In my blog posts I frequently make passing references to the numerous centers and programs at YLS. There are over twenty centers, programs, and workshops that focus on a wide range of subjects, from legal reform in China and legal topics in South America, to corporate and public interest law. These organizations sponsor conferences, lectures, and panel discussions throughout the school year. They bring in leaders from the business, government, and nonprofit sectors; prominent legal practitioners; and scholars at the cutting edge of their respective disciplines to educate and engage our students and faculty. The centers are a natural extension of our curriculum and ensure that learning at YLS is not limited to a traditional classroom setting.
This week I'd like to focus on one of our largest centers, the Information Society Project (ISP). The ISP is an intellectual hub at YLS and serves as the umbrella organization for many of our co-curricular activities dealing with intellectual property, information technologies, and the Internet and their implications for law and society. The ISP sponsors several research programs, including programs in intellectual property reform and law and genomics. In addition to topics more commonly associated with the broadly-defined term "intellectual property," the ISP has research programs focusing on the intersection of law and the media, civil liberties online, digital education, and access to knowledge.
The ISP's research programs sponsor events on an almost weekly basis. Last week they welcomed their first speaker in the First Amendment Online Colloquium who spoke on search engine law and the First Amendment. This weekend the ISP's Access to Knowledge (A2K) program will host a major conference at YLS focusing on the intersection between access to knowledge and human rights.
The A2K program focuses on a host of issues affecting access to knowledge worldwide, including patent and copyright policy, media openness, access to information and communication technologies, access to government information, open-access scholarship, spectrum allocation, interoperability standards, and the preservation of traditional knowledge.
Conference speakers and attendees from around the globe will participate in panel discussions on gene patents and right to health, political expression and dissent in a digital world, using technology to expand access to education, copyrights and access for persons with disabilities, and establishing information access and ethics frameworks in Africa.
The A2K4 conference is open to the general public, like many of the events at YLS. There is still time to register for the program, which begins with a film screening on Thursday evening. Visit the conference's website to register and to access a complete list of panels, speakers, and conference schedule.
It is the first week of spring semester at the Law School, with all of the excitement and energy that this entails. The term begins, like each new term, with the anticipation of a new curriculum and the comfort of catching up with old friends. The beginning of the term is also a great time in the life of a student, before the reading piles up and the paper deadlines draw near, to go see something on the stage. After all, spring semester or not, it is January and it is cold. Isn't this the perfect time to spend an evening nestled in a cozy theater seat?
New Haven is quite possibly one of the best U.S. cities outside of New York for theater going. This week alone you can catch an adaption of Virginia Woolf's Orlando, a brilliantly funny one-man show (The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac), a drama starring Emmy and Tony Award winner, Mandy Patinkin (Compulsion), Wuthering Heights performed as part of the 42nd season of the Yale Cabaret, the musical Chicago, and the world premier of Lil's 90th, a play by Darci Picoult about love and aging.
Yale School of Drama is world renowned and its students and faculty bring an enormous amount of energy and creativity to the theater scene in New Haven. Each season, the Yale Repertory Theater (www.yalerep.org), with its close ties to the School of Drama, brings New Haven interpretations of the classics, emerging artists in experimental theater, and actors who have already achieved their fame on the stage. This week the Rep, located only a few blocks from the Law School, is showing Compulsion in the main theater and The Be(A)st of Taylor Mac on the separate stage at University Theater. Other plays in the 2009-2010 Season include a production of Henry Ibsen's drama The Master Builder, a politically charged tale of psychological warfare, Battle of Black Dogs, and a physical comedy, The Servant of Two Masters. The Yale Rep offers student discounts on tickets and play passes, which keep it an affordable way for law students to see excellent theater.
The Yale School of Drama also brings its own productions to New Haven, featuring the work of student playwrights, directors and actors. From new plays, to productions of Shakespeare and third-year director thesis projects, New Haven audiences have the opportunity to witness the talent of the School of Drama firsthand. These plays are shown in the Iseman Theater on Chapel Street and many of them are free and open to the public. To see more information about the School of Drama's 2009-2010 Season, visit their website: www.drama.yale.edu .
Finally, for new and experimental plays, Yale also has the Cabaret (www.yalecabaret.org), a small theater space where students gather to eat dinner and watch engaging, innovative theater.
Beyond Yale, New Haven is also home to the Shubert and Long Wharf Theaters. The Shubert Theater (www.capa.com/newhaven) in downtown New Haven draws audiences from throughout Southern Connecticut for its productions of shows and musicals from Chicago to Annie. Long Wharf Theater (www.longwharf.org), now in its 45th season, was started by two Yale alumni as a regional professional theater. The offerings in its 2009-2010 Season range from the hit musical, The Fantasticks, to a solo show about teaching in America's education system. This month, the Long Wharf is where you can catch the production of Lil's 90th.
New Haven may be cold in January, but in this winter month it also offers compelling theater for those students who love the stage and their classmates who get pulled along!
We here at 203 are thrilled to know that we aren't the only admissions office on campus that likes to have fun and doesn't take ourselves too seriously:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tGn3-RW8Ajk
It's technically a plug for Yale College, but it mentions the Law School (albeit in an inaccurate conext) which makes it good enough for our blog.
To the goods:
Dear Asha,
Should I include a diversity statement with my application? I have written one for other schools but wasn't sure whether it would help or hurt my application to Yale Law School.
