How to Stand Out

Speaker 1: All right, I am so excited. Naomi’s letting me kick it off. I get to be the kicker off or host her. So, welcome to Applying Yourself, a Wash U Law admissions podcast. Today, our topic is, what is the admissions committee looking for? So what, and really, I mean, what is the Wash U Law community looking for? Because as admissions team members, we have a duty to the university, duty to the Wash U Law community. So who would be a good fit for Wash U Law?

Naomi: Are you doing anything exciting this weekend?

Speaker 1: Am I doing anything exciting this weekend?

Naomi: Oh, there was the Brew in the Loo.

Speaker 1: Brew in the Loo.

Naomi: Yes, and I think, is it Francis Park where that happens?

Speaker 1: I think it’s in Francis Park.

Naomi: I think it’s in Francis Park. And anyone who knows St. Louis potentially knows that this is the home of Anheuser-Busch.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Naomi: And there are many, many excellent, like world renowned breweries in St. Louis. And so that should be quite exciting. And I don’t, I don’t really even drink, but it’s fun to kind of go to these things.

Speaker 1: Yeah, I was just going to say, like if beer’s not your thing, I know they’re going to have really good food and—

Naomi: There’s good food. It’s just a fun event.

Speaker 1: Music. And I think, too, I saw, I’m not sure if I’m going to be able to go this year, but Oktoberfest in Soulard is also happening.

Naomi: That is so fun.

Speaker 1: So that’s always super well attended. And, you know, Soulard’s right where the Anheuser-Busch brewery—

Naomi: Yeah, where it’s located.

Speaker 1: Uh-huh.

Naomi: Yeah, you can just like walk on over there. There’s a lot of fun, like, holiday time events at the brewery. It’s really, really fun.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So, all right. Hey, back to the topic at hand here. Let’s talk about. Kind of like what the committee is looking for. So overview of our application requirements. So our application requirements, essentially, you need to have a bachelor’s degree from an undergraduate institution, either in the United States or internationally, and you need to have an entrance exam score. And so for law schools, that’s an LSAT or GRE score. And so those are really the requirements for our application. That said, for the application itself, people do, it is asked for on the application for a personal statement, a resume, letters of recommendation. Those items are not required. That said, we haven’t really seen applications without them. Because the whole goal around the application is to get to know you and to get to know some of these other factors that we’re about to talk about. And yeah, just like really what the committee is looking for.

And so when we’re thinking about, you know, we’ll just set aside for a second that LSAT and GPA, but are you looking for someone with like specific work experience or like a requisite amount of years out of college? Is there anything like that we’re looking for?

Naomi: Yeah, not so much, but I do think it’s trending towards, it used to be where law school, people would just go straight through and I think there’s definitely a huge movement and has been in the last 10 years, maybe 15 years, where people are getting work experience before starting. So it depends, it depends every year, but I’d say, I mean, there’s a good chunk of people who are coming with a year, two years. out of undergrad, but there certainly is plenty of other applicants who know they want to go to law school and are committed to going right after undergrad.

Speaker 1: Yeah. And there’s a lot of great ways to get work experience too, like, while you’re in undergrad. And so we’ll see students who did internships or volunteer opportunities or who have been involved in a certain, you know, maybe sport or hobby since their high school years or even their middle school years. So there’s a lot of ways to show that commitment, to show resilience, to show stick-to-itiveness that are not just, like, oh, I worked in this industry for five years. There’s a lot of other ways to do that. So it really is applicant-specific.

Naomi: Yes. And I think, too, a lot of people who do take gap years, they think, oh, I have to be working as a legal assistant or as a paralegal or doing something in the legal field, but really, like, I think a lot of our applicants are doing things that are, like, seemingly unrelated to law, but they’re developing a skill set that will be applicable to a legal career. Like, I mean, and I think people, as long as you’re intentional with your time, like, as long as you’re like, here’s my plan, I traveled, I spent time in, you know, South Korea visiting family and taking classes, or I was working as a ski instructor doing this, but also shadowing and talking to attorneys. Like, if your plan is intentional, I feel like the gap year or years can look…

Speaker 1: Absolutely. And that’s where spending those years either in college or in a gap year, doing something that you really enjoy, or exploring things that you enjoy, trying things out, and maybe finding that they’re not for you. All of that information is going to help you in law school. It’s not time lost to try things, you know, to try different fields, to, you know, pursue a hobby. All of those things that are unique to you will very much help you as an attorney. And, you know, for a few years in a row, we had a preponderance of professional divers at WashU Law. It was just a thing. I don’t, we weren’t like specifically like recruiting professional divers or anything, that we’re not against that, but it was just a happenstance. And really, the thing is, you know, really, any diver could be an attorney and could be a great attorney. Not any attorney could be a diver.

