My Story: Community College Reject to Stanford Law Graduate
Introduction
My purpose here is not to convince anyone of the merits of a formal education, but rather, of aiming high. My aim was attending Stanford Law School, which to me seemed a nearly unattainable thing, given my starting position. I also offer advice for law school applications that is applicable to other graduate programs as well.
I hope my story speaks to those from unconventional backgrounds who sometimes question whether they can accomplish the goals they dream about. I want you to believe that you can.
Growing Up
I grew up in South Jordan, Utah, as the oldest child in a working class family. After losing our home to bankruptcy, we rented a small home built in the early 1900s with bare wooden panels on the floor. I shared my bedroom with my two younger brothers, and my sister’s room was the hallway, sectioned off by sheets hanging from the ceiling.
I had no grand dreams for myself. Life after high school was a mystery to me. I still remember when various colleges and universities came to my high school to pitch themselves to the students. Rather than useful characteristics and metrics, I ranked my favorites based on presentation entertainment value and the school mascot. Needless to say, the mascot-less Stanford University did not make the trip out to South Jordan to sell itself to us. And just as well. The thought of attending Stanford had never entered even the most remote regions of my mind.
I didn’t attend private school, or have private tutors, or go on humanitarian trips to foreign countries. Actually, I’d never been out of the country — period. My grades were good but not noteworthy. None of my teachers saw me as a standout. But they did, strangely, see me as a “double agent.” I received the same comment from more than one teacher, always coming after I submitted a project or gave a presentation in class. My best guess is that my teachers meant that the quality of my work surprised them, given my general lack of obvious ability. But the ability was in there, even if it was usually hidden.
The truth is I couldn’t even imagine life as a college student. I had no direction, no plans, no clue.
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I had looked forward to serving as a volunteer missionary for two years, stepping away from the rest of my life, including college, to teach and provide community service full time, 24/7/365. With this massive change in my view, college seemed too distant to take too seriously.
At that time, young men began their mission service at 19 years of age. I didn’t turn 19 until the year after I graduated from high school, so I used the time after graduation to work and save up for the nearly $10,000 I would have to spend to finance my mission. Missionaries are not paid and I knew my family did not have the ability to pay for it.
My profession? A welder. Welding, grinding, and painting my way to savings.
As my mission approached, I thought I had saved enough, but my wardrobe and supplies proved more costly than I had anticipated. I was several thousand dollars short.
At a family gathering an extended family member approached me privately. He pulled an envelope from his pocket and handed it to me.
“This should be enough to cover it,” he said. “I expect you to pay me back. I want you to be able to say you paid for your own mission. I don’t care if it’s in five years or 50 years. Whenever you can. But paying for it yourself will mean a lot to you.”
What do you say to kindness like that? I found it hard to say anything.
“Thank you,” I said. “This means a lot.”
I cried later when I opened the envelope and saw the amount on the check. I promised myself that I would one day pay it back, and one day pay it forward.
When I received the letter in the mail with the location I had been called to serve in, I had to mask my disappointment when I read “San Jose, California,” a city I had never heard of. Two states away? My friends and family members were receiving calls to exciting foreign countries and I got to take a 90-minute flight to California? Unbelievable.
With time, I warmed up to the idea, though I was still jealous of other calls. I learned about something called “Silicon Valley,” where all sorts of tech companies were headquartered. “I guess I’ll be out there by Google,” I said.
And as it turned out, I was “out there by Google.” I lived in East Palo Alto, adjacent to Google, Palo Alto, and Stanford University. There, I got my first true taste of rejection. Doors slammed in my face. Vulgarities hurled from cars passing by. Fortunately, I had far more positive experiences than negative ones, but I developed thick skin.
I grew to love the area, and I met brilliant Stanford students, but the thought that I would one day attend Stanford myself had still never occurred to me.
The First Rejection
After two years of missionary service, I returned to Utah and submitted university applications, to local universities only. Never having done it before, and never having looked into university admissions whatsoever, I assumed it would all just sort of work out. I’d just put the materials together, click submit, and they’d get back to me with my letters of congratulations. Easy.
