Advisory Opinions - Getting Into Law School | Interview: Miriam Ingber and Kristi Jobson

Episode Date: August 5, 2025

Sarah Isgur and David French are joined by Miriam Ingber, associate dean of admissions & financial aid at Yale Law School, and Kristi Jobson, dean of admissions at Harvard Law School, to discuss what they’re looking for in applicants. The Agenda:—Who even reviews applications these days?—The influx of applications—AI applications—Up in arms about the LSAT—The role of accommodations—Financial aid decisions Show Notes:—Ingber and Jobson’s podcast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Music Welcome to Advisory Opinions. I'm Sarah Isgur, that's David French. And do we have an exciting podcast for you? We've got not one, but two special guests. That's right, we're talking law school admissions with the deans from Yale and Harvard.

We'll be right back. David, we have the Dean of Admissions and Financial Aid, Miriam Ingber from Yale Law School and we have the Dean of Admissions from Harvard Law School, Kristi Jobson. Hello, ladies. Hello, hello. Hello, hello, hello. Now, y'all have your own podcast.

Will you just tell us about that? Sure. So back in 2020, the two of us looked at each other and we said, well, we can't travel all around the country to meet law students. So what are we going to do? And somehow we batted around the idea of a podcast, bought microphones off Amazon.com, I think. And then five years later, now have

this podcast that has over a half a million listens across all its episodes. It's Navigating Law School Admissions with Miriam and Christy. And you can find it on Apple or SoundCloud or wherever you enjoy your podcasts. All right. I mean, there's been a lot of changes in the law school

admissions process. Christie, do you want to just kick us off with a march through the process? Sure. OK, so you submit your application through the LSAC portal, and you as an applicant might wonder, what happens next? I've taken the LSAT or the GRE,

I've got my letters of recommendation in there, what happens? So usually your application is processed by some number of processors that can take a couple of business days. And from there, it goes to a reader. Pretty much every law school admissions office reads applications roughly in the order

that they're received. So for example, my team has a drop each week on Thursday morning and all the applications are due the next Thursday and we kind of read everything we've received in the last week. When you are reading applications you are thinking of a couple really key questions for yourself. You're asking, is this person an academic fit for my law school? You're asking, does this person have a good reason for going to law school? Is this someone who has a sense of direction and is genuinely interested in going to law

school? You're also wondering, how will this person engage within our community? From there, can be very different from school to school. For example, at HLS, we have a first reader, second reader model, and then we have a required interview before somebody is considered for admission. At other schools, it can be a completely different approach. Most law schools at this point have tried to be pretty transparent about how their processes work, but you can find all of that and more on our podcast.

So when I was teaching at Cornell Law School, this is a long time ago, so 20 years ago, I was on the admissions committee. And so what I want to ask is the role of these admissions committee. So here was the role when I was there. If there was somebody who was definitely not getting in, we never saw that application. If somebody was definitely getting in, in other words, this was a, you know, all-star application, we did not see that application. But the faculty committee only saw the edge cases, the people that were the judgment, the really tough calls.

And we would have sort of the final say on that, I mean, subject to the dean. What is the, who are the decision makers here at each point? Do you have a faculty committee that weighs in on specific applicants? Is that old school? How, what are the decision points now? For a lot of law schools, it's exactly how you describe.

There's a number of law schools that have some members of the faculty who take a look at cases that are maybe on the bubble, or I think you just described them as edge cases. At HLS, I talked about that interview inflection point. So the staff committee is going through all of the applications. And we are what I described as sort of the first readers

and the second readers. The second readers push what they view as the strongest applications for interview consideration. We usually interview about 1,200 to 1,400 candidates for 560 spots each year. So getting an interview is a really good sign. If you get an interview, it shows that we're serious about the application. Everybody who is interviewed goes to a member of the

faculty committee. So it's give or take about a dozen members of the HLS faculty representing a wide range of interest areas, subject areas, clinical podium faculty, and they read the files and score them and recommend them for admission or they don't recommend them for admission or they maybe say, I kind of leave it to your discretion, staff committee, you have a better sense of the pool, I'm kind of kicking this one back to you, here's what I see as the pros and cons. And then the five people who interview, so me and four of my teammates, take a look at everything that comes back from the faculty. And we basically green light

anything that the faculty is super enthusiastic about. If the faculty is actively unenthusiastic, we're not going to move forward on those cases. Then we have a lot of discussion about those cases in the middle as we shape the incoming class. Miriam, what would you add? I would say that I think I had the same thought when you were describing the process. I think that there's a lot of stuff within law school admissions that's very school specific. So even the way like we both have interviews, our interview program is very new, but it's run very differently from the way Christy does it. Her interview is much more flexible and open and applicant specific,

whereas we have worked to have a very rigidly structured program with a rubric so that we can kind of compare apples to oranges. Neither is better or worse. It's just like different sort of policy choices. And I think the role of faculty can change, it can be very different school to school. And even we've had some changes to the way faculty engage with our process, even in my time. And I think that another important role for faculty

can be in a policy role. So for example, when we were creating our interview program, that was something that was initiated or ideated by my then faculty chair, faculty committee chair. And it was something that we went through various levels of faculty review to discuss the questions and the process

and the way we were thinking about it. So I think faculty can sometimes shape things from the top down as well in ways that are really meaningful. I mean, let's drill in on this interview process, because it seems to me that at both of these schools, if you don't get an interview, you weren't really that close to begin with.

So don't worry about it if you don't get an interview. If you do get an interview, though, this is kind of make or break. I mean, Kristy, what I'm hearing for you is you've now got a 50-50 shot of getting into Harvard Law School, basically. I mean, a little under 40% or so. Well, actually it's 560 spots,

but we admit more than that to fill 560. The admit rate off interviews from year to year is somewhere between 60% to just under 70%. It can depend a lot on the pool. For us, it's actually a lot lower. Oh, yours is lower. Miriam, give me those numbers. Yeah, we interview seven to 800. And we, for a class of 200, usually have between 220 to 240 spots. So if you think we're interviewing 750 and we're giving less than 250 offers,

it's just under one in three. I don't think it's make or break. I'm going to tell you my hot take on what it is. There are some people where you interview them and it's just under one in three. I don't think it's make or break. I'm going to tell you my hot take on what it is. There are some people where you interview them and it's theirs to lose. They were coming in, almost certainly you're going to take them. And if the interview goes average or above, they're in. They're fine. There's some people, and not everyone can hit an average or above interview, but most people do. Most people just kind of are solid enough. There are some people where the interview is their shot. You know, they were coming in sort of as I think David was describing as an edge case for us.

