[미국로스쿨/LSAT] Michigan Law School소개
Michigan Law School
Michigan Law is situated on one of the most attractive campuses in the country and located in the vibrant college town of Ann Arbor. This perennial Top 10 Law School continues to attract applicants of the highest caliber each year, including students from across the country and around the world who are looking for a top-notch legal education in a collaborative environment. While being quick to point out that law school is a lot of work, students often rave about their experiences at Michigan. The school lacks one major legal market, thereby enjoying a national reputation among both employers and those in the legal field. As a current 2L said of his visits to other law schools, “What I noticed is that everywhere I went, administrators always said I should either go to their school or go to Michigan, and I thought that spoke volumes. People said it was kind of a special school: that it was very collegial, that people got along.” Upon matriculation, most students say the school lives up to the hype.
Tuition and Fees 2009-2010
| |
Resident tuition and fees |
$43,200 |
Non-resident tuition and fees |
$46,200 |
Estimated living expenses |
$15,000 |
Source: www.umich.edu/news/Releases/2009/Jun09/Regents_Fee_Sched_FY10.htm |
Admissions
It’s no secret that admissions at Michigan Law are highly selective. The median LSAT score is a 169 (the 97th percentile) and the median undergraduate GPA is a 3.7. Having never been ranked outside the top ten of U.S. News and World Report’s ubiquitous law school rankings (Michigan’s highest rank was #3 in 1987, the very first year rankings were released; it’s currently holding steady at #9), Michigan Law has been firmly rooted as one of the elites for decades.
Admissions Stats | |||
Class of: |
2009 |
2010 |
2011 |
25th - 75th percentile LSAT |
166 - 170 |
167 - 170 |
166 - 170 |
25 - 75th percentile GPA |
3.53 - 3.8 |
3.49 - 3.79 |
3.54 - 3.82 |
Acceptance Rate |
20.6% |
20.7% |
21.1% |
Applications Received |
5,664 |
5,675 |
5,577 |
Source: www.law.umich.edu/prospectivestudents/admissions/intromichigan/Pages/MichiganLawToday.aspx |
The application fee is $60. Merit-based fee waivers are disbursed via the LSAC’s Candidate Referral Service (largely based off of LSAT score and GPA), and a limited number of need-based fee waivers may be obtained by emailing their office.
Current students hold almost a reverence for the admissions office, a sentiment perhaps best exemplified by their eagerness to encourage prospective students to attend. “Student involvement in admissions here is ridiculous. Everyone wants to do tours. They have to turn people away,” a 1L said. More than a few students conjecture that while a school of 1,151 will invariably have its schmucks, they’re confident that Michigan enjoys a much smaller percentage of such classmates than other top schools, in large part due to the comprehensive application review process.
The Admissions Process:
Dean of Admissions Sarah Zearfoss said in an exclusive interview with TLS that the public nature of Michigan Law’s admissions process ensures that the staff takes a holistic approach. Zearfoss mentioned both the landmark 2003 Grutter v. Bollinger case, in which the Supreme Court upheld Michigan Law’s admissions policy of considering race as one of many factors, along with regular FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) requests, as “countervailing pressures” against administering inconsistent admissions policies or simply trying to raise its medians while placing little weight on an applicant’s other qualities.
“Even when we took race into account as a factor in admissions — which we no longer do [in accordance with Proposal 2, the 2006 state constitutional amendment which banned race, gender and nationality-based affirmative action in Michigan] — but even when we did, we said that it is not the only thing — it wasn’t only race that mattered along with LSAT and GPA. There are many other things that matter,” she said.
In terms of graduate studies, one’s GPA isn’t a real factor in admissions, since graduate transcripts lack the class-wide comparative statistics that undergraduate GPAs include. “It’s more the fact of your having done the graduate work that’s what’s important,” Dean Zearfoss said.
