law – The Short List

January 28, 2018June 12, 2018

Sara

Washington DC

The Advocate

Columbia

Sara (Washington DC)

When Sara, a University of Michigan alumna, engaged The Short List to help her with her graduate school search, it was the second time we had worked with her. Her family first engaged our services when she was a senior in high school.

Sara was working at a prestigious Washington, D.C., law firm and studying for the LSATs, so we began to explore law schools together. She had majored in psychology and envisioned a career advocating for young people in the courtroom. However, the more we worked with Sara, the more we began to feel law school might not be the correct path for her.

The Short List challenged Sara to think more deeply about why she wanted to pursue law. She has always been a driven individual with a very clear direction, one of the reasons she was always successful in her academics and extracurricular activities. A feeling of uncertainty was new for her.

The Short List challenged Sara to think more deeply about her chosen major and find the right path for her.

Sara grew up in an affluent town and graduated from one of the country’s premier public high schools, but she always felt pervasive pressure throughout her schooling, especially among the female students. Like many of her peers, she experienced feelings of self-doubt and struggled with low self-esteem. Even now, she attributes her success to the counseling she received in high school that helped her work through the challenges of those years. in discussing these experiences with The Short List, Sara began wondering if she should instead be a psychologist working with teenage girls.
Sara found an internship at The George Washington University Hospital and worked closely with a clinical psychologist. The deeper she delved into the profession, the more certain she became that psychology was the right path for her. She considered several schools, researched their programs, and visited their campuses, narrowing the list down to six schools to which she planned to apply.

We could see that it would be important for Sara to communicate her own teenage struggles in her essay and describe the steps she undertook from counseling to internship that led her to pursue psychology as a profession. Sara was accepted to several of the nation’s top psychology programs and settled on Columbia University, where she will have the opportunity to pursue one of several tracks as she moves deeper into the program.

January 27, 2018June 12, 2018

Lindsey

Tennessee

The Lawyer

Georgetown

Client: Lindsey We first met Lindsey five years ago when she was a junior in high school aspiring to become a doctor. Her family included four generations of doctors, leaving her with no doubt that she, too, would be a doctor one day. She entered Vanderbilt University in fall 2007 as a pre-medical student.

The direction of her life changed, however, when Lindsey entered a public policy course during the second semester of her freshman year. She found herself in the center of lively debates over stem cell research and mandated health care. She became fascinated by the interplay of economics, politics, and science, and she decided to switch to a double major in medical health and political science.

The Short List worked with Lindsey to help broaden her knowledge through study abroad and internships. During the summer of 2009, she spent two months in Europe with the prestigious London School of Economics. Later that same summer, she completed a congressional internship in Washington, D.C., at the height of the health care debate. She saw how lawmakers and, more specifically, lawyers helped shape that debate.

The more Lindsey studied and experienced, the more confident she became that the right path for her was, in fact, law school. As a lawyer, she felt she could help create health care policies with far-reaching impact.
Lindsey contacted The Short List a third time to help her explore law schools. She had narrowed her list to focus on schools in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and North Carolina to give herself proximity to the federal policymaking process.

The Short List helped her prep for her interview and watched her confidence soar.

The Short List visited Lindsey at Vanderbilt. She was mature, focused, and eager to move forward with her plans. She had already taken the LSAT once and was preparing to take it a second time. She applied to several schools, but was increasingly drawn to Georgetown University Law School.

In late fall 2010, Lindsey began to receive acceptances, but Georgetown remained silent, so she traveled to Washington, D.C., to attend a Georgetown Open House. She connected with students, faculty, and administrators and left convinced Georgetown was the right school for her even though it was a long shot.

Shortly after her visit, Lindsey received a call inviting her to interview with Georgetown. The Short List was convinced the interview would demonstrate what made Lindsey exceptional. We helped her prep for the interview and watched her confidence soar.

Only a week after her interview, Lindsey received the thrilling news that Georgetown University Law School would be welcoming her to the Nation’s capital in the fall of 2011.

January 27, 2018June 12, 2018

Grant

Pennsylvania

The JD/MBA

Villanova

Client: Grant The Short List met Grant when he was a high school sophomore. Even then, it was apparent that Grant had many academic interests: business, history, liberal arts… Boston College allowed him to explore all of them. During college, Grant interned in financial services and law firms and spent his junior year studying in Rome, Italy. Wherever he worked, lived, or studied, Grant had a quest to learn and take in as much as possible.

Near the end of college, Grant decided to pursue either an MBA or a law degree. Together, we reviewed the requirements for both. Grant could see that it would take quite an effort and he wanted to do it right, so he decided to take a year off after graduation to research schools. Always one to challenge himself, Grant decided that he couldn’t decide between the two degrees and would instead pursue a joint JD/MBA.

Most joint programs require that you be accepted to one program before applying to the second. Grant focused on schools that had equally strong law and business programs, and The Short List helped him implement a strategy to increase his chances: We encouraged him to attend events and network with key personnel so they knew him before he applied. We also emphasized the importance of the entrance exams. Grant spent the summer traveling two hours each way, twice a week, to prepare to take the exams in the fall. He scored high on his LSAT, so he decided to apply to law schools first and worked to make his law school applications as strong as possible.
Grant received an offer from Villanova Law School and felt a great sense of relief, but knew he still had to be accepted to the business school to complete his dream. Villanova raises the level of commitment required by asking students to enter their first year of law school before applying to the joint program.

The Short List helped Grant make connections before he applied.

Grant decided to make that commitment and took on the burden of applying to the MBA program while also trying to adjust to law school and remain successful in his first-year classes. His efforts paid off, and he wrote to us: “I wanted to let you know that I was accepted into Villanova’s JD/MBA program! I found out the good news…and I am extremely excited.” He went on to add, “After finishing up law school courses this spring, I plan on beginning business school courses this summer. Not much of a summer break, but I want to begin business school courses before law school starts up again.”

We have no doubt that Grant will be successful however he chooses to use his degrees. Grant closed his note to us by saying “You’ve now helped me through the process of applying to college, law school, and business school…I still can’t really believe it all came true.”