And we were like, let's interview them and just see if they knock it out of the park. And if they do, then we'll take them. And I think no one really knows coming in if you're in sort of which of those two buckets you're in. Yes, I do. No, I have never walked into a room or interview where it's mine to lose. I have always walked in where I've got to knock it out of the park. I mean, and so,

okay, let's assume I always feel that way, whether I'm accurate or not. And PS, I am accurate on that. Um, and so I walk in knowing that I'm a long shot. I can't believe I got the interview. Wow. What does it mean to knock it out of the park versus like, I think we can all imagine an average interview, like a do no harm interview, although I gotta say, like if I'm getting an interview at Yale or Harvard, I just can't imagine thinking that like, do no harm is my best strategy. I think I'm going to think I'm better off trying to knock it out of the park.

Even if it means I might fail at that, because at least they gave it my full shot. I think I'm going to think I'm better off trying to knock it out of the park, even if it means I might fail at that, because at least I gave it my full shot. I didn't hold back. I think it's important to be really prepared. We'll send all the questions in advance. I say to applicants all the time, get all the low-hanging fruit. Do the preparation. Follow the instructions.

Avoid typos. If we say we want it two pages, make it two pages. If we say 12-point font, make it 12 point font. And with the interview, because you have basically all the questions in advance, one of the ways that you can start to go on the path towards knocking it out of the park is being really prepared. Wait, I'm sorry, you get the questions in advance

for the interview? At Yale, you sure do. And that's a way for us of leveling the playing field. There are some people who are rolling in with 15 years of professional work experience, and we assume that they're going to be smooth interviewers. There are some people who are first in their family to go to college, and they're a senior of their, you know, final year of college, the level of polish that we expect is lower. And so we want to level that playing field as much as we can, so that people can prep into feeling confident and giving us their best substantive answers so that we're evaluating less the style and

more the substance. And so preparation is really important. I think we're looking for people who feel enthusiastic and kind and respectful and interesting and interested. And that's the thing that we're getting from the interview that you, it's harder to evaluate from the paper. Can you give me an example of a Yale interview question and ask it to me like you would for real? Sure. So Sarah, it's so lovely to meet you and have you here today. So let me start by asking you, if you can give me an example of a time when you disagreed with a rule or policy

and how you handled that disagreement. Yeah, I definitely need to prepare that in advance. That's... Yeah, that's a definite preparation question. That's a very common interview question these days. And that's actually a very common prompt for essays at the undergraduate admissions level now too. Yeah, we have a whole series of questions, and that's just one example of it, that are geared towards managing disagreement and conflict.

Give me a time example of a time when you were a member of a group that was in conflict and how you handled it would be another example of the same bucket of questions. We have questions centered around achievement. Tell me you're something you're really proud of and then we have and we would give that to people who seem maybe like they're underselling themselves a little bit in the application and then we have the reverse that tell me about a time when you made a mistake and how you handled it. And maybe we're gearing that more towards people where we're not sure about their level of humbleness and ability to see their own mistakes in areas for improvement. Can we get that from them a little bit in the interview? So the questions

all have purposes. What am I proud of being in this interview? What are my mistakes? How long do you have? You could go that route. I don't know if I would advise it, but you could try. So a question about the questions. Have they changed over time? Because my oldest kid, so I'm coming at this interview from the standpoint of having two kids who are starting as 1Ls this fall. But interestingly, one of them got in two years ago and she deferred two years at Chicago. And then my son is going to be a 1L at Northwestern.

And the questions that my son reported and my daughter reported were a little bit different. This cycle it seemed as if there were more questions about exactly the things you raised handling disagreement handling a time when you were in conflict with somebody else etc is that increasing is that kind of question increasing or is that kind of always been a part of that the mix for you guys So for us, in 2019, HLS decided to have at least one interview question. And it can vary from person to person, but at least one interview question that touched on a person's capacity to navigate across disagreements.

So Miriam gave some examples. It also could be, tell me about a time you were frustrated with a coworker. How did you navigate that situation? It could be all sorts of different examples, but at least one had to touch on it. I think one of our peer schools put in an essay about disagreement across difference, I would want to say two years ago, Miriam, in response to various challenges that law school was facing. And this has become an increasingly

popular thing at the undergraduate level, particularly since 2023. So I would say that it's not like law school admissions offices weren't interested in people's ability to handle conflict 10 or 15 years ago, but kind of centering it more in the application process has become a bit of a trend. Our interview program is only three years old, and this has been part of it from the beginning, but it's new enough. I will say too, we have new essay questions and you can pick one of four

and one of the four is about changing your mind. I'll give an example of a time when you change your mind. I will say tips for applicants. That is the question where we most frequently get non-responsive answers. Only counts if you actually change your mind, not if you've realized that people on the other side also have valid points. You didn't change your mind. And so people struggle, I think, to give real examples where they have actually changed their mind in a substantial way. So that's something that's always interesting to poke out a little bit.

You know, just spitballing here, I think that we have taught a generation of people that a change in your mind is a sign of weakness. It's a sign of inconsistency. It's a sign that you're not steadfast. This is a social media product where you see constantly like somebody comes out with something that they wrote in 2024 or 2025 and then someone throws a thing that they wrote in 2018 or 2019 at them. And sometimes it's been like just a naked flip flop,

and sometimes people actually do change minds. But I do wonder if that's a product of a kind of constant combat online experience where any kind of openness is often seen as weakness. I think that's true in our political discourse as well. There's a lot of, you know, gotcha. And I don't think this is that new, actually. I think this is probably the last 20 years,

but there's a lot of let's dig back and find the time. Speaker of the House Smith said X and now he's advocating for Y. There's a lot less grace. How much feedback do you get? So, you know, you have these questions, you do these interviews, you've let these students in, and then student X is a known disaster on campus. How much do you go back? How much do you have the faculty ask you to go back? How much does the dean of the law school say? How did we let the

student where did our process go wrong? Miriam, this is all your fault. How does that work? So that is not what happens, thankfully. Although I always like to go back if someone is struggling in, you know, and there's a myriad ways people can struggle. I always like to go back to see like, was there something that hinted that this was a possibility? I've been very lucky. Dean Gerken is actually just stepping down to lead the Ford Foundation, but she has been my only boss in this job until actually this week. She was amazing. I think that her philosophy and mine was that you have to take some risks. It's easy in admissions to get super risk averse and take people who are just straight down the

middle all the time. Then you miss out on some, you know, maybe slightly riskier admits for various reasons who end up being superstars. But you want to take some people who have different backgrounds, different perspectives, different experiences. And you know, maybe their undergraduate GPA was a little softer, or maybe their essays were slightly less polished. But you feel like there's so much potential there. And I think that's part of our job is to balance that feeling of, you know, if I never take any risks, it's easy to over-index on the ones where things, you know, get sticky, and then to forget about the ones where, you know, you took a risk and someone just really shone and really was a superstar. And so I always

try to remind myself, I can be very hard on myself, my team can be very hard on themselves, and whenever that happens, I say, but you know, what about these 15 people who we were worried about who ended up being amazing? And so it kind of goes both ways. But yes, I always do go back. Sometimes there's things where you're like, oh yeah, I guess I could have seen that coming. And often there's not. And that's, that's okay. People are complicated. And you know, you can't always predict what's going to happen. So first, I just want to say, Sarah, since we're in the spirit of tolerance and grace and forgiveness, I forgive you for casting shade on that Lipscomb University to Harvard Law School pipeline, that highway between those two institutions. But let me ask you this, and maybe it's one of those too soon because you guys have been

through one of the biggest cycles in law school history. I have expected you to sign on with like this thousand yard stare. So what happened this cycle? There's all kinds of theories that I've seen. My favorite is that a whole coalition of mid 20 somethings suddenly sensed a recession in the atmosphere and like ducks fleeing a hurricane.