Naomi: That’s so true.

Speaker 1: So you just got to bring your skills, bring the things that are unique about you to this next step of grad school and to pursuing a JD. And I think too, some people say on the other hand, you know, there’s like, oh, should I come straight through? But some people are like, am I too advanced or too, said another way, too old to come to law school at this point in my life? And we have many people who are in second careers, third careers, like coming. I mean, we have had people who are in their 70s graduate from law school. Like, like there is no, there is no range or like the committee really looks at, as Naomi said, unique experiences.

Naomi: Yeah, there’s no like right or wrong. I mean, there’s, of course, right times, but there’s really no like wrong time to come to this next step in your career, your education, all of those things. And then, you know, as far as like, what the committee is looking for, we do get a lot of questions about like my LSAT and GPA, what if they’re not good enough? And people do look at applicants, look at medians when they’re applying to law schools. And I know for a lot of top law schools, us included, our medians are so, so high, but that’s just the median. There’s, you know, 50% of students are some scores below that. And so, Claire, can you speak to a little bit to that if someone is kind of feeling that way about their LSAT GPA or any of those?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say kind of take a look at your whole package. And don’t hyperfocus on LSAT GPA. Certainly take it, you have to take it into account because the committee will look at it unless you apply redacted review. But I think you need to just like do a bird’s eye view. And again, just because you’re below median, does your score signal that you could be successful in a legal program? Will you be successful academically? And generally speaking, if you’ve graduated from undergrad or, you know, are on your way, the answer is yes, and you have great work experience and skill sets. So try not to get too hung up on the medians and don’t count yourself out. That’s another thing. Do not count yourself out. Oh, and look at the school’s ranges. Go to the ABA 509 report and look at the school’s 25th percentile and the school’s 75th, but certainly the school’s 25th. And you’ll see, like, wow, like they’re admitting a very large range, at least for WashU. For example, this year, our 25th was 162. So 25% of our class is below that. And then, you know, 162 to 173 is a lot of, a lot of people who we were admitting. So don’t count yourself out. You know, highlight your other experiences if you feel like your LSAT and or GPA are not the shining star strengths of your file.

Naomi: Yeah. And then as far as like how to highlight those experiences, you know, should you include an addenda or what types of addenda should you include? And like, how do you really communicate that through an application? So a personal statement and resume are great, great tools, but then there’s those addendas also.

Speaker 1: Yeah, the addenda is a great place to just tell more of your story. So essentially, again, if you look at this bird’s eye view, Wash U Law, every school is gonna be different, does over 5,000 applications, right, a year for a class of 250. So the committee is looking for, to fill those seats of 250, people with different experiences and perspectives. And that 250 is an estimation. Maybe it’ll be more, maybe it’ll be less. We never know. It changes every year.

Naomi: Yeah, yeah, exactly. That’s an important point.

Speaker 1: But roughly, let’s say 250, some less, some more. So, how can you show, I am bringing this perspective that not a, not many other people have. Not every, so the addendum can be a really good way to to highlight that. And it doesn’t have to be like, you’ve climbed Everest or you’ve like done, you know, whatever it is. Like, it could be something that seems mundane, but it’s just a different perspective. You can add this to the addenda in kind of lived experiences, unique perspectives. So that, that’s a way. And then also character and fitness. I feel like we need to talk about that too.

Naomi: Right, and so character and fitness, those are questions on an application that every student needs to answer about past, you know, legal interactions, any legal proceedings that they they went through, any sort of disciplinary actions in undergrad. And it’s five or six questions. You answer yes or no to these. And anything you answer yes to, you do need to give a conduct explanation and just explain whatever it is. Like if there was a disciplinary action in undergrad or some sort of legal proceeding that that you were part of. And Claire, what, why do people need to answer these questions truthfully and then, B, need to explain?

Speaker 1: Okay, I’m so glad you’ve teed me up for this one. Here’s the deal. You, okay, disclose, like disclose everything. Even if you don’t think, oh, this happened and I’m not even sure if there was a report. Like, put that in the agenda because here’s what will happen. You will have an amazing three years at Wash U Law or wherever you go to law school if that, hopefully, Wash U. And then the time will come where you’re like, I think I’m gonna take the New York Bar. And the New York Bar examiners will say, uh-oh, we got to go through and do a character and fitness. or whoever bar, whatever bar you take, they’ll go through, and they’ll, they’ll go back to your application file, and they’ll say, oh man, we found this, this, disciplinary action when we reached out to your undergraduate institution that doesn’t match up with your file. You didn’t disclose it. And when those don’t match, it causes a bunch of other issues. And probably what you did initially, time has passed, it’s not that bad, right? It’s probably not that bad. And even if it was that bad, you’ve done so many amazing things in three years.

