- Law school admission is largely influenced by numbers. Your grade-point-average and score on the LSAT are indications of where you are likely to be admitted.
- Consult individual law school websites for this information that appears on their 509 reports, or Law School Transparency which collects all this information conveniently in one website. This information is not provided with the same level of precision in the Official Guide to ABA Law Schools (available online at https://www.lsac.org/), which uses a type of filter/predictor, as opposed to disclosing the numbers directly.
- Apply to several schools within your competitive range, a couple of “reaches” and several “safety schools.” The more broadly you apply, the more options are likely to be open to you once you receive acceptances and rejections. It is not excessive to apply to ten to twelve schools.
- Factors to consider: location (urban, suburban); class size; placement (what percentage of students get jobs upon graduation; where does the school place its graduates, e.g. nationally? regionally? locally?); special programs offered; quality and accessibility of faculty; student organizations; academic support services; and opportunities for clinical work during law school.
- Only apply to schools where you can see yourself, and where you believe you will be happy - even the "safety schools".
- Visit law school websites. Review special programs, centers and fellowships. For example Brooklyn Law School has a Center for International Business Law to which admitted students may apply to be fellows, Hofstra has a family law program and fellowship, and NYU has a fellowship in international law.
- Go to LSAC's New York Forum. At the Forum admission officers from law schools throughout the country are available to answer questions. The New York forum is typically held in October. Information about the forum is available on the web at LSAC.org.
- Visit law schools. Many schools have formal and/or informal programs for prospective students. If you visit, take the time to hang out with and speak to students. The school should feel “right” to you and if that is true then elements of your application like the personal statement will make the “rightness of the fit” apparent to the school as well.