When you see just piles of birds like fleeing the hurricane, these were 20-somethings fleeing the economy. That's my favorite sort of like metaphysical explanation. But what happened and what's your explanation for it? Miriam and I have happened to presided over over the two largest pools in law school admission history. And that is the COVID year 2020 to 2021. And then this past year 2024 to 2025. Miriam, you want to touch on kind of the LSAT changes we saw

in those years? I'm going to put on my conspiracy theorist hat. Those years happened to be years where there were very substantial changes to the LSAT that arguably made the test easier. So in the COVID year, understandably, they had to pivot from an in-person test to an online test. It went from five sections to three sections.

And part of the test is making it through five sections, went down to three. And then this past year, they got rid of the logic games, was removed from the test is making it through five sections, went down to three. And then this past year, they got rid of the logic games, was removed from the test. So the number of sections stayed the same. I think it's at four now, three real and one experimental. But they're now duplicating one of the other two sections. And from speaking to some LSAT experts, for a third of people, the logic games was an

enormous impossible lift. A third of people loved them. And then a third of people, it was kind of the same. So one theory, and I think this is part of the answer, but not the whole answer, is that when the LSAT gets easier, you have tons of people with higher scores or more people with high scores, and people with higher scores tend to apply to more schools and to apply in higher percentages. And so I think that is certainly part of it, but probably not the whole answer. It's also interesting that both of those years were presidential election years. So going back even into the nineties, when there's presidential

election years, there tend to be previously more modest bumps, but always a bump in law school applications. People spitball all sorts of theories for this. Some think that just issues of law and policy are a little more in the water. There's always just a group of young people that thought they were moving to a presidential administration and their candidate didn't get elected in November, so they're looking for jobs and we see those in our applicant pool. And then of course if an administration turns over, as it did in both January 2021 and this past January, you have a bunch of people who are kind of law and policy inclined who are looking for something to do the next year.

That was particularly true this January because with the change in presidential administration, there were a lot of young, ambitious people working at DOJ and CFPB and other places who lost their jobs. And at least in my applicant pool, very, very quickly pivoted to applying before the February 15th deadline, and a bunch of them will be my incoming one else. So those explanations sound slightly, very slightly more credible than mine, which is that 20-somethings can sense in the barometric pressure at a looming recession, but I'll allow it.

I don't think you're wrong though. I do think the economy and a sense of the entry level market can also drive it. Like I wonder how much AI and the advent of AI and people worrying, I can see Sarah getting excited because she wants to talk about AI, is driving people to think like, what kind of jobs can I get to

or how can I sort of just hide myself away for a few years and see how this all pans out. Doesn't it seem like law school might be the wrong place to go if you're worried about AI? I was so curious what you guys would say about that because it seems to me that AI is going to replace a lot of the research and document review work of incoming associates, but not the partner level work. What you're going to see is instead of the normal pyramid where there's a whole lot of associates and then fewer senior associates and then fewer junior partners and then even

very, very few senior partners at the top of the pyramid, that pyramid is going to look a lot more like a skyscraper where there's going to be a few associates and there's going to be a lot more work to retain them all the way up through the chain. But basically law firms are going to care a lot more about hiring associates in a way that like when I was in law school and David, I assume when you were in law school, they were handing out offers like it was ones at a strip club. What a simile. Wow. That was not my go-to analogy. That's better than baseball. That's a better than a baseball metaphor. I'm liking that. I don't think that's happened yet. I'm not saying you're wrong, but it's, and I say this, my husband works at a law firm, one of the big

law firms. That is not what's happening yet. So I think there's still so much uncertainty around that, that they haven't made that adjustment to date. Although I was playing around with co-pilot on his, cause he uses co-pilot for emails. And I was like, I made it type a poem. Like I got it to like do it as a poem, like an email to one, you know, a scheduling email. And it type a poem. I got it to do it as a poem, like an email to one, a scheduling email,

and it was pretty awesome. That made my day. AI has been just the topic of the summer. Within law school admissions offices, we're talking a lot about AI, as you can possibly imagine, related to the essays. reading these essays and thinking, did ChatGPT generate this? I mean, you've probably, probably all of your listeners have read the New Yorker article that came out this summer about how college students are using AI and ChatGPT for everything.

And I think both of us would say that we've seen a good number of essays, particularly in the last year where they're so clearly created by Chachi P.T. So law school admissions offices talking about it in the context of like, how do we make clear in our instructions that we expect you to write your own essay, we want to see what your writing style is like, warts and all, right? Like passive voice here, maybe a split infinitive there.

That's part of what makes writing sound like it comes from a human. And I think law school faculty are talking a ton about AI. As you can imagine, some think this is just the worst thing that's going to ever happen to the law. Others think this is the greatest tool we've ever been given to innovate the practice of law, particularly with delivery of legal services.

I personally still think there's a ton of need for critical thinkers and people to work through, even if the work product is generated by AI on the front end, like a research paper, but like really thinking critically and more analytically and also presenting that work product, maybe as a junior associate to a more senior associate, but also preparing to present it to clients in a client-facing profession. I'd say once upon a time, there were physical federal reporters, and that's what everybody used. Then Lexis and Westlaw came along and people thought that there'd be no more junior associates because research was so much more efficient. In some ways, it just just accelerated the entry level work and the expectations for entry level work and it changed it, but it didn't eliminate it. So it'll be interesting

to see. If I read one more 250 word essay about large language models, I might cry. I read so many last year and I want to, can I break news, the smallest news ever? So we're adding a new question to our application this year. So we have a section on assistance. So did you get paid assistance? Did you have a consultant help you? Did you pay them? Did you pay for LSAT prep? Because we like to understand the context of our applicants.