And that is when I became a reject. At least in the university admissions sense. That first rejection letter stung terribly and left me wondering what came next. I enrolled at the local community college and started taking classes there while also working full time as an inside sales representative.
Sensing my lack of direction, the extended family member who had helped me before my mission reached out to me to help again. He encouraged me to set my sights higher, seeing in me something I didn’t see in myself. Maybe like my high school teachers, he caught a glimpse of what could be. The good side of the double agent.
He told me to focus on transferring to Brigham Young University (BYU), a top institution in Utah. “And after that,” he said, “why not try for a school like Stanford for graduate school? You used to live over there. It’s a great school.”
That was the first time the thought of attending Stanford entered my mind.
At first, the idea shocked me. Someone like me, at a place like that? Preposterous. But the spark found kindling. Once it caught hold, I was determined. Because someone else believed that I could do it, I believed that I could do it.
My Good Samaritan family member introduced me over LinkedIn to several people in his network who attended prestigious universities like Stanford, Harvard, and UPenn. I set up phone calls with these new contacts, told them about my goal to attend Stanford, and asked for advice. Then I asked them who else I could talk to. All told, I talked to 75 people. By the end of it, I had a pretty good idea what it took to get accepted to a school like Stanford, and I was painfully aware of how short I fell of that standard. But I was going to take my shot.
The plan began to form in my mind. It was blurry and indefinite, but it was real. When classmates at community college asked me about my plans for the future, I tried to dodge the question for fear of appearing insane. When they pressed me, I told them about my hopes of attending Stanford. Blank stares and wide eyes. That was the response I could count on.
I want to zero in on this for a moment, this reaction I received when I told others my goal. Behind the blank stares, I could see the wheels spinning. “Geez, Parker,” they thought. “You’re smart and all, but Stanford? Come on now. You’re at a community college! You’re wasting your time and, frankly, this makes me lose some respect for you. I lose respect because I thought you were smart enough to know that you aren’t smart enough to go to a place like Stanford.”
Of course they never said any of this out loud. They only thought it. But they thought it so heavily that it weighed on me. They saw me as a mistaken young person who had not yet caught a grip on reality, but when I did I would surely be done with this nonsense. Of course, I would never get accepted to Stanford or any other school of its kind. And when the final rejection letter came, they would be there to silently tell me, “I told you. I’m glad you finally understand. You don’t belong there.”
None of this was done with any ill intent, or at least not usually, but the reactive dragging down of another is in itself an ill and destructive thing. I’ve seen this behavior since. It appears to be an ugly part of human nature that tends to emerge whenever individuals have goals judged too lofty by their peers. These pessimists attempt to latch on to the dreamers to do the great service of bringing them back to reality, whether silently or explicitly.
I felt the silent judgements, and they affected me. When I felt low, I leaned on my wife, who joined me on this journey about halfway through my community college experience. The words of encouragement from her kept the fire burning.
Meanwhile, I was working with an academic counselor at the community college to help me transfer to BYU. She was very nice, but it worried me that she had “never helped a student transfer to BYU before.” “Your grades are very good. You’ve worked hard and it has paid off,” she said, “but it’s pretty tough to get in over there.”
I submitted an application and was quickly rejected. That was hard to take. So was the second rejection letter. It wasn’t until I had graduated from community college that BYU finally accepted me, after my third application there.
I will never forget receiving that acceptance letter. It was very early in the morning. I was the only one awake. The email notification from BYU entitled “Admissions Decision” glowed on the screen of my phone. I walked out of my room slowly and sat down on the green eyesore of a couch in the living room. I stared at the link for several minutes before I could bring myself to click on it. It all came down to this. I was graduating from community college, so if I didn’t get in now, I’d have to make other plans. Then I clicked on the link. It made me fall to my knees.
Getting Into Stanford
I was thrilled to get into BYU, but I knew it was a stepping stone to my goal of getting into Stanford for graduate school.