When to Apply:
As admissions are rolling, applicants are encouraged to “apply as early as you can submit a good, careful application,“ Dean Zearfoss said. “For Michigan, I would consider anyone who submits prior to mid-December as being ‘early’ in the process. In contrast, people who submit in late January and beyond are submitting at the tail end, when we have made about 75% of our decisions, and seats are becoming more scarce.”
Writing the Optional Essays:
Dean Zearfoss encourages applicants to write one or two of the optional essays, as “sometimes people blow it on the personal statement and that extra essay really gives me an important piece of information.” Students widely recommend writing the “Why Michigan” essay, as admissions offices are interested in students who seem committed to the school. Dean Zearfoss said that students could “absolutely” write that essay on non-academic factors, like geographical reasons or having family members nearby. She also discouraged regurgitating information from the website, saying that applicants should instead truly consider what draws them to Michigan. “It’s just not worth it to write one if it’s pro forma (as we say in the law). You shouldn’t do it.”
Multiple LSAT scores:
Like most other schools, Michigan will report an applicant’s highest LSAT score, but still look at all of them. Dean Zearfoss said each applicant’s situation dictates which scores are weighted more heavily for admissions.
Let’s say we see a 150, a 151 and then a 170. In that situation, I would want to hear some explanation for why the person thinks there was that distinction, but assuming there was some sensible story — I don’t really have any presupposition about what that story should be, I just want to hear what the story is. Assuming there’s some sensible explanation there, I would not hesitate to put more weight on the 170.
Let’s say the pattern was a 165, a 167 and a 169. You can’t really go up usually too much on the LSAT — in general, the people who take it multiple times score within two or three points. So you would expect someone who took it twice to go up two or three points, just from more familiarity with the test, all other things being equal. So taking it two more times and going up two more points, I would put more weight in that instance on the mean score: the 167. I would think that would actually be the one that’s more predictive.
Advice for college students:
“You should certainly be doing something every summer,” Dean Zearfoss said. She continues:
If you have to earn money, that’s fine — you should just be earning money. But it is also impressive if you can combine what you need to do, in terms of earning money, with some effort to explore your interest in the law. So maybe you could volunteer two hours a week at the American Civil Liberties Union answering phones, or at legal services in whatever town you’re in, or any one of a jillion non-profit legal organizations. Or you could try to get an internship for a few weeks so you could still earn money for the bulk of the summer. That would be, I think, a smart and impressive thing to do.
Scholarships:
Michigan awards scholarships of various sizes to about half the class, with an applicant’s LSAT score and GPA being the greatest determinants. The median grant amount in 2009 was $8,800 — a lower number than every Top 14 school except Berkeley. However, Michigan awarded scholarships to 56.6% of the class — the fourth highest percentage among the same set of schools. Dean Zearfoss said that “we also pay attention to what the schools that we compete with give out, and we allow people who don’t make our initial criteria to let us know about those offers and sometimes we try to compete with those.”
Michigan also offers need-based aid for “people who are coming from really tough economic circumstances and who don’t meet either of those other two categories.” For the cream of the crop, Michigan awards a very select number of Darrow Scholarships, which can be either half-tuition or full-tuition along with a living stipend. In determining who receives them, Zearfoss said, “LSAT and GPA certainly play a role, but it’s something much more than that. It’s such a small handful of people. They have to be very bright, but there is neither a floor nor a ceiling for the LSAT and GPA on that — it’s really more what will this person bring that is completely different and special.”
Wolverine Scholars Program:
Accepting applications starting for the Fall 2010 cycle is the new Wolverine Scholars Program, which allows University of Michigan undergraduates with 3.8 GPA or above and who have not yet taken the LSAT to apply to Michigan Law. Dean Zearfoss has said that the program is aimed at encouraging Michigan undergraduates to apply. She predicts that “at most,” five to ten students will be matriculated through the program, following an extensive review process.
