Toward the end of summer, I presented Part I of my second written interview with Ethan Madore, 7Sage’s coordinator of their law school admissions consulting program. That column presented his answer to the first of my three questions and focused on what is, in my view, a serious disconnect between admissions to prestigious law schools and those schools’ role as a pipeline to Biglaw firms for capable new lawyers. What follows are Ethan’s answers to my remaining two questions. As usual, I have added some brief commentary to his answers below, but have otherwise presented his answers as he provided them.
GK: What have we learned about law school admissions since our last interview?
EM: Just as more people are applying to law school than ever before, more people than ever are taking a hard look at admissions processes. I always say that admissions sits at the epicenter of several truly massive conversations: what fairness looks like, the cultural values of our institutions, and how prepared the next generation is to step into increasingly changing roles. When you’re an applicant, admissions offices seem all-powerful to you. They’re the ones who get to decide what feels like a huge part of what your future will look like, where you’ll live, who your peers will be and so, in several not insignificant ways, who you’ll be. But the second you get your acceptance letter, you forget about the whole thing. The process you just spent a year going through seems silly and juvenile. You move on. You get shaped by the institution you’re now a part of. You look forward to the next thing.
But because so many of the conversations between people going through this process happens online, the threads get picked up. At 7Sage, we’re obsessed with the data of who’s getting in and how they’re moving through an increasingly gamified process. Admissions really isn’t the same as it was five, let alone fifteen years ago. Specialists, reputable or not, are everywhere. Advice, good or not, is in every corner.
I think a lot of applicants are savvier now, but I’ll point out one thing I think applicants are almost always bad at: they have very little idea who their audience is. Recent undergrads imagine their applications will be evaluated by people like their professors. And so they aim to please: the average law school personal statement is about becoming a lawyer in order to tackle a big, exciting issue you learn about in college. Strangely enough, even people who’ve had a lot of contact with lawyers and who very much know that they’re not getting a J.D. in order to solve policy issues still write these essays. This is simply how they’ve been educated to represent themselves.
GK: As I mentioned in my first column, the “stats” needed for admission to law school are getting silly. That is perhaps most true for the most selective schools, but the impact is being felt by applicants to law schools in any tier of the rankings. In such an uncertain environment, I like Ethan’s framing of admissions as an “increasingly gamified process.” In fact, I would venture to say the admissions process is looking more and more like the Biglaw partnership race, a game whose brutality (in the best sense) is as good an example of rewarding successful game players as any other. As just one example, just like it can be harder to stand out for partnership in today’s distributed megafirms, so too it can be harder to stand out as an applicant when you are competing with everyone from top college graduates to folks with real work and life experience for a slot. As with the partner chase, learning what really scores points in the game is essential — and having a coach (whether 7Sage or anyone else qualified to help) to help provide guidance through the process can be very helpful.
GK: As law schools struggle to define AI policies for their educational programs, where is AI impacting the admissions process?
EM: The question I always ask of admissions officers is: what is your office saying about AI? Mostly, it’s still the wild west. They’re working to figure out how the signals have shifted. They’re excited by people who have deep knowledge about how LLMs are transforming work, but will deny someone if they sense a whiff of what they consider AI-writing, though their detection methods may be no more advanced than scrutinizing em-dashes. At 7Sage, we’ve actually been sending some of our writers to admissions offices to run training sessions for file readers to separate out the false signals.
It’s going to continue to be interesting! I know that at least one unnamed admissions office has been experimenting with using AI to assist scholarship matching. Admissions offices are conservative and change slowly. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is experimentation with AI first readers at some point. At the end of the day, applicants are locked in a zero-sum competition and any change is going to mean new factors to game.
GK: I have to admit that my first reaction to Ethan’s answer was that I feel bad for any applicant who has been dinged based on the olfactory senses of admissions officers offended by the odor of suspected-AI slop. At the same time, it makes complete sense with respect to my framing of today’s admissions as more akin to the Biglaw partnership contest, where a single eyebrow-raise or negative comment by a partner can be enough to derail a candidate who has otherwise done everything right to earn consideration. Either way, the work of 7Sage to help train admission officers on how to detect AI-writing is important, as is the broader discussion on how admission offices can responsibly use AI-tools for the benefit of their schools. It may be small comfort to today’s applicants, but it is heartening to know that law schools are not just grappling with AI in terms of the education they provide, but also with respect who gets to enjoy that education in the first place.
My thanks to Ethan for the insights and cooperation, and I once again wish him continued success with his important work at 7Sage’s law school admissions consulting program. He has been more than generous in terms of sharing his expertise with this audience. If you know anyone considering applying an application to law school, I hope you will share my interviews with Ethan with them. As I said in my first interview with Ethan, it is in our collective best interest as a profession that the next generation of law school attendees is as capable and well-trained for a career in the law as can be. And considering how competitive the application process is nowadays, Ethan and his professional colleagues play a significant role in shaping the future of the legal world. I am always open to conducting interviews of this type with other IP thought leaders — including with someone on the admissions side of a law school — so feel free to reach out if you have a compelling perspective to offer.
Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at gaston@k2k.law or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.
Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of K2K IP Law, an intellectual property litigation boutique that also serves as a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at gaston@k2k.law or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.
The post 3 More Questions For A Law School Admissions Expert (Part II) appeared first on Above the Law.
