[ronmexico]

Spring break is next week.

[luvxholic]

If i decide to apply to a law school straight after UG but i don't get into the school i want so i work about two years can i apply again to that school? do you think the work experience would help at all? thanks!!!!

[globosapien]

Since nobody has asked anything for a while, I thought some people might be interested to know that major firms are raising salaries for associates. Simpson Thatcher was the first, but just about all of the large firms have followed suit, at least for their NYC offices if not nationally:
http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2007/01/22/simpso...raises-the-bar/

can i just say "DAMN!!"

[ronmexico]

If i decide to apply to a law school straight after UG but i don't get into the school i want so i work about two years can i apply again to that school? do you think the work experience would help at all? thanks!!!!

I doubt that it would help. I don't think a couple years of work experience is going to make much of a difference. I guess it might help if the school was concerned that you weren't mature enough or something like that, or if the application cycle was much more favorable when you re-applied. But if you don't have the numbers for a particular school, a couple years of work won't help.

[bROBOT]

i think it'll help more with a relatively weak gpa than a weak lsat. if you're between the 25th percentile and the median gpa and you've got solid work experience, it'll help you stand out. but your work experience has to be stellar; working in retail or even being something somewhat trite like being a paralegal probably won't do it.

[freesia39]

If i decide to apply to a law school straight after UG but i don't get into the school i want so i work about two years can i apply again to that school? do you think the work experience would help at all? thanks!!!!

work experience doesn't always help. the LSAT and GPA is probably more important.

[Mushroomx3]

If I want to work in the immigration/citizenship services, like an officer who process citizenship applications, then do I have to go to law school in order to pursue that career? Does anyone know if majoring in social work will do?? Thanks

[ronmexico]

^No, you wouldn't. I'm not entirely sure what you're asking, but if you just want to work for the INS in some kind of clerical capacity, then you don't need to go to law school. You wouldn't even need to major in social work. Obviously there are lawyers who work for the INS and private immigration lawyers, but it doesn't sound like that's what you're describing.

[bROBOT]

what do you know about the Dean's cup? is it hard to make the roster? my fear is that it'll be littered with former scholarship athletes, but i've been training a lot lately so hopefully i can make the cut.

[sherrie]

i hear and read over and over that GPA and LSAT are what matter most, but i still wanted your (ronmexico and brobot) opinion on a few specific options i'm considering.
1) will it matter whether or not i write an honors thesis, as opposed to a senior project (an original paper you finish in one quarter, usually 25-ish pages)?
2) will i be at a disadvantage if i do not work this summer? i am currently a junior, and i have the option of doing an internship or doing a language study. i would really love to do the language study, but i am sure the internship will be better for me in terms of resume building. the question is, will law schools even care? about one summer experience?
if this is at all relevant: i worked full time last summer, i am a part-time research assistant throughout the school year, i plan on doing that my senior year, and i am planning to take a year off to work.

i would appreciate any thoughts. thanks!

[ronmexico]

what do you know about the Dean's cup? is it hard to make the roster? my fear is that it'll be littered with former scholarship athletes, but i've been training a lot lately so hopefully i can make the cut.

I don't think it's especially hard to make the team. It's probably at or below the level of DIII ball.

i hear and read over and over that GPA and LSAT are what matter most, but i still wanted your (ronmexico and brobot) opinion on a few specific options i'm considering.
1) will it matter whether or not i write an honors thesis, as opposed to a senior project (an original paper you finish in one quarter, usually 25-ish pages)?
2) will i be at a disadvantage if i do not work this summer? i am currently a junior, and i have the option of doing an internship or doing a language study. i would really love to do the language study, but i am sure the internship will be better for me in terms of resume building. the question is, will law schools even care? about one summer experience?
if this is at all relevant: i worked full time last summer, i am a part-time research assistant throughout the school year, i plan on doing that my senior year, and i am planning to take a year off to work.

i would appreciate any thoughts. thanks!

I don't think it's going to make much of a difference if you write an honors thesis or not. As for working, I don't think it will matter much either, since it's not like you don't have anything on your resume as it is. If you're planning to take a year off anyway, you don't even need to apply this year and can wait until you have actual work experience if you want. But I don't think it will make a big difference either way.

[bROBOT]

as far as admissions go, ron's probably right. most schools ask for a resume so having some professional experience on there will look nice, but it certainly won't make or break you by any means. an honors thesis probably won't make a difference either, unless you wind up getting published somewhere fancy.

if you're thinking long term, beyond law school, i would consider both the internship and the language experience. depending on what kind of work it would be; it could make you a more attractive job candidate, but the overall experience probably won't be substantial enough to receive heavy consideration. that's my guess, anyways. i would think knowing a foreign language would make you an attractive candidate if you want to do some kind of international work later on. so, if i were you, i'd go with the language study and make damn sure you get as close to fluent as possible.