Thanks,
P.B.
Dear P.B.,
We get this question a lot. The short answer is that you are welcome to include any information which you feel will enable the Admissions Committee to make a fully-informed decision on your candidacy. Which translates into: we don't ask for a diversity statement specifically, but if you would like to include one, it is O.K. to do so.
Explaining some aspect of yourself which you think would make a unique contribution to the Law School is a good thing. The question is whether you really need to provide a supplemental essay to do it. Keep in mind that unlike many law schools, we already ask for an additional essay (the infamous 250-word essay) in addition to your personal statement. Since we do not specify a topic for either the shorter essay or the personal statement, you can include information relevant to an aspect of diversity which you feel is important to your application in either (or both) of these pieces of writing.
Consider the following applicants:
1. A stay-at-home parent who is applying to law school after being out of school/workforce for seven years. The applicant explains that he has spent this time raising his three sons in Question 6 ("If you have been out of school for more than six months, describe what you have been doing in the interval."), and then also writes a personal statement about how he spent several years finding and fighting for special needs educational acommodations for one of his children, which led to his interest in law school.
2. A student who writes a 250-word essay about growing up in a blue-collar family, attending a resource-poor public school, and being the first to attend college. The student includes an addendum explaining that because she had to finance a large part of college herself, she did not have much time for extracurricular activities and asks the Admissions Committee to take that into account.
3. A former military veteran who spent the last five years deployed to Iraq. The applicant includes details on his various duties in Iraq on a resume which he includes in the application, and also provides a letter of reference from one of his commanding officers.
I would submit that all of the above individuals would have their "diversity" (older, non-traditional applicant, socioeconomic background, military experience, respectively) taken into account even though none of them provided a specific diversity statement. In fact, most likely, an additional diversity statement wouldn't really provide any additional information for any of these applicants -- the applicants have already successfully illustrated what makes them different and how it has shaped or impacted their lives just through the regular components of the application. So here is where a diversity statement might "hurt" them, in the sense that it would be redundant, and unnecessary.
Now, it's possible that the above applicants could craft their applications entirely differently, and a diversity statement would make sense. For example, if the military vet did not inlcude a resume (which we do not require), and doesn't know what his officer wrote in the recommendation (because he would wisely waive his right to see the letter), and also used both essay opportunities to discuss personal and academic interests, then it might make sense to include a statement which explains that he has served in the armed forces, has seen combat, and feels that as a result of these experiences he might be able to provide a valuable perspective on x,y, and z issues. Again, that's just a possibilty, and there are other permutations.
The take home point is that while you can include as much information as you like, you also want to be judicious in the number and amount of additional essays/addenda that you provide. You don't want your application to be the one that never ends (that's not a good thing for the reader, or for you). Ideally, you will try to incorporate all the relevant information about yourself into the questions provided on the application. If you feel that there is something critical that really won't fit anywhere else, certainly include it as a supplement.
Finally, I hope that the examples above make clear that we do have a very broad definition of "diversity" which we do consider in putting together our class. However, if you do choose to write a diversity essay, please, PLEASE try to be serious about it and make sure it is something that has truly shaped your experiences and perspective. Do NOT write a diversity statement on how you are "a good listener" or something similar. Seriously, that's just lame.
I hope this is helpful, and I look forward to reading your final masterpiece!
--Asha
I hope 2010 is off to a good start for all of our readers. We've been busy reading your applications and admitting some of you (contrary to some rumors, we do, in fact, admit applicants). January is traditionally a great time to get a lot of work done because, next to summer, it's the quietest time of the year at YLS. Why is it so quiet? Because, unlike most schools, our final exams are administered after the winter break. For two weeks in January, the lectures, conferences, and symposia all stop and our students focus on their exams and papers.
Now, if finals period conjures up painful thoughts for you of all-night study sessions and disheveled, library-bound, pajama-clad classmates, I'm here to tell you that the exam period here is almost certainly unlike anything you experienced as an undergraduate. To demonstrate, here are five reasons why our finals period is so much better than your finals period:
- Take your exams at the beach (think Fiji, not Long Island Sound). With the advent of the Internet (praise be to Al Gore) and ever-present Internet connections, you can take your exams practically anywhere since almost all of our exams are administered online. Combine this with the fact that many of our library resources are only a mouse click away and you can relax under a cabana while you rock that antitrust final. In fact, many of our students depart New Haven for the winter break and don't come back until the spring term begins at the end of January.
- Take your exams when you want. Are you a procrastinator? Hate all-night cramming? Still trying to catch up on all of those shows you Tivoed during the fall term? If so, you'll love YLS. Many of our exams are self-scheduled. You "check out" the exam and then you have a specified period of time to "check in" your finished masterpiece.
- Don't take exams at all. It's possible at YLS not to have exams in a given term. Many of our classes offer a paper option instead of an exam. If the thought of finals, even those at the beach, puts you on edge or you just like writing papers, then you can choose your courses accordingly. The Bulletin usually denotes which courses have this option.
- Repeat after me, pass/fail, pass/fail. Your fall-term, 1L courses are graded on a pass/fail basis. This system is commonly referred to by students as pass/pass. In fact, you'd have to work at failing a fall-term, 1L course. While this doesn't mean that 1Ls don't study, it does mean that a lot of the pressure is removed from the examination process since your grades will look like everyone else's grades. After your first term, courses are graded on an honors/pass/low pass/fail system. This system is not based on a curve and the low pass and fail marks aren't given very often.
