Fordham Dean on the Impact of a Graduate Degree

There is a new interview with Stephen Brown, a Fordham admissions dean at TLS. You can read the whole thing here, but this is what he had to say about graduate degrees and admission:

TLS: How do you view graduate degrees, and do you take graduate GPA into consideration?

Graduate degrees are a plus. They bring diversity of experience to the class, and show us that students take their education seriously.

This is a direct reference to graduate degrees, but this is what they look for in an applicant

TLS: Realistically speaking, how large a part of the admissions process are factors other than a candidate’s GPA and LSAT scores? Of these non-numerical factors, are there any that particularly pique your interest (military service, corporate work experience, Teach for America, etc.)? Can you give examples of what you see as excellent, good, and mediocre non-numerical attributes or accomplishments?

Fordham students are smart, but they’re not pure intellect. The school seeks out mature students who are in touch with the world, and have given law school real thought. Work experience, military service, and Teach for America are all very desirable. Obviously the rankings matter, but the school seeks to admit unusual candidates, and others who will add color to the class. Somewhere in this year’s entering class is a tugboat captain. There are artists, musicians, and students with work experience in a wide range of fields. Any activities that demonstrate a sense of social engagement are looked upon favorably.

Surely a graduate degree and several years of working in a pharmaceutical lab would add color to a class.

The Song Remains the Same

I ran over to VCU to get my fee waiver from U of R during my lunch break this afternoon. While I was waiting for some people to leave the table, I talked to one of the other reps about her law school. I gave her my story, PhD, mediocre undergrad grades, and career experience. She gave me the same feedback that I've gotten from other sources. She reassured me that my grades are not bad. They look at how my grades stack up against the rest of my class (I'm average) and they also know that laboratory science GPA's are typically a little lower than those of people who majored in the humanities. She pointed out that science majors tend to spend more time in the classroom (absolutely, especially with the labs). The distance between now and then makes my grades less meaningful in their evaluation of my application. This puts much more emphasis on my LSAT score. When I told her my score was a 168, she let me know that I will have some very nice options for law school. As I was filling out an information card, she told that, based on her experience, her colleagues in admissions like applicants like and I should be ambitious with my applications.

With that, I picked up my U of R fee waiver and left. I really wanted to talk to the UNC rep, but there was a crowd at the table the entire time I was in the room. I also asked the William and Mary rep a question about their application. They ask for an employment history in the application. I asked if it would be ok to just refer to my attached resume. Yes, that is an acceptable (and preferred) way to submit my employment history. I stopped by on my way to the U of R table from my conversation with the other rep about my situation.

Wisdom from Wisconsin

Wisconsin sent me some information via the postal service. I was flipping through the book and noticed that they have a nice section where they talk about how they evaluate certain factors in an application. A couple of them are particularly relevant to my situation.

To quote from the material:

Graduate Study

Although the mere experience of graduate study does not, in our judgment, significantly increase the quality of law school performance, strong recent graduate work plus a strong LSAT may overcome weaker college grades. Also, an interesting background of graduate study may be a favorable factor in itself.

Time interval between college graduation and application to law school

We have some evidence that applicants at least a year out of college, especially those with strong recent LSAT scores, will have a better academic record in law school than their numerical credentials suggest. The post-college experience, whether in work or volunteer activity, may be a favorable factor as well.

I find the phrasing of the graduate school comments very interesting. They stress that simply going to graduate school doesn't seem to result in superior performance in law school, but that experience can mitigate a low undergrad GPA. This comment is consistent with what I have heard from two admissions reps. The time interval also raises a couple of interesting points. It supports my previous comments about how the LSAT determines whether you'll be looked at seriously and this other stuff is just the material that they use to differentiate one 168 from another 168.