After talking to my new contacts about their experience with school and work, I decided on law school. I would move straight from my undergraduate program to a graduate program, with the goal of attending Stanford Law School and getting hired on at a top private equity law firm in the Bay Area.
From my conversations, I also knew what to focus on: dominating the LSAT exam, writing a stellar resume, collecting outstanding letters of recommendation, and producing a fantastic personal statement.
[Note: The following several sections provide tips for law school applications. For those who’d like to skip this guidance, proceed to the My Schedule section below to continue the story.]
LSAT
The LSAT (or any standardized test for an academic program) isn’t what gets you in, but it’s what gets you considered. Receiving some form of LSAT instruction is an absolute must, and in-person instruction is better than remote instruction. Although there are certainly benefits to hiring a private tutor, I don’t think it’s necessary for most people. If you attend a class, you can ask the instructor questions during class and even spend some time talking afterward. That’s usually sufficient.
The biggest mistake most people make when preparing for the exam is that they don’t give themselves enough time. It is extremely difficult to prepare for the exam in only a few months. You should set aside six months minimum to prepare, and probably more. If you’re forward thinking enough to give yourself a year of prep time, you should be in good shape. But the real test is your consistency. Do not presume you can cram for the LSAT. You can’t.
Spend one to two hours per day studying the different question types. Don’t skip days. And take a practice exam about once per week.
Don’t mark your answers in your exam books. Put them down electronically or on a piece of paper you can refer back to later. That way, you can review the questions you missed later without trying to erase your previous wrong answers only to discover you can’t entirely erase them.
When you finish an exam or section of questions, always review questions you got wrong, immediately. If you don’t identify where you went wrong, you’ll make the same mistake over and over again. Then, after some time has passed, test yourself on that set of questions again, and compare how you did. For questions that you miss multiple times in a row, spend more time digging into why you missed them. Your brain will begin to recognize patterns. It will speed up, and your scores will improve.
Find an instructor that, in addition to live classes, offers digital recordings of their classes and recordings of them walking through their process for solving all of the questions in the LSAT study materials. This is important. It allows you to study at your own pace. And when you miss questions and aren’t sure how to get the right answer, you can watch the instructor walk you through how to reach the proper solution. You will also get deeper insight into how the instructor thinks, which is valuable because they often know shortcuts that save a significant amount of time.
And shortcuts are vital. The LSAT is a timed test that many could ace if given unlimited time to complete it. It’s the time constraints that make it difficult. Make sure you find an instructor who will teach you the shortcuts, because you will need to get good at moving quickly.
Another important note: eating right, working out, and getting adequate sleep are equally as important as studying for the exam. Don’t shove this aside. It’s easy to get consumed in exam preparation, but if you don’t take the time to treat your body right, you will pay for it in your test score.
When taking practice tests, learn when to give up and move on to the next question. Sometimes you just get stumped. That’s okay. Don’t panic. Move on to the next question and circle back if you have time. Being stubborn and sticking with a question for too long will do far more damage than simply cutting your losses and pressing on.
Keep studying until you consistently score at least two points higher than your target score. Yes, you could experience a test-day miracle and outperform your practice scores, but don’t bet on that. With test day comes nerves, and nerves tend to hurt scores more than they help them. Give yourself some wiggle room. You’ll feel significantly less pressure that way.
Two days prior to the exam, stop studying. Let your brain rest. You won’t be able to change your level of preparation, so don’t hurt yourself by not allowing your mind to rest and recuperate. Enjoy the rest. Get outside and do something fun that will take your mind off the exam.
The day before the exam, triple check that you have everything you need set out and ready to go. And bring extra pencils.
On exam day, eat a light, healthy breakfast, and don’t drink too much water. It’s better if you don’t have to rush out of the exam to use the restroom. Wear clothes you feel comfortable in. For some, that means dressing up. For others, that means sweats. You do you. What’s important is that you’re comfortable. Spend 20–30 minutes running through some warm up questions. Then — relax. It’s easier said than done. But at that point the work is done. The hard part is over. You just have to go take one more test.