Naomi: Or it was likely resolved in undergrad.

Speaker 1: That’s the thing.

Naomi: Resolved, or at a different time of your life, right? You’re a different person now.

Speaker 1: But then it comes back to haunt you whenever they’re like, why didn’t you disclose this? So, at least I can speak, the Wash U Law admissions committee has seen it all. I think a lot of people are like, oh, what I did is like horrible, but it’s like as long as you’ve shown growth, you’ve moved on, you’re not gonna do it again.

Naomi: Accountability.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Naomi: Accountability, responsibility. Like, nothing, generally speaking. Some things may hurt your chance of admission, but it’s just disclose it.

Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and it’s, and that consistency is important. You know, we can’t speak to what bars are looking for because every state’s bar has, you know, their unique rules, you know, their, their way of doing things. So when you are looking at filling out these questions, you know, you can reach out to the state bar that you are thinking you’re interested in taking. You know, a lot of people know ahead of time they want to take the California bar. They want to take the New York bar to get clarification on things. But really, erring on the side of just disclosing every, every single thing you’re humanly aware of can just help a lot of that heartache later down the line. And just to underscore, that’s why we ask. So we’re not asking, and schools aren’t asking just to, like, get into your personal business, but we’re asking so we know that you can come and practice law in the state you want to practice in. We know that we wanna know what character and fitness issues you have, so when the bar, the bar examiners do their investigation.

Naomi: Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1: We know your chances are good.

Naomi: Your chances are good, and, and we can work with you on things.

Speaker 1: Yeah, we can work with you on things.

Naomi: Yeah, yeah, there’s, I know sometimes character and fitness issues, very rare, but they do come up during law school, and there’s mechanisms that students would need to just go through in law school to clear things up before they take the bar. All kinds of life happens in grad school, all kinds of life happens before that. And trust us, there’s nothing we haven’t seen. And so we’re just here to work with you on that.

What does our student pool look like? Like, you know, what types of applicants are we looking at, and maybe what is the committee looking for from this applicant pool?

Speaker 1: Yeah, so years out of school, like we’ve talked about, it can range. Somebody coming straight through to someone retiring from a career as a physician or as a career as an accountant or a military career, someone retiring who wants to start act two or act three.

Naomi: Yeah.

Speaker 1: It really ranges the spectrum. Many people come to, I think it’s important to note, many people come with their families. Like many, we have many students who have children who certainly have spouses who are working. Some come with parents.

Naomi: Parents.

Speaker 1: Like it is, it really, really ranges the spectrum. And yeah, I could speak. There’s no like, oh, we have this many people who are coming from this state or this many people. It’s really what does the make-up of the applicant pool looks like. But I think it’s important to note the whole practice of law is challenging, challenging people’s opinions, challenging facts, challenging the way you look at things. So the committee really wants to create classrooms where Naomi may look at something totally different than the way I look at it. Totally, completely different perspectives. It’s like civil discourse, being able to be like, I see your point, but here’s my perspective, right? It’s like, so that is what, that’s like the goal, the objective, hence why we want diversity in all these different areas.

Naomi: All different perspectives, backgrounds, goals after law school, everything.

Speaker 1: Everything. To kind of simulate the real world one, but also, yeah, the practice of law during first year, second year, third year. So years out of school all over the board, majors. Okay. This is gonna be like, do not feel bad if you’re a poli-sci or history major. Those are great. Those are great majors. But I want to empower people too. It’s very law schools, we’re seeing a trend where it used to be all poli-sci, all English, history. Now, I mean…

Naomi: We see so many different majors.

Speaker 1: A lot of STEM.

Naomi: A lot of STEM, the practice of law, the world has changé, I mean with AI and all of these things, Like STEM.

Speaker 1: There’s so much emerging law that relates to so many different backgrounds and majors. It is, it’s so true. I mean, if you’re like, I can speak for myself, so I, I’m an education major. I always knew I wanted to go to law school, but I was like, if for some reason law school falls through, I have my teaching degree. I’ll be able to teach. So there’s, there’s all sorts of justifications and reasons why people may come in with different majors. And I think it can be attractive to the committee.

