It's Transfer Season

With the spring semester rolling around, students have decided that they want the hell out of their school and into another. I haven't written in the blog in a while as most students don't think about transferring in the fall. I've got a few backed up emails in the inbox that I need to answer, and I'll be glad to take yours as well. Sorry that I haven't posted in a while. I didn't want to make this another site about the wonders of law school because, frankly, I think most of them are pretty boring. I just wanted this to be a useful site to transfer students and students who want to go to law school. Hope your fall finals went well.

The Waiting Game

Transferring is not a fun process if you really don’t know where you stand. I believe many students find themselves in this situation because they come from lower tiered schools and they really don’t know where they have a shot at. From my experience, if you take a logical guess, you’re probably right. Don’t get me wrong, crazy things have happened. I’ve heard stories about people jumping from tier 4’s to Georgetown and similar experiences but all I’m saying is that it isn’t likely.

Apply to reach schools, but remember to apply within your means. It’s good to leave your options open but don’t apply to a bunch of schools you know you really won’t go to. I did this and it really complicated things toward the end because I applied to a few easy schools to get my confidence up and it really confused me about where I wanted to go.

If you are a in the top hundred already, I would shoot for the stars. If you are in a tier 4 school, I would be more reasonable. Much of it is really based on need, and if you do some research you will realize that some really good schools take a lot of transfers. Florida State is one that takes over 50 transfers a semester. Some schools seem to be feeder schools for tier 4’s in the area. I’m not saying don’t apply to your dream school. I’m only saying that you shouldn’t be surprised if it turns out that a school that you thought was over your head is actually over your head. But, hey, it’s your money.

More on Constructing Your Transfer Personal Statement

A beautiful personal statement will probably not get you into your transfer school unless you have the grades to back it up, but it might leave an impression on an admissions officer. The first thing you have against you as a transfer is that you already seem indecisive. You write this confident, strong personal statement, but if you are so confident why are you transferring in the first place? You have to provide an answer to this question in your personal statement and it needs to be very specific.

Your transfer personal statement needs to be very specific and targeted at the law school that you want to transfer to. They know that you want to go to law school. Now the question is, why do you want to go to a different law school? Of course (at least most of the time) you just want to go to a “better” school. They know that and you know that. I would strongly advise you against saying that.

Whether or not you believe or feel it, we are all supposed to pretend that we are in law school to change the world and make it a better place. Law schools love public interest and they love putting in their brochures that their law school had an effect on some change in the community or the country. You will find something about this in every law school’s mission statement. A good way to turn an admission’s officer off of your application is to tell them that you want to come to that school because, in turn, you want to make more money down the road.

If you don’t have a specific reason for going to that school other than going to a better school, make one up. Find a program that they specialize in and say that you have dedicated your life to being the best you can in that specific program. Should you lie? No, but you are training to be a lawyer, you’ll figure out a way to make it work. Finally, another way to help your essay is to look at the law school’s mission statement. As I said before, many of them will contain the same elements, but you will often find what the school deems to be important contained within that statement. Try to incorporate some of the words and ideas they use within your own statement.

If you are really having trouble getting started, I don’t mind sending mine over for you to get an idea of where to start. I’m not guaranteeing it to be perfect or even the right way to approach it, but it incorporates the ideas that I have expressed above. Shoot an email to lawschooldrivel@gmail.com if you would like to see it. There's also some books that can provide great templates to use. One of my favorites is Great Personal Statements for Law School. If I can figure out how to do it, I might put a download link to mine on the site. It goes without saying, but remember to be very specific in your statement. The last thing you want to do is sound like everyone else. Good luck.

Transferring to California

Email Question:

I'm a 1L at a mid-30's school outside of California. I really want to get back to California for personal reasons unrelated to school. I've seen a ton of information about transferring to highly ranked schools, T14, etc; but not much about transferring to lower ranked schools.

If I get the grades I'd love to transfer to the top schools in CA. But I'm willing to transfer to some lower ranked schools just to get back there. I've been thinking Loyola, Pepperdine, San Diego, Santa Clara, etc. might be good targets. What kind of class ranking do you think this might take? I assume I'd be good most places with a very high ranking. But what's the minimum I would need to make? top 30%? top 50%?

Any information you can provide would be great. I'm kind of interested in doing some work in a non-legal field as well, any details on that?


My Answer:

I’m going to try to institute a little more brevity in my upcoming posts. The one yesterday got a little out of hand. I shared the same problem as the questioner in that much information exists about transferring to Harvard and top 30 schools but not much about tier 2 or tier 3 schools. A lateral transfer (on paper) should be much easier than moving up in status. Doing very well at a mid-thirties school should put you at least in contention at some of the higher ranked schools.

The kicker comes from higher ranked schools in California. Almost everyone wants to transfer to California or NYC so it makes it a little more competitive. Loyola and Pepperdine were the two schools that I wanted and neither worked out but granted I was coming from a tier 4 school. I get the impression that Pepperdine thinks that they are the best school in the nation, and on average they’ve taken less than 10 transfers a year. Loyola takes over thirty and it usually seems that many of the people who get into Loyola also get into UCLA or USC. So it kind of screws over the people that really wanted Loyola and knew they didn’t have a chance at the higher ranked schools. Definitely go over to lsac, click on the school you want to transfer to, and go to ABA data. There they will have the number of transfers in and out of each school. It should give you an idea of how many people they usually take. Click on the link in the sidebar to take you there.

As far as the minimum you need to make, there’s really no good answer to that. I would venture to say that the two biggest factors in transfer are the prestige of the school you are coming from and your ranking in that school. The better you do the more your chances go up, but you are already ahead of the game by being in a mid thirties school to begin with. If those personal reasons that you need to be back in California are something that would seem to provide a legitimate need to an admission officer, I would definitely address them in your personal statement.

I’m going to do a post eventually on non-legal careers, but the best thing to remember for now is that you have to do the work yourself. Career service offices are bad enough with assisting to get legal jobs so you can only imagine their level of assistance at a non-legal job.

In the Beginning

I am currently in my second year of law school at a top 100 school. I’ve been on a long journey that has shaped and developed me along the way. When I began this process, I was surprised at how little accurate information was out there about all aspects of law school. In my research, I have amassed an enormous amount of useless information that the average law student knows nothing about.

I decided to go to law school even though I didn’t want to be a lawyer at the completion of school. I understand how discouraging this can be at times for those that are in law school and constantly surrounded with how to be a lawyer and not given other options. I went to a newer law school for my first year, and I worked my ass off to transfer out.

I had a wonderful experience in my first year and learned much information along the way. I had my sights set on two law schools out in California that I knew were perfect for me. Even though I finished in the top fifteen percent of my class, things didn't work out as planned. I got rejected from those two schools exactly one day before I had to move to the school that I'm at now. Everything worked out for the best, and I love my new school. Along the way, I've learned more information about transferring than the average human being should.

I'm really here to provide information to those who are in law school, those that are applying to law school, those that are considering law school, and those that want to go to a different law school. If you are looking for graphs and hard quantitative data then you are probably at the wrong site. I am here to provide you a normal guy’s perspective of everything law school and to answer all the unanswerable questions. I can’t tell you if you are going to get in to a given school and I can’t grade your final for you. I do have some first year outlines that have helped me, and if I have time I will be glad to share those with you.

Stay tuned, and if you have questions about a certain topic I will do my best to answer them. But remember, I am in law school too so I can’t do it all. I look forward to providing information about law school, and I genuinely hope that it helps you out.