Toward the end of summer, I presented Part I of my second written interview with Ethan Madore, 7Sage’s coordinator of their law school admissions consulting program. That column presented his answer to the first of my three questions and focused on what is, in my view, a serious disconnect between admissions to prestigious law schools and those schools’ role as a pipeline to Biglaw firms for capable new lawyers. What follows are Ethan’s answers to my remaining two questions. As usual, I have added some brief commentary to his answers below, but have otherwise presented his answers as he provided them.
GK: What have we learned about law school admissions since our last interview?
EM: Just as more people are applying to law school than ever before, more people than ever are taking a hard look at admissions processes. I always say that admissions sits at the epicenter of several truly massive conversations: what fairness looks like, the cultural values of our institutions, and how prepared the next generation is to step into increasingly changing roles. When you’re an applicant, admissions offices seem all-powerful to you. They’re the ones who get to decide what feels like a huge part of what your future will look like, where you’ll live, who your peers will be and so, in several not insignificant ways, who you’ll be. But the second you get your acceptance letter, you forget about the whole thing. The process you just spent a year going through seems silly and juvenile. You move on. You get shaped by the institution you’re now a part of. You look forward to the next thing.
But because so many of the conversations between people going through this process happens online, the threads get picked up. At 7Sage, we’re obsessed with the data of who’s getting in and how they’re moving through an increasingly gamified process. Admissions really isn’t the same as it was five, let alone fifteen years ago. Specialists, reputable or not, are everywhere. Advice, good or not, is in every corner.
I think a lot of applicants are savvier now, but I’ll point out one thing I think applicants are almost always bad at: they have very little idea who their audience is. Recent undergrads imagine their applications will be evaluated by people like their professors. And so they aim to please: the average law school personal statement is about becoming a lawyer in order to tackle a big, exciting issue you learn about in college. Strangely enough, even people who’ve had a lot of contact with lawyers and who very much know that they’re not getting a J.D. in order to solve policy issues still write these essays. This is simply how they’ve been educated to represent themselves.
GK: As I mentioned in my first column, the “stats” needed for admission to law school are getting silly. That is perhaps most true for the most selective schools, but the impact is being felt by applicants to law schools in any tier of the rankings. In such an uncertain environment, I like Ethan’s framing of admissions as an “increasingly gamified process.” In fact, I would venture to say the admissions process is looking more and more like the Biglaw partnership race, a game whose brutality (in the best sense) is as good an example of rewarding successful game players as any other. As just one example, just like it can be harder to stand out for partnership in today’s distributed megafirms, so too it can be harder to stand out as an applicant when you are competing with everyone from top college graduates to folks with real work and life experience for a slot. As with the partner chase, learning what really scores points in the game is essential — and having a coach (whether 7Sage or anyone else qualified to help) to help provide guidance through the process can be very helpful.
GK: As law schools struggle to define AI policies for their educational programs, where is AI impacting the admissions process?
EM: The question I always ask of admissions officers is: what is your office saying about AI? Mostly, it’s still the wild west. They’re working to figure out how the signals have shifted. They’re excited by people who have deep knowledge about how LLMs are transforming work, but will deny someone if they sense a whiff of what they consider AI-writing, though their detection methods may be no more advanced than scrutinizing em-dashes. At 7Sage, we’ve actually been sending some of our writers to admissions offices to run training sessions for file readers to separate out the false signals.
It’s going to continue to be interesting! I know that at least one unnamed admissions office has been experimenting with using AI to assist scholarship matching. Admissions offices are conservative and change slowly. I wouldn’t be surprised if there is experimentation with AI first readers at some point. At the end of the day, applicants are locked in a zero-sum competition and any change is going to mean new factors to game.
GK: I have to admit that my first reaction to Ethan’s answer was that I feel bad for any applicant who has been dinged based on the olfactory senses of admissions officers offended by the odor of suspected-AI slop. At the same time, it makes complete sense with respect to my framing of today’s admissions as more akin to the Biglaw partnership contest, where a single eyebrow-raise or negative comment by a partner can be enough to derail a candidate who has otherwise done everything right to earn consideration. Either way, the work of 7Sage to help train admission officers on how to detect AI-writing is important, as is the broader discussion on how admission offices can responsibly use AI-tools for the benefit of their schools. It may be small comfort to today’s applicants, but it is heartening to know that law schools are not just grappling with AI in terms of the education they provide, but also with respect who gets to enjoy that education in the first place.
My thanks to Ethan for the insights and cooperation, and I once again wish him continued success with his important work at 7Sage’s law school admissions consulting program. He has been more than generous in terms of sharing his expertise with this audience. If you know anyone considering applying an application to law school, I hope you will share my interviews with Ethan with them. As I said in my first interview with Ethan, it is in our collective best interest as a profession that the next generation of law school attendees is as capable and well-trained for a career in the law as can be. And considering how competitive the application process is nowadays, Ethan and his professional colleagues play a significant role in shaping the future of the legal world. I am always open to conducting interviews of this type with other IP thought leaders — including with someone on the admissions side of a law school — so feel free to reach out if you have a compelling perspective to offer.
Please feel free to send comments or questions to me at [email protected] or via Twitter: @gkroub. Any topic suggestions or thoughts are most welcome.
Gaston Kroub lives in Brooklyn and is a founding partner of K2K IP Law, an intellectual property litigation boutique that also serves as a leading consultancy on patent issues for the investment community. Gaston’s practice focuses on intellectual property litigation and related counseling, with a strong focus on patent matters. You can reach him at [email protected] or follow him on Twitter: @gkroub.
