I was at a pre-law forum the other day and was amazed at how many college students think getting into Harvard Law School is hard. It may not be a walk on the beach to walk into that school, but it’s certainly not impossible. I read a forum post from a Georgetown college student with a 3.6 GPA and 170 LSAT score who thought Harvard was a “pipe dream.”
I replied and vehemently argued that it is not a pipe dream at all! Getting into Harvard Law School is simpler than seems to be the prevailing wisdom. This created a storm of messages back and forth because, unsurprisingly, many people disagreed with me. They thought I shouldn’t have told this Georgetown student to apply to Harvard.
The truth is that they were all wrong. I entered Harvard with credentials that some would think would not qualify me for admission there. My LSAT score was well below 170 and I did not attend Georgetown. In fact, I attended a third-tier undergraduate college.
How did I get in then? It was a mistake? Did I pay someone? Did I have an insider swipe? No, none of this happened.
I was able to get into Harvard Law School because I took advantage of the admissions process, which I studied long and hard. I learned that rolling admissions is a crucial aspect of the process that was crying out to be exploited.
The way to take advantage of rolling admissions is to apply early. By applying early, you force the law school, in this case Harvard, to evaluate you against an incomplete pool of candidates. Because the pool is incomplete, the entry standards are much more flexible than they would be later in the process, when more candidates have applied and the pool is much more complete. With more flexible standards, you may be admitted whereas if you had applied later, you might have been rejected.
This is what I did. I applied the first week Harvard started accepting applications. And that’s what you should do if you’re thinking about applying to Harvard Law School.