Latest / Admissions Straight Talk / How GW Law Reviews Applications: Timing, Waitlists, LSAT Optional, and Scholarships [Episode 616]

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How GW Law Reviews Applications: Timing, Waitlists, LSAT Optional, and Scholarships [Episode 616] · Admissions Straight Talk

• 0:00
  Brigitte: Hello, and welcome to Admission Straight Talk, the podcast that brings you the inside scoop on what it takes to get accepted and thrive at the world's top academic programs.
• 0:08
  Brigitte: Today we're talking about all things law school.
• 0:11
  Brigitte: My name is Brigitte, and I'll be speaking with Assistant Dean Sophia Sim from George Washington Law School.
• 0:16
  Brigitte: Tune in to hear some inside intel on how to approach your law school applications.
• 0:21
  Brigitte: Before diving in, I just want to introduce myself because I'm a new host.
• 0:36
  Brigitte: My name is Brigitte, and I work with Accepted to advise students who are looking to go to law school.
• 0:42
  Brigitte: It's a long process.
• 0:43
  Brigitte: I have lots of questions.
• 0:44
  Brigitte: My students have lots of questions.
• 0:46
  Brigitte: So we're excited for this opportunity to speak with Sophia.
• 0:49
  Brigitte: Also, we've intered uh interviewed Sophia once before, so I hope listeners will go back to that interview.
• 0:55
  Brigitte: Can learn a lot of interesting things about GW and what makes them unique.
• 0:59
  Brigitte: Sophia, welcome.
• 1:00
  Brigitte: Thank you.
• 1:01
  Brigitte: Thanks for coming over today.
• 1:02
  Brigitte: And I did have a couple kind of big picture questions, and then I wanted to get into the nitty-gritty of some of your prompts at GW and also what you're looking for at GW.
• 1:12
  Brigitte: So I think students get get confused with all the overlapping prompts and all the details, and sometimes hearing straight from someone who works in this day in, day out is just really helpful for them.
• 1:23
  Brigitte: So that's what I'd love to do.
• 1:24
  Brigitte: Let's dive in.
• 1:25
  Brigitte: Yeah, just kind of on the big picture.
• 1:27
  Brigitte: What draws you to admissions work?
• 1:29
  Brigitte: What makes what do you love most about it?
• 1:31
  Brigitte: You know, I I kind of fell into this job 30 plus years ago.
• 1:36
  Sophia Sim: I I started out um thinking I was gonna practice traditional law, and then I took one of those Meyer Briggs tests, which I don't think people take these days anymore, but it said I should go into higher ed.
• 1:47
  Sophia Sim: And I disagreed vehemently and I took the test again and tried to skew my answers, and the same thing happened.
• 1:53
  Sophia Sim: I and I did enjoy my experience in law school and in uh college, you know, doing other things besides the just studying.
• 2:00
  Sophia Sim: And so I started my first job with legal counsel over at the University of Maryland and then had a director position, not in admissions, but I kept in touch with all my deans at my law school, and then an opportunity came up, and one of them, you know, this is I never really thought about networking, but this is a great example of why networking works because before I left, I I met with all the deans just to understand what they each did.
• 2:25
  Sophia Sim: Besides from a student perspective, I really wanted to understand if this was a career I should jump into.
• 2:30
  Sophia Sim: And every year I'd send them a little holiday card with my resume and say, you know, how are things going?
• 2:36
  Sophia Sim: And then four years later, I think one of the deans contacted me and said there was a position, was I interested?
• 2:42
  Sophia Sim: And that's how I fell into that job.
• 2:44
  Sophia Sim: And then here at GW, same thing happened.
• 2:47
  Sophia Sim: Someone had heard I was on some committee work and they asked me if I was interested in this applying for this position, and same thing.
• 2:54
  Sophia Sim: So one of the a good point toward the value of networking.
• 2:58
  Brigitte: That's great.
• 2:59
  Brigitte: That's really great to hear because we talk about that all the time.
• 3:01
  Brigitte: And this is just a good example of it actually happening and working really well.
• 3:05
  Brigitte: And then thinking, what do you consider to be the most challenging part of your job in admissions for a law school?
• 3:11
  Sophia Sim: Challenging for me is really, if you ask me this year, I would say all the changes within the financial aid, because I have both an admissions and a financial aid hat.
• 3:19
  Sophia Sim: So the different loan regulations, the department of ed, all that stuff is very challenging at this time.
• 3:24
  Sophia Sim: But overall, when I look over my um 30 years in law school admissions, I would say it's really the volume.
• 3:31
  Sophia Sim: Every school I've worked at has high volume.
• 3:33
  Sophia Sim: GW has the third largest volume of applications, you know, nine to 10,000 per year just for one else, not even including transfers.
• 3:41
  Sophia Sim: And with that comes, you know, emails and documentations and a lot to review applications, and then a lot of emails to go back and forth.
• 3:50
  Sophia Sim: And I feel like this generation and my kids are in college, so I hope I still connect with them.
• 3:57
  Sophia Sim: You know, they just uh even with my daughters, I'm firing off text all the time.
• 4:01
  Sophia Sim: And I feel like Africans see that with emails.
• 4:04
  Sophia Sim: They're just it's it's a conversation, it's not a one email where you answer everything.
• 4:08
  Sophia Sim: They go back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
• 4:10
  Sophia Sim: And next thing you know, you've you've exchanged 10 emails and and you've lost time to review applications and just managing all those things is a lot.
• 4:18
  Brigitte: So yeah, that that is a lot.