And so we're adding into that section, we want people to disclose any use of AI tools in the application. And then it becomes an ethics issue if they fail to disclose things that they use, but we're also hoping it will give us some insight into the ways in which people are using AI to help put together their application with the caveat that it must still be all your own work, which they certified to. So I'm curious to see what we'll learn.

I also am a little bit skeptical of the AI demolishing associates thesis because I think we overestimate how much original work associates do anyway right now. You know, when even in the early nineties, I had access to a giant brief bank. I had access to giant banks of contracts, of every kind of agreement under the sun that the firm had done. And so often, you know, especially when you're dealing with things like standard of review discussions or standing analysis or whatever. A lot of this stuff is rote that people put into their work product

and then modify anyway. So there's been an awful lot of borrowing of work forever from associates. I think we're overestimating how much these young attorneys are actually digging in and doing independent work to begin with. Okay, let's spend some time on the LSAT because I am up in arms. I mean, my arms are up. They're in the air like the YMCA. The purpose of standardized tests is to allow diamonds in the rough to shine that otherwise wouldn't. When you make the entire application process subjective based on who professors like, all

the things that basically money and privilege can help you game, you leave all those diamonds behind. The logic games actually to me, yes, I like the logic games. I think that the practice of law is far more like the logic games than anyone wants to acknowledge. You are trying to put together a puzzle piece a lot of the time, and that's what the logic games are. They're a puzzle, a verbal puzzle, but fine. Not all practice of law is the same. I'm only like an eight on the 10 scale about the logic games going away. But it's part of a larger problem, which is, for instance, gaming the system so that your

kid gets more time on a standardized test based on basically whether you had the money and access to a psychiatrist or someone else who could say that your kid needed time and a half. So here's my question to you guys. Why would Harvard and Yale not say we want you to take the LSAT twice? Cause you know what? These are really good, impressive schools. And we can do that. We are so great that we can make you take it twice. One time, we want you to take it in the time allotted that is hard to get that test done

because that's testing what you do when you basically can't spend all the time you need. That's the whole point is that you can't spend all the time you need. How do you react under that kind of pressure? Then we want you to take it again under, give people 10 hours, whatever it takes, a long one day exam where they can take all the time they want because that's testing a different skill that lawyers also need, which is the ability to get to the right answer and the desire to keep drilling down until you can find the right answer. Both of those are important skills for lawyers, so why don't we want to know whether a student

can get the right answer if given all the time in the world and how they respond when there's a deadline where they can't spend all the time they want. Why are we allowing students, some students to have to take it in that amount of time, other students to get time and a half, and it's all based on this really unfortunate place that we're in right now. So, I agree with your premise that we're in an unfortunate place. I think the solution that you've proposed, I'm going to poke some holes in it and then I'm interested to see what Kristi will say. So I think the problem with what you've suggested first is we require everyone to take it in the

standard time would be a clear violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act. We cannot go behind someone's approved accommodations and question them. We all know that there's socioeconomic status issues with the way accommodations are given, but we as law schools, we don't grant those accommodations. That's done through LSAC, and they rely on the medical documentation that's provided. And so we can't dig behind that without violating the ADA. Even though I hear you, I 100% understand the concern that who gets access to these kinds of accommodations it tends disproportionately to be people with more privilege, more resources, more access. I have been nagging and suggesting to LSAC, they probably hate me for many years, that the LSAT be moved away from being what's called a speed

test to what's called a power test. A speed test is a test where one of the primary drivers of performance is how well you, how quickly you can do things. So it's designed where some people are gonna run out of time. A of performance is how quickly you can do things. So it's designed where some people are gonna run out of time. A power test is a test where generally the amount of time allotted is enough for almost everyone to complete the test. And the questions are at a difficulty level

where not everyone is gonna be able to answer those questions. And I think that especially with what we're seeing in the accommodation quote unquote industry, having a power test would be a better way to minimize those kinds of issues. There's all sorts of logistical complications and other complications to moving in that direction,

but that's something that I've read some of the research on and I floated for years. And it is something that we're seeing in the undergraduate world. I believe the ACT is being redone. And there is a difference between the SAT and ACT on which I'm not an expert at all, but those tests are structured differently. And I think the GRE, for example, tends to be a test where the timing is less of an issue.

So it is something that I think as a profession, we should be thinking about. And that is one alternative solution is making it a more of a power test. I know we're beginning to drift out of your remit, but I am very interested in the growth of accommodations when accommodations don't really exist in the practice of law. So, for example, if you have to generate a preliminary injunction in by midnight, you got to generate a preliminary injunction by midnight. It isn't by midnight unless you have an ADHD diagnosis or something like that. I do wonder about how this accommodation revolution is meshing with preparing people for the practice of law, but I might have just stepped

outside of where y'all's focus. If if you've had any thoughts on that, it does seem like maybe the balance has moved a bit too far, I don't know. When I have young people, David, I'm curious, because you teach now, undergraduates, and I work with some young people. When I get asked for an extension on a deadline, 10, 15 years ago, I might have said yes to that. And now I almost routinely say no, because I assume

it's because they were coddled too much in their educational environment. And I want them to know that like, welcome to the real world, you don't get extensions. Now, I don't mean I never give extensions of the person had heart surgery or something, there was a death in the family, but I no longer give, I'm feeling stressed out, can I have more time extension? Not to drift us even further, David, but this is a really interesting pattern happening at the undergraduate level with undergraduate students

who were in high school during the COVID era, when very understandably, someone teaching chemistry from their bedroom in their condo, trying to handle a high school chemistry class, was happy to be generous with extensions or kind of just turn it in whenever you'd like. And so that crowd is kind of coming to an undergraduate setting now.

That's really, I think, pretty squarely in the post-COVID era. And somewhat understandably, expecting maybe the same treatment that they got in high school and talking to a lot of undergraduate professors at various universities this is a real tension point on the undergraduate level. This is like a classic tragedy of the commons where if only if a few people have a

need for accommodations or a need for extensions and they get them it works for everyone but then we begin to overgraze that. And this is the same thing with great inflation. It's like actually absurd, the level of great inflation. And I think you made this point earlier, Sarah, that when you have tons of people with high LSAT scores and everyone is coming in with a three, nine and up, how do you distinguish between people in a way that feels objective and not reliant on, well, this professor says they're great, this fancy professor, or, oh, they have these external markers, which again are class correlated. The ability to have fancy internships unpaid, you can only do that if you don't need to work to make a living. And it just feels like we've lost the plot where I think it's,

I always say it this way, it's hurting the top people to favor the mushy middle. And why are we not trying to support our best and brightest from all sorts of backgrounds to really distinguish themselves instead of having everyone kind of look the same? Just to put it, I mean, there's great inflation, which is the drift upwards. There's also grade compression,

which is everybody's kind of getting the same thing, and it's an A, just to say it. It's always an A. That's what they're getting. To put it in terms for your listeners, if you haven't read an application in some period of time, or you've never read an application, one of our top national state schools,

a 4.0, just over a 4.0 is at the 75th percentile. And people from that school think they have grade deflation. They're like, oh my God, I come from this school. It's so tough. Our grades are so deflated. And I'm like, girl, they're not deflated. No, they're not.