Resume
You need a good resume. That doesn’t mean that you need to have experience as a CEO and leading a humanitarian trip abroad. It does mean that you need it to be buttoned up and to reflect the best version of you. No typos. None. Aim for one page unless you can justify two pages, which is rare. You should complete several drafts. Take time to think deeply about the experience you do have, and display that information in a clear way (this part is much harder than it sounds).
Don’t feel too bad if you feel like your experience doesn’t measure up. Welcome to the club. It’s different applying to MBA programs, but in law school, students tend to have far less experience. I, for example, was a welder. Do the best with what you have.
Also, don’t lie. A bit of salesmanship is fine and even encouraged. You are essentially selling yourself to the school. But blatant lies are wrong and can get you removed from consideration. Don’t do it.
Have others review your resume and offer advice. It’s especially helpful to find a reviewer who has experience specifically with graduate school resumes. Put the time in to create a great resume, but realize that most of your time should be spent on your personal statement and studying for the exam.
Letters of Recommendation
In law school applications, letters of recommendation are more commonly from professors than managers, though students can usually submit both. Letters of recommendation give the school an idea of who you are. Students, as they should, tend to ask for letters of recommendation from professors in classes they performed well in, so the fact that you received high marks in such courses won’t be what sets you apart.
What will set you apart is having someone write your letter who knows you beyond surface level interactions. Someone who can speak to who you are as a person, and give the school of sense of your personality and impact on a classroom. Stories are powerful. If the person writing your letter can tell a story about you to the school, that’s golden.
Letters of recommendation are the most important part of your application that are mostly out of your control. But there are steps you can take to get better letters.
First, set expectations. At the beginning of each term, visit privately with all of your professors. Tell them about your goals and float the idea that, if you perform well in their class, they might write a letter for you. See how they respond. For those that respond well, focus on doing everything you can to crush it in their classes. Show up early, take notes, participate, stop by office hours, ask questions after class, and most importantly — do the work.
At the end of the term, consider, among the willing professors, which would write the most compelling letters. Look beyond the grade you received and think about which professor knows you best and has the best story to tell. Approach those professors and request letters.
But when you do this, be aware of what you are asking of them. Writing a letter of recommendation takes a lot of time and energy. It’s no easy thing. After all, this is your future we’re talking about. If you really want to be accepted, they need to write a great letter. A good letter isn’t good enough. And writing a great letter takes time.
Now, this is where you do something very important: offer to write a first draft for them. Let me be clear — I am not telling you to write it for them. I am telling you to offer to write a first draft for them, to save them time, because you are aware of what a significant time commitment it is. In my experience, they almost always accept. Especially because you will be sure to tell them that they can make any adjustments they’d like, which is of course entirely true. But by providing them the first draft, you give them an idea of the story you want them to tell. Rather than leaving it entirely up to chance, you give them something to focus on.
It will feel awkward to write the first draft. There’s no avoiding it. You’ll be speaking glowingly about yourself. But you need to lean into that. Of course, don’t go overboard, but you need to have the confidence to show the school what you would bring to their classroom, to their community.
You likely won’t ever see your letters of recommendation. Though you are given the option to, schools prefer you don’t, because it puts pressure on the professor to write something that will please you, rather than writing how they really feel. I never saw mine, so I don’t know to what degree my professors altered my first drafts. But I do know they worked, because I got in.
Personal Statement
The personal statement is what gets you accepted, assuming your LSAT score puts you in consideration. Work on it tenaciously. Put far, far more effort into it than you think you will have to. I recommend 30 drafts, minimum. For my essay, I did 50. And even after all that effort, I look back on the essay now and see plainly improvements that could be made. Such is writing. You need to put the time in, and it can’t all be at once. You have to take a step back from time to time — let it simmer. Revisit later.
I will make the point again that stories are powerful. They compel us. A well-crafted narrative will do more for you than anything else in your application. But crafting this narrative is a challenge. It takes deep and honest introspection. Who are you, really? What qualities do you have? What are your true aims?
Somehow, you’re expected to express who you are while simultaneously telling the school what you bring to the table and the purpose for your pursuing law school. On top of it all, you can’t come across as cocky or obsessed with prestige. In fact, admissions offices despise both of those things.
