How to Get into Law School - Personal Statement, LSAT, etc. | Maha Maven

hey guys it's Maya if you're new here welcome if you're not welcome back either way you out welcome so I wanted to come on and answer a question that I've gotten so many times and that is basically how do you get into law school I currently am at a top ten Ivy League law school so I feel like I have a lot of great tips to sort of help me and just want to share that with each and every one of you guys if you have questions for this definitely feel free to follow up I'm just gonna keep this video really nice and tight the great thing about law school is that there are no prerequisites and that just means that you don't have to know an undergrad okay I definitely want to go to law school in the same way that it's really helpful to know that for med school so you can major in whatever you want you can even do pre-med and end up at law school you can do science and end up at law school you don't have to be like a Poli Sci major a philosophy major or anything like that you can major whatever you want the important thing though to get ready for law school is to make sure that you get the best grades possible you want to get great grades what you want to do take classes that you enjoy take classes that you're interested in make sure you do well in those classes and that's gonna help you so law schools are ranked by US News World Report or whatever they call themselves and this ranking is one to however many and the top 14 are the law schools that will give you the best exit options as far as job opportunities and post-grad income if you are someone who knows you want to do big law that's the vault 101 100 like the biggest law firms in the world if you want to do big law going to a top 14 school is I want to say essential obviously they're going to be exceptions to the rule but a lot of these law firms only interview it like six schools and some of them interview it more than that but they're mostly in the top 14 especially if you're not going to a law school in a big market so if you go to law school in New York even if you don't go to like NYU or Columbia you may have more opportunities than someone who's going to a lower ranked School in like the Midwest I'm not trying annoying I'm not trying to be rude that's just the reality of this law school game the next thing you want to do is develop a timeline I would recommend giving yourself at least 6 months before you press send on your application to prepare for law school and for many many people is going to be much longer and that's because the LSAT is a beast of an exam some people take the LSAT the very first time and get a 175 and they're straight good for them a lot of people though the vast majority of people that is not their reality I personally scored in 97 98 percentile on my LSAT it took me a while to get there though it wasn't an easy journey at all it was an ugly journey filled with tears and sweat and my study habits looks like me getting to the library at 9 a.m. leaving at 8 p.m. every single day up until I took the test and during that time period I was taking practice tests I was drilling logic games I was drilling logical reasoning sections and I would definitely give yourself time to study for it recommendations is something that you want to start working on I would say give yourself at least like three to four months before you press send on your application reach out to the professor's that you want to write your recommendation for Law School if you interned somewhere during undergrad or if you worked post-grad get one of your employers to also write your recommendation I remember that there are three people who write wrecks I think start on that early you want to give your recommender enough time to really write a nice in-depth thoughtful letter for you I had two undergraduate professors and one employer write my recommendations and so that worked really really well for me and just in general for recommendations you want to pick someone who knows you really well and can write really specifically for you you don't just like go get a random senator who your mom worked for one time who doesn't really know you and it's just gonna give you a form recommendation even if this person is an impressive on paper as you would think you want someone to write your recommendation again that's going to be very specific to you and that's gonna be heartfelt and it's gonna be compelling to the reader so that's something to think about the first thing you want to do after you sort of get your recommendations and you've started your LSAT is start thinking about your narrative and I know that this sounds like like admission speak but for narrative what I mean is basically like if you could give you know an elevator pitch this is who I am this is why I want to go to law school that's what your narrative is and I think a lot of people struggle with sort of figuring out what their narrative is because it's so intuitive in your mind sort of how you got to this point that sometimes it's hard to put it into words or put it into a package but it's really important to package yourself in a really compelling and memorable way because these admissions officers are looking at hundreds thousands of applications and you want to stand out in a good and positive way so for narrative I think there are three things you can look at one look at your resume look at your experiences list those things out and see if there's a connection between them all see if there's a thread that connects them all then look at your interests what sort of pushed you to pursue the opportunities that you pursued and then lastly you're gonna talk about your goals and your vision so list out you know what are your career goals where do you see yourself in five years ten years twenty years and so when you have all these things down I would just do a little column say here are my experiences what's the common thread between them all what skills have I gained from those experiences then say here are my interests these are the things that led me to pursue those different experiences and here are indicators of the experiences that I will pursue in the future and then go to your goals in your vision for yourself and say how have my skills and my interest partnered to put me in the best footing to achieve these goals so that's going to say to law school admissions people this person has a narrative that makes sense it makes sense for them to want to come to law school now because a lot of people see law school as something to do when you're stuck in your career or you know I've worked for a few years now I want to go to grad school I don't have to correct was it's for med school I don't have the pur equity I don't have this I don't have that oh I know I'll go to law school and a lot of people just make it the decision that way so what admission officers like to see is okay this is someone whose experiences their interests and their goals are in line with what law school isn't meant to do which is to produce people who will eventually practice law so that's just something to keep in mind I think it's good to work for at least a year and a half after you graduate a lot of people do go straight through and that's less of a setback at some schools over others I know Harvard law is a school that really likes people to work before coming in but that doesn't mean that if you don't work you're not going to get in it's just helpful to have some experience to say I want to be a lawyer I've had these experiences in the field and I know for a fact that this is something that I want to do it makes you less of a gamble like I said start early give yourself time if you're rushing it's gonna show in your application and you just want to give yourself as much time as possible this is another thing don't take the LSAT if you're not ready you're not gonna a lot of this happens to a lot of people they're like oh well I've gotten I'm testing you know I'm testing like this but you know in the past I've gotten this you know you want to consistently be testing where you eventually want to score before you take the LSAT because while you know a lot of schools say oh we take your best score or oh we average it they're gonna see the bad score and it I can't see how it wouldn't harm me so just give yourself time and don't rush yourself at all one thing I did that was really helpful is I conducted a lot of informational interviews while I was applying after I started studying for the LSAT but before I had started you know writing my essays and stuff I sat down with people in my professional and educational network who had applied to law school and gotten in say okay I'm interested in schools like Columbia NYU Chicago etc etc really make an effort to talk to people who went to those calibre of schools because they can give you insight that's more relevant to your own goals and then just be organized have a calendar have planners I actually have two planners I have this planner which is for maja Maybin blogging vlogging type stuff in my personal life and then I also have this planner which is for school so I have a dedicated academic planner and then an also thank you guys so much for watching I love you and I'll see you in my next video bye you

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Views: 196,929

Keywords: advice, prep, law school vlog, how to get into ivy league school, law school applications, journey to jd, college vlog, law school applications tips, yale university, harvard, ivy league, maha maven, HOW TO GET INTO LAW SCHOOL, personal statement, stanford, attorney, us law school, law school, dartmouth, american law school, lsat, 1l, how to get into law school with low gpa, elite, law student, career change, lawyer, yale

Id: N9U9RRh6gwQ

Length: 9min 36sec (576 seconds)

Published: Wed Oct 10 2018