• 4:20
  Brigitte: And we're gonna I have a question about that a little bit later about how students manage the waitlist process because sometimes I sense there's what they want to do, and another is the reality of what you would like them to do.
• 4:30
  Sophia Sim: Yeah, that's a good point.
• 4:31
  Sophia Sim: Yeah.
• 4:32
  Brigitte: Yeah.
• 4:32
  Sophia Sim: And then there's all these changes.
• 4:34
  Sophia Sim: Admissions is not static, especially at law school.
• 4:37
  Sophia Sim: I don't know if colleges change that much, but law school, you know, there's first there's digital LSAT, then there was taking the GRE, now there's JD next, and and of course we have a test optional process as well.
• 4:49
  Sophia Sim: So it's just a lot of changes that happen.
• 4:51
  Sophia Sim: So in technology, et cetera.
• 4:53
  Brigitte: So Yeah, and I'm definitely going to ask you about the the LSAT optional because that that's something that comes up, and I'd like to understand it a little bit better myself.
• 5:00
  Brigitte: Sure.
• 5:01
  Brigitte: Two more kind of big picture questions.
• 5:03
  Brigitte: What do you what do you wish applicants understood about the process that they don't seem to understand?
• 5:10
  Sophia Sim: You know, probably two things.
• 5:12
  Sophia Sim: One, I wish students understood that it's rolling admissions.
• 5:16
  Sophia Sim: Um, I know a number of law schools still try to review the bulk of applications closer to the deadline, but GW, because of our volume, we have to keep the trains running, keep decisions.
• 5:29
  Sophia Sim: So we start making decisions in mid-October.
• 5:32
  Sophia Sim: And sometimes our class is full by the end of January, even before March 1st deadline.
• 5:37
  Sophia Sim: So applying earlier in the cycle does help you.
• 5:40
  Sophia Sim: And that's true for a lot of schools.
• 5:42
  Sophia Sim: There's that.
• 5:43
  Sophia Sim: And then the other thing is I think the merit scholarships on the back end, right?
• 5:47
  Sophia Sim: It is a finite pool of funds.
• 5:49
  Sophia Sim: It's not infinite, it's not the person that is the most aggressive or pushes the hardest, gets the largest amount of money.
• 5:57
  Sophia Sim: I mean, we have certain parameters.
• 5:59
  Sophia Sim: We we try to be equitable.
• 6:01
  Sophia Sim: The last thing we want is for two students to come in as part of our entering class and to hear one person got double the amount of scholarship because they kept emailing and calling.
• 6:10
  Sophia Sim: That's not the way it works.
• 6:11
  Sophia Sim: And I know there's a lot out there where people think, yeah, that's all you need to do.
• 6:15
  Sophia Sim: And that's not true at all.
• 6:17
  Sophia Sim: So yeah.
• 6:18
  Brigitte: Yeah, that's that's great.
• 6:20
  Brigitte: And and I we're about to enter that phase as well where people do try to see what they can get because it is an expensive proposition.
• 6:27
  Brigitte: So again, on the one hand, you understand the student wanting to maximize their aid.
• 6:31
  Brigitte: On the other, I do understand you want to keep that equitable so that students aren't comparing and getting you know, it's tight before they even get there.
• 6:39
  Sophia Sim: Yeah, delve into merit scholarships, but it's become its own little kind of animal.
• 6:44
  Sophia Sim: Um, yeah, it's it's almost as as big of a project as reviewing applications and making decisions at this point.
• 6:51
  Sophia Sim: I think students just really it is an investment in your legal career, and and I get it's expensive, but um, it's also it what's hard is if you really want to come to GW and maybe a slight, a slight increase will make a difference.
• 7:07
  Sophia Sim: I'm happy to have that conversation.
• 7:08
  Sophia Sim: I want to have that conversation with you.
• 7:10
  Sophia Sim: And I and I think that's true for many law schools, even if they say they don't do reconsideration, if you're talking to them in person.
• 7:16
  Sophia Sim: But I also think if you are admitted to 10 schools and you shoot an email to 10 different schools and you have this spreadsheet, it I, you know, that's not that's not a conversation a lot of schools want to have because they really want you to vary kind of narrowed down those choices before you get to that.
• 7:32
  Sophia Sim: And I and I understand from the students, it's almost the opposite, right?
• 7:35
  Sophia Sim: They want to see who's who gives them the largest package.
• 7:38
  Brigitte: So yeah, but that every once in a while I do run into the student where I feel like it for them, it's almost this competition.
• 7:44
  Brigitte: How many schools can I get the most money out of?
• 7:47
  Brigitte: And you know, that's probably not the best approach.
• 7:50
  Brigitte: And at I usually counsel them at that point just to really think what do you want and then go for that rather than keep, you know, all these 10 in the air.
• 7:59
  Brigitte: But great advice.
• 8:00
  Sophia Sim: That's excellent.
• 8:01
  Sophia Sim: Excellent advice.
• 8:03
  Brigitte: And then just just briefly on the the timing issue, because that's something that comes up all the time.
• 8:07
  Brigitte: You know, in my perfect world, I advise a certain timeline and I try to get my students to, you know, apply by October, November.
• 8:14
  Brigitte: And I think that works for all the reasons that you're talking about.
• 8:17
  Brigitte: What happens when someone applies yesterday, February 1st?
• 8:22
  Brigitte: Uh, who from that pile gets seen?
• 8:25
  Brigitte: I have suspect, I know.
