Turn down Harvard for Oxford, because I have friends who have attended both, and friends were unimpressed with Harvard's LLM, feeling it was too much like another year of law school.

I'm not looking for another year of law school. Besides, I'm interested in jurisprudence and common law constitutional history, Oxford's stregnths.

I just turned it down today. I got a full ride to G-Town, so I felt hard-pressed to spend $70,000 on Harvard. This is especially true since I was specifically interested in Tax (one of G-Town's specialties).

I just turned it down today. I got a full ride to G-Town, so I felt hard-pressed to spend $70,000 on Harvard. This is especially true since I was specifically interested in Tax (one of G-Town's specialties).

I love this thread!

I turned down Harvard for Columbia. Go New York!

hi! I am going to be applying for my llm for the session starting 2007 and I am amazed at how many of you guys have turned Harvard down. What I want to know is how much of a genius do you have to be to get an offer to begin with?

You certainly don't need to be genius. What you need is good grades, good recommendations, good reasons for applying to HLS, and some good luck. It's much easier if you're applying from a country from which there are fewer applicants (Finland, for instance). Competition between, say, Indian, or Brazilian applicants is fierce, or so I've heard.

Between India and Brazil?! That's bizarre! and really helpful since I am Indian. And there are scores of people who apply from here and get through so yey for me!

Not between India and Brazil, but between Indian applicants, for instance, or between Brazilian. Basically you will compete with other Indians, and there will be many. But you don't who will be admitted, so you just have to apply and see. Try to see it from Harvard's viewpoint (or Yale's). They receive possibly 90 applications from India. Will they admit all of them, and have an LL.M. program consisting mostly of Indian students. They want regional diversity. But why would you be any worse than any other applicant?

That's right. From another standpoint, however, the case may be worse for the Finnish lawyer than the Indian or the Brazilian. They want regional diversity, right, but there are clearly "standard" and "peripherical" regions. They may admitt one Finish this year and another one a couple (or even several) years later. If the goal is to have the strongest global network - and believe me: it is! -, one Finnish or one Austrian or one Potuguese each three or four years is more than enough. But you need tons of Indians, Chinese and Brazilians. I am not sure that, as Toni says, they look for diversity on a single year basis, nor do I think that beign Finnish is a natural advantage. (BTW, Toni has outstanding credentials!). I also think that they decide within a broad and fluid set of standards - there are no "formal realizable rules". They try to build a sort of an "academic welfare function" from very different variables like grades, merit, background, region, etc. The result is obviously a bit "artistic", not to say arbitrary (and I guess also a bit bureaucratic-driven: admission offices have a LOT OF POWER). For instance, I'm from Portugal (a really small country - tiny, in fact!) and I know that another Portuguese was admitted to Harvard this year. Why is that? Is it rational to have two individuals from such a small country? Look, there are only three or four Brazilians, so it makes no sense (Brazil is at least 20 times bigger than Portugal). And it can't be a love for Portugal, since there were only three Portuguese in Harvard Law School in the last 30 years...

My analysis was obviously simplistic, so thanks to Gar for his deeper one. His point about "diversity-in-the-long-run-and-in-many-areas" admissions seems correct. Additionally, I think we all agree that admission process for American law schools is somewhat mysterious. Only thing you can do is to get as many credentials as possible, write as good an application as you can, and hope for the best. You should also apply to variety of law schools: some of the top 6 schools, some of the top 14 schools, and possibly some top 25 schools. I'm sure you will be admitted to one of them. Bear in mind that there are many excellent law schools in the US, so approach the application process with an open mind. Cheers and good luck! -Toni-

And please remember to customize your application to the particular school. You cannot send the exact same application (personal statement, letters) to Stanford CGP LLM and NYU International Law LLM. It doesnt work. My 0,02 cents if I may: think about this whole project well in advance. Identify the weak points of your application and deal with it.

T. and S. are right, I think. You can see the whole entreprise from this perspective: part of it is controlled by you and part of it is arbitrary. Your are responsible for the first part and that means a lot. So, do your best and pray for luck. Regards.

What about connection?

Will it be easier to get admitted if u know somebody in the admission office, or, know some one who is quite influential to their decisions?

I TURNED DOWN STANFORD AND YALE FOR THE ALMIGHTY
HARVARD LAW. FRIENDS AND EXPERTS TOLD ME IT WAS THE BEST DECISION I HAVE EVER MADE -
THE BEST LAW SCHOOL AND THE BEST UNIVERSITY IN THE GLOBE - AND GREAT OPPORTUNITIES.

JEANE TAI IS wonderful - looking forward to meeting her THIS FALL.

http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500(1-100).htm

I LOVE HARVARD
http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/rank/2004/top500(1-100).htm

I agree with llmwannerbe - you made a good decision.

I was rejected this year - hope to apply next year.

I agree harvard law - No.1 cambridge no. 2

"llmwannerbe", "Queen4law" and "Londonkid"...

3 different profils, 3 messages... but only one student behind that I'm afraid !

Are you paid by Harvard Law School to post these messages ?

I believe Anna is right. The first message is the giveaway: shouting and that childish Harvard worshipping sound like a flame. I doubt any real H-students would post this kind of stuff. I don't think anyone here really disputes the fact that Harvard is the best university in the world, and the most prestigious. Harvard Law, however, has couple of drawbacks. It's rather huge, and the LL.M program, too, is big. And from what I've heard, its atmosphere is not to everyone's liking. In the US News rankings, or Leiter's, HLS has never been the number one. I think there are plenty of good reasons to choose HLS over Yale and Stanford, but you guys have yet to mention any of them. My list would be: international prestige (in Asia, for instance), number of courses offered (huge), strenght in international law and critical studies, to name but a few.

Academic resources, interdisciplinary horizons, critical theory, professional network and reputation. These are serious reasons to choose HLS. Also, Harvard is clearly the best in the world in Critical theory, while for instance though Yale is very good in Conventional Legal Theory, it is not as good as Oxford. Harvard is number one not only in particular fields, but in some "schools of thought". Having said this, NO DOUBT Yale law School is the best law school in the US and probably the world. (Not sure Stanford is better than Harvard - I really don't think so, but I would't be surprised with other views). Few individuals with academic ambitions would rightfully choose Harvard over Yale. (But it may be intelligent just to do that: for instance, if your dream is to work with Duncan Kennedy or Larry Tribe).

For the record, I'm going to Harvard but Yale was my top choice. Still I am tremendously happy!