So how do you balance it all? How do you mash it all together yet have it appear appetizing? Start by focusing on the story. Flesh that out first, and then weave in the other themes.
Have others review the personal statement, especially those with expertise. But do your own writing. Good essays convey an authenticity that is nearly impossible to fake. Take the opportunity to show them who you are.
Applications
A word on applications. We’d all like to get accepted to our dream school, but it doesn’t always happen. Make sure you have contingency plans in place. With a bit of online research, you will get a sense for the scores you’ll need to get considered at various schools. Ideally, you would apply to target schools (where your application will be competitive), reach schools (where you’d need a bit of good fortune to be accepted), and safety schools (where your application is superior to that of most applicants).
That way you’ll have options. And remember, just because you get accepted doesn’t mean you have to attend. If you don’t get into any of the schools you are aiming for, you can try again the following year. But isn’t that taking too much time off? Don’t I have to move ahead with my life? These are fair questions. But it is entirely possible to make good use of another year, prepare better, and get into a school that could pay off for years to come. You’ll have to be the judge of that.
My Schedule
That’s quite a lot to work on: LSAT study, a resume, letters of recommendation, and a personal statement. Not to mention the time it takes to fill out and pay for (can’t forget that) the applications. And if you’re like most of us, you’ll have school or work to balance as well.
Preparing for law school, my schedule was probably more hectic than it has ever been. I woke up at 4 am to study the LSAT for two hours. Then I’d drive over to my welding job, arriving by 6:30 am and working until lunch. After that, I grabbed fast food on my 60-minute commute to campus, where I had two hours of classes followed by two hours of group study time. Then I’d grab more fast food and drive to my two-hour LSAT class. Then it was time to take the hour trip home, where I did my homework, generally until about 11 pm.
I can’t tell you how unhealthy this was for me. I wasn’t eating right or working out or getting the rest my body needed. I wasn’t spending the time with my family that I wanted to. But I didn’t have a choice. My wife and I had recently had our first child together, a wonderful little boy, and it was my job to provide for them. We lived in my in-laws’ basement and I worked to pay the bills while also preparing for law school. It’s just the way it was.
Make no mistake, you have to work for it. I cannot save you if you don’t have work ethic. But be careful to not let it consume you. Be thoughtful about your physical, emotional, and spiritual wellbeing.
So what did I learn from this experience? Let me tell you: avoid stretching yourself too thin. Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but realize that, no matter how unavoidable it is, it will have significant negative consequences. Just like it did for me. I worked extremely hard. Too hard. And I paid for it.
The Exam
Test day finally arrived. I felt I was as prepared as I could possibly be, but after nearly six months of relentless study, I was still scoring several points below the average scores of Stanford students. But still, I prayed for a test-day miracle.
It didn’t come. At least not the kind I was hoping for. I received a great score, generally speaking, but a very poor score in terms of being accepted to Stanford. The news hurt, but fortunately, I’d given myself enough time to take the test again. And that’s what I did.
After several more months of feverish study, I took the exam a second time. Entering this exam, I felt much more confident. I had consistently scored in the range of Stanford students on practice tests. But in the exam, I broke the cardinal (no Stanford pun intended) rule and got stubborn. I was stumped by a question and didn’t move on in time, tanking my score for the entire section. I have rarely been so defeated as I was leaving the testing center that day. I knew it was over. And sure enough, the score confirmed it. I had received the same score I had received after taking the test the first time.
More Rejection
But the application materials were ready to go, so I submitted them. I applied to target schools, reach schools, and safety schools, with a small, misplaced glimmer of hope that Stanford would accept me. They didn’t. Neither did nearly 20 other schools.
I accepted a spot at BYU’s J. Reuben Clark Law School. I had loved my undergraduate experience and will always have a special place in my heart for BYU, but I was disappointed. I thought back to those conversations I’d had with my peers at community college about my dreams of attending Stanford. They were right. I didn’t belong there.