This comment is also consistent with something my brother told me. He's an older law student and he claims that his law school friends, other older students, are doing better in their studies than the younger crowd. That makes sense to me. For one, if you're going to law school after working for a couple of years, you really want to be there. Working a regular job also makes it easier to treat school like a job (at least that was my experience in grad school). I'm glad to see that at least one school recognizes that a couple years of real life will make a difference in how somebody does in law school.

The Wisconsin view book discuss some other factors, quality of undergraduate institution, college grading and course selection patterns are just a couple of topics that are discussed. They provide some interesting insight into the thinking of at least one law school on these soft factors. If nothing else, it's solid information about factors that mean far more to the nontraditional applicant than those fresh from their undergraduate studies.

U of R Visit

I used my second to last half-day Friday to pay a visit to Richmond Law. I really just wanted to ask somebody in admissions a few questions, but when I called to set up the appointment they offered to let me sit in on a class. Well, why not? I sat in a Civil Procedure class. They were discussing Pennoyer v. Neff. I have to say that I was pleasantly surprised. Of course I had never heard of the case before sitting in the class (and I can't remember the last time I was in a class where there was nothing written on the board. The chalk board is critical to a chemistry lecture), but I had the gist of things by the time I left. I felt bad for the kid (and they are kids, by the way) who was called on to start the discussion. He had read the case, but he didn't understand it (I'm sure he will now though). I can see why they make such a big deal about faculty in rankings and such. Running that discussion would not be easy. I will read the case later just to get an idea of how long it takes to get through one of these things. I might have a bit of a head start having heard the important points of the case, but I found the text of the case through a link on Wikipedia. The site had a decent synopsis of the case, at least it looked that way from what I was able to gather from the class. I will just start there when I start reading these things for real.

I had a tour too, which was pretty uneventful. It's just one building after all. They were having OCI with some firms so there were plenty of nervous looking people walking around in their Sunday best. There were some interesting points raised in the few minutes I talked to an admissions rep. The most relevant thing she mentioned for readers of this blog was what her response to my question about my GPA. They have to look at it because that is what gets reported to LSAC and the ABA, but for somebody like me, and this is her word, it's basically irrelevant. I will be evaluated based on what I've done since graduation. She basically told me that I would be admitted with my LSAT score. I'm glad I asked about my GPA before I told her my LSAT score.

Given that there was OCI going on today, she also had some interesting views on how employers view U of R. Keeping in mind that she is trying to get me to think seriously about her law school, she told me that employers in Richmond see the Virginia schools on par with one another when evaluating applicants. She also noted that any employer would rather see somebody from the top 10% of a U of R class than from somebody who is an average student at UVa. I agree. It's all about what you do, not where you do it.

Another Dean's Opinion on a PhD

Portion of TLS interview with Paul Pless, Assistant Dean of Admissions at Illinois.

TLS: How are advanced degrees viewed at Illinois?

Typically at least 20% of our students have advanced degrees. I love to see them in applications. The only thing is that the graduate GPA is fairly meaningless since almost all graduate programs have very high curves. I look more at the quality of the school and the program when using it as a factor.

TLS: What percentage have Ph.D.s? How is a doctoral degree viewed as compared to a masters?

Maybe 5%, and yes, it is given considerably more weight. I think a Ph.D. is always an impressive thing to see in an application. It can make up for a lackluster undergraduate GPA or a poor LSAT.

TLS: Does the nature of work experience acquired after graduation matter significantly?

We like to see people with work experience in fields other than law. We will teach you the law you need to know. Being able to relate what you learn to the experiences you have is a valuable addition to the classroom.

I especially like that comment about the PhD making up for a lackluster GPA or LSAT score.

The Sample Set

Here are the schools to which I plan to apply. I've also listed the prediction from lawschoolpredictor.com. Seeing that this blog is an effort to provide insight into how a PhD is evaluated in the law school admissions process, I wanted to select schools where I had very little chance to a good chance to be admitted. I might think about adding another weak consider. I would like to apply to every school ranked 10-20 by USNWR, but I don't have $1500 for application fees.

