Lunch with King Hall Outreach Program students

On President Day weekend, I had the privilege of meeting with our latest class of King Hall Outreach Program students. KHOP provides law school application training and mentoring, Law School Admissions Test (LSAT) instruction, and other programing to help make students more competitive in the law school admission process. It lasts for most of the quarter and this was the last session. The students are selected from applicants, most of them first generation college students, from underrepresented communities.

We had a great group of students who were dressed to the nines for the official KHOP picture. They hailed from UC Berkeley, UC Davis, Long Beach State, Cal State Monterey, Sacramento State, UC Santa Cruz, and San Francisco State.

I had lunch with this enthusiastic group. Earlier in the day, Dean of Admissions Kristen Mercado discussed the admissions process with the students -- and I could tell that she got them thinking! Over lunch, we talked about the special UC Davis School of Law community and I encouraged the group to ask hard questions of the current students at an afternoon panel, which included Aaron Bonner '19, who will work next fall at an international law firm, and Jessica Martinez '19, who is a student member on the Admissions Committee and former co-chair of La Raza Law Students Association. Students peppered me with questions about law schools, the King Hall community, and related matters.

KHOP, which is skillfully and cheerfully run by Director of Admission and Outreach Joe Schneider, is a reminder of the deep commitment of UC Davis School of Law to a diverse and excellent student body. I am proud that we have KHOP.