- Massages for students during exam period. Enough said.
With the exam period almost over (wish the 1Ls good luck on their con law exams on Tuesday) our relaxed and tanned students will slowly begin returning to the Law School and the stream of fascinating visitors, lectures, conferences, and symposia will start up again. Until then, we'll be busy reading your applications in relative quiet.
The Cupcake Truck is a quirky and beloved New Haven experience. The flavors change daily and so does the location of the truck. In order to stop by the truck for one of their delicious $2 cupcakes, you will first have to visit their blog (http://fooddriven.blogspot.com) to find out where they are parked for the day. Some days you will get lucky and find that the truck has parked twice. Other days the truck will not appear at all. Perhaps it is the unpredictability of getting your hands on one that makes the cupcake taste so good?! The truck makes stops throughout New Haven, so is certain, eventually, to show up at a spot not far from your apartment or the Law School. The owners are great and when the truck parks people show up!
Salted caramel is one of the best, and you can't go wrong with a chocolate frosted chocolate cupcake topped with M&M bits! Check out their website here (http://followthatcupcake.com/menu.html) for pictures that will be impossible to resist.
If you love their cupcakes, you might also order a do-it-yourself party box, which includes a dozen naked cupcakes you can decorate yourself. The entire truck can also be rented for a party. I can't say if any law school students have tried this out yet, but it sounds fun!
For more information about the cupcake truck their website address is: http://followthatcupcake.com/about.html.
Since I introduced 203's B.I.J. feature last spring, many of you have waited anxiously for the next post, perhaps for no other reason than to discover a new 80's reference you've never heard of as reaffirmation that you're still under 30, so things really can't be all that bad. I hadn't been inspired for a while, as things have been going well: baby's sleeping through the night, the Yankees won the World Series, and I had a chance to get out and see New Moon in the movie theater (Werewolves. v. Vampires -- feel free to discuss in the comments). But since it has started getting dark here at 4:30 p.m., my Seasonal Affective Disorder has slowly set in, and I'm ready to impart a new lesson.
I guess it goes without saying that setting your pants on fire is Bad Idea Jeans, not the least because you would no longer have said jeans. But what I'm referring to here is lying on your application.
Now, there're no shortage of opportunities for you to put untruths, partial-truths, omissions, or exaggerations on your application. For the most part, we probably won't know. (I will refer you here, though, to the part of the application you sign which says, "I understand Yale Law School may verify information included in my application." This means we can, and sometimes do, randomly snoop around to see whether you're actually the person you say you are -- more on that in a future Bad Idea Jeans: Greatest Hits.) But there is one part of the application in which you are unlikely to get away with lying, and that is the Character and Fitness questions, which vary from law school to law school but appear on our application as follows:
Question 11. Have you ever been convicted of, or pleaded guilty or no contest to, a felony or misdemeanor, or are there any criminal charges pending against you at the present time?
Question 12. Have you ever been disciplined for misconduct, suspended, expelled, or required to withdraw from any college or university?
Simple enough, right? Sadly, we see time and again how these questions cause enormous anxiety, and sometimes ongoing problems, for law school applicants and students.
See, we're not going to be the last people to ask you these kinds of questions. You could probably breeze into law school using a Clintonesque "it depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is" self-rationalization to avoid disclosing your past. You could even whistle through another three years, line up a cushy clerkship and job, and start picking out the furniture for your 300-square foot Manhattan studio from Pottery Barn. But at some point, you will find yourself applying to the bar of some state, only to stop dead in your tracks when you see something like the following (taken from the New York State bar application):
Have you ever, either as an adult or juvenile, been cited, arrested, taken into custody, charged with, indicted, convicted or or tried for, or pleaded guilty to, the commission of any felony or misdemeanor or the violation of any law, except minor parking violations, or been the subject of juvenile delinquency or youthful offender proceedings? If you answer yes, state the charge or charges, the disposition thereof and the underlying facts. Although a conviction may have been expunged from the records by an order of the court, it nevertheless should be disclosed in the answer to this question. Please note that you should have available and be prepared to submit or exhibit copies of police and court records regarding any matter you disclose in reply to this question.
What happens is that when you answer this question, the Character and Fitness Committee from your state comes back to us (or whichever law school you graduated from), and asks the Registar or Dean of Students whether your answers match what you disclosed on your applications. Now, if you are observant, you'll notice that our questions don't exactly match the bar question. Guess what? IT DOESN'T MATTER. The bar committees will freak out when they see that your law school application disclosures don't match your bar application disclosures, and they're going to want to know more. They're going to give the new information to your law school, and ask your school (more specifically, the Dean of Admissions) to warrant that you would have still been admitted had s/he known the new information. They're going to ask you why you didn't disclose the information earlier. They're going to go through the rest of your application with a fine-toothed comb. In short, you're going to have to go through a lot of red tape, have a P.O.'d alma mater, and, if what you didn't originally disclose was actually pretty bad, find yourself with a rescinded law degree and/or unable to sit for the bar.
Lest you think I'm being too preachy, I'll confess that I'm no saint, either. When I applied to the FBI, I had to undergo a polygraph examination. I remember getting to the FBI office, and seeing a tall, burly, old guy with a crew cut fiddling around with a bunch of wires and hookups on what looked like a medieval torture machine. I sat down, and he ignored me. He suddenly turned around and pulled up his chair directly across from me, about ten inches from my face.