• 8:27
  Brigitte: And who maybe languages languishes and never really gets seen?
• 8:31
  Sophia Sim: Right.
• 8:32
  Sophia Sim: And so that's a tough question.
• 8:33
  Sophia Sim: And I I always tell students, I don't want to cause panic or anxiety because if you feel that you you can put together a stronger application if you wait until after Thanksgiving or in early January, then you then you should wait, right?
• 8:47
  Sophia Sim: You don't want to put together a, you want to be ready to hit submit before you do, but you also want to plan ahead if you can and get it in as early as possible.
• 8:56
  Sophia Sim: So February 1st, I mean, I review the bulk of applications as does the director and the associate director here within my office.
• 9:04
  Sophia Sim: So we're all looking at the applications.
• 9:07
  Sophia Sim: It's just there's very few spaces at this point.
• 9:10
  Sophia Sim: And so um, so we are looking very carefully.
• 9:15
  Sophia Sim: I think we try to employ a holistic process.
• 9:18
  Sophia Sim: It's more holistic at the beginning when we're fresh and we haven't reviewed.
• 9:21
  Sophia Sim: I mean, I think I I've reviewed about 4,200 applications at this point, right?
• 9:26
  Sophia Sim: And so it just really depends where you are and and how strong, because we're comparing you to the other applicants at this point, and can you stand out from them?
• 9:36
  Brigitte: Yeah, that's really that's really good advice.
• 9:38
  Brigitte: So it's really good to hear you say that because it gives credence to this idea that you should apply as early as you can.
• 9:45
  Brigitte: Of course, sometimes things happen.
• 9:47
  Brigitte: You know, we never plan to have a January L set, but sometimes it does happen.
• 9:51
  Brigitte: And so you you kind of have to know what you're getting into.
• 9:54
  Brigitte: What's one thing in the process that confounds you from the from the applicant side?
• 9:58
  Brigitte: Some something head scratching that candidates do or say.
• 10:03
  Sophia Sim: You know, it's always the small things that that confound me.
• 10:07
  Sophia Sim: I think, you know, not always being impolite, I would say, not to me necessarily, but to others in my office, because I I do hear about that, or just not understanding this is a professional school, we're assessing you on it on a number of qualities.
• 10:23
  Sophia Sim: And here's a good example.
• 10:24
  Sophia Sim: I had a Zoom session of an information session last week.
• 10:28
  Sophia Sim: Someone who did, you know, it's always nice to see the few faces on camera.
• 10:33
  Sophia Sim: I I always remember who they are, but this person didn't show their face on camera.
• 10:37
  Sophia Sim: And then at the end I took questions.
• 10:39
  Sophia Sim: And I think it's pretty common now.
• 10:41
  Sophia Sim: People know you either raise your hand or you used a little hand emoticon.
• 10:45
  Sophia Sim: Um, and what she did was she kept asking questions, even though there was people that raised their hand.
• 10:51
  Sophia Sim: She just kept talking.
• 10:52
  Sophia Sim: And I said, Well, there actually is an order.
• 10:54
  Sophia Sim: She explained that she couldn't see that, and then would continue to ask her question.
• 11:00
  Sophia Sim: And then I said, Well, if you can't see, maybe put it in the chat.
• 11:02
  Sophia Sim: There's someone monitoring it.
• 11:04
  Sophia Sim: And then she said that her answer's question wasn't getting answered quickly enough that she would like to get her answer now.
• 11:11
  Sophia Sim: So those kind of, you know, there is some etiquette to that, I think that we are it, and obviously, a virtual session is not an info session, is not designed to assess you for application, but it's hard to forget her, right?
• 11:24
  Sophia Sim: And her name.
• 11:24
  Sophia Sim: And so I would say those kind of things like just being respectful and polite through this process and understand we're we're moving as quickly as we can.
• 11:34
  Sophia Sim: And um just treating everybody with a level of respect is something that I think is important, not here, but also in your legal career as well.
• 11:43
  Sophia Sim: So that would be something that it just puzzles me a little bit about why do that?
• 11:48
  Sophia Sim: Do you think there's a level of anonymity that there really isn't always?
• 11:53
  Brigitte: That's great.
• 11:54
  Brigitte: That's that's a really good example.
• 11:55
  Brigitte: Yeah, where you've distinguished yourself in the negative direction.
• 11:58
  Brigitte: Yes, that's a good way to way to put it.
• 12:01
  Sophia Sim: I know some people are always trying to stand out in a positive way.
• 12:04
  Sophia Sim: And that's great too.
• 12:05
  Sophia Sim: Emailing or saying hello or or stopping by our table or something, but it's those few rare cases where you remember.
• 12:13
  Brigitte: So let's talk a little bit about the wait list scenario.
• 12:16
  Brigitte: Um, earlier in the cycle, it seemed like uh GW was wait listing a lot of folks who didn't have 170.
• 12:23
  Brigitte: So that's a lot of folks.
• 12:24
  Brigitte: So you're gonna have a pretty robust wait list, I'm assuming.
• 12:28
  Brigitte: Tell me a little bit about what to do, what not to do.
• 12:31
  Brigitte: Sometimes students, they're nervous and well, they're nervous and they haven't heard it all.
• 12:36
  Brigitte: And so they want to communicate pre-wait list, you know, decision.
• 12:40
  Brigitte: Is that okay and when is that okay?
• 12:42
  Brigitte: And then once there's a wait list, what what's what's the right process for them?
• 12:46
  Sophia Sim: Sure.
