Hi allI'm an international hoping to enrol in an LLM programme for fall 08. I'm interested in programmes with a definite international law/public law slant (I have an interest in minority protection), and so am looking at NYU, and Yale, because I eventually want to teach. I wonder if it would be worth my time to visit the schools, and whether anyone knows if NYU and Yale in particular have provision for guided visits. I've had a look at the NYU website, and it refers to "self-guided tours"I did one of these when I was in the city on vacation in March 04, and there was not much point. There's no interaction with anyone, you can't really sit in on classes, and you can't look at facilities such as housing. Yale, on the other hand, does run student-led admissions tours, but I wonder whether these are specifically meant for JDs, or if anyone here has been on such tours, and found them useful as a prospective LLM applicant.

Would be very grateful for any input. Thanks!

Check out Stanford SPILS program if you wanna teach.
As far as Stanford is concerned, the University organises guided tours (check www.stanford.edu). Maybe if you contact in advance the Admissions Office for the advanced law degrees, you would benefit from further specific insight when you actually visit our campus. Best of luck.

Hi allI'm an international hoping to enrol in an LLM programme for fall 08. I'm interested in programmes with a definite international law/public law slant (I have an interest in minority protection), and so am looking at NYU, and Yale, because I eventually want to teach. I wonder if it would be worth my time to visit the schools, and whether anyone knows if NYU and Yale in particular have provision for guided visits. I've had a look at the NYU website, and it refers to "self-guided tours"I did one of these when I was in the city on vacation in March 04, and there was not much point. There's no interaction with anyone, you can't really sit in on classes, and you can't look at facilities such as housing. Yale, on the other hand, does run student-led admissions tours, but I wonder whether these are specifically meant for JDs, or if anyone here has been on such tours, and found them useful as a prospective LLM applicant.

Would be very grateful for any input. Thanks!

Regarding tours, you could take the initiative and just ask a professor if you can sit in a class, or even arrange it in advance via e-mail. There's this kid in my school who is planning to apply to law school so he applied for a job in the law library and spends his afternoons and evenings attending all the special seminars or sitting in classes. Today, he walked up to a Tenth Circuit judge, had his photo taken, asked the judge for his calling card, and asked if he could apply for an internship in that circuit before applying to law school (and received a yes).

Thanks to both. I'll look into Stanford. If you're there now, I wonder if you could give me your comments on how strong it is w.r.t. minority protection / public intl law? I've always thought of SPILS more as an inter-disciplinary, empirical-type programme.

Hi,
Stanford is the second best law school in the U.S. I believe it can be told strong in all topics. I am not especially familiar with Public International Law, since this is not my interest, but several of my classmates work on international human rights and related matters. I would advise that you check the courses list as well as the list of professors. SPILS is a 12 or 13 person program each year. It is tailor-made to each person's own aspirations. It's up to you to make it focus on Public International Law if you want to. You can submit a research proposal on PIL and attend courses on that same subject-matter.
SPILS favors empirical research, but I think this is positive. One reason for that is because we work on original research topics, we do proper research on fields not explored yet. Thus, empirical research turns into a tool to support your theoretical conclusions.
It can be inter-disciplinary, but in my case, my topic is purely legal. Interdisciplinary means in practice for instance working on the legal framework of scientific research on genes.
I hope this helps.

Thanks!

Hi. You can email the Admissions Director at Yale [her name is Maria Dino] stating your interest in the program, and request to schedule an appointment. In theory, you can send similar emails to professors as well. I was able to meet with the Dean, although I did have to wait for about 3 hours. It can't hurt to put a face behind the application documents [although I'm still waiting for application results as well].

Good luck!

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Hi allI'm an international hoping to enrol in an LLM programme for fall 08. I'm interested in programmes with a definite international law/public law slant (I have an interest in minority protection), and so am looking at NYU, and Yale, because I eventually want to teach. I wonder if it would be worth my time to visit the schools, and whether anyone knows if NYU and Yale in particular have provision for guided visits. I've had a look at the NYU website, and it refers to "self-guided tours"I did one of these when I was in the city on vacation in March 04, and there was not much point. There's no interaction with anyone, you can't really sit in on classes, and you can't look at facilities such as housing. Yale, on the other hand, does run student-led admissions tours, but I wonder whether these are specifically meant for JDs, or if anyone here has been on such tours, and found them useful as a prospective LLM applicant.

Would be very grateful for any input. Thanks!

That's really helpful information. Thank you!

So I eventually visited both Yale and NYU, and at NYU managed to talk to a couple of Faculty members.

My next question as I begin to start on my 08 applications is--does one mention such visits in your personal statement, or is that...somewhat crass?