Ranking	School	Prediction
6	Cal-B	Deny
10	UVA	Deny
10	Duke	Deny
13	Cornell	Deny
20	Minnesota	Weak Consider
28	W&M	Weak Consider
41	GMU	Consider
52	Cinncinnatti	Strong Consider
59	Tennessee	Admit
61	Lewis and Clark	Strong Consider
77	Richmond	Admit

I picked these schools for a number of reasons. I've been really fortunate with application fee waivers. I'm interested in environmental law so I was happy to have a waiver to Lewis and Clark, a top environmental law program. Minnesota is an up and coming program, I really like the area around Cincinnati, and I like Tennessee's emphasis on practical experience. I live in Virginia so UVA, W&M (which is my undergrad alma mater), GMU, and Richmond (the most local school for me; it's where I took the LSAT) were easy selections.

What really matters about my selections is where the numbers say I will get in and where I am actually admitted. I feel like I have a reasonable chance at the four deny schools. I'm in state for UVA, that's a plus, and they seem to really emphasize the entire application, at least that's my impression from the interviews I've read with Dean Jason Trujillo at TLS and LSAT Blog and the statement on the UVa website about how applications are reviewed. I will apply early and I'm going to try to visit if I can get a Friday afternoon free.

I'm a real long shot at Cal. The interview I've mentioned in some previous posts gives me hope that with a really good personal statement I could crack the door enough to at least make them think about me long enough to look at my recommendations and consider how somebody with my experiences would contribute to their program.

My index score is very close to being in the weak consider category for both Duke and Cornell. (There is a column on lawschoolpredictor.com that shows how far your index score is from the 25% numbers for each school. My numbers are 3.05 and 168 if you would like to see how I stack up at each school.) If you round my GPA up to 3.1, I actually become a weak consider at Cornell. They're another school that emphasizes how they evaluate the entire application. In a statement that really caught my interest, Dean Richard Geiger told TLS that they focus more on success at work or other major accomplishments for people who have been out of undergrad for 10 years (is he talking about me or what!). Duke is a school that titles applied to with a 167 but was put on the waitlist. I have a strong opinion about the waitlist (which I will express in a future post). Duke is an interesting test case for the impact of the PhD and other softs. Oh, and they have a good IP program.

W&M and Minnesota offer an opportunity to see if the PhD can get me into the accept category from a numbers position that is not strong for admission.

Thirds

I forgot an important comment in my justifications post. It's from the same interview with Dean Tom at Boalt that I referenced in that post. The quote

Hierarchy of Application Segments

TLS: Does Boalt have an approximate hierarchy on what is most valuable for admissions: GPA, LSAT, etc?

Dean Tom: “I know that there is a perception out there in the cyberspace world that we value GPAs a lot more than LSATs, and I’m not sure where people get that. Because if you look at our index formula, we are purposeful in weighting it so that GPA and LSAT are roughly equivalent. So, if I had to characterize our review process, it’s about one-third LSAT score, about one-third academic record – I prefer to call it academic record because GPA is just so narrow, whereas with academic record we consider all of the factors that impacted the GPA: work responsibilities, extra-curricular activities, rigor of major, and so on. The last third is the subjective factors -- what one says in their personal statement, and what others say about them in their letters of recommendation. So, no, I don’t think either of the two quantitative factors is more important than the other.”(emphasis mine)

If your subjective factors are weak (a crappy personal statement, unremarkable recommendations) isn't that just as bad as a low LSAT score or GPA? Conversely, couldn't a strong statement and recommendations give a mediocre GPA or LSAT score a boost? While you probably need all 3 factors to be strong at a place like Boalt, the comment demonstrates that the admissions committee definitely looks at more than the numbers. Soft Factors Count!

Justification for going after those deny/weak consider options

In my numbers set the ceiling post, I mentioned that I knew of a few comments by people in the know on how a graduate degree can help in the admissions process. Here is one of those comments. It's from an interview with Edward Tom, Dean of Admissions at Boalt (Cal-Berkeley) that is posted at TLS:

TLS: Boalt has a high percentage of students who already have a masters or Ph.D. Does a graduate degree increase an applicant’s chance of being accepted?

