Derek: Hi there! My name is Derek Meeker, and I am a senior Law School Consultant for Admissions Consultants, a consulting firm for aspiring College, Business, Medical, Graduate and Law School applicants. Today I am going to be answering some questions about the Law School admissions process.
Male: What is the best way to choose a Law School?
Derek: Well, I think that location is one of the most important factors in choosing a law school and there is two reasons for that. The first is; you want to choose a law school that is in an area in which you are going to be comfortable, where you are going to do your best work and really thrive. Law School is stressful. It can be really intense and it is obviously a very rigorous academic program so you want to be in a community and in a place where you are going to be able to feel relaxed and again just to be able to do your best work.
So, if you are someone who likes being in a small town or in a rural area then do not apply to law schools in New York City and vice versa, if you prefer to be in a large urban area where you have far more opportunities to escape the campus then do not apply to law schools that are in the middle of nowhere. So, I think location for that reason but also location is important in terms of placement.
Some law schools, many law schools actually are more regional which means most of their graduates work in the city or region in which they are located. So again, if you are looking at schools that plays primarily in their city or the region in which they are located then you want to make sure that that is a city in which you are going to be comfortable because you might be there not just for the three years that you are in law school but certainly for the first couple of years of your law school career.
There are other schools that are more national and they place graduates all over the country, and in that case you would be much more mobile and location may not be as much of a factor for the three years that you are in law school. Another thing to look at would be cost, law schools can be very expensive, it depends of course on number one, whether it is a state school or whether it is private but also schools, law schools, have financial aid and scholarship packages so you will want to find out if you qualify for any of those.
I also think you have to think a little bit about what your career goals are, if you are someone who is sure that you want to practice in public interests or Government, you are not going to be making nearly as much money as private sector Attorneys and cost is going to be even more of a factor you and you are going to want to look at whether the school has any sort of loan forgiveness or loan repayment program for graduates who go in the Government and public interest work, so definitely look at cost, I also think community, that is a little harder to define but I think you just have to visit the school, that is the best way to find out what is going to be the fit for you. Just how does it feel, school communities really differ and it could be class-sized, do you want to be in a school that is smaller, do you want to be in a school that is larger, what are the curricular and clinic offerings? Are there specific areas of the law that you think you are interested in? So, you might want to look at what the opportunities are in those areas? How accessible are the faculty, what are student-faculty relationships like at this school? Is it a real community oriented school? Do the students stay on campus or is it more of a commuter type of school?
Those are the types of things that you want to look at, just in terms of community fit. But I would say those are probably three of the most important factors: location, cost, community.
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