Street cred: denied

Usually, the misconduct surprises that I encounter have to do with people who have behaved less-than-ideally and who then try to minimize their culpability in various ways. (Strategic use of the term “allegedly” figures prominently as a preferred technique.) I’m used to seeing right through that. But this skillset I’ve developed, of right-sizing minimized confessions, turned out to be of no use with what came my way the other day.

Having had my fill of lunch with the summer starters, I’ve moved on to other forms of sustenance—last week’s flawless weather made it a moral imperative to skip out of work at 4:30 to sit in the sun and sip a civilized sangria at Dominick’s. (One rule of thumb for those of us in four-season climates, in my view, is that if you don’t take advantage of excellent weather, you have no standing to complain come February. And my personal corollary to that rule of thumb is, always take care to protect your standing to complain.) Almost as soon as we were settled at our elegant picnic bench, this question was posed to me: “How do you feel about people who draw pictures on the LSAT writing sample?”

Easy question! I know this one! The answer is: Not Good. In fact, smacking down pictures-on-the-LSAT-writing-sample is a standard part of my fall recruiting repertoire. My counterparts from Penn and Chicago Law Schools and I put on a panel in various locales, deconstructing actual redacted, composite applications in order to demonstrate common application strengths and weaknesses—and one easy weakness we enjoy harshing on is Drawings On The LSAT Writing Sample. Here is an example of an object of our condemnation:

With that sort of clearly wrong example in mind, I cheerfully told my interlocutors that the LSAT writing sample is meant to demonstrate one’s ability to draft something sensible under time pressure, not to demonstrate one’s artistic flair, and I therefore am inclined to view pictures as, well, sassy. Respect the process. No one loves the LSAT writing sample, but if I’m going to the trouble of reading it, I would like an applicant to take the trouble of providing me with words, not doodles.

Naturally, I was being set up. Turns out that one of my Dominick’s companions had previously confessed to her pals that she had taken the LSAT twice, and drawn a picture on the second writing sample. My prompt condemnation thus elicited good-natured, delighted guffaws from everyone else, more or less at her expense—to which the malefactor responded with a grin, taking some understandable pride both in her willingness to be sassy and her apparent ability to beat the system.

But I, on the other hand, was left with a sensation of extreme mortification. After all, hadn’t I just said that I didn’t approve of pictures? And hadn’t I nonetheless been shown to have admitted someone who drew a picture? And didn’t I, moreover, lack any recollection of the picture in question? I was being called out as either a hypocrite or an incompetent. I didn’t like those choices.

Rather than drown my sorrows with sangria, I took a look at the student’s application file first thing the following morning. And that’s when I learned that while I am used to the phenomenon of people underplaying their own malfeasance, I need to consider the possibility that sometimes, some law students might in fact overstate their criminality. Because here is the “picture”:

It is (a) topical—directly relevant to the essay prompt; (b) tiny—taking up about one square inch; and (c) a mere postscript, following two full pages of on-point, grammatically correct, sensibly constructed text. I felt completely redeemed.

The summer-starter, on the other hand? No redemption there. Now I know we have in our midst, not a Tupac, not a Notorious B.I.G., but an Akon. Tsk.

-Dean Z.
Assistant Dean for Admissions
and Special Counsel for Professional Strategies