The University of Michigan Law School in Ann Arbor is one of the world's finest institutions of legal education. Housed in the Cook Quadrangle on the University of Michigan's central campus, the Law School is unmatched for beauty and is superbly functional for its residential and scholarly community. The School has a sizable and diverse faculty, with many preeminent in their fields. The careers of alumni also speak eloquently to the strength of the School; our graduates are leaders serving with distinction in the public, private, and academic sectors in this nation and beyond.
S Montgomery Consulting is also known as "Barrier Breakers" and it's focused on those from traditionally disadvantaged backgrounds. They also put on a free law school and resource conference online
Higher LSAT Score, equal less money out your pocket or NO MONEY. You can take the LSAT 5 times in 5 years, so your focus should be on the highest LSAT you can achieve versus listening to law school recruiters, even if they are deans, they are recruiters. 👍🏽👊🏽
Thank you Dean Z, an international (German) law undergrad looking to apply for an LLM or even a JD for 2025/26 would love some LLM/ international student advice or application readings. Thank you in advance, love this series so much 🩵
Thank you for this Dean Z! I hate to break this news to you but there is a very large LSAT Reddit community, which some might argue, is even MORE toxic than the Law Admissions subreddit. 🤣
We didn't know that but it makes sense! We'll leave the LSAT prep and advice to others though; we're focused on law school admissions. Thanks for the heads up!
Interesting because Oxford law admissions have been independently scoring the writing section of the LNAT and using the metric as 1/2 of the total LNAT weight for many years! Could make a major difference in law school admissions in the years to come.
Upon finishing the video, i would definitely encourage digging around, not just r/lawschooladmissions, but r/biglaw, r/lsat, r/lawschool as well. If you had to choose any to browse, id say to dig into r/biglaw as a huge number of students end up there to ask about schools, OCI and other related things. I would comment that as much as law schools admissions view applications holistically, aspiring students look at law schools the same way, especially in the decision stages (eg location, OCIA opportunity, clerkships, median salary post graduate, tuition debt)
Great comment, just wanted to add one (also it might not interest people applying to Michigan) r/OutsideT14lawschools feels a lot more like a community where people are actually trying to help out each others
Reddit is filled with punters who haven't even stepped foot inside a law school, except maybe to use the bathroom. Miss them, get more experienced opinions. Instead, you should read "scamblogs" from 2008. Or perhaps notes inscribed in lawschool yearbooks from the Reagan era, plus those excerpts from Abraham Lincolns correspondences where he discussed his experiences reading law. Nevermind: just read graffiti on the walls of Athenians legal education institutes from the time of Draco.
thank you so much for all these videos! Such an absolute gift to everyone considering law school. Any chance you can do an app review of a KJD low GPA and at/above median LSAT?
Thank you, for this. I will inevitably be a splitter as I apply this cycle and though I am seeing my practice scores increase I have felt that it was impossible for me to ever have a chance for a school like UM. I see, now, that if I can make a well-rounded application that I may still have a chance.
The main issue I'm running into is my personal statement is trying to make it so that my personal statement doesn't bleed into being my adversity statement. I'm looking to make sure I don't repeat myself in different essays.
That’s the right instinct! You want to make full use of all the real estate you have, as it were. While you want essays to be consistent with each other (e.g., don’t have one talking about you want to be a biglaw transactional attorney and another that talks about your commitment to the underserved, unless you can include content that makes those not seem in opposition), but you don’t want repetition. -DZ
Hello dean z, a question and an idea for a future video: how does being an international student play into admissions? Especially with public schools who have to prioritize in-state students? and how does the financial aid look like if it exists in private vs public schools? Will being an international student reduce someone’s chances of both of these? I tried looking elsewhere but there are really limited resources addressing this as its quite niche. The video was insightful as always!
Hey Dean Z, Huge fan of this video series! I've seen quite bit of them and I wanted to ask about how Military Service Members should discuss our employment experiences. For members of the reserve component, what would be the easiest way to discuss deployments, military training, etc?
Great question-I’m not expert on military service, and so I’m always very grateful when applicants can step back and describe the positions in a way that makes sense to a layperson. Stay away from jargon, for example, and use the most conversational types of terms you can. I think specifying deployments is very helpful, and I’m surprised by the number of people who don’t include that info! For training, I would focus on information that you think will translate most to law school. -DZ
Wellllll… maybe? Sometimes? More frequently, though, if you end up on the waitlist it’s because your numbers are fine, and the thing that gets you selected from among similarly situated people is everything else about your application and subsequent interactions with the office (e.g., updates, letters of continued interest, and so on). -DZ
That is a good way to remember the meaning of promissory estoppel, but the actual stopping involved in the doctrine that "estoppel" refers to is the courts stopping the defense for making an argument regarding consideration, at least if I recall correctly!
