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How to get into Harvard Law (for Dummies)



This is my first reader requested blog. I had a friend from high school message me and ask how I got into Harvard Law, and how I’m managing to pay for it. Since my background is nothing if not humble, I doubt she is the only one wondering, and I'm happy to tell my story.

Still, how to get in and how to pay are two different topics, so today I’ll talk about how I got accepted. My next post will be about financing this absurdly expensive education.

Whether it’s law, medical, or business school, the first thing you have to do is figure out which school you want into. Then figure out what they want. I always knew that I wanted into Harvard Law. And it was surprisingly easy to figure out what they wanted.

Law schools are easy – they want students who help their rankings.

So I figured out how the rankings are calculated. Law schools are ranked by two inputs: the median GPA and median LSAT scores of their students. The law schools obsess about their rankings, so I had to make that work for me.

The median is NOT an average. It’s the middle point in a string of numbers. Whatever. The point is that if your GPA and LSAT are over their respective median, you’re ok, and if you’re below, you’re hurting the median. 

Harvard’s medians have been remarkably consistent: 173 out of 180 on the LSAT, and ~3.9 GPA. It’s best to have both your LSAT and GPA above median. So that’s what you have to do, and it’s what I did.

GPA

I’m not going to go into depth on how to get a good GPA in college. Basic pointers: always use ratemyprofessors, go to class, don’t get anyone pregnant, and avoid chemical hang-ups.

LSAT

The LSAT is trickier, especially if you don’t have a lot of money. There are a lot of really good (and not so good – looking at you Kaplan) test prep companies that charge $1,000-2,000 to teach you how to take graduate school admission tests, including the LSAT. The people that score really well tend to have taken these classes.

In one way, this makes the LSAT deeply unfair, because it perpetuates advantages and disadvantages that are randomly assigned at birth. On the other hand, it is truly a unique opportunity. It is an inflection point: if you do well, your life will change. 

However, if you don’t have a couple of extra grand to lay down on a test-prep class (I certainly didn’t), then you have to get creative. It’s asymmetrical warfare.

The internet has done a lot to level the playing field. People give away valuable advice for free, and just about anything can be torrented. Download the prep material and a bunch of tests, and get busy. You’ll still have to put in the work, but if you have the self-discipline to sit down and study, there’s no reason to ever pay for a test-prep course.

Before I knew anything, I went to a bookstore to buy a test-prep book. I was overwhelmed with the options, and intimidated by the idea that so much could be written about one test. So I got on the internet and read reviews of the books. A couple of books came highly recommended, and as I learned more I began to craft a strategy.

I decided to take the LSAT in Oct. 2010. That was during the fall semester of my senior year of college. The trick was figuring out how to study enough for the LSAT, and to keep getting all As in class. So I took "15" hours that semester, but 3 of them were honors thesis hours (I did nothing), and another 6 hours were classes widely considered to be easy. I spent a lot of time in the library that semester, but not on schoolwork. Just the LSAT.

I almost screwed it all up by waking up late the morning of the LSAT (Oct. 9, my 22nd birthday). But it all worked out. 


In a nutshell, that’s how it’s done. It does not make a lick of difference if you went to undergrad at an Ivy, UT, or Arkansas Tech. It’s the same ballgame.

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