may often result in the law school
averaging scores if a student takes the LSAT more than once.
Commercially-available LSAT preparation courses include the
following. (Inclusion of these links does not constitute
endorsement or recommendation of these programs by Carthage.):
So You Want to Be A Lawyer - General Information on
Law School
