I agree with you. Yale is the undisputed number 1 in the US (whatever that means...). Harvard/Stanford...I don't know...can go either way, but since Stanford is in California... :-) !!! They are all great schools.

I am a Zambian student in the UK, planning to apply to Harvard, Yale and Cornell this year this year and I was wondering if those of you that were accepted for the LLM at any of these Law Schools could share some of your infinite wisdom on a couple of points:

1) What are the entry requirements. Do I have to get a First class pass or will a 2:1 suffice?

2) How difficult is it to get a fellowship at any of these?

3) What sorts of things do you put in your personal statement? ie what classifies as a good reason for wanting to study at Harvard, Yale or Cornell? I know that announcing that you've wanted to do Law since you were three years old wont quite cut the ice.

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. (First one to respond gets free cookies: LOL)

Hi there,

JW, loved your response! I turned down Harvard (and Yale btw) for Chicago.

Jess

Nice ads. I turned down an offer from Havard so I can be at peace with my gf who was annoyed as she was offered admission in the lowest ranked Law School. She is better education than that offer at Havard, for Havard is one year, she is, ....................

:-)

So which school did you go for?

hi guys. am from uganda. graduated with a first from the national university in my country and am country doing the BCL at Oxford. Am also in the process of applying to harvard for the 2007/8 programme. Regds to all in the same process, good luck to us all(but especially myself)! JW, i have never read a funnier post!

currently* doing (not country)

Jess is awesome. I loved the (btw) Yale thing as well. Just in case we wondering.

I sent a letter to Harvard stating as follows:

"To whom it may concern,

Thank you for your letter of February 16. After careful consideration, I regret to inform you that I am unable to accept your refusal to offer me graduate admission. This year I have been particularly fortunate in receiving an unusually large number of rejection letters. With such a varied and promising field of candidates, it is impossible for me to accept all refusals.

Despite Harvard's outstanding qualifications and previous experience in rejecting applicants, I find that your rejection does not meet my needs at this time. Therefore, I will assume the place at law school this September. I look forward to seeing you then.

Best of luck in rejecting future applicants.

Sincerely,"

with that level of creativity (though influenced by jw from last year i fear) i suppose they will let u into class

does this mean that Harvard is already sending out rejections?

No ... those entries are from last year, with the exception of the last two.

Jw... Is it a joke or you really did it ?

Hey i was wondering if anyone could give me their opinion as im not sure what to do. ive not heard back from Harvard yet as to the outcome of my application but ive got a place on the LLM at UPenn on a full scholarship including stipend. if i got into harvard (BIG if) obviously id have to pay the full $70K. any views on what i should do IF i got into Harvard would be really appreciated. thanks.

I'm biased because I'm from HLS, but I would seriously consider HLS and the many general and specific advantages of going there. Especially if you get a job in this amazing job market, the money won't be as relevant after one year, while you'll be an HLS alumnus and part of the global network for life.

I believe this is a general opinion that's been voiced in this forum whenever someone is choosing between a lower-ranked school and a scholarship, and a higher-ranked school.

Also, 55K should be liveable, and they have generous support for loans available if you don't have that kind of support from your home country.

I agree with josepidal when he says about that between a higher-ranked school and a lower-ranked school, you should pick the highest-ranked one (although I would add the rankings to be taken into account are the ones related to your specific field of specialization). Although I think UPenn is a fine school, my advice would be different if you said that you want to specialize in corporate law and you had a scholarship from Columbia (for instance).

To add, I might not even be inclined to look that closely at the specialization anyway. You only have two terms and can only take two to three subjects per term, and may well find that a unique subject like Law and Literature is the most memorable for you.

My context is that I've seen a number of corporate law partners take questions from 1Ls along the lines of what subjects should they take. They usually answer that they should have some basic courses such as Corporations and Securities Regulation, but what's really important is to take the courses that one enjoys and are passionate about, since there are some subjects you just won't encounter in pratice. The grain of salt is that LLMs can be expected to be more focused, but even then, career counselors say that devoting 50% of courses to your specialization is usually good enough for employers, who understand the above context.

Or, in addition to reputation in a particular specialization, you may want to meet a superstar professor in that field. For example, you may be attracted to Columbia for the additional reason that the author of one of the widely-used Securities texts (John Coffee) teaches there.

Hmmm... Here are my 2 cents to the discussion: I think diversification is good as long as there is a certain level of coherence. For instance: if you are a corporate lawyer and, in addition to courses on Securities and Corporate Law you take some courses on finance or law and economics or even some seminar on hot topics, like a course like "Settling international business disputes with China", it can be regarded as something good. However, if you take a course on Counter-terrorism law or a course on the Trial of Jesus (I am not joking: this is a seminar offered by NYU this semester - and I have heard it is pretty interesting), you should be able to explain why you are taking these courses. On the other hand, you should be aware that if a peer of yours is taking more "marketable" courses, he could be in a more advantageous position. I can tell that in every single interview I made during the last 5 weeks, the interviewers asked me about the courses I took in the Fall term and the courses I am taking now.

I've honestly had the opposite experience, and I even had a debate with a friendly Capital Markets partner on whether Laurence Tribe from HLS was better than his Constitutional Law professor, Erwin Chemerinsky.

If you're not taking any marketable courses, then you have some explanation to do. However, if you're clearly taking them, you don't have to explain the odd course since I think they understand everyone needs a little variety. For example, if you're interviewed by an M&A partner and he sees that you took Tribe's class in HLS (Constitutional Law, with a waiting list of well over one hundred each year), I can't imagine that he'd ask why you didn't take another corporate class.

Unique classes, by the way, are wonderful foundations to show a lighter side of yourself during an interview. You should welcome the chance to explain what those are all about.

I'm just expressing what I've seen from HLS, though, including my classmates' experiences.

thanks for ur posts guys