The hardest part was reporting the news to all those contacts who had spent so much time helping me. I desperately wanted to disappear, or at least cease communicating with them. I never wanted the news of my failure to reach them. But they deserved to know. Telling them was the right thing to do.
I thanked each of them for their support and passed along the unfortunate news. They responded with short, semi-comforting comments like, “Well, I’m sure you’ll do well at BYU.”
It was all very heavy. I did not feel the anticipation I hoped I’d feel starting a graduate program. But I still had one last chance for Stanford.
Last Chance
Law schools allow students to transfer after the first year of the three-year program. Top schools like Stanford, Yale, and Harvard accept a handful of transfer students every year, generally from highly ranking schools like Columbia and Berkeley. Transfer applications include all of the same elements as standard applications, except the LSAT score is replaced by first year grades. The LSAT is a predictor of a student’s law school performance, but there’s no need to predict when you have the student’s actual law school performance.
Statistically, transferring is the hardest way to get into a program. There are so few spots available that it’s relatively unheard of to transfer into a top program. But transferring was my last chance to make it, and I refused to leave any stone unturned.
First Year of Law School
I entered my first year of law school with one goal: transfer to Stanford. The first thing I did was meet with all of my professors privately. I floated the idea of transferring to see which professors were supportive of it. And I was especially diligent in my preparation in their courses.
The other crucial decision I made was to strip away all of the adjacent activities and focus on school. We moved out of my in-laws’ basement and into an apartment across the street from the law school. I quit my job and took out a loan. And since I was now a law student, I didn’t have to worry about the LSAT anymore. So I had plenty of time to spend on school and earning high marks.
I structured my days differently than before. I still studied rigorously, but I took better care of myself physically, emotionally, and spiritually. And I spent more time with my family. I kept a picture of my family nearby when I studied with the words “remember why” at the top of the page.
I started early, arriving to the law school library between 4 and 5 am. Even though the library didn’t open until 6 am, I found a study area in another part of the law school. I ate healthy foods and packed a healthy lunch every day. Between studying and classes, I was at the law school until 6:30 pm. Then I came home, had dinner with the family, and went to the gym with my wife. Because most law school grades are entirely dependent on a final exam, I generally didn’t have homework to spend time on in the evenings, though there were times throughout the year when I did. I went to sleep early so I could awake refreshed.
I soon became intimidated by my classmates. Many actively participated in class, as I struggled to follow the discussion. More than once when called upon, I had absolutely no clue what the answer was. This did nothing to improve my confidence for exams.
I spent many, many hours on outlines, the notes you’re allowed to bring to your exams. The trick with outlines is making them short. Some students come to an exam armed with 100-page outlines. They’re toast. It’s impossible to flip through pages of notes during a timed exam and type a well-structured essay response of sufficient length.
It’s much better to make outlines as concise as possible. A format I found useful was inserting my text into two-column tables. This allowed me to fit more text on a page. I’d keep chopping away at the material until I made it as concise as possible, ideally under 10 pages. That way I could easily navigate my notes during an exam.
Some students attempted to use the outlines of former students rather than creating their own. This will work for some classes but will fail as a general strategy. The real learning happens in the creation of an outline. However, getting outlines from former students who did well in the class is a significant competitive advantage, so long as the material from the outline is incorporated into a ground-up process of creating an original outline.
All law students make outlines, but I don’t know of any other students who prepared pre-formed exam answers. I went through the exercise of anticipating questions I would have to answer on exams. Then I would write out entire answers in component parts that I could mix and match depending on the scenario. The strategy allowed me to spend much of the time in the exam mindlessly typing what I had already written as I thought about what to type next. This greatly reduced my stress levels during exams. And it produced results. My grades at the end of the first semester put me in contention to transfer. Of course, I’d still have to score at the top of the class by the end of the school year to have any real chance at acceptance.
So I worked away the second semester just as I did the first. I met intermittently with the professors who by that point had agreed to write my letters of recommendation. Fortunately, I had received high marks in their courses.
