Dear Mr. Bradshaw,
I just started my freshman year in college and want to make sure I get off to a good start. I hope to pursue a career in law. What advice can you give me about preparing for law school?
Signed,
College Freshman
Dear Freshman,
This is a question I wish all students who are entering college would ask and I applaud you for being career-oriented from the get-go.
If you want to be accepted by a top law school, you must concentrate on your studies and build a top-notch grade-point average from Day One. And, if you think that as a college freshman you can afford to kick back and blow off your grades for a year, then make up for it during your sophomore, junior and senior years, be forewarned. There will never be enough time to overcome a weak first-year GPA. Even if the final three years of your academic record may show evidence of what well-meaning advisers call the “showing of improvement trend”, it will not pull any weight with potential law, medical or business school officials as they sift through transcripts of undergraduates who aced their first-year classes. You might even need a fifth undergraduate year to bolster your academic record. Some students think the freshman year is a time to experiment with classes and find out where their true intellectual and creative skills lie. As a result, grades plunge as students struggle with Symbolic Logic and Advanced Placement French. It is a buyer’s market for the best law schools and poor grades can devalue your transcript by as much as 25 percent.
I always suggest that college freshmen consider applying for internships during summer breaks. Some of the most successful business and professional people I know enhanced their education and professional acumen with summer employment. Be reminded that with anything lower than a 3.5 freshman GPA (on a four-point scale), you can kiss an internship at a consulting firm or investment bank goodbye.
The biggest mistake I see freshmen make is not having clear career direction. When you do not have the slightest idea about a major, you end up taking a hodgepodge of classes, selected for you by academic advisers more interested in filling open classes than helping you define a career strategy and build your GPA. Because you want to pursue a law degree you should take courses that relate to the area of law in which you hope to specialize. Typically, the hardest classes to earn an “A” in are the so-called “required” or “general education” subjects that must be taken in order to fulfill degree and graduation requirements. Some of these classes must be taken in sequence, but can be postponed until your junior or senior years, when you have built a solid GPA and are better equipped to handle them. Remember that your academic performance in the first three years of college will count most when you apply to law school, and good grades in your freshman year are critical in building a solid GPA.
Good luck!
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Gerald Bradshaw is an international college admissions consultant with Bradshaw College Consulting in Crown Point.