• 12:47
  Sophia Sim: So we try to provide as much information in our wait list uh decision letter as we can, letting them know the list is unranked, that we have scheduled several virtual sessions to kind of answer any questions that someone may have.
• 13:00
  Sophia Sim: But the wait list process doesn't really kick off until after our first deposit.
• 13:05
  Sophia Sim: So after April 15th.
• 13:06
  Sophia Sim: So nothing is gonna happen until then.
• 13:09
  Sophia Sim: You're welcome to send emails, letters of continued interest, but and people will respond and we will collect that information, but we will not review an application again until after April 15th because we're so busy trying to do an initial review of all the other people that have applied at this point.
• 13:25
  Sophia Sim: So, so nothing is going to happen.
• 13:27
  Sophia Sim: And I occasionally get emails and I always respond to them as well.
• 13:31
  Sophia Sim: So there's nothing, it's one of the things we we do, maybe because my children went through the uh the college application process.
• 13:39
  Sophia Sim: You don't want to feel like a number, right?
• 13:40
  Sophia Sim: You want to feel like this is a school you might want to attend.
• 13:44
  Sophia Sim: And and the only the least I can do is respond to your emails.
• 13:47
  Sophia Sim: So now if I get thousands of them, that's totally different, different matter.
• 13:51
  Sophia Sim: But I don't get that many.
• 13:53
  Sophia Sim: And I don't think many of our people in our office do as well.
• 13:56
  Sophia Sim: So it's perfectly fine.
• 13:57
  Sophia Sim: It's a little different than the undergraduate admissions process, I think, from most law school admissions offices.
• 14:02
  Sophia Sim: So welcome to reach out.
• 14:04
  Sophia Sim: So what we tell people in the letter is that most years we do pull over 50 students into our entering class.
• 14:11
  Sophia Sim: So, and in reaching out to 50, we move very quickly and we we reach out to multiple people.
• 14:17
  Sophia Sim: So, say we anticipate a space opening up in April, a couple weeks prior.
• 14:23
  Sophia Sim: We won't reach out to until April 15th.
• 14:25
  Sophia Sim: This is our deposit.
• 14:26
  Sophia Sim: We won't reach out to the wait list until early May.
• 14:28
  Sophia Sim: Let me just be clear and not creating confusion.
• 14:31
  Sophia Sim: But typically what we do, we'll do a kickoff email in early May to kind of say we're starting the wait list, confirm your interest, things like that.
• 14:38
  Sophia Sim: And we tend to go with those that respond.
• 14:42
  Sophia Sim: Everybody else that does not respond to that initial email, we will then email once more to say we assume you're no longer interested.
• 14:49
  Sophia Sim: We wish you the best of luck.
• 14:50
  Sophia Sim: And then we'll just move forward with without them.
• 14:53
  Sophia Sim: Um, then in the times that we expect a space to be open, what we will do is we'll typically email, say, 20 people and say, we anticipate a space, you'll have very little time to make that decision.
• 15:06
  Sophia Sim: Do you remain interested?
• 15:08
  Sophia Sim: Um, they'll respond.
• 15:10
  Sophia Sim: Not everybody does because we're moving again very quickly within a day or two.
• 15:13
  Sophia Sim: So maybe we receive about 10 emails.
• 15:16
  Sophia Sim: We go through, we probably extend two or three offers for every space and then go on.
• 15:21
  Sophia Sim: So as you can see, we actually are reaching out to almost the entire wait list by the end of our cycle.
• 15:26
  Sophia Sim: So, but again, it depends what we're looking for.
• 15:30
  Sophia Sim: What we really like is to admit those from the wait list that are interested in GW because we know you've been waiting.
• 15:37
  Sophia Sim: The last thing at that point, usually there aren't that many scholars, there's not much scholarships left.
• 15:42
  Sophia Sim: Um, it depends who withdrew, if there's any funds available.
• 15:46
  Sophia Sim: And so we're not there to have a lengthy discussion.
• 15:50
  Sophia Sim: Should I, should I not?
• 15:51
  Sophia Sim: How big can my offer be?
• 15:53
  Sophia Sim: That's not really the wait list, is just designed to quickly fill this year's entering class.
• 15:57
  Sophia Sim: And especially since we have a number of summer initiatives, we have a career jump start that kicks off.
• 16:02
  Sophia Sim: We have an eight-part free virtual intro to one L class that we do in groups of eight.
• 16:08
  Sophia Sim: So we really want to get you onboarded as quickly as possible.
• 16:12
  Brigitte: That's great.
• 16:13
  Brigitte: That's really good great information that students are asking.
• 16:16
  Brigitte: So it's really good to hear the nitty-gritty.
• 16:18
  Brigitte: What about, okay, so they've been waitlisted, let's say.
• 16:22
  Brigitte: Is one letter of continued interest between sometime between when they were waitlisted and April 15th?
• 16:28
  Brigitte: Is that sufficient?
• 16:29
  Sophia Sim: We will ask you, I will specifically say in that kickoff email in early May that even if you've submitted something, we ask you to submit again.
• 16:36
  Sophia Sim: Because even if you tell us in January that you're absolutely 100% committed to coming, you're still waiting to hear from other schools or scholarship offers, or maybe you're signing a lease or looking at apartments.
• 16:48
  Sophia Sim: Who knows what's the there's a lot that's gonna happen within that five months.
• 16:51
  Sophia Sim: And so that's why we would ask you to just resubmit, even if it's the exact same letter.
• 16:57
  Sophia Sim: We just want to confirm that you're still interested.
