Getting In

By ricey in Law According to Harvard - Class 2008 on Jul 21, 2007

This post is in reply to the questions posed by Scholarship.

I would say that getting in a good LLM program is the hardest part. Before I say anything else, I do not profess to be an expert on LLM admissions as I am sincerely, although pleasantly, surprised by my HLS admission. I applied to four schools, by the way - Columbia, NYU, Michigan and Harvard. Harvard and NYU accepted me. Michigan rejected me, but not without saying that I should try again if I have an additional year of experience. Columbia just said no after about 6 months of waiting (and I was preparing already for HLS) Since HLS is my first choice (see my areas of interest in the previous post), I didn't really care about the others.

As its been said countless times in this board, I can say that from my experience, its not just about the grades. Decent grades do matter of course, the higher, the better. (with the corresponding high class rank) But it's not the end-all, be-all. A friend of mine who went to Yale for his LLM summarized the four (4) basic requirements as follows: (I would suppose that this applies to at least the top 10 schools, it was my own guide)

1. Good grades - higher class rank, the better. Basically, this is just to show the Admissions Committee that you have better than average academic potential.

2. Publications/teaching - you'll be doing a lot of writing and thinking in graduate school. If you have published or if you are teaching, it shows that you are academically inclined or intellectually curious or whatever you call that thing.

3. Great Recommendations - remember that you are just a paper to the Admissions people. A good recommendation letter tries to paint a person behind that picture, as viewed by someone with whom you've had a good relationship, be it your teacher/professor or employer. Put more weight on academic recommendations rather than professional ones, and have someone comment on your writing/thinking abilities specifically.

4. Great personal statement - this is the most difficult for me - trying to figure out a legal problem and crafting a solution or something to address it, and then mixing it with a personal statement that shows why you want to go to that school and why (it would seem) doing the LLM is the right next step in your professional life. Other schools separate the personal statement and the issue paper. Harvard combines it into a 3 page one. The challenge is to say a lot in the fewest words.

That's about it for now. I will try to update this when I start this September.

Comments

Inactive User, May 30, 2011 02:44

I guess I'll be restarting this thread a bit.

When you say publications and teaching is there the possibility to be more especific?? Our Law Review is printed only once a year and quite small.. very small possibilities to gain acceptance for a paper of yours. What other sort of publications could I do? As for teaching.. is this only college wise?

meetmeannu, Aug 31, 2008 20:28

thnx for ur valuable comments. i hve learnt alot
i am looking for sample SoP from the students who have applied recently in top law school and got admission too.
mail me at anurag.adv@gmail.com

Hbon, Aug 11, 2008 17:01

Hi Ricey,
Its a kind of SOS call. I intend to apply for HLS. Though have mediocre grades at law school but have a goodr4yrs of professional experience.Good reco, publication, teaching, social work.
Can you plz suggest, what my SOP should be about.

Thanks a lot in advance.

anika, Oct 21, 2007 16:57

hey ... this is some useful info.... i hope to go to harvard someday... so jus keep guidin!

ricey, Sep 27, 2007 17:35

hey prvdream, I don't think it will be useful because its all a matter of what issue you want to address and how you plan to address it so its very subjective. I didn't write anything special myself, and you dont need to propose an answer, although one or two suggestions might help.

nonamesaur, Sep 19, 2007 11:10

Thank you for useful tips.
May i ask for your kind assistance? Can u send your SOP for Harvard to me as a good examples. It will be useful for me to see SOP from real and recent person who was admitted to Harvard.

You can censor some parts of it if you do not want me to see.

Thank you very much.
Yours sincerely,

prvdream@yahoo.com

ekta, Aug 11, 2007 23:02

hi. Ricey......thnx for the information.....it was realy helpful....m realy looking forward for LLM in harvard.....but i wanted to know does havard has a combined course of human rights and criminal law together.....if not...can u tel which universities in uk provide this course

attorneyus..., Aug 09, 2007 18:11

thank you ricey for that useful information
cud u send me ur Statement of purpose or others who made it to harvard or other top universities....if its not inconvenient for you.....im a prospective LLM student for 2008-2009 and i want to have a look at Some of the best SOPs before i proceed to make mine........thanx

Scholarshi..., Jul 21, 2007 22:54

Thank you Ricey! Do you think that an average of 7.50 (from 10) is ok?

Other thing, do you know if Harvard grants good scholarships and what they take account to grant them?

Thank you again!

(I send you a PM)