One of the greatest benefits of attending BYU rather than other institutions was its focus on writing. At many schools, the writing course isn’t graded, and it doesn’t impact students as much. But at BYU, great emphasis is put on writing. I was especially fortunate to have a writing professor who taught me more about writing than anyone else has, and who supported me as a student and an individual. I took special care to do as well as I could in the writing course because I truly loved writing, and I felt like it was the course I had the most control over. If I did enough drafts, I’d get a good score. So I made sure I did a lot of drafts — over 30. And they paid off.
Another benefit of attending BYU was the people I met. I made lasting friendships. I can recall some friends and study group members asking me for help understanding course material. The exam was around the corner and I was the only group member with a solid outline. There’s a strange dynamic in law school where study group members start out eager to help each other and become less eager the nearer the exam gets. At a school like BYU, where only the top 10% of the class have a shot at interviewing at big firms, it gets extremely competitive. So when these group members asked for my help, part of me wanted to tell them to kick rocks. If they had wanted to get a good grade, they should have spent more time studying beforehand. I had a decision to make: help them or protect my competitive advantage.
In truth, this decision did not take long to make. It was only a moment of hesitation, and then I assured them I’d be happy to help. I spent an entire day standing at a whiteboard reviewing the entire course with them. I’m sure the opportunity to teach helped me more than my instruction helped them. But they were grateful and felt better prepared for the exam.
I’ll never forget walking out of that exam. One of the group members I had helped walked up to me, gave me a hug, and thanked me again for helping him. When grades came out, we all did well, but my score was the lowest in the study group. I was bitter only for a moment. Then I was just grateful I’d done well. Looking back on the experience now, those group members remain close friends and have helped me in countless ways since. They know I’m there for them, and I know they are there for me.
Applying for summer internships was a death race. None of the big firms interviewed at BYU — we had to go to them. And those firms wouldn’t even consider you if you weren’t in the top 10% of the class. On top of it all, you had to prepare unique cover letters for every firm.
I went through this time-consuming process, still hoping to get a job at Kirkland & Ellis, a top private equity law firm. I had invited a managing partner out to BYU to give a presentation, and he had come, so I thought I had an inside track to a position. But after sending him an email about getting a position there, I never got a response. And now’s the time I give my wife some long-overdue credit.
She called me one day when I was driving home from an interview and asked what had happened with Kirkland & Ellis. I told her I hadn’t heard back. Then, in her loving way, she said, “Parker call him up, demand a job, and don’t take no for an answer.”
Sound like a joke? You don’t know my wife. Despite my arguments against calling, she wouldn’t let it go. “I’m not getting off this phone until you promise me you’ll call.”
Reluctantly, I agreed. I looked up the office number online and called. The phone rang. No answer. I was momentarily relieved, but knew my wife would expect me to leave a message, so I said what came to me.
“Hi, this is Parker Miller. I know exactly what I want to do. I want to work for Kirkland & Ellis in the Bay Area and I’ll do anything it takes to get there. I’ll even mow your lawn if that’s what it takes.”
I hung up. What in the world had I done? Mow his lawn? Seriously? I felt like I might have just said the dumbest thing I’d ever said in my life and ruined my chances of getting the position.
Weeks passed and I heard nothing back. It made me sick every time I thought about how I had botched the opportunity. But then, about four weeks after the call, I received a call back.
“Hey Parker! Wow, I got your message and I gotta tell you, it was the best voicemail I’ve ever heard! You’ll go far with an attitude like that. We’d love to have someone like that around here.”
I was in shock. Literally in shock. Like so many times before and so many times since (or quite possibly every time since), my wife was right! My true stupidity had not been leaving the voicemail but doubting her.
The conversation bolstered my application materials. I already had my personal statement (though I now needed to update it and offer to mow all of Stanford’s lawns if the let me in, an offer I did in actuality make), letters of recommendation, and resume. Now I could also say that I would be an incoming intern at a top firm, a fact that very likely played a role in how things turned out. Now all I had to do was finish out the semester strong and earn high marks.
When grades came back, I was crestfallen. I’d performed well, but worse than I had the first semester, seriously damaging my chances to transfer. But there was no turning back. I submitted the application.