The program’s announcement in September caused something of an uproar in the legal world, with critics widely accusing the school of trying to “game the rankings,” since all the Wolverine Scholars would boost the GPA median without dragging down the LSAT median. Dean Zearfoss defended the initiative here, pointing out that the number of applicants who will be admitted is too small to engender a marked effect on a class’s medians. In another interview, she explains:
[W]e were motivated by a desire to strengthen our intra-institutional ties with the undergrad community, which is our single biggest feeder and at which, nonetheless, there is a persistent, unshakeable rumor that it is impossible to be admitted to Michigan Law if one attended Michigan for undergrad. As a result, we lose a lot of people who don’t apply, thinking it’s just not worth their time—and we therefore we miss getting applications from many students who would be great additions to our class.
Law School Culture
As Professor Gil Seinfeld said, “Any profile that was written about The University of Michigan Law School that didn’t emphasize its cultural uniqueness would be missing the point on some level, because it’s such a palpable part of the experience of so many people here, in so many different ways.” A plurality of administrators, faculty and students insist that a — if not the — major draw to Michigan over other law schools is the laid-back nature of those in the law school community.
One student said a reason he came to Michigan over other, more prestigious schools is because it had “more culture to it” and didn’t seem so “fake and manufactured.”
“This culture grew up some number of years ago and it perpetuates itself. When new students and faculty enter, they seem to absorb it and — since it agrees with so many of us — continue it,” Professor Seinfeld said.
Regarded as a medium to large-sized law school, Michigan’s total enrollment of about 1,150 students makes it the seventh largest of the top twenty schools. Unlike other public schools in which the class is heavily composed of in-state residents (UVA hits about 40%, while Texas can’t even legally matriculate more than 35% non-resident students), only about 20% of Michigan Law students hail from the state.
Michigan students at both the undergraduate and graduate levels are known for having scores of school spirit, both while in school and as alumni, and law students are no exception. Even if they don’t transform into Michigan football diehards (although “most students go to at least a few games”), law students still say they feel a strong link to Michigan, sometimes even more so than to their undergraduate institutions.
Dean Caminker conjectures that much of the famed culture of Michigan Law might, indeed, stem from its locale. He said:
Schools that are in big cities inevitably have a lot of the energy sort of dissipated or sucked out of them. A lot of faculty in big city law schools have other places to be at all times — they may be Of Counsel to law firms or other organizations, they have reasons not to be in the law school, and there are commuting issues that make it easier not to be in the law school except right around the time that they’re teaching. The same is actually true for students — a lot of students at big city law schools have reasons not to be at the law school. Law schools in big cities don’t necessarily reflect a lot of energy.
The energy and intensity here is actually incredible, and the community here is incredible. One of the hallmarks of Michigan Law — what makes it distinct from other law schools — is a very community-oriented, collaborative student body that enjoys each other, that enjoys working with the faculty. Part of it is that this is really the perfect-sized town in which to be educated. There’s a lot going on, so you can have a lot of fun, but the law school is still a focal point for people’s activities.
There are lots of things that help create this very communal, collegial environment, and being in Ann Arbor is one of them.
Professor Seinfeld referenced mini-seminars, in which a small group of students meets for class at a professor’s house, as an example of how the law school’s setting adds to its dynamic. “This sort of thing isn’t possible if you have faculty that’s really scattered, whereas a very large fragment of our faculty lives within about a 3-minute drive from the law school, and many people live within walking distance. That’s one way in which we’re just able to create a real sense of community and leverage the proximity of the faculty.”
The Student Body:
An oft-heard credo from current students to prospective ones is to “come here for the people.” The two adjectives most frequently used by students interviewed for this profile to describe their classmates were “smart” and “down-to-earth.” “I was expecting to meet a lot of immature students, but I met a lot of people who are just very very humble and cool people and mature, who I would like to keep knowing outside of law school when I graduate,” a rising 2L said.
(영문출처:TOP로스쿨)
* 도우미님에 의해서 게시물 이동되었습니다.(2) (2014-03-11 14:11:14)