The Harvard name will sure ring a bell anywhere around the world especially when higher education is concerned. This piece is about the highly esteemed, Harvard law school, and if you are interested in getting admission into the school or want to know about it, you are in the right place reading the right piece.
Harvard law schools describes itself as “one of the preeminent centres of legal education in the world”. It is the Law School of Harvard University, located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and currently raked number 3 in the best law schools list.
The school was founded in 1817, making it the oldest operating law school in the United States at 205 years old. Its JD programme runs for 3 years with each class having approximately 560 students. It was recorded that 99% of its 2019 graduates passed the bar exam. The school also awards SJD and LLM degrees.
Harvard Law School Acceptance Rate
Harvard law school admission is a quite competitive one. Only a small percentage of applicants are admitted to Harvard law school. Below 18% gets to make the admission cut among the populous applicants. The acceptance rate was 12.9% in 2019/2020.
HLS Programmes
- JD (Juris Doctor): A law school degree programme that spans 3 years. The programme gives students the needed intellectual foundation for legal studies, while also giving them the opportunity to focus their study energy on their area of interest. Advanced classes, writing projects and clinics are the activities involved that made this possible.
The programme is full time with new students starting their studies in the fall of each year only, the beginning of September.
- LLM (Masters of Law) The LLM programme at Harvard is a one year degree programme which consist of 180 students from 70 different countries. The programme’s interest is the attraction of thoughtful and intellectually curious candidates from various legs backgrounds and systems with diverse career plans.
- SJD (Doctor of Juridical Science): The Harvard SJD programme is the schools most advanced law degree. Legal academics who wish to pursue research, writing and independent study are the target of this programme’s design. The programme runs for about 3 to 5 years and begins with a combination of elective and required coursework. Students advances to doctoral candidacy after the passage of oral examination. Admission for the programme is highly competitive, but not impossible.
Harvard Law School also offers joint degrees and special programmes. Some of the joint degrees offered by Harvard Law School are;
- JD/MBA (Juris Doctor and Masters in Business Administration) jointly offered by HLS and Harvard Business School
- JD/MPP (Juris Doctor and Masters in Public Policy), a law and government programme jointly offered by Harvard Law School and Harvard Kennedy School
- JD/MPA/ID (Juris Doctor and Masters in Public Administration and International Development)
- JD/MPH (Juris Doctor and Masters in Public Health) jointly offered by Hvavrd Law School and T.H. Chan School of Public Health
- JD/MUP (Juris Doctor and Masters in Urban Planning) jointly offered with the Graduate School of Design
- JD/PHD, jointly offered with Graduate School of Arts and Sciences.
Does Harvard Law School Offer Online Programmes?
Yes. HLS does offer online programmes. The programmes are open to individuals from various experience levels and cohorts. Also, the effect of covid 19 has made HLS to shift its classes to remote, with students still enjoying the same unparalleled content and faculty expertise. The flexibility of virtual classrooms and opportunity to engage with peers around the world are other benefits of the Harvard Law School Online programmes. Programmes offers online by Harvard law school includes but not limited to;
- Transforming client relationship through innovation
- Sector Leadership Master Class
- Adaptive leadership: lawyers driving change
- Women’s Leadership: Adapting and advocating in a remote environment.
These are some of the programmes offers online by Harvard Law School.
Harvard Law School Tuition
The tuition amount to be paid depends on the programme in view. Therefore, payment is not the Sam across all programmes. Here are the tuition amount for programmes at HLS.
For JD, Tuition is $67,720, Books and supply allowance is $1_600, Room, Board, Personal allowance and loan fee is $27,923, Travel allowance is $1,675, Mandatory HUHS student health fee is $1242, and finally, Waivable Harvard University Student Health Insurance Plan (HUSHP) Fee is $4,040. The total budget is $104,200.
For LLM, tuition is $67,720. In addition to the tuition, other fees such as books and supply, dental insurance, cost of housing, activities fee, health services fee, food, and so on all put together comes to a total of about $36,830.
For SJD, tuition is $67,720, however, first year students that waived the LLM degree get to pay a reduced tuition of $1000. Other payments such as books and supply, travel and personal expenses, food, housing, medical fees, activity fee and so on put together comes to a total above $36,830.
Harvard Law School Admission Requirements
For JD, the eligibility requirements for applicants who want to apply are as follows;
- must have a bachelor’s degree by the month of August of the year for which the applicant apply to enter.
For LLM, candidates must have;
- an equivalent Bachelor’s degree with a GPA of 3.0 of 4.0 from am accredited institution
- Provide college transcripts
- Financial background proofs
- Essay/Statement of purpose written by the candidate
- International students will need to deal English language proficiency hurdles such as IELTS or TOELF.
- Submission of GRE scores is also compulsory for the programme.
- Resume/CV
- Letter for Recommendation
For SJD, eligibility criteria for applicants to meet include;
- Previous degrees or degree in law with distinction
- Candidate must have attained a highly distinguished record in Havard Law school LLM studies
- must have written the fifty page LLM paper
- Good experience in law related activities or academics, recommendations, and good dissertation proposal may all be an advantage as the Committee on graduate studies will consider all this during the review of the application.
These are the requirements for admission into Harvard Law School programmes. You may visit the schools website for better understanding and more information.
This is where we call it a day about Harvard law school in this piece. Hope you got tons of useful information?. Don’t forget to share!
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