• 17:00
  Sophia Sim: And hopefully you have some updates, right?
• 17:02
  Sophia Sim: If you're still in college, maybe you've graduated with honors or something you want to let us know.
• 17:06
  Brigitte: Okay, that all makes good sense.
• 17:08
  Brigitte: So one one nice Loki that what we call them Loki's, but it's L O C I.
• 17:14
  Brigitte: So after that one big one, let's say, maybe you do it in advance, maybe you do it end of March, you do it early April, fine.
• 17:21
  Brigitte: Then you they'll get the communication from you, they'll do another one or reiterating.
• 17:26
  Brigitte: What happens after that?
• 17:28
  Brigitte: We we usually suggest every three to four weeks just a mini Loki, we call them.
• 17:33
  Brigitte: Yeah.
• 17:34
  Brigitte: So that you know they're still interested, right?
• 17:36
  Brigitte: Because you're right, any other day they could be getting an offer that they just decide to take.
• 17:41
  Brigitte: So how does that sound?
• 17:43
  Sophia Sim: Yes, you know, I would say actually every two weeks because every three weeks, the summer's short, right?
• 17:48
  Sophia Sim: Our our orientation is the second week of August, and so there really isn't that many times.
• 17:53
  Sophia Sim: What we will let you know is when our deposit deadlines are.
• 17:55
  Sophia Sim: So you certainly want to submit something right before.
• 17:58
  Sophia Sim: And these days, because every law school of the country uses uh the same system for applications is created by the law school admission council called Unite.
• 18:07
  Sophia Sim: Uh, we all use it.
• 18:09
  Sophia Sim: And so the students can upload their own low-key.
• 18:12
  Sophia Sim: So am I saying that right?
• 18:13
  Sophia Sim: Low-key, low-key.
• 18:15
  Sophia Sim: Anyway, they can um they can update it themselves.
• 18:18
  Sophia Sim: So you can submit as many as you want.
• 18:20
  Sophia Sim: Now, I wouldn't submit one every single day or every week, but every couple weeks is certainly reasonable.
• 18:26
  Sophia Sim: Um, even we we often have students sometimes call or email and say, I've got a deadline at this other school, right?
• 18:33
  Sophia Sim: But and once I make that deposit, I'm no longer, I need to make this decision or I need to sign a lease or something.
• 18:40
  Sophia Sim: And we will review one more time before that.
• 18:44
  Sophia Sim: Now, what you can't do is if it's not favorable, then say, well, I changed my mind, right?
• 18:49
  Sophia Sim: I don't I can wait longer.
• 18:50
  Sophia Sim: But if you really do have a hard and firm deadline, we have some people that have military issues that they need to hear about right away.
• 18:57
  Sophia Sim: And so we will do our best to try to give you a firm uh decision or talk to you and explain what's going on.
• 19:04
  Brigitte: Okay, that's that's all really good to know.
• 19:06
  Brigitte: And these subsequent letters of continued interest, can they be short?
• 19:10
  Brigitte: The ones that are coming every couple weeks.
• 19:12
  Brigitte: Is that okay for it just to be a little paragraph?
• 19:14
  Brigitte: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:16
  Sophia Sim: It doesn't have to be, you know, they're rarely more than a page as I think through all the ones I see.
• 19:21
  Sophia Sim: And and typically they become an many times they're an email.
• 19:24
  Sophia Sim: Now, what I will say is I I recall in the past, last summer, there's someone that sent the same three lines, right?
• 19:31
  Sophia Sim: Every single low-key.
• 19:33
  Sophia Sim: It was just an email with three lines.
• 19:35
  Sophia Sim: And when I was sorting by his name in the email account, I noticed it's it was just verve in the same email.
• 19:41
  Sophia Sim: And I started wondering if maybe that was just going to different schools, he was sending the exact same thing because it was very generic.
• 19:47
  Sophia Sim: And yeah.
• 19:48
  Sophia Sim: Um, I wondered, and I actually need them to say to ask some specific questions, and then the same response came back, and I thought, oh, he's just kind of hanging out, right?
• 19:57
  Sophia Sim: And so I would say the brevity of it doesn't matter, but and sometimes if it's repetitive, it's fine because maybe not that much has changed, but maybe a couple words would be different in in the email.
• 20:10
  Brigitte: A restatement, not a cut and paste.
• 20:12
  Sophia Sim: Yes.
• 20:13
  Brigitte: Yeah, yes.
• 20:13
  Brigitte: That that makes a lot of sense.
• 20:15
  Brigitte: I have seen students even within their own application, they'll kind of repeat the same thing over and over, cut and paste.
• 20:21
  Brigitte: I'm like, no, you've got to at least make the effort to to change it a little bit.
• 20:25
  Brigitte: And and we know it's a lot of work, but it's it's worth it.
• 20:28
  Sophia Sim: And to add to that, I think someone, not to go down this rabbit hole, but I think when we just in the search engine typed a couple sentences of one email, like a dozen emails popped up from a dozen different candidates, which made us when we went back and looked, we saw it was almost verbatim the same email, and we realized, oh, they must be pulling this from some website or something and just using it.
• 20:50
  Sophia Sim: That's not to say they're not interested.
• 20:52
  Sophia Sim: Maybe they really are and they were searching for a way, but again, it should be all emails should be written by the applicant.
• 21:00
  Brigitte: So that's really interesting.
• 21:02
  Brigitte: Yeah.
• 21:02
  Brigitte: You don't want them cutting and pasting from someone else's work or or just even, of course, chat GBT now.