And then you'll know this one as well. At one of our Ivy League institutions, a 3.95 is at the bottom half of the class. It makes it actually very hard as an admissions reader because a 3.95, I could be looking at the strongest student in that entire school based on their coursework and their academic potential, or I could be looking at someone who's kind of skating by.

And so I'll share from my team's perspective on the grade inflation point that we've stopped looking at GPA as a number. So I've kind of instructed my team like 3.97, 3.82, like just disregard it completely. You have to dig into the course selection, the trajectory of grades, and what letters of recommendations are saying for themselves. Now I'm not sure if that's the course selection, the trajectory of grades, and what letters of recommendations are saying for themselves. Now, I'm not sure if that's the right approach, but I've just gotten to the point

where I feel like I don't know if someone's a 4.0 where they are in terms of academic potential. It used to be in our first couple of years, Christy, that if we got a high 170 LSAT score, that felt special. They were still rare. And we haven't been doing it. We've been doing this for less than a decade and now people are just floating in with these GPAs and LSAT scores where we can't distinguish based on those. That has been a very quick shift. I think COVID accelerated it. These LSAT changes accelerated it. I don't think it's good because it puts more weight on

subjective factors which are problematic in their ways. Right, like so you put a lot of weight, for example, on letters of recommendation. I love an excellent letter of recommendation, but we know that there's different, those are inflated as well, but also the way that an English literature professor is going to write a letter of recommendation can read as more compelling than the way that an English literature professor is going to write a letter of recommendation can read as more compelling than the way a chemistry professor might, right? Just based on kind of style. And I don't know if that's a good thing either, right? You're just in more subjectivity land. Well, and also the people with more connections can get the cooler letters of recommendation.

Or you're a research assistant for a professor instead of working at the Chipotle 25 hours a week, right? Yeah, that is absolutely fascinating, those numbers. I mean, that's at a scale that I was pessimistic about great inflation and that's at a scale beyond. It's ridiculous. There's a handful of schools that have held the line, but we're talking like literally,

like I can count them on one hand. It's basically the military academies in Reed College. Seriously, yay Reed College, for real. Good for them. That's amazing. So when I, and again, so this is 20 year old outdated information, but when I was on the admissions committee, one of the first things we looked at was GPA relative to the institution. Because, because we knew, for example, when

I was on the admissions committee, Texas A&M was notorious for, especially in the STEM disciplines, if you had a 3.5 in the STEM disciplines in Texas A&M, you were killing it. You were doing great. If you had a 3.5 at Brown, you may never have gone to class once. And so. No one has a 3.5 at Brown, you may never have gone to class once. And so-

No one has a three five at Brown anymore. No one has the three five. Oh, you're saying that's too low. Oh, it's absurd. That would be like the bottom eight, 10% of the class. Maybe like that you're talking a seventh percentile GPA at Brown at this point. Y'all my GPA was well below a 3.5. Well, this is historic

data. You see it, because sometimes we'll get someone who applied. So I went to Dartmouth College, which is slightly less inflated than some of our peers, but only slightly so. But I'll have an applicant at Dartmouth College grad of 06, just because they're applying late. And you'll look at their percentile because it's a three-year look back. It's crazy how those percentiles have floated up and up and up and up over a very short period of time. Okay. I want to talk about the wait list because a lot of people I know, I mean, not a statistically significant sample, but boy, it seems like a lot of people are getting put on wait lists these days. I was wait listed at Harvard for what that's worth. So maybe I, yeah,

maybe I just attract wait-listers. So you get your wait list letter. You're like, Oh, I'm excited. But also what do I do now? Kristi, how do you get off the wait list at Harvard? You got to let them know you want it. So you got to just really express your sincere instance in the institution, lay your cards on the table, why you want to go there, make clear that it's your top choice if that's true. Most schools actually think are pretty direct about what they want from their waitlist candidates. Some schools will say, please don't write us.

Some schools will say, write us once. Some schools will say, touch base with us every two weeks. Schools are usually pretty direct. For us, we have a letter of continued interest process, and we really wanna fill those remaining spots with the people who want them most. And every once in a while, we're thinking about things like,

is there an undergraduate institution that we don't yet have in the class? Is there a geographic area that's a little less represented? Some of it is kind of balancing the class as a whole, but by and large, you're looking for the people who are going to be enthusiastic community builders. And I would have guessed that was you, Sarah. I could totally see you getting off the wait list. People would have known. The admissions committee would have been like, Sarah's going to rock it here. 3.5 GPA and all. I always say our wait list folks are our admissions team fan favorites. It's like all the

people you've been keeping your eye on, you're hoping you can get there, and then you're giving out 225 offers. They were like, you've talked about them a million times, and it feels like you get one more bite at the apple to have all of your favorite people that are maybe a little quirky, a little interesting, feel really special. And so it's like the admissions team is vying

for their own personal fan favorites to make it into the class. And I have one person who was my fan favorite last year and I lost the head-to-head battle from the wait list transfer student. When I saw the name on the transfer application, I was like dying of excitement. I was like, this is, we could admit one transfer student this year and it's going to be him and I'm going to be thrilled because it had been years of like kind of keeping my eye and I was so excited that he came back and he's starting in the fall. It's so funny that y'all know these students. Like I think most people would think this is kind of a nameless faceless process for you, but you guys, you know,

back in my undergraduate days, I think this actually will shock people, but I was in a sorority and we had this like metaphor about like the forest is on fire and you can't save all the bunnies in the forest. Like you'd want to, that's not the issue, but like you're gonna have to just pick some bunnies to save and like because you know all the bunnies, you've named all the bunnies. And I don't know, that makes it kind of sound hard that like you know you both let a student in and you both, it sounds like would know this student, you go head to head, they're gonna pick one of the schools and not the other. You're gonna kind of follow that student and see how they've done and like maybe run into them at a conference in a few years and all of that. Like that's that's kind of cool guys.

