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Admission & Application Survey |
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Hassle free, although entirely a paper-based venture in 1999, and
quick. I was notified in February that I had been accepted. Their
financial aid office, at the time, was a veritiable moebius strip to
deal with by phone, but eventually everything was done in time, although
some of my classmates' aid disbursements were critically held up during
the first semester. Financial aid will not be easy at any institution,
however. GW regularly posts an average LSAT in the low 160's and an
average undergrad GPA around 3.3-3.5. In 1999, there twelve students
applied for each opened seat. As law school applications increase, as
they have been during the recession most notably in the DC area law
schools, the competition will only increase. Most, if not all, of GW's
students, myself included, go there because it was the highest ranking
school to which we were admitted. This leads to a very high percentage
of students from the North-East, New York, NJ, Penn, who didn't get into
to Ivy League, Michigan, etc. The school's relatively high general
ranking and its and IP and International Law speciality rankings, also
tend create a young student body straight out of college, all of whom
are again drawn by the ranking and the location and the very real
possibility of getting a well-paying job at the end of three years.
This translates into, my opinion, that much of the student body don't
actually want to be lawyers--that is trial lawyers. It is therefore not
a litigation school, as the rankings reflect. An applicant straight
out of college has to rely on scores and extra-curricular, essentially,
to get in. An applicant with a few extra years of experience, I
believe, has an easier time distinguishing himself or herself with the
essay requirement, but that's not to say your scores can be low.
Finally, the glut of NE based students creates a possible edge for
students outside of the NE region as the admission's board no doubt
keeps on eye on its geographic diveristy stats.
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George Washington University Law School Admission & Application Surveys