Then it was a waiting game. There was no set date for decisions to come out, but there was an end date. Slowly, the end date crept nearer and nearer, until it reached me. I had all but given up. Surely if I had been admitted, I would have known sooner.
Then the phone rang. “Palo Alto” showed on the caller ID. I froze, standing in my bedroom, alone. I closed the door and answered.
“Hi, this is Parker.”
“Hi Parker, this is Dean Faye Deal from Stanford Law School. I’m just leaving the office now. We just wrapped up admissions decisions and I’m heading out on vacation, but I wanted to give you the news that we’d like to offer you a spot in our class.”
I don’t remember the rest of the conversation. The words are all a blur. I can only recall hanging up the phone and looking at the floor for several minutes as I tried to pull myself together. I opened the door, walked down the hall, and entered the living room, where my wife was. I tried to speak, but couldn’t.
“What babe?” she asked.
“I… I made it,” I stammered.
“Made what? What are you talking about?”
“I made it into Stanford.”
“Stanford? No. I don’t believe you.”
When she saw the tears in my eyes, she knew it was true. We both cried.
Years of work and struggle and rejection flowed out, free and unfettered. Again, I saw the blank stares. I heard the words, “You don’t belong there” ringing in my mind. But they had lost their power. I did belong.
Attending Stanford
When I arrived in Palo Alto for the first time in several years for on-campus interviews at Stanford, I savored every moment. I drove the familiar streets and just took it all in. I parked my car on the side of the road and walked to see the pines and palm trees and breathe the Northern California air. I saw the campus, sprawling and beautiful, and the building where I would attend school. I saw the Hoover Tower and the Memorial Church and could feel them as much as see them. To this day, walking the courtyard in front of the Memorial Church is a special experience for me. Standing on the front steps and looking down Palm Drive, I feel like anything is possible.
But taking classes at Stanford came with its challenges. Initially, I struggled with imposter syndrome. My classmates all seemed so capable and brilliant. I counted the days until someone finally gave a wrong answer in class, and I was counting for a long time.
But maybe the single most important thing I learned while at Stanford is to not be intimidated by people who go to Stanford. They are just people. Sure, they are talented and driven, but they are still just people — like you and me. And they’re still trying to figure things out, too.
I took classes I loved (without the stress of grades, because Stanford doesn’t really have any) and forged new relationships. Every day when I rode my bike to class, I took in the world around me. I am sure the years of struggle to gain acceptance helped me better appreciate the experience. And the experience was one I will never forget.
Conclusion
I received a job offer from Kirkland & Ellis, but after spending a summer there realized it wasn’t the right fit for me. So I pivoted and ending up in a position at Google (no doubt in part because of my degree from Stanford), where I found a home doing something I love: building tech products.
I think we too often settle for things because we find them along the path we are walking, even when deep down we want to start down another path. If I can encourage you, take that other path. Go for what you want. You’ll be happier in the long run.
As a final note, I want to address one more thing. Some will say I am giving people false hope. They will say I am an outlier. In some ways, those people are right, but I believe they are gravely wrong in spirit. In fact, it is these people who remind me of my community college peers with their blank stares.
First, let me reiterate — you must put in the work. There is no substitute for that. But if you put in the work, and keep learning and growing and improving along the way, things will fall in place. I cannot guarantee a specific outcome, but I can guarantee that you will end up in a far better place if you pursue your lofty goals than if you give up on them. In my experience, when I pour my heart into something, things tend to work out better than expected, but not exactly as initially hoped for, and only after a long and winding road. So put in the work. Dream big. And persist. There are great things ahead.
Many have helped me along my journey, and I have a responsibility to pay it forward. Please reach out if I can be helpful to you.
I would also like to publicly thank those who have helped me. There are too many names to list here, but there are two individuals that I simply must list: my wife, Taynee, who has always been my most valiant supporter, my rock, and my motivation; and my uncle, Seth, who saw something in me I didn’t see in myself and who not only guided — but pulled — me toward a better future. Thank you.