I will say I think Kristi is better at this than me. I feel like once they choose not to come, I try to like delete them from my brain. They're not that they're dead to me, it's more like I only have so much brain space for students and I try to like save it from my brain. Not that they're dead to me, it's more like, I only have so much brain space for students and I try to like save it for the ones who are at BLS. So occasionally you'll see a name and you're like, oh, that seems familiar. And you'll kind of go back and poke it in. And you're like, oh yeah, I remember that person decided

to go to Harvard like three years ago. But mostly it's like a Rolodex of students in my brain. And I try to limit it to the ones that I need to remember. Christy, I just feel very seen by your description of waitlisters that you knew I was a waitlister. I think I've told you this, but my essay was on working for Swiftboat Vets for Truth in 2004. I think I highlighted that I knew a lot about wildlife rehabilitation. My application could not have screamed quirky any louder with the high LSAT, low GPA, crazy essay on, remember in 2004, Swift Boat Vets for Truth was like, I don't even know what

the equivalent would be today of a highly controversial but important cultural touchstone of sorts. I did exactly what you suggest. I wrote an insane letter that was like, you are all I've ever wanted, Harvard. Please let me in. I didn't just show ankle. I'll tell you that. No Frills delivers. Get groceries delivered to your door from No Frills with PC Express. Shop online and get $15 in PC optimum points on your first five orders. Shop now at nofrills.ca. Okay, can you all tell me if I have been leading my undergrads astray?

So one quick thing about the undergrads I've been teaching, guess how many, this is just a tangent to a previous part of the conversation, guess how many requests for extension or accommodation I've gotten in teaching four semesters of undergrads? One. One. Out of 120 or so that I've taught. But here's what I told them and you tell me if I have just given, led them astray. Because I told them, I said, if you go back

to when I was applying in the early 1990s, if you had an LSAT and a GPA of a certain level, you could be pretty sure you knew where you were getting it, at least where you were competitive. So at 99th percentile and a 4.0, you're gonna be very competitive for Harvard, Yale, Stanford, et cetera. I think if you perform really, really well,

and you have a shoot the moon LSAT, you're going to get in somewhere good, but you cannot predict, even in that layer of 14 or 20 where you necessarily are going to land. You can feel reasonably confident you'll go to a very good law school. You cannot feel confident any longer which very good law school that you'll go to. Is that a fair statement or is that not a fair statement? I have a friend who was waitlisted at every T14 school and didn't get off a single waitlist. This person graduated this year, so they're at, what, a 2022, 2021 applicant, something like that.

I think one feature of the increase in applicant volume is that there's more randomness in the process. I think we saw this in the COVID year where there was less cross-admitting. So it used to be like, if you got into Yale, you would almost certainly get into Harvard and Stanford and Columbia and Chicago as well, and then you would pick. But I think when the volume is high, the preferences and biases and school-specific features of the process dominate more. And so you might get into Yale, but not Harvard and not Stanford and then yes, Columbia. Like it just becomes a little more random.

And I think what happened during COVID, some schools were not prepared or they ended up with their classes were too big because the cross-emitting levels were ahistoric. And I think this past year when we saw the volumes go up people got more risk averse. Like no one wanted to end up with a class 50 students over what they were planning on. And so you had to tighten it down and go more slowly to kind of see where the cross-admitting was because that's something they can really throw off a class. And I think this reinforces

a larger point that both of us try to talk to applicants about is this is not a referendum on your ability as a future law student or your future in the profession at all. The students you're describing, David, as you say, they're gonna get into a great law school. There's so many amazing places to go to law school and there's so many ways to be successful in the profession. So it's hard for folks. I know it's hard to be disappointed when you don't get into a particular school you might've really had your heart set on,

but it's not a referendum menu. You can only go to one. Like you can really, like at the end of the day, you know, I would never look back and be like, well, I got into five law schools and who cares? You know, I went to a law school, I had a good experience, I had a nice career. That's what matters and all the places you get into that you don't go to, at the end of the day, it's really a low stakes thing.

I'm actually surprised, Christy, I'm curious about what percentage of cross-submitting we have. I think it's lower than I originally, I would suspect, I would suspect it's 60 to 70% and not higher than that, which you would expect it to be closer to like 90 to 100. And I actually really don't think it is. I don't think it's ever been 100, but I think when we first started in 2018,

it was far closer. It was far closer. And as the applicant pool has gotten bigger and more, as Christy said, compressed, the level of cross-admitting has gone down. One quick question, and then I want to ask about financial aid. One thing we have not talked about at all is the time, how much does it matter if you're coming straight out of law school, I mean, straight out of undergrad to law school, and how much with, for example, the GPA inflation and everything else, how much now does that work experience between law school and college and law school maybe

help distinguish yourself compared to others? And are you looking, are you interested in people who've come from nontraditional maybe? One of my favorite classmates from law school was a guy who spent 20 years as a firefighter in West Texas before he got his undergrad like slowly at night. And then his professor told him, you know, I think you'd do well in LSAT

and he did very well. But he had 20 years as a firefighter. So how much does that work experience matter and how much does it sort of have to be in that I'm clearly grooming myself to be a Skadden Arps attorney or a State Department attorney kind of work experience? By the way, I get to use my new phrase

that I'd never heard before. Do you like KJDs? Get it? kindergarten through JD? Oh. Oh, I feel like you spent some time on the law school admissions subreddit, Sarah. I'm impressed to prepare for this podcast. I was KJD, so I say this with love to all my fellow KJDs. Yeah, I think it was more common in our era. I do think, I mean, in any given year about 10 to 15% of our incoming class will be straight from college.

We're probably 12-ish next year, which is pretty standard for us. And some of it is that folks defer, so we admit slightly more than that and that some people will defer. But I do think that for many, many, many people, taking at least a couple of years to get some professional experience or a graduate degree is really useful. I always say that I wish I had done that because I ended up working in private practice for a while. It was not the best fit for me. And if I had worked for a few years before law school in the private sector, I would have realized that and been able to more quickly move towards the areas I ended

up doing civil rights work that were more personally fulfilling for me. And so I do think there's a level of professional skills and sort of personal development and the tightening of the narrative of like why you wanna go to law school and the kind of law you wanna practice that often happens for people in that time. And we do love a quote unquote non-traditional applicant.

I think they can bring something very, very special to the class. And there's fewer of them in the pool than people think. A lot of times people think they're non-traditional applicants, I think they can bring something very, very special to the class. And there's fewer of them in the pool than people think. A lot of times people think they're non-traditional because they're two years out of college and have worked at it as a paralegal. And it's hard when you're talking to that person to break the news that actually they're quite traditional.

The example you gave, David, I mean, those folks are really few and far between, even in a pool of 10,000 people and they really pop. So if anyone out there is listening with years of firefighting experience, would love to see you in the applicant pool next year. One of my favorite applicants that we had when I was on the admissions committee as a guy had really good grades, really good LSAT, but not stand out. It did not stand out. And I thought, hmm, why are we looking at this person? I kept scanning. And then I hit pilot of Marine One. Oh, wow. Yes. Yeah, we have a fighter jet pilot

incoming. I'm very excited. We call them like, I have to put together a list of fun facts for the Dean's convocation speech. And it's like one of my favorite times of the year is like I get to go through all the applications and it's like professional baker, fighter jet pilot, forest firefighter with chainsaws sharpening skills. It's really, really, really cool. One of the cool things with the COVID year bump 2020 to 2021 is a, you know, not a giant chunk of the pool, but a nice little chunk of the pool was folks who were in industries that just weren't, you know, there was just nothing going on that year.

