How to Get Accepted Into Law School
I am at Georgetown Law and have plenty of friends elsewhere. Getting into law school is more competitive right now than it has been for quite some time. Acceptance is largely based on only two things, and you should know this so you have the best shot of getting in.
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Instructions
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First and foremost - you get into law school with a high GPA. Admissions is slightly more forgiving if you went to a super undergraduate school and/or if your degree is in math, science, or engineering. Still, before applying, do whatever you can to boost that GPA. When researching schools, take their median GPA accepted data seriously.
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Second is you LSAT score - it needs to be high - and it needs to be really high to get into a top tier school. Admissions treats your LSAT and your GPA like a composite score. If you ace one, you can do slightly less well on the other. Institutional scholarships are awarded almost exclusively on these two factors. So, prepare for the LSAT. Take a course if you need to. They are expensive, but most of them come with money-back guarantees if your score doesn't improve. If your score isn't what you want the first time around, take it again, but only once you are absolutely sure that the score will improve.
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Unfortunately, your resume and your recommendations will mean very little, especially at the top schools. I have seen people who have worked in serious positions at the White House get rejected from schools I thought were within reach. Unless you are a Rhodes scholar or something similar, your resume just isn't going to pull a whole lot of weight.
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Tips & Warnings
Apply to a variety of schools. I have seen some wacky admissions results. In one case, a friend got in to UPenn, was wait listed at Harvard. but got flat out rejected from Georgetown.
Watch your LSDAS profile like a hawk to make sure everything gets submitted on time.
Consider applying to other graduate schools and even for jobs. A back-up plan is always good to have, and no school looks down on taking a year to do something else while you re-evaluate your application strategy.
Do not count on any significant financial aid or institutional scholarship money unless you have a GPA of 3.9 and a 178 LSAT. Money just isn't available in law school as in undergrad and other graduate school programs. They just assume you will take out the loans and then pay them back when you're a slave at a firm.
Carefully research the schools you are applying to based on what you want to do. Harvard is a fantastic school, and just recently it starting giving third year students a tuition-free final year if they were going into public service jobs (defined broadly).
