Week Five, Part 4 - Demographics

During lunch I stop by the Student Bar Association and pick up a Law School directory. In addition to an address and phone number, it lists the undergrad major and alma mater for every student.

I count 165 of us in the first-year class, including one girl who has already dropped out. Compared to other top-tier schools, Notre Dame has a small group of 1L's. Harvard Law enrolls 450, the University of Michigan over 300. I like the familiarity and camaraderie that comes with a more selective approach. My senior class at Owatonna Christian School boasted 14 grads. At Pillsbury College, I walked the line with about 140 classmates.

At Notre Dame, eight in the first-year class are Ivy Leaguers, 25 are Domers. Two did their undergraduate work overseas (University College, Dublin, and the East China Institute of Politics and Law). There’s a sprinkling of students from schools broadly classified as “evangelical Protestant”: Wheaton, Cedarville, Oral Roberts. I’m surprised to see less students from universities in Notre Dame’s athletic conference, the Big East (7), than from the Big Ten (18).

The gender breakdown of our class is 100 males, 65 females; about 40 percent. At the 178 accredited law schools in the United States, the percentage of women enrolled as 1L’s is 45 percent. According to the American Bar Association, in 1970 women made up less than 10 percent of law students. Their matriculation rate, however, has increased nearly each year. By 2001, first-year women will outnumber men at American law schools.

By far the most popular major in our class is political science (41 students). Next is history (17), followed by English (16), then philosophy (9). It seems law school is a last refuge for the liberal arts major.

Even as a non-Catholic, I feel comfortable at Notre Dame Law School. The students are friendly and willing to share notes or study outlines. It seems that I fit in well enough, even though I’m a bit older than my peers. I love their brash sense of school spirit. Most teachers are approachable. I’m awed by their publications and national reputations. The administrators seem competent and the staff dedicated. All in all, I think I made the right choice by enrolling.

If anything has me worried, it’s the rigor of the work. Back in high school, my wrestling coach Larry Briggs would harp about “mat sense,” an intuition beyond stance and moves. At Notre Dame, it feels like I'm deficient in “law sense.” When a prof asks a question, the answer doesn’t pop in my head. In reading the caselaw, I have a hard time discerning what’s not important. The Socratic method intimidates me.

Maybe it’s like that for most everybody. A book entitled Princeton Review: The Best Law Schools states: “The first-year experience at Notre Dame was said to be ‘usually very hard and very stressful.’ Professors may call on students at random and can be fairly ‘tough’ in their use of the question-and-answer format.”

My consolation is that no matter what the academic environment, I’ve always earned good grades. I can only hope that, unlike stocks and mutual funds, past performance will predict future success.

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