Thursday, March 28, 2024

Honors College graduate bound for Harvard Law

Honors College graduate bound for Harvard Law

MAY 11, 2021 — UTSA Honors College graduate and former Top Scholar Marcos Mullin ’20 will be attending Harvard Law School this fall.

When Marcos first started college, however, he was a civil engineering major and a future in law was nowhere on his radar. In fact, there was a time when Marcos did not even think he would attend UTSA. “I was dead-set on attending Texas A&M,” Marcos admitted.

Marcos credits the Top Scholar program for both luring him to UTSA and for convincing him to apply to Harvard Law. He received an email during his senior year of high school encouraging him to apply for the Top Scholar program.


“I was lucky enough to be selected as a finalist for the Top Scholar program, and after attending selection weekend I was sold.”



Honors College graduate and former Top Scholar Marcos Mullin '20 has been accepted into Harvard Law School.



“I was lucky enough to be selected as a finalist for the Top Scholar program, and after attending selection weekend I was sold.” Marcos said.  “The institutional support, scholar community, and individualized mentorship were such compelling attributes of the program that if I was fortunate enough to receive an offer, my answer was going to be yes.”

The decision to attend Harvard Law came a little later. During Marcos’s freshman year, he attended the Scholar Summit, which he describes as “a conference held for students in scholarship programs, like Top Scholar, to develop a community of scholars and learn best practices of scholar programming.” That year, the keynote speaker was a Harvard Law and Kennedy School alumnus.

“I found his ambition and outlook on life quite relatable and I decided right then and there that my dream graduate program would be at Harvard,” Marcos recalled. From there, he changed his major to public administration. He eventually graduated with a double major in public administration and economics with a minor in mathematics. 

With his sights set on Harvard Law, Marcos began taking advantage of all the Honors College programs that could help lead him closer to his goal. He participated in the Archer Fellowship, where he completed an internship with the Meese Legal Center at the Heritage Foundation. While there, he participated in policy seminars and researched issues related to election law, federal agencies, and criminal justice reform. Although he was not able to finish the fellowship in person due to COVID-19, he recommends the opportunity for anyone even slightly interested in politics, law, or government.

He also participated in the UTSA Legislative Scholars program, where he interned in the Budget and Policy Division of the Office of Texas Governor Greg Abbott. During this five-month internship, he worked on policy issues related to higher education and the state budget. He met some incredible mentors throughout the internship who not only supported his efforts in applying to law school, but also provided him an opportunity to return to the division, where he serves in his current role as an education policy analyst for the 87th Legislative Session.

Both of these experiences helped him make contacts and gain professional development skills. He credits his time in both of these Honors College programs as being instrumental to his admission into Harvard Law School.

Of course, his high GPA and LSAT score certainly didn’t hurt. Marcos notched the same score on his LSAT as Elle Woods in the movie “Legally Blonde.” That, however, is where the similarities between Marcos and Reese Witherspoon’s character end. “I don’t know if I can pull off pink the same way she can, nor do I have an affinity for chihuahuas,” Marcos joked.


EXPLORE FURTHER

This fall, the Florida-born and Texas raised Mullin will be heading to Cambridge with a suitcase full of sweaters, and an exciting career ahead of him. He hasn’t landed on a type of law he would like to practice professionally just yet, but he is looking forward to exciting new challenges both inside and outside of the classroom.

Rebeca Gomez



UTSA Today is produced by University Strategic Communications,
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of The University of Texas at San Antonio.

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UTSA Today is produced by University Communications and Marketing, the official news source of The University of Texas at San Antonio. Send your feedback to news@utsa.edu. Keep up-to-date on UTSA news by visiting UTSA Today. Connect with UTSA online at Facebook, Twitter, Youtube and Instagram.


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