"Character," he said, locking eyes, "is what you do when you think no one is looking."
Crap. I had just jaywalked across Church Street and blown off the homeless lady selling flowers. Had they been trailing me?
During the four-hour interrogation that followed, I proceeded to scour my mental rolodex and barf out every moral infraction I could think of. Like the time I "borrowed" some printer paper from my job to use at home. Or the time I tried to use a fake Nebraska ID to get into a Georgetown bar (I was rejected). Or the time I kinda sorta traveled to Cuba, you know...illegally. I cried; the polygrapher thanked me and told me I spoke very good English.
The point is that we all have skeletons in our closet, and when it comes to law school and practicing law, a bone or two will come flying out sooner or later. It's in your interest to have it be sooner. To help you out, here are a few things to consider:
1. If you need to consult an attorney about whether or not to disclose something, then you probably need to disclose it (despite what your attorney tells you).
2. If what you've done is enough to keep you out of law school, it's almost certainly going to keep you from practicing law. You might as well know now, because while getting rejected from law school is bad, graduating from law school with $150K of debt and no way to pay it back is even worse.
3. Business schools don't ask you these kinds of questions.
One last thing. I've read close to around 10,000 files at this point, and to be honest, I've seen very few transgressions that would ipso facto disqualify someone from admission to law school. But here's the deal: a lack of candor, even about an otherwise excusable incident, raises serious questions about your fitness to practice law. Remember that Martha Stewart didn't get convicted for an actual securities violation (there wasn't one), she was convicted for LYING about it. So set yourself free: tell the truth. (And by the way, please don't try to end run the question by omitting an answer on your application and then sending an email to the general admissions address that you "forgot" to mention your DUI, or whatever -- that just makes you look sketchier.)
OK, I'll end with a gratuitous 80's reference (extra credit for readers over 30: Haim v. Feldman -- please discuss):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hsv_NQFbQzo.
The port of Mystic, Connecticut, is a great daytrip from New Haven. The drive only takes an hour and whenever I go I really feel like I have had an excursion out of town. Now I have to confess, the first time I drove out to Mystic it was to check out the pizza place - Mystic Pizza having been one of my favorite movies. And Mystic Pizza (http://www.mysticpizza.com/restaurants.aspx) is certainly worth a stop. The crust is a little thicker than the famous New Haven pizza, but whatever their special ingredient is it certainly makes a tasty pie.
I soon discovered there is a lot to see and do in Mystic other than just eat pizza. When you first pull off of Interstate 95, you will see the Olde Mistick Village (http://oldemistickvillage.com/). It's on the touristy side, but if you like old time shops and candy you should pull in just to go to the village's two country stores. A little further down the road is the Mystic Seaport Museum of America and the Sea (http://www.mysticseaport.org/). The Seaport features a 19th century village, a large collection of unique historic ships and a wide range of information on the culture and lives of seamen. Here you can head to the Seamen's Inne for traditional dishes like Baked New England Cod or Seafood Pie. Mystic is also home to a famous aquarium (http://www.mysticaquarium.org/), which I have heard is a great place to go if you have kids. And this is all before you hit downtown Mystic.
If you are heading into the town in the morning, stop on your way for breakfast at Kitchen Little (http://www.visitconnecticut.com/kitchenlittle). If the weather is nice you should sit at one of the picnic benches out in back, overlooking the Mystic River. From there you can continue down the road to Main Street, cross the historic drawbridge and find yourself in the quaint little town of Mystic. (Watch the time - from May to October the drawbridge opens at 40 minutes passed the hour to let ships into the port and you can get stuck for quite a while!) The town fans up the road from the water, with lots of little boutiques, art galleries and restaurants to duck into. There are some great seafood restaurants along the water - or walk up Main Street to try the famous Mystic Pizza. Be sure to stop into Mystic Drawbridge Ice Cream for a scoop of homemade ice cream or sorbet. Take your ice cream to walk along the small boardwalk by the port. It is easy to spend an hour or more sitting on one of the wooden benches here just watching the boats coming and going.
Dear Asha,
I am a senior in college and am planning to work or teach for a year or two after graduation. If I know I will be taking time off, is it better for me to apply now and defer, or wait until I'm ready to go to law school? If the former, how easy is it to get a deferral from YLS?
Thanks,
A.S.
Dear A.S.,
Your question is a good one, and the answer really depends on how clear your reasons are for attending law school. There are advantages and disadvantages to each option, but there is a middle ground that might be helpful.
Basically, the advantage to applying while you are still in school is that you're probably in a better position to put together your application. Obviously, you need to take the LSAT, if you haven't already, and most people probably find it easier to prepare and take the exam while they are still in school, both because they have more time to devote to it and because they are already in an academic mindset. I do see often that people who wait to take the LSAT until after they graduate find that the demands of their job don't give them enough time to study, and many students who end up working abroad encounter a lot of logistical difficulties in taking the test.
In addition, it's easier to get recommendations from professors who know you well while you are still in school. Most of the professors from whom you are likely to solicit recommendations have had you as a student within the past year or two, and so your performance in their classes are still fresh in their minds. Again, I often find that students who wait until they are out of school for a few years sometimes have difficulty getting detailed recommendations from professors, or will submit employer recommendations instead, which, in our faculty-driven admissions process, could hurt them.
