East Carolinian

Issue date: 3/24/09 Section: News

Media Credit: Anna Vaughn Creech

Last night Mr. Joel White, a recent ECU graduate and current student at the UNC School of Law, presented the lecture "A Student's Perspective" about his experiences thus far in law school.

"I wanted to bring the unique perspective of a student in law school," said Ben Irons, the pre-professional advisor for law at ECU. "It was evident to me that my perspective was a pretty old one and a pretty dated one but some things about law school don't seem to change."

White started off by saying that the most important thing to question before applying to law school is why you want to go in the first place.

"You need to question why you're coming to law school," White said. "You have to know that you want to do law and you want to know that you're going to pursue it."

Next White stressed the importance of choosing a school. He stated that it is important to choose by what matters to you personally.

For example, some people may choose a school based on a certain geographic region or to be close to family. Don't necessarily choose a school based solely on prestige.

"Find something that's important to you that will get you through the stressful situations," White said.

An important part of getting accepted to law school is the Law School Admission Test (LSAT).

The LSAT is graded on a scale of 120-180 and consists of five 35-minute sections including reading comprehension, analytical reasoning, logical reasoning, writing and a "mystery" section that tests for future questions and is not graded.

White stressed the importance of practice and finding the best preparation method for you.

Another key thing to remember is that your LSAT score and GPA are not the only part of the admission process.

"GPA is not the end all be all," White said. "If you have a 3.0 and you're in your junior year that's OK, build it up and build around everything else."

White emphasized that it is very important to participate in extracurricular activities and different clubs around campus to show the admissions people how diverse you are and what your different interests are.

Another part of the admissions process is the letter of recommendation, which white stated is sometimes the hardest part. He recommended talking to professors outside of class and build up a network for later.

The final part of the admissions process that White said people don't give much weight to is the essay; your one opportunity to talk to the people on the admissions board.

Continued...

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