How many schools should I apply to?
To a certain extent, the answer depends on your personal needs and on what you can afford. I encourage students to apply broadly, so that they have the most options open to them. Applying to law school, in my view, should be thought of as two separate steps: applying in the fall, and then deciding in the spring where to go once the acceptances and rejections are received. If you apply broadly, you should have more choices at decision making time. Many pre-law advisors recommend that students apply to one or two “safety schools,” where they are virtually certain of admission, and then to several “competitive schools,” where they will be competitive applicants but not necessarily successful ones. In addition, students often wish to apply to a few “dream schools.” And why not, if you can afford it? You have nothing to lose. To determine which schools you are competitive at, you can refer to any number of books and web sites that provide rankings. The best book is probably the ABA/LSAC Off
How many law schools should you apply to? The answer, once again, is: it depends. Most students end up applying to between four and seven law schools. The breakdown is usually something like this. Apply to one of your “dream schools”. This is a school where perhaps your numbers alone (GPA and LSAT score) make you a long-shot candidate, and you’re hoping that some of your other credentials will be used as a “tiebreaker” to get you in. You should apply to two or more schools where your GPA and LSAT make you a solid candidate for admission. Finally, include one or two “insurance schools”. These are schools where nothing short of total destruction of the law school would keep you out. In addition to the time involved in completing each law school’s application, cost can also be a limiting factor. The typical application fee per law school is $50 or more. When you add that to the costs for the LSDAS, the LSAT, test preparation materials, and miscellaneous expenses, the total cost just to ge
This really depends on the student. If you are applying to very competitive college or university, you will probably apply to several. Since every application costs about $35-$75 dollars, you will probably want to limit your options as much as possible. If the application fees are too expensive for you, many schools will waive that fee based on financial need. Choose one or two reach schools, that you think you probably would have a hard time being admitted to. Check stats with books like Princeton review or US News. Apply to 1-2 schools that you think you have a decent chance of getting into, and would also like to attend. Apply to at least 1 safety school, which you know you will be admitted to. This can be an open admissions school, or a local community college. The last thing you want is to not get into college at all. Many high school counselors will tell you which schools they consider to be a reach colleges based on your transcript, class rank, and SAT scores. High school counse
Depends. If you’re 4.0 and 40+ on the MCAT, then probably you could apply to only one or two and get away with it. There are stories of people who applied to 50 or 60 schools and didn’t get into any. Most people apply to around 10, more if they feel their folder is a little weak, less if they think they’ve got a pretty solid record.