Finally, applying while you are still in school and deferring just gives you peace of mind, since you have already "locked in" your plans following whatever it is that you plan to do for one or two years. It can make for a much more relaxed time period, and you can focus more clearly on whatever path you've chosen to take in that time.
On the other hand, students who wait to apply until they've had some real-world experience tend to have richer personal statements and are better able to clearly articulate their reasons for applying to law school. Often, the experiences they have had working or teaching clarify a lot of things they are passionate about and interested in, and they just have more reference points -- beyond just coursework, extracurricular activities, or summer internships -- to draw upon. In other words, students who have been out of school have the opportunity to offer a slightly more mature and nuanced perspective on how the path they have taken thus far corresponds to their future path in law school and beyond (though that will, of course, depend on the self-awareness and writing ability of the individual applicant).
One possible middle ground you can take is to go ahead and take the LSAT while you are still in school, and to also get your recommenders to write letters for you while you are still fresh in their minds. Your LSAT score will be valid for five years, and if you open an account with LSAC you can also put your recommendations on file for up to five years as well (many schools also provide a service through their career development offices that will hold recommendations on your behalf). You can then pursue whatever job you would like to take and, in the fall/spring before you're ready to matriculate, you can put together your essays and submit your application. This sacrifices the "peace of mind" point I made above, since you will have to devote some time and endure some stress during your time off applying to law school and waiting for decisions, but this path can combine the best of both worlds.
If you do decide to apply while you are still in school and defer -- and many people do this -- you should note that we have a "tiered" approach to granting deferrals. Generally speaking, we are very generous in granting one-year deferrals, provided that they are requested by our deposit deadline. You do need to make a formal request, and outline why the experience you're considering will enhance both your personal development and your legal education, but unless you're planning on living in your parents' basement for a year playing Guitar Hero, you should be able to meet this threshold. Once our deposit deadline has passed, however, we do expect a little more structure and focus in deferral requests, since at that point we have more or less finalized our class and would need to fill your spot with someone else from our wait list. So we would at that point only grant one-year deferrals on a case-specific basis.
For two year deferrals, the bar is a little higher. We generally expect requests for two-year deferrals to involve a commitment that in some way requires two years to complete. Examples of this are scholarships like the Rhodes or Marshall, Teach for America fellowships, or the Peace Corps. Other types of programs and commitments will be considered but we will want to know why you need two years, rather than one.
I should note that if you are already working at the time you apply and are admitted, the need to stay in your current job for one or two years isn't looked on too favorably. In other words, we expect that if you have already been out of school doing something and have applied to law school, it's because you're ready to go to law school. If you think that you need more time to complete projects in your current job, get a promotion, etc., then please wait to apply until you're ready to matriculate.
We do not grant three-year deferrals except in extreme cases. In fact, the only time I have granted a three-year deferral off the bat is for military service. In rare instances I have granted an extension of a two-year deferral for personal or medical reasons, family hardship, or for academically compelling reasons, like you are just about to finish a dissertation. And, regardless of the reasons, we do not under any circumstances grant deferrals or extensions beyond three years: at that point, a student's only option is to withfraw from Yale and to reapply, and readmission is not guaranteed.
I hope this answers your question, and that you'll enjoy your time off, regardless of when you apply!
--Asha
Please email questions to 203blog@yale.edu
The Law School and Yale's
School of Management (SOM) unveiled a pilot three-year joint degree program
last spring for students interested in an integrated law and business
curriculum. At the end of the three year Accelerate Integrated JD-MBA
program (AI JD-MBA), students earn both a JD and an MBA. Yale is the
third university in the country to offer a three-year JD-MBA and the first do
so without requiring summer classes. The summer before the first year of
the program and subsequent summers during the program are open, so students can
pursue internships and other employment opportunities.
"The program will prepare students for the increasingly complex
intersection of business and law," said former Dean Harold Koh.
"Students will master analytical and quantitative skills that will
be of value for a business law-related practice but also more broadly for
careers as entrepreneurs and managers in business and non-profit
organizations."
The new program supplements our existing four-year JD-MBA program, one of the
most popular joint degree programs at YLS. As the name implies, the
four-year JD-MBA allows students to complete both degrees in four years with no
summer coursework. One of the highlights of this program (and most of our
other joint degree programs) is the curricular and scheduling flexibility
afforded to participants. Students in the four-year program are mostly
free to choose which semesters they spend at which school, as long as total of
five terms are spent at YLS and three are spent at SOM. Additionally, the
four-year JD-MBA is not limited to SOM. Students have the ability to
pursue their MBA at a different university.
In order to compress the rigorous JD-MBA curriculum into three years,
participants lose some flexibility when compared to the four-year
program. Students must begin the program at YLS, where they spend their
first year. In the second year, students spend both semesters at SOM, but
take one class in the spring at YLS. The third year is spent at YLS.
When compared to the four-year program, students lose ability to take one
term's worth of electives at YLS; two when compared to non-joint degree
students.
Students pay regular JD tuition in their first year, a special tuition to SOM
in their second year, and a special tuition to YLS in their third year.
Need-based loans taken during the semesters in which students paid tuition to
SOM are eligible for SOM's
Loan Forgiveness Support. Need-based loans taken during the semesters
in which students paid tuition to the YLS are eligible for COAP.