Yours in Christ,

BRObot

[melkimx]

Yours in Christ,

BRObot

what are you doing? weirdo

[sherrie]

as far as admissions go, ron's probably right. most schools ask for a resume so having some professional experience on there will look nice, but it certainly won't make or break you by any means. an honors thesis probably won't make a difference either, unless you wind up getting published somewhere fancy.

if you're thinking long term, beyond law school, i would consider both the internship and the language experience. depending on what kind of work it would be; it could make you a more attractive job candidate, but the overall experience probably won't be substantial enough to receive heavy consideration. that's my guess, anyways. i would think knowing a foreign language would make you an attractive candidate if you want to do some kind of international work later on. so, if i were you, i'd go with the language study and make damn sure you get as close to fluent as possible.

Yours in Christ,

BRObot

thank you both! haha deep down i wanted to do the language study, so i guess i was just looking for validation. but, i do indeed want to do international work, so a language study seems more beneficial than 10 weeks of doing grunt work for a non-profit.

a question to all:
does anyone know which schools are well-known for their international law program/concentration? us news and world report only lists the top 4 law schools with a specialty in international law (nyu, columbia, georgetown, harvard).

[RunIt]

Hey all, I have a question about the LSAC GPA.

I know that some universities allow taking over classes if you get a D or below. Let's say a university allows up to 16 "makeup" units, which are units that can be used to retake classes. Now, in this university the new grade you get in the retake of the class REPLACES the old grade (D or below) that you got before, as if the D or below grade never existed. When the LSAC calculates your GPA, does it take this into account? Does the LSAC GPA incorporate the D's and below that you got for the old classes, does it take the average, or does it completely replace like it does at this university? If anybody could answer this question, would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

[ronmexico]

a question to all:
does anyone know which schools are well-known for their international law program/concentration? us news and world report only lists the top 4 law schools with a specialty in international law (nyu, columbia, georgetown, harvard).

Don't worry about specialty rankings. They don't really mean anything, so they're not going to help you very much in deciding where to go.

Hey all, I have a question about the LSAC GPA.

I know that some universities allow taking over classes if you get a D or below. Let's say a university allows up to 16 "makeup" units, which are units that can be used to retake classes. Now, in this university the new grade you get in the retake of the class REPLACES the old grade (D or below) that you got before, as if the D or below grade never existed. When the LSAC calculates your GPA, does it take this into account? Does the LSAC GPA incorporate the D's and below that you got for the old classes, does it take the average, or does it completely replace like it does at this university? If anybody could answer this question, would be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

I believe they count both grades in calculating your GPA. Unless it's wiped completely off your transcript, in which case I suppose they couldn't possibly count the old grade. Though I don't know how many schools would do that.

[bROBOT]

I concur, it depends on how your school writes the transcript. I personally can't see why a school would allow a grade of D or below to be completely wiped from the transcript. That seems to give students some incentive to tank a class mid-semester if they don't want to settle for a C.

Moral of the story: Don't get D's.

[RunIt]

I also don't really know how they write the transcript, however if you look at the grades in your "degree check" (a rough version of an unofficial transcript) the bad grade shows up, although in parantheses. I'm not sure if they decide to allow this to be seen in the official "master" transcript. I really hope it doesn't show up, and if it does there would really have been no point in giving 16 replacement units in the first place.

I was reading back on the earlier postings and ronmexico mentioned that it's pretty much pointless to take the LSAT more than once, since they average the scores if you take it more than once. But I heard that now all ABA law schools have this new rule where they accept the highest of the LSAT scores. Now, this sounds like it will benefit future law school applicants, but I heard of many people complaining and actually disliking this new set rule (I would have no idea why). Will this change much in terms of gaining admission, or do you think the law schools will still act the same by looking at your old scores and not getting much more impressed by the improvement?

[bROBOT]

They have changed the way they look at multiple LSAT scores. They no longer average the two, and now look at the highest of the scores. They will still see all of your test results though, so I can only imagine if you do worse the second time around, it wouldn't look good.

[::Yongsoo::]

as some one who is about to start his 1L year (either at Washington University in St. Louis or Cornell), I can say that work experience is definitely a plus.
I know for a fact that Northwestern actually prefers it. Their incoming class is typically made up of over 85% of the students have 2+ years work experience.

Here's a forum that I wish I had found earlier in the cycle.

www.lawschooldiscussion.org

you can pretty much find ANYthing you would ever want to know about applying to law school
also, I agree. disregard the specialty rankings. these mean nothing when it comes to finding a job. BIGlaw basically just looks at the national rankings