• 21:09
  Sophia Sim: And and we only noticed it because back to back, two people emailed, it just popped up in the email account and it was the exact same email.
• 21:16
  Sophia Sim: And so we were like, oh, that's interesting.
• 21:18
  Sophia Sim: And then we're just we're as someone was trying to show me, and then they they remembered a couple and they typed in certain keywords, and then it was funny how many popped up.
• 21:26
  Brigitte: So gosh, that is really funny.
• 21:28
  Brigitte: I didn't we're not normally investigators like that.
• 21:30
  Brigitte: Probably gonna scare some some candidates, but um, maybe it'll scare them straight.
• 21:34
  Brigitte: We don't have a ton more time, but I do want to talk a little bit about the specific uh specifics of uh GW prompts, just because we've got you here, and you know, your prompt is very broad.
• 21:44
  Brigitte: I'm talking personal statement now, super broad.
• 21:46
  Brigitte: What do you really hope to see in that?
• 21:48
  Brigitte: I think I just to give the listeners a little bit of context.
• 21:51
  Brigitte: You may a personal statement is required and may include additional information you believe will assist the admissions committee in considering your applications.
• 21:59
  Brigitte: Is about as broad as you can get.
• 22:01
  Brigitte: So what are you hoping for?
• 22:03
  Sophia Sim: Yeah, so so we didn't want to give you an exact specific prompt.
• 22:06
  Sophia Sim: I know some schools go the other way and you write specifically about that.
• 22:10
  Sophia Sim: We wanted to give you a chance to talk about what you wanted to talk about, saying that it should not be a regurgitation of your resume and paragraph form.
• 22:18
  Sophia Sim: Generally, what I'm looking for is potential.
• 22:20
  Sophia Sim: I'm looking for certain qualities, resilience, grit is another word you've probably heard very often.
• 22:25
  Sophia Sim: I think this is a tough time in law school in education, job placement.
• 22:30
  Sophia Sim: So we want people that have that determination, that perseverance.
• 22:34
  Sophia Sim: Our dean has often used the three eyes.
• 22:36
  Sophia Sim: You could ask many people in this building and they would know that.
• 22:39
  Sophia Sim: And it is that she wants students that are going to go out there to influence, impact, and inspire.
• 22:44
  Sophia Sim: And so those are also qualities that we're looking for in a personal statement.
• 22:47
  Sophia Sim: So it's not a specific topic, it's more as we generally read and get a sense of who you are and and what make what your passion is.
• 22:57
  Brigitte: That's great.
• 22:58
  Brigitte: Yeah.
• 22:58
  Brigitte: And I've I've heard the three eyes from a GW.
• 23:01
  Brigitte: And those are great.
• 23:02
  Brigitte: Those are really great.
• 23:03
  Brigitte: And it and I'm guessing you also don't want students to, you know, specifically regurgitate those three eyes, but the concept of what it's are there any topics you think are out of bounds or anything you'd like to see less of?
• 23:17
  Sophia Sim: But I am not a big fan of why I want to be a lawyer and why I want to go to law school.
• 23:22
  Sophia Sim: Now I I know you kind of have to answer that directly in your personal statement, but I've read a lot over my career.
• 23:30
  Sophia Sim: And, you know, the why I want to be a lawyer is I've wanted to be a lawyer my whole life, or I've never wanted to be a lawyer until X happened to me.
• 23:38
  Sophia Sim: And, you know, here's what I've done, here's my resume.
• 23:41
  Sophia Sim: So why want to go to law school if you do it right should be why you want to go to GW law school.
• 23:47
  Sophia Sim: But then you're spitting the brochure and website back at us.
• 23:50
  Sophia Sim: And I feel like you really lose an opportunity to convey it's a personal statement, right?
• 23:55
  Sophia Sim: We want it to be personal.
• 23:56
  Sophia Sim: So I think that you know those can be solid topics.
• 23:59
  Sophia Sim: It's just hard to really in those formats.
• 24:02
  Sophia Sim: So yeah.
• 24:03
  Brigitte: Sophia, one thing I wanted to ask you about was what tell us a little bit about LSAT optional.
• 24:10
  Brigitte: I see that you have it as an option.
• 24:12
  Brigitte: Who is that for?
• 24:13
  Brigitte: Who should take advantage of it?
• 24:15
  Brigitte: Who is gonna come off just like, oh, I I don't want to bother to study for the LSAT, so I'm gonna try this.
• 24:21
  Brigitte: Tell me a little bit about what you're looking for there.
• 24:24
  Sophia Sim: So we started this um a year ago because we really felt there were certain cohorts where the LSAT was not an indicator of how of of their academic success or how they would be as a lawyer.
• 24:35
  Sophia Sim: So we we requested a variance through the American Bar Association.
• 24:39
  Sophia Sim: It was not an easy process.
• 24:40
  Sophia Sim: They granted us a five-year exception.
• 24:42
  Sophia Sim: Um and it can't be more than 10% of our entering class.
• 24:45
  Sophia Sim: So this is not a backdoor to get into GW.
• 24:48
  Sophia Sim: I think there was some assumption about that, and that's not true.
• 24:51
  Sophia Sim: So there are only five scenarios where you can apply to test optional.
• 24:56
  Sophia Sim: If you've taken past the patent bar, if you've served in the military, hard to take the LSAT if you're active duty, if you're part of a PhD program or a doctoral program.