Applicants interested in the AI JD-MBA must apply to both
YLS and SOM. The applications can either
be submitted simultaneously or YLS students can apply to the program during
their first year of law school. Detailed
application instructions for simultaneous
applicants and YLS 1Ls
can be found on our website.
More information about the three-year AI JD-MBA and four-year JD-MBA programs,
as well as our other joint degrees, can be found on our joint degree page. The AI JD-MBA Program has its own site
hosted by the Yale Law School
Center for the Study of Corporate Law.
In addition to an overview of the program and application instructions,
you can view videos
of professors and alumni talking about the AI JD-MBA and the benefits of pursuing
degrees in law and business.
New Haven can be a wonderful place to spend
the summer. The campus quiets down, but
that doesn't mean that the activities stop.
In fact, one of New Haven's
most famous events, the International Festival of Arts and Ideas takes place in
June. The Festival's main stage on the
New Haven Green features days of free performances that turn out the local
community. Performances are also held at
theaters throughout New Haven and the concerts
come right up to our doorstep here at the Law School,
with the courtyard providing an intimate venue for a night of music. (Check
out the pictures below!)
The International Festival of Arts
and Ideas just celebrated its fourteenth year, and has become renowned as one
of the world's most significant arts festivals. The Festival is a global event in New Haven. Each summer, the Festival showcases hundreds
of international artists and speakers from over 75 countries in a broad array
of genres. The Festival brings U.S. premieres to New Haven, operas to the Green,
internationally recognized names and dynamic, emerging, local artists to a new
audience. And to top it all, much of the
Festival programming is free.
The 2009 Festival, themed Global
Identities/Local Heroes, featured performances by artists such as Jason Moran,
the Barabbas Theater Company and the Mark Morris Dance Group. (Check out the NYT review of the Mark Morris
Dance Group performance here: www.nytimes.com/2009/06/27/arts/dance/27dido.html?pagewanted=all).
Mavis Staples and They Might be
Giants could be seen in free performances on the New Haven Green, along with
performances by local and international artists. The courtyard concert series brought alto
saxophonist Miguel Zenón, Tania Libertad, whose
singing blends the Afro-Peruvian tradition with many other styles, and the
international lyrical sound of Rupa & The April Fishes here to the Law School.
The Festival also
brings ideas to New Haven. From conversations about the Hidden Assault
on our Civil Rights and Confronting the Global Economic Crisis, to Food:
Pleasure, Policy and Public Health, this year's Festival brought together an
inspirational group of people from around the world to think about the
challenges facing us on a local and global level. Attendees also had the opportunity to
converse about the arts with novelist Frank McCourt, choreographer Mark Morris,
and soul singer Mavis Staples, among many others.
Food enthusiasts were able to tour
the kitchens of local restaurants and enjoy specialty dinners from the
chefs. I didn't sign up early enough,
but the Flavors from Iberia
to Latin America tour, featuring Ibiza, Soul
de Cuba and Geronimo sounded fantastic!
If you want to attend one of the dinners next year - be sure to sign up
early!
To learn more about the Festival or
if you plan to be in the New Haven area next summer, keep a watch on the
Festival's website (www.artidea.org) for
the plans for June, 2010. Once the
schedule is announced, tickets for the more popular events go quickly - so sign
up if you see something you like. Or you
can always stop by the New Haven Green to catch one of the many free performances
taking place throughout the Festival.
Welcome back to 203! I hope all of you had relaxing and productive summers. As Dean Rangappa mentioned last week, the Admissions Office has some new things in store for you this fall including our Twitter feed and e-visits/webinars. While the e-visits will mostly be targeted at specific undergraduate schools and admitted students, we'll have one or two general webinars. So if you're curious to see me, and perhaps Dean Rangappa, do our best Max Headroom impressions, follow us on Twitter and you'll be among the first to know when these are scheduled.
In a stunning feat of modernization, the rest of the Law School also joined the 21st century this summer, so you can now follow them on Twitter and become their biggest fan on Facebook. Finally, after being shamed in the 360-degree mirror by Stacy and Clinton, the YLS website will have a new look this fall. The $5,000 Visa card is exhausted, so it should be making its debut soon.
Back in the non-digital world, there are a bunch of new things happening too. The Law School recently welcomed its 198th class of students to New Haven with a multi-day orientation program designed to introduce them to Yale, New Haven, and the study of law. In addition to lectures on the American legal system, the history of legal education, and introductions to environmental, transnational, and public interest law, the Class of 2012 had opportunities to socialize at a cocktail reception at the Yale Center for British Art, an outdoor performance of Moliere's "The Imaginary Invalid," and the Law School community picnic.
The 214 students of the 1L class hail from 7 countries, 38 states, and 76 undergraduate institutions. 25% of the Class of 2012 joined us immediately after finishing their undergraduate studies, 38% have been out of college for one or two years, and the remaining 37% have three or more years of post-college experience. They hold 35 advanced degrees in such diverse subjects as economics, philosophy, Egyptology, and computer science. Before joining us at YLS, the Class of 2012 pursued a variety of jobs, activities, and careers, including:
· professional equestrian;
· Cantonese opera singer;
· U.N. peacekeeper;
· speechwriter for former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice;
· intern for U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan;
· FBI lab scientist;
· Bollywood actress;
· weed inspector; and
· cemetery attendant.