Naomi: Yeah, absolutely. And choosing a major that you enjoy and you’re passionate about, you’re probably more likely to do well in that major. So yeah, just don’t feel like you need to choose a major based on, like, specifically law or you know, pre-law track or criminal justice, anything like that. Really just choose something that you like. You’ll hopefully enjoy your time then in undergrad and and really thrive in in your major. And then, you know, we’ve touched on this a little bit around like, you know, years out of school and when people are coming to law school, but people do always ask us, like, you know, am I too old for law school? And as Claire was saying earlier, we’ve had people in their 70s who come to law school. There’s no sort of age or any time that is a bad time to come to getting a JD.

And I think too, another thing about WashU that I wanna dispel too is, well… Not WashU, but just generally law schools. Some people think of law schools as even the top law schools as more regional. Like, oh, the makeup of the student body is around where the school is located. And for WashU, we love St. Louis, and we always admit, you know, there’s always people in a class who are from St. Louis, but most of the people when you come to WashU are going to be from all over the map.

Speaker 1: Yeah, 75 to 80% of the class, maybe, depending on the year. I know it changes, are from outside of the area.

Naomi: Yeah, outside Missouri, and I think it’s been like over 80% some years. And we have students from 38 states this year. I mean, 10 different countries, I think, too.

Speaker 1: Yeah, like it is, and that’s really important to us because I think, you know, back to the kind of diversity of thought and diversity of lived experiences.

Naomi: Is having people from everywhere.

Speaker 1: Having people from everywhere and our reality is people go everywhere, too, on the backside. When they graduate, like, if you come to WashU, you can really write your ticket on where you wanna practice, where you wanna be geographically. So we have people from…

Naomi: Yeah, we are quite expert in placing students in all different practice areas and all different geographic locations. So, like all different markets. And so, yeah, we place in our biggest placement markets are, because it changes every year. It changes based on that, yeah, student. But I know Chicago, New York, DC are usually like top three. And then outside of that, was it Atlanta this year or was it Colorado and Steph?

Speaker 1: Yes, Colorado was big.

Naomi: Yeah, Colorado was big this year. Texas has been big in the last couple of years. We’ve had some…

Speaker 1: LA, San Francisco, really upticks. It’s been like really all over the map.

Naomi: Yeah. And as a, as a Californian myself, I’m always so, like, sensitive to the fact that we do regard, you know, of course, like different Texas markets as distinct, but the California markets, they’re all very, very different. And so if a student wants to go back to one, you know, we’re really helpful in identifying what’s needed for that specific market.

Speaker 1: Absolutely. And then, you know, there are a lot of good law schools in the country, in the world. So why should a candidate apply? Like we get this, why, why should, what’s, what sets WashU apart?

Naomi: Yeah. And so that’s a great question. And so we can tell you some of the feedback we get of why people choose to apply and then why they choose to matriculate. If they want the whole country and really the world is their placement market because we do place people in so, so many different areas. And then also, like really niche practice areas as well. We have a lot of students who go into like environmental intellectual property, or maybe they want to study a very specific type of tax law or do a very specific type of clerkship. And some of the, not some of, we have many individualized resources at WashU Law. And so with that, each class being around 250ish students, having, you know, four legal journals, 18 clinics, a large faculty, all of these resources, they’re for all students and you can really have an individual and unique experience and you’re not competing with other students for resources. So those are some, just some of the reasons we hear why people apply and then why people choose to come here and love their experience. Claire, what are maybe some of the things you’ve heard?

Speaker 1: Yeah, I think too, I love it when people could come visit, get on campus, meet other students, because it really is like a feel.

Naomi: It is a feel.

Speaker 1: It’s a feel. And just like you said, people go to all sorts of markets, so not everybody’s competing for the same jobs in the same market. People can get into classes that they wanna take. They can get in clinics they wanna take. It’s just, yeah, it’s a great place to spend three years. And I think too, you want a challenging legal education. You want to be prepared, so the rigor comes with it. But you also want a place where you’re, like, generally can enjoy three years of your life.

Naomi: Enjoy your life, yeah.

Speaker 1: Yeah, you can, because it is three years. It’s a time investment. It’s a financial investment. So you definitely wanna go somewhere where you’re like, Yup, I could be happy here. I know it’ll be stressful at times, but I could be happy here. So, yeah.

Naomi: And there’s definitely a lot to be happy about at the law school. I mean, the community at the law school specifically, and the experience you’ll have, but then also, I mean, I’ll always be, you know, on my podium about St. Louis. The quality of life in St. Louis is so, so high. And this would be even if St. Louis happened to be expensive to live in, but it’s not. So it’s an extremely high quality of life and then it just happens to be a low cost of living. So those things all sort of combined make it a pretty unique set of features that we’ve got to offer.

