Hi all,

I know you must be sick to death of these requests but I'd like to get your opinions on how particular Harvard is on academics versus experience.

I'm an Aussie applying to some T14 US schools including Harvard. I have a 3.0 in my undergrad law degree and a 4.0 in my undergrad political science (international relations) degree.

I have done a 6 month internship with the UN Security Council, a 4 month internship with a International Affairs think tank in Sydney, a 1 month clerkship with a top tier law firm in Hong Kong, have worked as a research assistant for 2 years and taught political science classes at a university in Australia.

My point is that my 3.0 in law is well below the 25% "cut off" for Harvard and I am assuming that my 4.0 is irrelevant to an LLM because it wasn't in law.

In your brutally honest opinions - how do you think I will fare?

Think of it this way. Harvard is #1 period. Anyone with stellar grades wants to go to Harvard. So, everyone who applies to Harvard has stellar grades. The experience is typically used merely to differentiate between which stellar-grade applicant is admitted. But, applicants without the stellar grades won't even be considered for that decision, so their experience won't make a difference.
There are many T14 schools which have great reputations and are not perhaps as stringent as Harvard. So, I would not give up hope of attending a great American law school for LLM. But, you asked about Harvard (and that same reasoning would apply to Yale/Stanford also). Good luck!

VoR - useful insight. Thank you.

Hi all - since 200-something people have looked at this. I may as well share what I have found out since posting.

I made a contact who is part of the current 2012/13 LLM class at Harvard. She suggested that I look at the "Brief of Dean Robert Post and Dean Martha Minow as amici curiae in support of the respondents" - google it.

The below text answered my question and should others who have a similar query. I should add that this is directly from a submission to a case in the US Supreme Court. Imho, it should be taken that this is authoritative. Happy reading!

A key part of the submission states:

"Both schools are fortunate to have large pools of talented applicants from which they can select those students whom they believe have the greatest potential to succeed in public and private life. For the class of 2014, Yale Law School enrolled just 205 students out of 3,173 applicants.5 That same year, Harvard Law School enrolled 559 students out of 6,364 applicants."

"Both schools could entirely fill each entering class with students who have the highest possible Grade Point Averages (GPAs) and Law School Admission Test (LSAT) scores. But neither school chooses to do so. In isolation, these objective measures cannot identify the future leaders of the bar. Both schools deny admission to more than half of the applicants who have either a 4.0 or greater GPA or a 174 or greater LSAT (99th percentile)."

"Although GPAs and LSAT scores are certainly relevant, they inevitably reveal only a partial view an applicants potential. To be meaningful, objective numbers must be set in the context of an applicants background and circumstances."

"Both Harvard and Yale recognize from long experience that intangible virtues like courage, commit-ment, leadership, and moral compass are highly relevant to an applicants potential to succeed in the legal profession. The numbers do not identify such virtues, which become visible only when the life story of an applicant is carefully scrutinized in all its gritty details. Both schools therefore invest heavily in admissions processes that aspire to undertake such scrutiny. These processes allow us to admit students we believe to be of the highest quality, meaning students we believe are most likely to become successful lawyers and leaders in the American legal profession."

- interesting stuff indeed!

Hi, Sim_Tron

This is really interesting (,and encouraging).

I believe for JD applicants, numbers do matter significantly because law schools are ranked by the GPA and LSAT of their incoming students. However, LLM is another story. Experience would have an at least equally important weight with GPA.

--by another applicant with a less-than-desirable GPA.