Welcoming the Class of 2012 on their first day was the Law School's new Dean, Robert Post. In his first convocation, Dean Post, told the new class that, "for this one astonishing moment, you are poised at the very edge of what undoubtedly will become one of the great adventures of your life." He encouraged the assembled group to reflect on what brought them to this singular place from their many diverse paths and to learn and draw strength from this diversity.
In closing, Dean Post told the class:
We shall educate you so as to empower you to become more truly
yourselves. We shall educate you to liberate your energy and your passion.
We shall educate you to endow you with the capacities to make a lasting and
important difference, no matter what your chosen field of endeavor. And we
shall educate you in this way because we believe in you. We believe in every
one of you sitting now in this auditorium.
Distilled to its essence, we offer you each the educational gift of trust.
It is a rare and precious gift. Do not waste it. Take advantage of these next
three years. If you are anything like most of the alums that I meet, these will
be among the most wonderful three years of your life-the most exciting,
the most provocative, the most transformative, the most empowering. Use
them well, and good luck.
You can read the full text of Dean Post's welcome here.
Summer's over, school has started, and we've got the ball rolling for another admissions season!
This year, we've got a few new things up our sleeve. First, we're on Twitter, at www.twitter.com/ylsadmissions. Sign up to receive our tweets or toots or whatever you kids call it these days.
Second, this fall we'll be making e-visits to many schools in addition to our regular in-person visits. That means that if you are an alum or out of town (or stuck in a boring class), you can still tune in! If we won't be visiting your school either virtually or in person, you can meet one of our representatives at a law fair or forum in your area. Check out our recruiting schedule for more details (we're still in the process of scheduling many visits, so keep checking back).
Keep up on our blog for answers to your questions, events in and around the Law School, and more irreverent advice about how to navigate this nerve-wracking process. And as always, send your questions to 203blog@yale.edu. We look forward to hearing from you!
Asha
Well, summer is finally here so it's time for us to bid all of our 203 readers adieu until the fall. We will be back in action around the first week of September, so stay tuned! In the meantime, you can continue to send any questions you have to 203blog@yale.edu. Stay cool and don't forget to use sunblock!
Dear Asha,
I am interested in transferring from my current law school to Yale. Do you have any comments for those of us who are willing to make the jump and apply to transfer to YLS? In particular, what are you looking for in a transfer applicant that you would not look for in a regular applicant (I know law school GPA/class rank is a big part of the process)? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you,
A.F.
Dear A.F.,
You ask a great question, since our transfer application process is somewhat different than our process for first-year students.
First, as background, we accept transfer applications from May 1 to July 1 of each calendar year, for matriculation in August of the same year as a second-year student. In order to be eligible for transfer you must have completed the equivalent of one year of law school at an ABA-accredited law school.
Unlike our regular admissions process, our transfer admissions process has one centralized Admissions Committee that reviews all of the applications together. We release all of our decisions around the third week of July; there are no rolling admissions. In order to complete a transfer application, you must submit a $75 application fee, the transfer application, a transcript with your grades for your full first year of law school, and two letters of recommendation (and yes, the application still includes the 250-word essay). Note that since often spring grades do not make it on to your transcript by our application deadline, we will accept an unofficial version of your grades (e.g., computer printout/email) for purposes of review; these will be verified through an official transcript in the event you are offered admission.
You are correct that in reviewing transfer applications, we put a lot of weight on your first term grades and GPA. Your LSAT and undergraduate GPA are not particularly relevant: this is because these are predictors of your performance in your first year of law school, and in the case of transfers we actually have your first year grades in front of us. We also place a great deal of weight on your recommendations from your law school professors; more than wanting to know the grade you received in the class (which we can obviously see from your transcript), we are interested in knowing how you performed in class discussions, the quality of your writing, and how you compared with other students in the class and in the professor's experience teaching. To this end, it is important to try to get to know at least a couple of professors personally during your first year, in order to submit the strongest transfer application possible.
We do not have a fixed number of transfers that we take in any given year. Rather, we admit the strongest applications we receive each year, space permitting, which has in recent years ranged from 5 to 15 students from institutions such as Georgetown, Harvard, Pepperdine, Stanford, Tulane, and Washington University. Generally speaking, these students were in the top 5-10% of their first year class.
As with students taken off of our wait list, students who have been accepted for transfer will have a limited window of time in which to make a decision (usually about a week to ten days). We encourage transfer applicants to visit Yale early if seeing the campus will be critical to the decision whether to accept the offer. Unfortunately, we do not have classes over the summer and most students and professors are gone, but the building and library are open to visitors. Self-guided tours are available through the Admissions Office.
Lastly, transfer students who are interested in being on the Yale Law Journal can "try out" (i.e., take a Bluebook exam and complete a writing exercise) in the first few weeks of class. Only the Yale Law Journal has a competitive process; all of our other journals are open to any interested student, including transfers.
I hope this is helpful, and I look forward to reading your application this summer!
--Asha
Some of you may remember the new B.I.J. feature I introduced a couple of months ago. We'll, it's time for a new lesson, as I know many of you are on the wait list (either at Yale or elsewhere, some of this info may still be useful to you). Before we begin, I'd like you to take a brief quiz. Please watch the following clip:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u0PUrNwvvBk
Now, choose one response that best describes your reaction:
a) I would rather be waterboarded than watch that again.
b) Give the guy a break, everyone does that now and then.
c) Why call when you can show up in person?
