Getting In: The Why and the How of It

More than 75,000 people apply to law schools in the United States every year. The typical applicant applies to five schools. The typical application-including the form itself, letters of recommendation, test scores, personal essays, and a statement explaining that the applicant has been successfully rehabilitated from a lifetime of criminal activity-runs upwards of fifteen pages. You do the math.

That's an awful lot of trees being consumed just to gain entry to law school. Two questions spring quickly to mind. The first is, why? Why has going to law school joined surrendering virginity and watching the Super Bowl as an experience Americans are eager to embrace yet look back on with the sense it was not all it was cracked up to be?

The second question is, how? How do would-be law students persuade schools to admit them, especially given that each year a substantial number of applicants struggle with the question "Mother's maiden name?" on the application form?