So we saw more professional opera singers, Broadway actors, and the next year in our 1L class at HLS, we had the first chair violinist from the Kennedy Center. We had a professional bassoonist from the San Francisco Orchestra. I mean, we had so many really, really amazing people. And especially in the arts, a lot of them came to law because they were involved in union negotiations during the COVID era, which was this unprecedented time for these whole industries. And it's just, as you say, David, it really adds so much to the class and to the classroom discussion.

Okay. So, Kristi, a question. David and I get emails from law school applicants and law school admittees more often than you probably think, or maybe exactly as often as you think. But a question that we get is, you know, I got into Harvard, let's say, with no money, or I got into my state school and for the purposes of this conversation, let's say it's a free ride. How are students supposed to think about it differently than undergraduate?

And what advice would do you give or does that advice that you guys even give really? Yeah. So we in the admissions team have admitted students talk with our financial aid office. And I think for both Harvard and Yale and a whole lot of schools, the people doing financial aid are really doing God's work, like sitting down with people and helping them think very carefully about this financial investment, which is huge. It's a huge financial investment, but it is an investment. And the question that one needs to answer as an admitted

student is, will this financial investment pay off not just in terms of my experience during three years of law school and the education I receive, but my long-term career? And that can be a really challenging and emotional question to answer for yourself, especially if you're 22, 24 years old and thinking about hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt. So I think both of our schools have really strong loan repayment assistance programs and

so the conversation can look a little different if folks are very committed to public interest work or lower paying work in outside the private sector, than if somebody is kind of thinking about a clear private sector career. And there's really, the important thing is there's no right answer from an objective point of view. It's really just what is the right answer for you? And I'll say again, I always tell admitted students, I think Harvard's an amazing place to go to law school. We'd love to have you in the community. But there are so many really great places to go to law school and a lot can just depend on your career goals, where you want to practice, and

where you say you're self-moving law term. I think money is really personal. I think it's really wrapped up, I think a lot in the way you were raised and your family and are you going to be obligated to support family members or have, I decided to go to law school right after my father, who was the primary breadwinner in my family had sort of unexpectedly passed away. And so there was, you know, it's, it can be very emotional the how money lives with inside of you. I think it lives inside of all of us, which is like a little sad and kind of capitalist, but I think it is really personal. And so I don't, I think I completely agree with Christy. It's a very personal decision that can be right and not right. It's like your head versus your heart in a

way. And you know, if there's a place that just feels like your place, it's your heart is calling out to you, how do you balance that with taking on more debt? And I don't think there's one right answer. And I never want someone to feel unhappy at Yale, that they gave something up and it wasn't worth it. And then they're kind of unhappy and bitter and constantly looking for the negative in the experience because they're already feeling that way. Better to take the money and go a place where you're just going to feel really good about it or come to Yale and enjoy every second of the experience if it is one that is more expensive. I will say we have a very amazing full tuition scholarship

that is goes to about 15% of our class that are Dean Kurkin sort of fundraised for called the Hearst Horizon Scholarship. So that is for our highest needs students, which is I think it's just over 30 people in our incoming class this year. And so I do think that has made it more accessible and affordable and less weighty for people

from very high need financial backgrounds to come to Yale and feel good about that choice. And we similarly have up to full tuition support for those from the highest need backgrounds. And it's interesting because I think it's such a different conversation for people who are kind of on those two barbells versus folks from the middle class. And that's really where financial aid and law school and need-based financial aid has the most room for growth. David, I feel like when we get that question, one of the things I try to emphasize is

that it is really different than undergrad. The investment that you're choosing to make is very different. So if someone told me they got a free ride to X place versus they you know, they're going to take on $200,000 in debt to go to Y place for undergrad, I'm like, nah, probably take the free ride, man. And like, crush it.

With law school, that's not the choice for me. And I really, and again, this is not Christy and Miriam talking now. This is Sarah and David and just the advice we generally give. And yes, it is personal and all of those things. But generally speaking, David and I say you go to the best law school you get into. Yeah. My only qualifier to that, and I'm talking to a lot of people who are living in places like Tennessee, Kentucky, Alabama, and I say, look, look at it this way.

You have more options if you go to say Harvard or Yale, you have fewer options, not zero by any stretch of the imagination, not zero, but you have fewer options if you say you go to Tennessee. However, if you know you want to practice law in Tennessee, if you, you know, you're going to join your dad's firm or your mom's firm, or you want to be a prosecutor in this town. You know where you want to go and what you want to do. And that Tennessee law degree is going to be fantastic for that, then I would say think long and hard, long and hard, before you take on that kind of debt. Fun fact, arguably better, because when I tried to move back to Texas with a Harvard law degree

to work in the legislative session and lobbying work, it was a downside, not an upside. Yeah, sometimes it can be. Even if you want to go work at the Queen's DA's office. I remember looking to get into local government work when I was... I'm now a US citizen, but at the time I was a non-US citizen. I'm Canadian. And so I couldn't apply to federal government jobs. And I was only looking at state and local government jobs.

And it would have been easier in some ways. I had something to prove that I was really interested and excited about those jobs, even though it was New York City jobs, than if I had come from a school that was more local there. They sort of assumed that I thought I was better than those jobs, and I did not at all. I never thought that way, but it can be a little bit tough. Law schools are regional, and I think there are a few schools,

and Yale and Harvard are among them, that are national. And so you might struggle a little bit more with the regional jobs, but most law schools are gonna prepare you to practice in a fairly limited geographic. That's where most stores are gonna be open. Nothing is impossible either way, but I think you've given great advice

on where it's gonna be easier and where it's gonna be harder. Okay, I wanna end with this question because it's the question that David and I struggle the most with on the podcast. We try to ask all of our big time guests, of which y'all are clearly the biggest of the big time, especially for a lot of our listeners who are law school applicants, should you go to law school? Miriam, I will start with you.