If you answered (a), you can probably skim the rest of this post. If you answered (b), you should read this post carefully, as you may be at risk for B.I.J. For anyone who answered (c) and is currently on the Yale wait list, please send an email to 203blog@yale.edu with your name, LSAC number, and "My answer to the quiz is (c)" in the subject line. It will be extremely helpful to me -- thanks!
So look. I get it. This is a very stressful time, and you really want to come to Yale, and you want to let us know that. But here's the deal: there is a fine line between enthusiasm and...stalker. At this critical juncture, it is important to keep the OCD in check, at least until you get your foot in the door. Here are some suggestions to help you do that:
1. Status Checks. I think you know my feelings on status checks. While it may appear at first glance that such a check would be more applicable to a wait list than for general admission, it isn't -- at least not at Yale. Your status is that you are waitlisted. We do not rank our wait list, so there's not much more to report to you than that. When I get an opening, I cull through the people we have on our wait list and select someone who I think will best complete the class as it is comprised at that moment. And no, that doesn't not mean I try to fill the spot with someone with the exact same "profile" -- that's actually not really possible to do since to get on our wait list you have to be pretty accomplished and interesting and therefore somewhat different than everyone else. Anyway, despite what the guidebooks tell you, please don't call to ask about your status. If we get an opening, and we think you'd be a great addition to the class, we'll call you.
2. LOCIs. These are actually useful. Sort of. When I get an opening in the class, I do want to fill it as soon as possible. Therefore, it's helpful to have something in the file that says, "Yale is my first choice and I will definitely come if admitted." Unfortunately, people have been known to lie on this front so I don't place a ton of weight on such letters, but the fact that you made an effort to say something does offer a feather on the scale in your favor. However, if I open the file to find several letters, odes to Yale, journal entries, head shots, etc. then you are venturing way too far into Mikeyland and really not doing yourself a favor. One. LOCI. Punto.
3. Letters of Recommendation. These are generally not as useful and won't make much of a difference in whether you are admitted off the wait list. I say this because usually the stream of LORs we get from wait list people tend to come from employers, high-ranking politicians, and other people who are probably very nice individuals but who do not carry a whole lot of weight in our admissions process. As I've mentioned before, the type of recommendations that we really pay attention to are academic references. To that end, if there is a professor whom you've blown away with your brilliance in the last couple of months (like s/he supervised a senior thesis that just won a departmental award, for instance), by all means have him or her write to us. But please do not clutter your file with a high volume of low-impact pieces of paper. Remember, what you choose to add to your file is a reflection of your judgment, and we do not want to admit people with poor judgment.
4. Supplemental Materials. Please don't. If I want to read your thesis, I will ask for it. (I have done this exactly once in my entire time as Admissions Dean -- to someone who was already admitted. He had done some mathematical modeling of traffic flow through the Holland Tunnel and, having spent a good portion of my waking hours while living in NYC stuck in that tunnel, I was curious. But that's it.) Other things -- work writing samples, video clips, news articles -- honestly, I just don't have the time. If there is a specific accomplishment about which you'd like us to know, you can send us a short -- short! -- statement indicating what it is, with a link or a polite offer to provide more information by request. Ideally, you would combine any such updates into your LOCI (see #2) so that you provide a professional, comprehensive, and concise update to your file which reiterates your interest.
5. Visits. In the event that you are offered a spot on the wait list, you need to be prepared to give an answer ASAP (within anywhere from 24-72 hours, depending on how close we are to registration day). This is not the time that we are going to be able to court you, provide travel subsidies to fly out, connect you with students and professors, etc. There are a couple of reasons for this. For one, we are trying to fill the class. Every extra day/hour/minute you take to make your decision is time that the person who is "on deck" behind you is spending making plans to enroll elsewhere (including placing deposits on an apartment, buying books, etc.). Just as you want to be able to change your plans as soon as possible, so do the others waiting with you -- please be considerate. Second, once classes are over next week, our students and professors start leaving (a lot of exams happen remotely). We just don't have people around to connect you with.
Basically, if seeing Yale in person, sitting in on classes, and talking with students will be critical to your decision to accept an offer from the wait list, the time to do these things is NOW. The only unknown piece of information (from our end) that should stand in the way of your accepting an offer from the wait list is your financial aid package, which we will try to get to you as soon as practicable after you are admitted. By keeping your name on the wait list, we assume that you have considered all the other factors and are ready to make a decision on very short notice.
6. Deferrals. We don't offer them. For anything. Punto. Again, we are trying to fill a spot for this fall. Even if you get offered a Rhodes or Marshall or some other amazing opportunity, your only choice is to turn down the other opportunity or withdraw and reapply. My advice to you, if you do get a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that will prevent you from enrolling this fall, is to take it -- you can always reapply, and your application will be richer for your experience. (If you do turn down a Rhodes or Marshall to stay on the wait list, please send an email to 203blog@yale.edu with your name, LSAC number, and "My answer to the quiz is (c)" in the subject line -- thanks!)
Oh, and one more thing. We really can't send individual confirmations for every piece of mail we receive, email or otherwise. We're not Amazon -- we're the Yale Admissions Office, with literally two people handling thousands of files. If you really need confirmation, I would recommend that you use the U.S. Postal system (the most reliable in the world) and get something called "Delivery Confirmation" for about 50 cents. If the online tracker tells you that it arrived at the Law School, then it will make its way to our office and your file. I promise.
-- Asha
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