• 25:06
  Sophia Sim: There have been other doctors, MDs, pharmaceutical doctors, a doctoral program.
• 25:11
  Sophia Sim: And then if you've had at least four years of professional work experience, and typically we're looking for a lot more, but that's our benchmark.
• 25:19
  Sophia Sim: And then finally, if you're a K through JD or you're currently in school, the only thing that could possibly you could apply through test optional is if you have evidenced social entrepreneurship.
• 25:29
  Sophia Sim: And that's something you have to get pre-approval from us for.
• 25:32
  Sophia Sim: There's a form we ask you a number of questions, such as is this, is this a 503C organization?
• 25:38
  Sophia Sim: Are you the founder?
• 25:39
  Sophia Sim: How big is your staff?
• 25:40
  Sophia Sim: What's your business plan?
• 25:42
  Sophia Sim: How do you measure success?
• 25:43
  Sophia Sim: How long have you had this organization?
• 25:45
  Sophia Sim: All this kind of stuff.
• 25:46
  Sophia Sim: So this is not someone that has volunteered someplace.
• 25:49
  Sophia Sim: That's not what we're looking for in that case.
• 25:51
  Brigitte: That's really interesting, all those specific categories.
• 25:54
  Brigitte: I don't think I was aware of all the nuances there.
• 25:56
  Brigitte: What about someone who has an LSAT score but doesn't want to show it?
• 26:00
  Brigitte: That's okay as long as they're under one of those.
• 26:02
  Sophia Sim: You have if if you've taken the LSAT, you cannot apply test to optional.
• 26:06
  Sophia Sim: Okay.
• 26:07
  Sophia Sim: Yeah, that was one of the- Because that's only an option.
• 26:09
  Sophia Sim: Yeah, if you can't, these were cohorts we thought really well, maybe not the social, but the other ones, sometimes you just couldn't take the LSAT.
• 26:16
  Sophia Sim: There just wasn't time.
• 26:17
  Sophia Sim: Yeah.
• 26:17
  Sophia Sim: Or some have been really older and don't in their careers and don't have time to prep for it or things like that.
• 26:23
  Brigitte: So okay, let's also talk about the part-time program because it's one of those things that for a certain kind of applicant, it's golden, right?
• 26:31
  Brigitte: And at the same time, I think some people also want to use that as a backdoor.
• 26:35
  Brigitte: And right, you know, if they don't quite have the L set score, don't quite have the GPA.
• 26:39
  Brigitte: And, you know, of course we're empathetic to that.
• 26:41
  Brigitte: But what are you looking for?
• 26:43
  Brigitte: And what should students be aware of if they try to use the or want to use the experience?
• 26:46
  Sophia Sim: Right.
• 26:47
  Sophia Sim: We are looking for full-time work experience.
• 26:49
  Sophia Sim: Typically, 100% of the entry class for the part-time has full-time work experience.
• 26:53
  Sophia Sim: The test option that's worked out that more have applied through the part-time.
• 26:57
  Sophia Sim: So, you know, when you look at the metrics, probably not quite the same, but they have other things that we feel show potential and promise.
• 27:04
  Sophia Sim: So those are qualities we're looking for.
• 27:07
  Sophia Sim: At GW, there's open switching between divisions.
• 27:10
  Sophia Sim: You can switch back and forth between full and part-time.
• 27:12
  Sophia Sim: It is some people do come here think hoping their career will work out, and sometimes they don't.
• 27:18
  Sophia Sim: And then there's others that want to switch because the job market, they want to get their slip to the door or that network while they're in school.
• 27:27
  Brigitte: So when I do work with students who have full-time work, they're trying to figure out if they should leave their jobs and go to school full-time, you know, and move on from there, or if they should keep their job and and try the part-time.
• 27:39
  Brigitte: And I know it's a it's a hard decision to make, but when someone has employment on their resume and does it decides to do the part-time program, are they expected to keep that job?
• 27:50
  Brigitte: Or no.
• 27:51
  Brigitte: Not necessarily.
• 27:52
  Brigitte: Okay.
• 27:52
  Brigitte: That's good to know.
• 27:53
  Sophia Sim: So I mean, this I just do admissions, right?
• 27:55
  Sophia Sim: Once you come in, if the career, if the job doesn't work out, that's fine.
• 27:59
  Sophia Sim: We had a police detective that didn't always work out.
• 28:02
  Sophia Sim: There was a principal that was at a high school in Baltimore and he was coming in every night and it just didn't always work out, right?
• 28:08
  Sophia Sim: So sometimes you have to make that dis that tough decision.
• 28:11
  Sophia Sim: I know how the metrics look, but I should also point out that the part-time is typically only 25 students.
• 28:16
  Sophia Sim: So it's a very small cohort.
• 28:18
  Sophia Sim: So it's not necessarily that, you know, given the volume of people that choose part-time, it's not necessarily easier to get in.
• 28:25
  Sophia Sim: We're just looking for slightly different things.
• 28:28
  Brigitte: Okay, that makes a lot of sense.
• 28:29
  Brigitte: And some something I've kind of sensed as well or heard from others is that when you are a bit older, you're coming to law school after 10 years, let's say, the LSAT's much less of a a predictor of how you're going to do because you're kind of out of that kind of thinking.
• 28:42
  Brigitte: And yeah, you've got to get back in it for law school, but the LSAT may not may not be the best predictor.
• 28:47
  Brigitte: Is that is that something you guys have noticed?
• 28:49
  Sophia Sim: That is totally accurate.
• 28:51
  Sophia Sim: Um, that's why the test's optional, right?