Speaker 1: Yeah, and I feel like, to that point, and we’ve got someone from a coast here, Naomi, but I want to tackle this head on, because a lot of people are like, I’m not sure about St. Louis. It’s what some people say. I can’t even say it out loud, but FOC, flyover country, which is not.

Naomi: It’s also in the middle.

Speaker 1: It’s also in the middle. And I feel like for whatever reason, people get, like, a little bit skeptical. Like, what’s it like to live there? It is, I’ve been here since 2009, and I just love it. Every day I’m like, I’m so happy. Maybe not every day, but I mean, every day, I think. I love St. Louis. I’m happy to be here. There’s green space. There’s hiking. There’s museums. There’s concerts. There’s great food.

Naomi: Yeah, the food is amazing. The art, the culture, it’s a very dynamic community. There’s so many professionals, you know, with our medical school, with our, you know, Cortex and the Innovation District. There’s just…

Speaker 1: There’s so, so much going on here. It’s a really exciting place to live. And I’ve lived here for, oh goodness, so 2004. So I’ve lived here for a while, going on 20 years. OK, I’m dating myself.

Naomi: Nothing wrong with that.

Speaker 1: But that’s, California hasn’t stolen you back yet.

Naomi: It’s not stolen me back yet. A lot of us Californians do actually end up staying in St. Louis. We know when we’ve found a good thing. And so we end up staying. So it’s just a thing that happens.

Speaker 1: Yeah, but I cannot say enough good things about the city. I adore it. And I’ve lived all over St. Louis. And every time I move, I’m like, OK, this is it. I found my spot. I’m never leaving this spot. And then I move to a different neighborhood. And I just, I love that one, you know, just as much. And if you come visit us, we have, this year we have our admissions ambassadors, so they’re all current students. But they have a little card with their favorite things, restaurants, like all sorts of recs. We can point you in the right direction of what to do, where to go, what to eat.

Naomi: Yeah, what to eat. I mean, that’s my favorite topic.

Speaker 1: Yes.

Naomi: Yeah, there’s so many good options. And then, OK, so coming back to, you know, what we’re looking for in applications and people, you know, asking questions about their applications. What are the most common mistakes that people make on their application?

Speaker 1: I think like not maximizing the space, so not using the agenda. Not that you have to submit agenda, but just like telling your authentic story.

Naomi: Yeah.

Speaker 1: And also not writing about what you think you should be writing about. Like writing about what is true to you, what lights you up kind of in a good way. Like what sets you on fire, what gets you going. Like writing about that versus like, oh, I Googled, I should write about my study abroad trip. That may have been what gets you excited, but just don’t feel like you should write about something. You know, write about, stay true to yourself, I guess, is what I can always tell the difference, I feel like, in a personal statement where the passion sometimes is lacking, or, you know.

Naomi: Absolutely, or writing about something. It’s also great to write about something where maybe it’s a, you know, a challenge bested, or something that didn’t go quite to plan, just to show your experience and what you learned from something. So it doesn’t always have to be, like, oh, you know, FYI, I’m great, and I’m always great, and the best. Like, it can be, you know, something that you came through, an experience that you really learned from. And like Claire was saying, really maximizing your application and the things that you write. And so sometimes we’ll see personal statements where someone writes about something that was impactful in that maybe they have a hero that, or someone in their life that’s very important to them, so they write about how great this person is. And while we do, you know, love reading those inspiring stories, the goal here really is to get to know you and your aspirations, your leadership qualities, your experiences, aspects of your identity that relate to your experiences. We just do truly want to get to know you. So yeah, just really maximizing that space.

Speaker 1: I think it’s worth mentioning that you can apply completely fee-free on our, well, you can apply, we have no application fee on LSAC. You do have to pay for a CAS report. The CAS waiver, or the CAS, yeah.

Naomi: Yeah, which is, I think, $45 right now. That’s through LSAC, but, but no application fee. A lot of schools still have it, we don’t. So proud of that. You can apply completely fee-free on our website.

Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, no fees at all. So there’s lots of ways to apply, no application fee for WashU Law. We would love to receive your application, and we would also love to receive and hear your questions, if you have questions about the application process. If you have questions about your application materials specifically, you can schedule a consultation with one of our current students, and they’ll go over your application materials with you. In the office, our team members, we cannot because we’ll also be the people, you know, doing part of the review of your application. So, but we do have current students who are happy to help with application materials.

Naomi: Yeah, we have a lot of resources and really, we just want to get to know you and really give you access to the information you need for this whole process. So thank you so much for joining us today. Please do email in, call in if you have any questions at all. And we will see you at one of our next episodes. Thanks so much.