<p>I am a law school admissions officer. Since this is my first post, I know I probably don’t have much “street cred” yet, but over time, hopefully that will change. I am posting on this board because I recognize how credible it has become, particularly as many members of the current generation of law school applicants posted here when they were applying for college. Unfortunately, there is still a lot of misinformation about law school admissions, even among this very well educated community of education consumers. I look forward to providing my own perspectives.</p>
<p>In answer to the question in this thread:</p>
<p>Low-credit courseloads, as well as light content couseloads may definitely impact an applicant in the admissions process. Bluedevilmike is correct in that law school admissions officers don’t usually look up the difficulty of coursework, but at the same time, our familiary with reviewing transcripts from certain schools comes into play, and we know when an applicant is taking an advanced level class, or an upper-level seminar. Often times, an applicant asks for a letter of recommendation from that class’ professor, making it easy to figure out. We also are familiar with a transcript where an applicant loads up on electives such as “jogging”, which wouldn’t be calculated in the LSDAS GPA anyway.</p>
<p>Law schools don’t generally care if you have a double major or a minor. Taking a range of electives that show your ability to read, write, and think critically is helpful to you. As a junior or a senior, your GPA isn’t going to fluctuate very much anyway, so as long as you continue to work hard, taking a more challening class may be worth the risk to your GPA.</p>
<p>My concern in Amanda’s case is that the original poster is a freshman. She doesn’t have much of a track record because of so many courses through AP and IB. While that is impressive, in particular after seeing a semester of 4.0 performance, she hasn’t started preparing for the LSAT, nor has really done the serious research and homework to decide if law school is right for her. </p>
<p>Ultimately, many applicants to law school who don’t do as well on the LSAT as they wanted , expect law schools to look at their academic transcript as a better indicator of their abilities. However, if you want a law school to do this, you have to demonstrate this though a steady and reliable history of good performance. So, as a freshman, Amanda should do the following:</p>
<ol>
<li>Take a balanced program of coursework, with at least one or two seriously challenging courses per semester.<br></li>
<li>Be concerned with GPA, but not to the point that it results in a less-than-balanced-program. Its too simplistic to just say “you need a high GPA” because you don’t know what your LSAT is, and if your LSAT is lower, you’ll need to show that your academic program has some meat to it.</li>
<li>Be less concerned with double majors and minors, and focus more on taking classes with topics and areas of interest that expose you to a range of both legal topics, and non-legal social science, science, and humanities themes.</li>
<li>When possible, look for classes where you might be in a smaller size class, or seminar, where faculty members will get to potentially know you, mentor you, and be familiar with your abilities. This will help you down the road, particularly when you need to choose professors to write letters of recommendation.</li>
</ol>
<p>One final thought on this topic: Yes, numbers are absolutely important in law school admissions. However, applicants often fail to realize that at some point, you will apply to a school where your numbers fall right in the middle, and require admissions officers to consider more than the GPA. In many cases, that extra “push” that helps an applicant gain admittance might be called motivation, drive, or dedication. If Amanda wants to show that, she will need to take a few risks in course selection, but the reward is that she will make the most of her undergraduate education, with whatever GPA she earns.</p>