86
Technology
Legal
Scholarship
Indiana-Maurer
LLM
It is without question thanks to my encounter with Round One—and Mr. Round—that I was able to achieve the almost unbelievable result of being admitted to three top U.S. law school LLM programs, including receiving a scholarship from one of them, despite being a self-funded applicant with no prior overseas living experience. Below, I would like to reflect on my path to admission and share the advantages of Round One.
I first learned about Round One in early July of the year prior to my study abroad. Among the study-abroad consulting firms I found online, Round One appeared to offer the highest-quality services, so I sent an inquiry email to ask whether they could provide application consulting support. Based on the website, I initially thought Round One primarily served MBA applicants, and I was unsure whether they also accepted LLM applicants like myself. However, Mr. Round responded promptly (this responsiveness is one of Round One’s strengths), informing me that they did indeed accept LLM applicants and encouraging me to apply. One week later, I met Mr. Round at a hotel lounge in Tokyo, and the following day he contacted me to formally welcome me as a Round One client. That marked the start of our engagement.
Once the Round One services officially began, the first step was Strategic Guidance. To formulate my application portfolio, we held a kickoff meeting in late July. During this meeting, Mr. Round worked with me to identify my strengths and weaknesses as an LLM applicant and to clarify my application strategy and direction. We revisited my long-term career vision, discussed what I hoped to study in law school, and identified potential recommenders together.
When I raised concerns that my low undergraduate GPA might be viewed negatively, Mr. Round responded confidently that this could be mitigated and provided concrete advice on how to compensate for it and even differentiate myself beyond other applicants. Based on the discussions during this kickoff meeting and subsequent email exchanges, we finalized my application strategy, essay timeline, and overall application portfolio.
Because we were able to establish this framework relatively early, I could maintain a clear, bird’s-eye view of the entire application process and complete my materials smoothly without unnecessary last-minute stress. Moreover, by following Mr. Round’s advice and building up volunteer experience starting in the summer, I believe I was able to successfully differentiate myself in my résumé and personal statement.
One of the key benefits of using Round One is that the service goes far beyond simple line-by-line essay editing. Instead, Round One provides comprehensive consulting on overall application strategy, creates a fully tailored application portfolio for each client, and offers invaluable advice on how to differentiate oneself from other applicants.
During the Strategic Guidance phase, I was advised to focus first on improving my TOEFL score, so I began Essay Counseling in the final week of August. At Round One, essay preparation begins at the most appropriate timing based on each client’s tailored application strategy, allowing résumés, recommendation requests, and personal statements to be prepared efficiently.
Another defining feature of Round One is that, during the Essay Counseling process, a dedicated time slot is always secured for each client. This provided two major benefits. First, having a weekly essay counseling appointment allowed me to steadily complete my application materials. In Western graduate school admissions, especially for law schools, personal statements and essays are often decisive; without careful preparation, admission to top schools is nearly impossible. Through a weekly process in which I completed assignments designated by Mr. Round, received his detailed review and advice, and then revised my work accordingly, we were able to develop essays strong enough for top-tier schools.
Second, even during the peak winter season when many clients are finalizing essays, my counseling slot was always reserved in advance, enabling me to prepare my materials in a planned and stress-free manner. I have heard that at other firms it can be difficult to secure appointments during busy periods, but that was never an issue at Round One. In my case, having a counseling slot every Wednesday morning (Japan time) allowed for excellent schedule management and systematic preparation of all required documents.
There are countless positive aspects of Round One and Mr. Round, but in short, they are true professionals whose service quality is unquestionably among the best in the industry.
Some applicants may worry about counseling conducted in English and feel more comfortable working with a Japanese counselor in Japanese. However, such concerns are entirely unnecessary with Round One. The firm has extensive experience working with Japanese applicants and possesses deep background knowledge. Moreover, Mr. Round not only understands Japanese people, culture, and business practices, but also conducts counseling with great care and humor, making English communication entirely comfortable. In fact, interacting with Mr. Round in English ultimately contributed to improving my English proficiency.
In addition, Mr. Round is extremely kind and genuinely supportive. During periods when my TOEFL score did not improve as expected and I had to balance test preparation with application materials, I struggled greatly. At such times, his passionate encouragement helped me maintain my motivation and persevere through difficult phases.
Furthermore, the biweekly Round One Gazette, issued as part of the service, provided timely guidance on what to focus on at each stage of the process, helping me maintain perspective and motivation. It was also highly useful as a source of authentic English expressions.
In this way, Round One delivers high-quality, comprehensive support from every angle to enable clients to perform at their best and gain admission to top schools.
For a “purely domestic” applicant like myself—self-funded and with no overseas living experience—preparing applications for LLM programs was an immense challenge. I was able to overcome it only because of the robust support provided by Round One and Mr. Round. While my own steady and persistent efforts certainly played a role, I am convinced that without their support, I would not have been able to persevere through the entire process without giving up. It is only because of Round One and Mr. Round that I was able to open the doors to top U.S. law schools and even receive a scholarship.
I sincerely hope that many future applicants will leverage Round One’s services to realize their own dreams.
To prospective LLM applicants: although Round One may appear at first glance to focus primarily on MBA applicants, this is not the case. LLM applicants are fully supported as well. I strongly encourage you to make use of Round One’s application consulting services and open the doors to top schools.
