Email This StoryNew pre-law council seeks to strengthen program curriculum
Sept. 23, 2008
By Jacqueline Deavenport
Reporter
Preparing for and submitting an application to law school is an extensive and daunting process, and when it comes to assisting pre-law students, Baylor is raising the bar.
The Pre-Law Advisory Council, created in May 2008, works to meet the growing informational needs of undergraduate pre-law students.
In recent semesters, a number of students have expressed an interest in attending law school after graduation. Members of the Baylor faculty from different departments joined together to form the council.
This semester, 516 students are currently enrolled and have indicated they are pre-law, said Dr. Sinda Vanderpool, co-chair of the Pre-Law Advisory Council along with assistant provost Tiffany Hogue.
Just like pre-med, pre-law is not a major. It is a pre-professional track that identifies to advisers a student's interest in attending law school after graduation.
Students can pursue any major and declare themselves a pre-law student. There are no required classes on the pre-law track, and it is not a stringent curriculum.
Approximately 150 students attended the last pre-law social, sponsored by the department of economics on Sept. 11.
The Pre-Law Advisory Council sponsored presentations for high school seniors during Fall Premiere and last summer, and the council gave presentations during orientation for incoming freshman.
Kevin Giddens, a first-quarter law student at Baylor Law School and recent Baylor graduate, came to Baylor as an undergraduate to study speech communications and political science with the intention of going to law school after graduating.
Giddens said while he felt the curriculum at Baylor prepared him to think like he needed to think for law school, at the time, Baylor's resources weren't adequate in helping him go through the law school application process.
"Knowing what's going on is key in law school," Giddens said. "It's not how smart you are. At a certain point, everyone is going to be the same. The process is about how prepared you are," Giddens said.
Baylor has a quality undergraduate curriculum and also has students who can compete with other applicants applying to top-tier law schools, Giddens said. Ignorance about the application process, however, and not being in the information loop, put Baylor applicants at a disadvantage, Giddens added.
"I want Baylor to have a program similar to the pre-law programs in the top-ten schools," Giddens said. "There's a reason why top-ten schools turn out the best law applicants, because they are walked through the process for three years."
The Pre-Law Advisory Council has submitted a request to create a director of pre-law position at Baylor. The director of pre-law would be a position solely dedicated to researching and keeping up to date with current developments that prepare students for law school.
In the past, it has been up to faculty to dedicate their spare time assisting and advising pre-law students.
The Pre-Law Advisory Council is still in its infancy, however, in the future, the council aims to provide services to aid pre-law students preparing for the application process.
"Ideally, we'd like to host topic-specific events, such as how to prepare for the LSAT, how to ask for a letter of recommendation, how to write a personal statement, how to decide if law school is right for you, and how to decide what law schools you should apply to," Hogue said.
The purpose of the council is to gather and disseminate information, Hogue said.
Currently, resources are available for pre-law students attending Baylor. The Pre-Law Advisory Council hosts a Web site that provides a timeline, a list of contacts who are members of the council and guidelines to assist students.
Also, Baylor has a chapter of the pre-law fraternity, Phi Alpha Delta. For more information on the Pre-Law Advisory Council, visit http://www.baylor.edu/prelaw.
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