Now that the 3Ls have graduated, the 2Ls are at summer camp their summer jobs, and the 1Ls have successfully completed their finals and are beginning their first legal jobs, it is time to review transfer applications!
I have great respect for students who seek to transfer, because they typically have great grades at their 1L school, and likely would have good job prospects, journal and moot court opportunities, and possibly scholarships and other perks available to them. The willingness to leave that behind shows a great deal of initiative and enthusiasm to study law at Chicago.
As I mentioned in a previous post, Chicago is very transfer-friendly because of our late-starting calendar, the quarter system, and our small size. This year, we are allowing transfer applicants to participate in the Journal writing competition, which will allow them to compete for membership in one of our student-run legal journals as a 2L.
Evaluating transfer applications is always an interesting and challenging process. As with our regular applicant pool, it is full of talented students who are eager to study at Chicago. One thing that makes it especially challenging is the various grading systems and curves at different law schools. Trying to compare law school A to law school B takes time and effort, to be sure. Luckily there are only 190 law schools, so we've dealt with almost all of them.
In case you were wondering, we evaluate our transfer applicants primarily on the law school they attended, law school grades, recommendation letters, and personal statement. LSAT is not very important (it tries to predict law school performance, but transfers have 1L grades that demonstrate performance), and while we certainly review the undergraduate transcripts, undergraduate grades are much less important than their law school performance.
So good luck if you are considering joining our 2L class next year, I am happy to report that last year's transfer class has done very well, as reported earlier.