Dean Tom: “Having a graduate degree is a plus in the process. 18-20% of our students have at least a master’s degree. If you have a previous graduate degree, you should also send in those transcripts. Your graduate GPA is not factored into your undergraduate GPA, but it is definitely looked at.”

He says it helps. There is no mention of how much it helps, but it has the potential to help. (I recommend reading the entire interview. It is full of very useful information.)

There is a nice couple of pages in Montauk's book about credentials in the application process. He quotes deans from several schools who all say that a graduate degree or other soft factors can have a significant impact on how an application is evaluated. I'm not going to spend the money on the book, but I will try to get a few of the quotes written down so I can post them here.

Finally, if you watch the tutorial video for lawschoolpredictor.com on YouTube, they give a little guide for how to interpret the results of the accept, various consider, and deny results provided by the site. For deny, they say that you will likely be an auto-reject unless you have a compelling non-LSAT or non-GPA characteristic. Surely a PhD is a compelling characteristic (ie, soft factors) that would give what would be an auto-reject application a second look.

My brother is an illustration of the power of compelling soft factors. He is a rising 3L at BC. When I put his numbers into the law school predictor, BC was a deny. While my brother does not have a PhD, he does have a graduate degree and some interesting experiences (he spent quite a bit of time in Kenya). Those factors clearly worked in his favor during the admissions process. He's doing very well at BC. He's in the top 25% of his class, he's the Editor-in-Chief of a journal, and he's a summer associate at a top DC firm. This second look at people with some experience is justified.

What about my grades?

I did a little follow-up on my brother's assertion that my LSAT score and background would make me a solid candidate for admission to the top 10 law school just up the interstate. I looked at the LSAT ranges for a few of the more highly regarded (and, as such, more competitive) programs as determined by US News and World Report. It turns out that my score would keep me on the admissions radar pretty much everywhere except for the top 5 or so schools. Then they would get to my undergraduate grades. I was an awesome high school student, and I returned to form when I got to grad school, but for some reason I just didn't have it all together when I was in college. I did alright, but I'm well below the grades that these top schools usually require from their applicants. So I would be sunk at most places with my grades, even with the solid LSAT score, but what about this big gun that I have swinging from my hip?

Why not go right to the source to get the answer. I wrote a quick note to the admissions office of law school that I thought my numbers would at least give me a serious look but not a place that I would be a solid admit. As I mentioned in my last post, I was aiming for an LSAT score that would give an admission committee a good reason to downplay my undergraduate grades and focus more on my recent accomplishments. I decided the best way to see if I had accomplished this was to float my score along with a mention of my PhD in front of the folks at this school and see what they could tell me about my profile.

The response was interesting. They can never tell you too much without seeing the whole package, but the individual who replied to my message had this to say about my combination of factors:

"There are numerous ways to evaluate your GPA; we recognize the strength of [your] undergraduate school and also that sometimes more science/technical majors (chemistry, engineering, etc.) result in lower GPAs. Also, a stronger LSAT score can absolutely help mitigate a lower GPA, especially with stronger graduate work. I would say that your LSAT score (which is above our 75th percentile) coupled with your great (I find this word choice very telling) work experience and graduate work, would help mitigate your lower GPA."

I take this as a good sign. I would have more work to do in my application, but I wouldn't get dropped as soon as they saw my GPA. I would need to give them reasons to admit me. A solid personal statement, a good optional essay, nice recommendations (I would have to get one from work. That would mean they would know about this plan. That would put pressure on me to follow through if I was admitted. That's a big step to take.). I don't know how much being a state resident (it's a state school) would help, but it would be another check in my column. I'm going to have to start thinking about this... (I actually have been thinking about it, alot. It's too late for me to go into that right now though.)