The only thing I’m wary about is writing about my involvement in campus activism surrounding the Israel-Palestine conflict. This would be especially risky if I were to apply to a school that had very intense protests earlier this year; an example would be Columbia. I’m sure the last thing those schools want is more pro-Palestinian student activists causing “trouble,” and I’m worried that there would be a bias against them in admissions.
@@r.p.8906 Duly noted. It's also rather telling that Dean Z never bothered to like my comment or respond to me, despite being one of the first comments. She is too entrenched in the establishment even to _risk_ a response on this controversial issue. Perhaps I was naive for even entertaining the idea that I could expect any degree of friendship or closeness from a bureaucratic administrator.
This is a broader concern than just this one issue-whenever someone is writing about a political topic, they would be well-served to think about a reader who disagrees with them. It is certainly possible to discuss controversial issues in a way that does not give offense to those with opposed viewpoints, and that has to be your goal. If you don’t think you can be dispassionate enough to do that, then you should pick a different topic. -DZ
Thank you Dean Z for this great insight into how to craft and effectively analyze your own personal statement. This was extremely helpful and I look forward to all your videos!
I asked the question about gender equality. It’s a great feeling to know that Dean Z really do take the time out of her busy schedule to respond to questions! Thank you for the amazing advice.
These videos are everything. Clarity on law school waitlists is hard to come by on the intrawebs! Thank you Dean Z for your contributions over the years, and for this video in particular! Now please: everyone knock on wood for my prospects this cycle :D
An amazing series with deep insights -- thank you for sharing your thoughts and time with us Prof Clark, and kudos to Michigan Law for the inspiring content and seamless production values.
Hello dean z, a question and an idea for a future video: how does being an international student play into admissions? Especially with public schools who have to prioritize in-state students? and how does the financial aid look like if it exists in private vs public schools? Will being an international student reduce someone’s chances of both of these? I tried looking elsewhere but there are really limited resources addressing this as its quite niche.
Great information as always! What would you say to people who are going to an institution with the specific intent of transferring? My sense is that this is a very bad choice, but would love to hear your thoughts. Thanks Dean Z and Dustin!
Yes, it’s dangerous! You are betting that you will knock it out of the park in your first year or first semester. Maybe you will-but if you stumble even just a smidge and it means you can’t transfer, then it is terrible to be at a school where you don’t want to be. So you can enroll with the hope of transferring, but don’t enroll unless you’d be satisfied spending three years at a given school. -DZ
I found this series this morning and have been fascinated by it. It is easy to get the feeling that your numbers are all that matter in this process, but Dean Z's breakdown shows how human the process actually is.
Hey Dean Z Most, if not all, of your videos discuss the admissions process. I'd love to have your insight on what it takes to actually succeed in law school once you become a student.
Great question! I view that as a bit outside my expertise, but I’ll mull and see if I can come up with something. From the admissions perspective, we don’t care what your grades are once you enroll-that’s not how we define success. In a school with a curve, it’s baked in that half of the class is in the bottom half, and that doesn’t mean I picked half of the class wrong! Or that that half isn’t “succeeding” in a larger, more significant way than grades. -DZ
I am one of those people who struggled with logics games but not with the analytical reasoning section. I really struggled with timing and usually missed 6-8 LG questions, usually the entire last section. I am just generally slow with drawing diagrams and am bad at visualization in general. Maybe it was because I self studied and never got into the right habits for that section haha My official LSAT was 169, and I was rejected early from Michigan. When I practiced without logics games and regularly got 175+. I really wanted to be back in Ann Arbor, and maybe I should have waited another year to apply, but I'm really fortuntate to have been accepted to law school at all as a grad school drop out haha. Even though I won't get to be part of the Michigan law community, I'm really grateful for the advice Dean Z gives out. It's hard doing something like this on your own as a first gen applicant.
Can you please make some more? Maybe more of those who have a GPA and LSAT below the median? I've watched all them!! Absolutely love this. Thank you Dean Z !!!
Dean Z can you please make a video on international J.D. application, for candidates who want to apply to international Law School like michigan law and want to practice like capital market and international arbitration.