• 28:53
  Sophia Sim: With with the work experience.
• 28:54
  Sophia Sim: I'm I know if actually I have tried to take the LSAT again, but just in my practice test, it was on a committee assessments where they made us take a section.
• 29:04
  Sophia Sim: And my score wasn't nearly as high as when I was applying to law school.
• 29:07
  Sophia Sim: So I think it really You're brave.
• 29:10
  Sophia Sim: I I don't want to say I'm not as smart as I was, but I think it's a little different.
• 29:14
  Brigitte: So well, you're we're out of practice.
• 29:16
  Brigitte: I mean, I took the LSAT many decades ago.
• 29:18
  Brigitte: So I I'd be a little scared to take it now, I think.
• 29:21
  Brigitte: But um, but that that was definitely brave.
• 29:23
  Brigitte: Variety of students, right?
• 29:24
  Brigitte: The ones who are still a junior in college or just graduated or people with all kinds of work experience.
• 29:29
  Brigitte: Sometimes the more recent grads, they'll say, Well, you know, I have a really great job in X related to my major.
• 29:36
  Brigitte: It was what I wanted to do, but it made me realize want to go to law school.
• 29:40
  Brigitte: Don't have a lot of legal experience.
• 29:42
  Brigitte: Should I quit that really good professional job to be a legal assistant?
• 29:46
  Brigitte: Or should I just kind of stay in the lane that I'm in because it is a good job and I'm learning a lot of good skills, even if it's not legal?
• 29:54
  Sophia Sim: Sure.
• 29:55
  Sophia Sim: So, you know, we have students coming from all walks of life, and some people don't have the luxury of choose.
• 30:00
  Sophia Sim: They they have to go where the highest salary is, or they're trying to shore up money um to pay for law school.
• 30:05
  Sophia Sim: So so we get that.
• 30:07
  Sophia Sim: It's not always legally related, but they learn arguably any job you have is gonna teach you some skills.
• 30:14
  Sophia Sim: So that's fine.
• 30:16
  Sophia Sim: I think it's not always a clear-cut answer.
• 30:18
  Sophia Sim: I think I hate to say it, but it it depends because it depends what career you're gonna go into, what area of law.
• 30:25
  Sophia Sim: If you never want to go into big law, maybe working in a law firm is not that useful for you, right?
• 30:29
  Sophia Sim: Um, and maybe other things, if you want to go into um maritime law and you're working something that involves oceanic waters, maybe that's really useful for your career and it's gonna help you actually get the job that you want after you graduate law school.
• 30:44
  Sophia Sim: So again, I think it really depends.
• 30:47
  Sophia Sim: But um, for admission purposes, it definitely doesn't hurt to stay at that job, especially if you're happy, you're doing well, you might get an absolute phenomenal letter of recommendation that you wouldn't get from someone that you start a new job with.
• 31:01
  Sophia Sim: So there's other considerations as well.
• 31:04
  Brigitte: Yeah, that that's really interesting to hear you say that.
• 31:07
  Brigitte: That was my gut as well.
• 31:08
  Brigitte: That if you've got a good job and you're doing a good job at it, it's it is building something and it might be better than leaving for a different job.
• 31:16
  Brigitte: Um, and then also what you say, because a lot of my students, because I have a background in the nonprofit sector, so a lot of my students come to me also for that reason.
• 31:24
  Brigitte: And um, you know, I think working in the area that you want to work in, even if it's non-legal, you're already building that netw network, you're building the substantive knowledge about what the challenges are.
• 31:36
  Brigitte: You're dealing with the clients that you might deal with later, you're just dealing with them on a dip on a different issue.
• 31:41
  Brigitte: So I think that can be really useful as well.
• 31:43
  Brigitte: Definitely.
• 31:44
  Brigitte: So well, Sophia, thank you so much for joining us.
• 31:48
  Brigitte: Do you have any last comments that you'd like to share with um with our with our listeners and our students?
• 31:54
  Sophia Sim: Not really.
• 31:54
  Sophia Sim: You know, I really enjoy, I wouldn't have been doing this for 30 years if I didn't love it.
• 31:59
  Sophia Sim: It's such an honor to be part of this kind of milestone part of students as they embark on their 40-plus year legal career.
• 32:07
  Sophia Sim: So I always welcome students to come visit if they want.
• 32:10
  Sophia Sim: Um, my door is right in the entrance.
• 32:12
  Sophia Sim: They can always pop in and say hello.
• 32:14
  Sophia Sim: So, but beyond that, you know, if you have people have questions, they're always welcome to follow up.
• 32:19
  Sophia Sim: You, of course, as well.
• 32:21
  Brigitte: You that's great to know.
• 32:22
  Brigitte: And it's really also great to know that you welcome people to drop by because sometimes that does come up.
• 32:26
  Brigitte: And you know, we always want to do that balance of getting the information you need and making that impression you want without annoying annoying you guys in the in the admissions office.
• 32:35
  Brigitte: So but it's good to know it.
• 32:37
  Brigitte: It's it's rare.
• 32:38
  Brigitte: I mean, most people are not, and they're they're wonderful.
• 32:41
  Sophia Sim: And so it's always nice to put a face to a name, especially even now, post pandemic, right?
• 32:45
  Sophia Sim: It's hard to see people and and it's always nicer than emails.
• 32:48
  Brigitte: So well, thank you so much and um really great talking to you.
• 32:52
  Brigitte: I learned a lot.
• 32:53
  Brigitte: Good day.