My Journey into the Hallowed Halls of an Elite Law School

Wondering what it takes to get into an elite law school?

Would you like to hear my story?

Today I will tell you the steps I took to position myself for getting into a top law school.

And if you stay to the end, today’s bonus law fact deals with a space alien who was

convicted of attempted murder in Germany.

Hello lawlings, this is Professor Beau Baez.

I was privileged to attend an elite American law school, but how I got there was not mere luck.

I will share my story by first discussing what I did before I selected a college, what

I did in college, extracurriculars, LSAT preparation, and finally my law school application.

Precollege planning

Pre-College Planning.

Right after high school I attended a local college near my home for a year, but dropped

out to go into business with some friends.

Market conditions changed after a few years so I decided to become a lawyer.

I began doing research on what it would take to enter a top law school, which I discovered

would require a high college grade point average, a high LSAT score, and some interesting extracurriculars.

I also learned that the college you attend doesn’t matter very much if your scores

are high, and that your undergraduate major isn’t very important either.

With that information, I began thinking about which majors would allow me to earn top grades.

By the way, this question of majors will be different for each of you, depending on your interests

and natural aptitude for a subject.

For me, I decided that speech communications would help me achieve a high college GPA.

I then applied to a college with very low tuition that had my major.

College.

Extracurriculars: Enhancing my law school application

My primary goal was to earn A’s.

I was obsessed with earning only A’s, dropping out of a class once I realized I would

only be able to earn a B because of a low grade on my first exam.

For my required drama class, the professor assigned me a B, which I had not earned.

I hounded him every week for a semester until he changed the grade to an A, which is the

grade I actually earned in that class.

I was so focused on earning A’s, that I fought for every point on every single assignment,

never knowing if that one point could make a difference.

For example, in my introductory psychology class, I got one quiz question wrong because

the question was ambiguous.

I went and talked to the professor, and he said if that one quiz question makes the difference

on the final course grade then I'll change it.

Well, you can imagine what happened.

To earn an A in that class I needed a 3.6, but I earned a 3.58.

That one quiz question made the difference, and to that professor’s credit, he remembered

his promise and changed the course grade—I’m pretty sure he never thought it would happen.

And to this day, I never make that kind of promise to my students.

My hard work paid off, I earned a B.A. in religion, a B.S. in speech communications, a minor in

music, only two B’s and the rest A’s, with a 3.96 grade point average out of a possible 4.0

Activities

Extracurriculars

Once in college I immediately began thinking about what activities might help me get into an elite law school

and also help me during law school.

I chose the debate team, believing that the skills I learned there would be useful in law school.

I also thought that a law school admissions officer would find the debate team experience

interesting.

Looking back, I don’t think the debate experience made any difference in my application,

but I'll never know.

Second, my college had a community service requirement, and I decided to become a chaplain

in a county jail 30 miles away.

I was terrified every week that I went, but I grew and I learned from that experience.

I do know that my chaplaincy made a difference in my application, which I will mention shortly.

 

LSAT Preparation

I knew that I would apply to law school during my senior year of college, so that meant preparing

the LSAT long before I took the test.

About six months before I took the LSAT in August, I purchased an LSAT preparation book

and began studying for the test.

I took an advanced logic class in college, thinking it would help me with the logic portion

of the LSAT—it actually helped me with three LSAT exam questions.

At the end of my third year in college I enrolled in an LSAT preparation program, and drove

60 miles to attend the classes and prepare for the exam.

I made the drive three days a week, attending classes and taking practice exams.

By the end of the summer I was scoring very well on the practice exams, though my actual

LSAT exam score came in two points lower than expected.

But my score was high enough to get me into about half of the T14.

For those of you who don’t know, T14 refers to the top 14 law schools in the United States

out of the 200 law schools accredited by the American Bar Association.

Application

T14 Law Schools

At that time I appreciated that there was no way of knowing which law schools would accept me,

so I applied to twelve law schools, elite and non-elite.

My main regret here was not applying to more elite law schools.

I only applied to four of the T14 law schools, getting waitlisted at one, rejected by two,

and accepted by one.

A friend of mine was at the law school I had been waitlisted at, so he went down to the

admissions department to figure out what my chances were.

He was told that the year before I would have gotten in, but that in the year I was applying

there had been a surge in law school applications, so not enough seats.

The lesson for you is that timing is important.

Every law school has a personal statement, and I decided to use my experience in the

chaplaincy as my primary story.

Now, I don’t know if there were any other applicants in my law school class with this

experience, but during law school orientation, the law school Dean welcomed us and mentioned

some of the experiences represented by members of the incoming class, including a chaplain.

The lesson for you is that you should have some extracurriculars, but today they aren’t

as important as GPA and LSAT score.

Now, for today’s bonus law fact.

In 1973 a young man, who is only referenced to as H in the litigation, met a young woman at a disco.

After a while, H confided in the woman that he was a space alien from Sirius and that

he had been sent to earth to save a few humans from the upcoming invasion of Earth.

H told her that he would need to purify her soul if she wanted to live, and she agreed.

First, H told her that he had a new purified body ready for her.

Second, she would need to kill herself so she would be reincarnated into that new body.

And third, before she killed herself she would need to buy a life insurance policy with him

named as the beneficiary, so he could give the money to her new reincarnated body.

The life insurance policy would pay double if it was an accident, so he instructed her

to get into a bathtub with water, then place a plugged-in hairdryer into it.

Though she got hurt, she did'nt die and his plan was discovered by the authorities.

The court sentenced H to seven years in prison for attempted murder, because he convinced

her that taking her life would not result in her death, which he knew was a lie.

Unfortunately, the court doesn’t indicate whether he was deported to Sirius after he

was released from prison.