Name: Michelle Dawson
Major: English and Latin
Law School: University of Minnesota
How many schools did you apply to? What criteria did you use in picking these schools?
3 schools. I did the safety school, the school I wanted, the hopeful/stretch school.
How did you prepare for the LSAT? Do you have any advice?
The best thing I did was to take a full blown timed LSAT test at the library every Saturday for the four Saturday's leading up to the test.
I took them at the time the real test was going to be administered. Then to study during the week I did drills - so I would do just logic games say and I would do like three or four sections per night one right after the other and do just those for several days in a row. Then I would do reading analysis etc. The other thing that helped a ton - but I resisted doing at the beginning for some reason was to spend a lot of time going over the answers provided in the books whether I got the questions wrong or not. This was extremely helpful.
What strategies did you use in networking with the professors and employers who wrote letters of recommendation for you? I asked the people I wanted to write for me early on and then prepared extensive packets for them to both make it easy for them and to also show them what I was looking for - I provided sample topics and points that they should cover. I also included examples of a good rec versus a poor or average rec.
How did you go about writing your personal statement? How much did you change your personal statement to fit each school? I barely changed it at all for different schools. I wrote it for my target school and only amended slightly for the other schools. I wrote a draft and circulated it (actually to Janelle - thanks! :) and to friends etc. Then I sat on it and did nothing for 3 weeks as I was way too close to it to make any changes. Then I spent a very intense 3 or 4 days re-working it entirely and circulating it again and again during those days. I ended up very happy with the final product.
If you had a chance to go through the process again, is there anything you would have done differently? nope.
Is law school like you expected it would be? Why or why not? Um yes and no. The classes are awesome I love the material. It is a KILLER amount of work though every single night. I expected this. It is very intense the whole thing, particularly the first few weeks as you get used to the whole system and the Socratic method and the lap tops and all of the jargon we were completely unfamiliar with. However, I expected this atmosphere of competition that everything sort of prepares you for and I thought would really annoy me. It turns out it really isn't present at all. I mean yes, we know we are all competing against each other for grades, but our group is just very cool and helpful and we are all very supportive of each other. I don't know if our class is an anomaly or what but it is not at all like what the prep-books prepare you for, it has been much better. I have really been enjoying myself. But honestly the amount of work is sort of staggering. I did not physically see most of my immediate family at all during the first semester.