That's a tough question for me because in some ways I went to law school for all the wrong reasons. I went to law school because I had been pre-med and decided I don't want to go to med school. And then I felt really pressured, you know, by circumstances to not get off the quote unquote track. And you do something and I was like, well, I'll just take this LSAT thing and see how I do. And I did, you know, reasonably well. And then I was like, I guess I'll just apply to law school and go to law school and figure it out once I'm there. So you should definitely not go to law school for the reasons I went to law school. And I say that with, with so much love, because I loved my experience in law school. I loved my career. I loved my current job. But I don't think I have thought it through. So I will make the pitch

that, and I'm going to a little bit steal Kristi's thunder, I think, that I think you should go to law school if you kind of want to be a lawyer. But I will also say that there are many, many ways to get a lot of value out of a law degree, even if you aren't a lawyer. I think Christie and I are examples of that in our careers. I have wonderful classmates who are journalists, who founded companies, who work in the business space, who I think would say, and I've heard them say,

that they've gotten an enormous amount of value from the thinking skills, the network, the connections, the approach to problem solving that they got in law school. But I think if you're 100 percent sure you never want to be a lawyer, I would think long and hard about whether you should go to law school. I think Miriam gets a minus from the David school, and I think she gets a C plus from the Sarah school.

Let's see how Kristi does. I'm going to come to your office hours and beg for you to raise my grade. When I'm answering this question, and of course, it can be very, very personal to the person you're talking to, I usually say, unless you have unlimited financial resources and time resources, and by the way, who does, only go to law school if you think you want to be a lawyer. If you have the intention to practice law at least for some period of time maybe you're thinking longer term I'm going to transition careers but go if you think you want to be a lawyer you think you want to practice law. Lots of people would enjoy law school I'm sure tons of

your listeners on this podcast are people who really enjoy the legal discussions but law school might not be right for them because they don't have really any intention to practice law. Just given the financial investment these days and just also the opportunity cost of taking three years out of the workforce, sidelining your career in a way, I would just think very, very long and hard about going to law school without at least some intention to practice law. How did I do?

Kristi gets an A plus from Professor Sarah. I think there's a little bit of bias there. I'm not going to lie. What do you think, David? A D from you? I mean, in the era of grade inflation, I'll have to go with C minus, C minus at best. Yeah, absolutely. I love it.

I found Miriam far more compelling, to be honest. You're picking favorites. This is totally unbiased objective assessments here, totally. My view is, unless it's financially very, very, very difficult, going to law school when you don't have, when you're not certain of your course and you want to expand your options, I fully endorse going to law school, just going to law school and saying, only if you want to be a lawyer, go to law school.

No, no, no, no. I think law school is a very mind-opening option-expanding alternative that is also really, I thought, fun. I thought it was great. Can I just say, I think you should think about the school you're going to if you want the option expanding. Because I do think that the experience of law school can range from being very theoretical, academic,

let's talk about the why and the how, and not just the what, to very much a, I am gearing you for a professional career as a lawyer in these ways. And so I do think I'm splitting the baby again, that there might be law schools that are better suited for the Sarah approach or the David approach, depending on who the person is,

what they're coming in with and what their goals are. That's very fair. I agree with that. I feel like that was such a Canadian, can't we all just get along answer. Thank you. We love to get along answer. Thank you. We love to get along. We really do. Why can't we all just get along, Sarah and David and Kristy? I forget, was it the Andy Warhol oral argument, but at some point, Lisa Blatt says something to

Justice Alito who went to Yale to the effect of like, well, as you learned in your one L whatever class and Justice Alito interrupts to say, we didn't learn law at my law school. I have a very embarrassing story about being a junior associate and asking the question, federal rules of what? And they were like, of civil procedure. And I was like, oh, oh, I didn't learn about that very much. I learned a lot about class actions and, you know, the procedural due process rights to which all of us are accustomed or entitled, but I definitely did not learn anything about Rule 26B motions, zero.

My extremely, extremely smart and wonderful co-clerk got an assignment from our judge and the judge basically slapped the papers on her desk and was like, okay, straightforward Fourth Amendment case. And she walked out and my co-clerk looked at me and she goes, which one's the Fourth Amendment? I was like, oh, it's a search and seizure. Okay. We'll start at the beginning. Even I know that coming from you. I'll just say. Rule 26B motions and no, Fourth Amendment, yes. Miriam, I think my only pushback to your answer, which was, of course, very good, is what you just added about the schools matter.

Because I feel like a lot of people showed up to Harvard Law School thinking they could do whatever they wanted with a law degree, and maybe they could have. But it's also, in many ways, a conveyor belt to going to a law firm. If you have an idea of what you wanna do, like feel free to go do that thing. Everyone will support you and love that. But if you're just putting one foot in front of another

and you don't know what you want, you're gonna end up at Skadden or wherever. And so I think a lot of people are like, wait, how did I end up at a law firm and I hate this and now I have an alcohol problem because I hate it. That's me, but without the alcohol problem, I'll just say that out loud. And one thing I'll flag, and listeners who work at law firms know all about this, or listeners who work at law schools, but for those who don't, the recruiting process has

accelerated to so early on. I mean, there's a large law firm that has its applications for next summer open right now for incoming admitted students who have not started 1L orientation. We joke about just sending a list of incoming 1Ls to the law. Soon they're going to ask us to just send them straight to the law firm so that the summer before they even start, they can lock in their post-grad jobs. It's lunatic. Lunatic. So to your point, Sarah, in this type of an environment when it's just so early on,

it's hard, I think, for a lot of incoming law students to even give themselves the time to think about, what do I like about this? What am I thinking about for next summer? It's just like, you come in October, November, you're expected to start interviewing for law firms for next summer. And it's so much, it's a mind boggling amount of money amount of money. I worked between. I'm not KJD, but I made $30,000 at my first till job, and they were offering more than $30,000 for the summer. My whole year's salary just over the summer. And so that's really hard to wrap your head around what it would mean to say no to that. And I will give a shout out to Quinn Emanuel here

who put fuzzy flip-flops in each of our mailboxes. And you just can't overestimate how important that was to me loving, I mean, I love those fuzzy flip-flops. They were so nice. I got a Slinky from Goodwin and Procter that I really enjoyed. Oh, I still have my umbrella. I think it was from Goodwin actually. Maybe Goodwin's just really high on their swag. Okay. Well, Miriam and Christy, we cannot thank you enough for

joining us. And the podcast is called Navigating the Law School Admissions Process. Close. Navigating Law School Admissions with Miriam and Kristi. Don't laugh so hard at the name. We challenge you to come up with a better name and we will rebrand. I have it. Decision points. Law School Admissions with Miriam and Kristi. Back in May 2020, those are the types of names the two of us were spitballing forever and then we just gave up. We're like, law school admissions with Miriam and Christie done. Yeah, I was going to say, you know, be really good at this is Claude.

The agony and the ecstasy in law school admissions. Thank you, Miriam and Christie. And if you guys have more questions for them, hop in the comments section, let us know. We'll maybe do some follow-up Q&A with Miriam and Christy during the year when it's not the month of October. I know that's not a good time for you guys. We will never bother you in October. Thanks for having us. Bye. All right. Thank you. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh,