Archive for Assistant Dean’s Corner
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Comparing LRAP’s: Starting to think like a Lawyer
As many of you travel the country to various admitted student programs over the next few weeks, you’re bound to hear lots of new law school terminology being bandied about (and you aspiring “gunners” know what I’m talking about). But one term is much more important than the others – LRAP. LRAP’s, or Loan Repayment [...]
April 1, 2011
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New U.S. News Rankings
Thought you might be interested in seeing this U.S. News survey of law firm hiring partners. U.S. News found that hiring partners rated Harvard as the top law school. While of course we’re flattered, I’d caution students against reading too much into this, or any other, law school ranking. Choosing a law school is an [...]
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We’re on Twitter!
Look for updates and tidbits about HLS by following @hlsadmissions!
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In Five Years…
Just got a notice in the mail today for my five-year law school reunion. And as much as I like to spend time on phone interviews talking about how I “just finished” at HLS, I was forced to confront the fact that it’s been a little while now. Swamped by a wave of nostalgia, I [...]
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Applications Due!
Quick reminder – our deadline for applications (February 1) is fast approaching. So if you want to apply to Harvard Law School this cycle, please do everything you can to get your application submitted by Tuesday. That being said, we’re not evil people. We understand that things come up, that people decide to apply late [...]
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The Meaning Of Hold
(Just a note: this is a reposting from last year, but the information it contains is still relevant and, we hope, helpful for applicants who are puzzled by the hold status.) This week we sent out our first batch of “hold” e-mails and already the questions are flying in. The “hold” status is essentially our [...]
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Progress Update
As the few remaining leaves fall off the trees here in Cambridge, I wanted to check-in to give you all a quick update on where we are in reviewing your applications. Right now, my office is pretty much filled with files for review. Our team of admissions professionals and faculty are reading, nearly round-the-clock, to [...]
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Around Campus
One of the best perks of my job is that I get to sit in on a few of the many amazing events hosted by HLS each day. And for the last few weeks, I’ve had yesterday and today marked on my calendar for a couple of especially interesting events. Last night I joined about [...]
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Law School: Just One Part of Your Law School Experience
Greetings! As I’ve been traveling around the country this past month to talk about HLS, I’ve gotten a lot of questions about our joint/concurrent degree programs. I’m glad there’s so much interest in these – in fact, when I was at HLS, I found that being able to take advantage of all the other great [...]
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Meet our 1L Class…
I wanted to take a minute to introduce you to our newest students here at HLS, the class of 2013. This year’s entering class is unique in several ways. To start, they are one of the most experienced groups in school history with over half 2 or more years out of college and nearly ¾ [...]
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The Inside Scoop on the Phone Interview
Harvard Law School is somewhat unique in that our admissions process involves a short, evaluative phone interview. In past years there’s been some confusion and anxiety about the phone interviews so I thought I’d do a quick post to give you the relevant information. The phone interview is an incredibly valuable part of the admissions [...]
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Welcome to our new JD Admissions blog!
I hope you had a great summer and are geared up for the upcoming law school admissions season. While you’ve been out at the beach, we’ve been hard at work, in part on some blog and website re-design that we hope you’ll like. To start, welcome to our newly redesigned blog! We’ve added lots of [...]
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Your Questions, Answered
Thanks to everyone who submitted a question this week – we got an overwhelming response. Your questions were generally around a few themes so I’ll answer the most popular ones today and save the rest for another time. A lot of your questions were about our “hold” status: “Are held applicants’ files going to be [...]
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HLS Funding for Public Interest
Today we announced the creation of our new Public Service Venture Fund. Through the new fund, the Law School will distribute $1 million or more annually in grants to graduating HLS students seeking to launch public service careers. The first program of its kind at any law school, the fund will be used to offer [...]
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Application Deadline
Wanted to remind everyone about our upcoming application deadline: February 1. Now if you don’t have your application in yet, don’t freak out. We’re not going to reject your application because you’re a little late. We realize that things come up, or maybe you just decided to apply, or maybe you even have to take [...]
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Interview with Josh Rubenstein
The website AdmissionsDean.com recently interviewed Josh as part of its series, “Better Know a Dean.” Josh answers many of the questions that applicants have about Harvard Law School and the admissions process. To read more, go to http://www.admissionsdean.com/researching_law_schools/interview/josh-rubenstein.
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The Meaning of “Hold”
This week we sent out our first batch of “hold” e-mails and already the questions are flying in. The “hold” status is essentially our way of saying that we’re not quite ready to make a decision on your application yet and need some more time to re-examine it in the context of the broader applicant [...]
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Progress update
As winter starts to slowly (very slowly – it was 70 degrees last Thursday) creep into Cambridge, we’ve been hard at work reviewing your applications. Over the last several weeks, we’ve gotten many questions around timing – specifically, when will we be able to convey a decision on your application. Rest assured, we’re working to [...]
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Enhancements to HLS Financial Support for Careers in Public Interest
There’s been a lot of discussion around the blogosphere today about the recently announced changes to HLS’s financial support for careers in public interest. As this financial support is critical to many of your decisions on where to attend law school, I want to make sure you have the relevant facts, some of which have [...]
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Characteristics we look for
Students often ask what we’re looking for in an applicant, beyond a history of strong academic performance. While there are many other factors, one that often gets overlooked or minimized in the minds of applicants is a demonstrated history of leadership and impact. Intellectual ability is obviously a key factor in admissions here, but we’re [...]
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What’s taking so long?
Got a great question at an info session the other day: why does it take us as long as it does to review your application? First off, we don’t have any shortcuts or thresholds. We’ve found that there’s no substitute for a complete reading of your application including your transcript, recommendations, personal statement, resume, and [...]
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Some clarity around interviews
One of the most frequent questions I get from prospective students is about our phone interviews. As I have just started doing interviews this week, I thought I’d try to provide some clarity around the process and interview topics. Each year, we invite many prospective students to have a 10-15 minute phone conversation. The number [...]
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Application Tips: Part 2
As promised, the second half of our top ten tips for applying to and choosing a law school: 6. Personal statement (what it should be): First, your personal statement is a writing sample. It should be well written and free of grammatical errors. It is also your chance to tell us more about you in [...]
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Application Tips: Part One
Welcome to the first in our series of Friday postings about the application and admissions process. Each Friday, I’ll be posting updates on our process, interesting stories from this admissions cycle, and the occasional application pointer. Recently, I was asked to put together a “Top Ten” list of application tips for a student conference on [...]
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Come meet us
When applying to law school, I had lots of questions. How to apply? Who should write my recommendations? What would life be like at the school? How would I pay for it? While we’ll try to address many of your questions here on this blog, I want to highlight a few other opportunities to interact [...]
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Hello from Cambridge
I was always told that my HLS degree would open doors for me. Little did I suspect that the door would be to the Admissions Office in Austin Hall, at the southern end of campus. While I assumed my graduation a few years back would mean the end of my time in Cambridge, I’ve recently [...]