Busting Law School Transfer Admissions Myths with Harvard Law School Dean of Admissions
If you’re finishing up your 1L year and realizing that your law school wasn’t the right fit for you, it may be time to consider transferring!
In my recent interview with Kristi Jobson, the Assistant Dean for Admissions and Chief Admissions Officer at Harvard Law School, we discussed how transfer applications really work for law school. In this excerpt, Kristi breaks down the myths behind transferring to law school and gives her advice on the best transfer application processes.
Interested in the whole interview? Listen to Transfer Admissions with Harvard Law School Dean of Admissions on Spotify or wherever you stream podcasts.
Sydney Montgomery: True or false: transfer applications still care about your LSAT score.
Kristi Jobson: This is one of those things where it's like, oh, it depends. And there could be a scenario, et cetera, et cetera, but it sounds like you're going to make me choose between true or false. And if I had to choose between the two, I'd go with false.
It's important to think about what the LSAT score is used for in admissions. It is one factor, not the only factor, but it's one factor that helps an admissions office predict your first year grades. For transfer applicants, we have your first year grades. Many people really excel during their first year of law school, and so when we're looking at a transfer applicant, we are more focused on what your actual academic performance was during your 1L year, as opposed to a test score you took many years ago that was meant to be indicative of what your performance might be. So I land on false for this myth.
Sydney: Okay, false it is. But I do understand that many of these will probably be somewhere in the “it depends there aren't really black and whites in admission,” but I appreciate you pairing with the game.
True or False: It is harder to transfer law schools than getting in as a JD1.
Kristi: I think I would go with true in terms of it being harder for the applicant lived experience. It's, in my view, a more difficult lived experience to transfer, and I'll say why in a moment, but in terms of just the kind of like raw data harder to get in or not, typically schools often have a higher admit rate in their transfer cycle than in their 1L cycle.
But a lot of that just kind of depends on the applicant pool, right? So you might have a smaller applicant pool and that's a higher admit rate, but the pool is so excellent all around it doesn't necessarily mean it's easier or not.
The reason why I was saying it was harder to transfer law school in terms of the lived experience is that I've observed for transfer applicants, they make a really big decision in a very short period of time. It's important to know going in: It goes so fast. It goes so fast. You get your 1L spring grades, you have these letters of recommendation, you put it in, you're going to find out typically within sometimes two weeks of your application being complete, and you often have a very short period of time to decide which law school to transfer to, or even to transfer at all. And it's a big decision.
For some people It might be a very, very easy decision. Most of the time, it's a big decision because you're leaving behind the relationships from your 1L year and you're leaving behind that 1L experience. I think it's important to know that on the front end that it's going to feel really rushed, and it's going to feel like you are making a big decision in a short period of time. It behooves you to really trust your gut in the transfer moment. Just because you get into a school to transfer, it doesn't necessarily mean it's the right decision for you, and you might feel in that moment that actually remaining in your 1L institution makes the best sense. Or you might not, you might jump and transfer.
Sydney: That's all really good to think about. It does happen very fast. And you know, even we can see, you know, with the regular JD1 application cycle, sometimes students get those decisions really close to the deposit deadlines it can be very like anxiety ridden, right? Like, oh my gosh, I don't know what to do. I don't have all the facts. I need to make a decision.
We talk a lot about mindfulness here and trying to help our students meditate or maybe find some ways to really plug in, like you said, to your gut, because when you're getting all those external thoughts, it can be really hard to kind of figure out what is really true to you. I really appreciate that reminder to check in with your gut.
True or false: It's a good strategy to go to a law school you don't really like very much just to get your foot in the door, and then you'll transfer to law schools next year.
Kristi: Oh, this is not a hard one: That is false. I would not recommend that. You have to make your own life choices. Maybe that feels like a right decision for somebody else. That's not something I would recommend.
I would really recommend going to law school your 1L year feeling like this is where you're going to graduate from, because it's such a big investment of time and energy. You don't want to feel like this was not a great choice, but you're going to try to live with it for a little while and then transfer. I'm sorry to say, you might not get into the school of your choice even when you apply to transfer, or even if you get into your school of your choice for many reasons, it might not feel like the right decision anymore. So, it's just important to go into that 1L year feeling like if this is where I go and if this is where I graduate, I can be happy with that or at least very much at peace.
Sydney: I would absolutely agree with that. I think I hear a lot of students say, well, whatever, I'll just go and plan the chance for next year, and I always caution students. That's a gamble, right? I want you to go to a school thinking, “Hey, this may be the school for three years,” and if you're really uncomfortable with that, then maybe you should make another decision. Because there's no guarantees that you can transfer. Even if you do transfer there’s no guarantees that that's going to be an easy path or a path that's really builds you up to be the best attorney you want to be.
If you transfer, you won't get any scholarship money and you will be paying full sticker. True or false?
Kristi: In terms of an absolute rule in life, that is false. Often transfers do get scholarship money.
At Harvard Law School (HLS), this is a very clear answer. Transfers as are equally eligible for need-based financial aid as students who attended as a 1L or matriculated as a 1L. Same with summer public interest funding, the low income protection plan after you graduate. All of those forms of financial aid, that is all equally as available to transfers as to 1L students.
Sydney: Awesome. I know that is probably an answer that really is going to change school-to-school in terms of endowment and institutional priorities.
True or false: You can only realistically jump maybe 15 or 20 points in the rankings. Even if you have a 4.0, if you're going to a school that's ranked below a hundred, you're just never getting into the T-14.
Kristi: Nah, that's false. Different schools might run their transfer processes in different ways, but we have students at HLS who have gone to whole varieties of other law schools for 1L year. That's actually something we kind of pride ourselves on, both has an admissions office and then as an institution, that we take top students who have excelled at a whole variety of law schools during their 1L year and then come to HLS crush it here as well.
Sydney: I was looking at the 509 report, and for students that don't know, you can actually look at the ABA 509 report for any law school, and it will usually tell you how many students transferred and from what schools those students came from. You can see if you look at Harvard or any other schools, there really is a wide variety of schools that students come from. It's not like they're only taking students from Boston or they're only taking students that have come from the T-14. It's really very diverse geographically in school rankings.
I wouldn't want you to count yourself out. If you have been crushing it and doing really well in law school, I don't want you to think that where you're starting hinders where you can go.
My very last true or false: Soft factors, like being an underrepresented minority, your work experience, and even your essays, don't really matter much with transfer admissions. The only thing that matters is your JD1 GPA.
Kristi: That's definitely false. It all goes into the mix.
We're thinking about, yes, how you did your 1L year, what your professors say about you. That academic component is really important in the transfer process, and I want to underscore that, but we were also thinking about how you plan to use your law degree. We are envisioning you as a member of our community. Transfers at HLS get involved in journals, student organizations, clinics, and everything in between right away, and that's really what we're looking for, is students who are going to be engaged. Like any cohort of students, it's important to really have a mix in all different respects.
Sydney: Yeah, I would agree with that. I tell students that you are always more than just a number, whether that's first year admissions, like you're more than your LSAT and GPA, or whether that's transfer admissions, you're more than just your JD1 GPA.
Obviously your numbers are important, I'm not going to say that they're not, but don't reduce yourself only to a number because as a person you're so much more than that. I think that, you know, not just Kristi, but other admission deans would probably agree that they are looking to admit people and not just scores.
If you’re interested in the entire interview with Kristi Jobson, make sure to listen to our Break Into Law School podcast or visit our YouTube channel! I also offer a variety of law school consulting services that can help you through your law school application process, transfer or not! If you have any questions or need support, don’t be afraid to reach out to us at hello@smontgomeryconsulting.com.