Which Law school should I pick? So many factors... Forum

[nonprofit-prophet]

You're simply wrong. Self-confidence and grades have nothing to do with each other. I know a lot of confident people who got owned in law school, and a lot of people who used fear to motivate them to do well. It is all about knowing how to take the exam. Most people in law school have similar academic capabilities and intelligence. But if you've never taken a law school exam, you have no reason to be confident.

As a former teacher, I can guarantee you that confidence has quite a bit to do with academic performance. Students who lack confidence in their work tend to not seek extra help and frequently feel overwhelmed. This is definitely not 100% of cases, but in my experience some amount confidence is necessary for success. It is true that one could be over confident to the point their arrogance hinders their performance. I'll concede that LS is different from other types of coursework, but to completely disregard the confidence of a student in her work when discussing her academic performance is a poor pedagogical approach.

No offense, but if you haven't been to law school, you really don't know how it is. Confidence may say something about one's abilities if you're in a random UG class. Take that random UG class and pluck the top person or two from it, do that at other universities and then you start to see why your point doesn't really make sense. In LS, your peers have pretty much the same academic background as you do. Everyone scored in the 96+ percentile on a stupid standardized test. Everyone for the most part has a good undergrad record. Essentially, you had to have had success to be there. Whether one is confident or not tells us very little about one's prospects for doing well. You cannot use confidence as a proxy for past academic success, because everyone in a given LS class will pretty much have a similar level of past success. At that level of distillation, confidence just speaks to someone's personality. I'm very neurotic with pretty low confidence, but I did quite well in LS.

[johansantana21]

You're simply wrong. Self-confidence and grades have nothing to do with each other. I know a lot of confident people who got owned in law school, and a lot of people who used fear to motivate them to do well. It is all about knowing how to take the exam. Most people in law school have similar academic capabilities and intelligence. But if you've never taken a law school exam, you have no reason to be confident.

As a former teacher, I can guarantee you that confidence has quite a bit to do with academic performance. Students who lack confidence in their work tend to not seek extra help and frequently feel overwhelmed. This is definitely not 100% of cases, but in my experience some amount confidence is necessary for success. It is true that one could be over confident to the point their arrogance hinders their performance. I'll concede that LS is different from other types of coursework, but to completely disregard the confidence of a student in her work when discussing her academic performance is a poor pedagogical approach.

As a current law school student who has actually taken law school exams, I can tell you that you are wrong.

Have you ever taken a law school exam?

[curiousnole]

I just typed out this long response to all of you, pressed post and then it never showed up... sweeet.
So this one is going to be a lot shorter.

keg411: Unlike most people (except for probably a lot of you), I really don't mind reading boring dry content for hours and hours at a time and I retain the information very well. I also don't mind doing monotonous tasks and I am a good writer. I don't know exactly what I want to specialize in (it has some bearing on my different connections as well) and I'm hoping it will become more apparent in the near future as I do more research on this. No specific goal. salary doesn't play into my goals very heavily though. Law fascinates me and I'm hoping a particular specialty speaks to me at some point.

iowalum: Haven't made up my mind on schools. Just on my year of attendance.

Backup plan= law enforcement, working for the family business. I can't do either of these for just one year and then quit and go to law school though.

There are as many great med schools in the northeast as there are great law schools. She will definitely choose one of them and almost get into her choice of them. She has nearly perfect stats.

I want to be worthy of the firms my connections are involved with, I want to be at least an adequate applicant. Also, all connections have limits. That's why being near the top matters.

romothesavior: I really would drop out barring some extraordinary occurrence such as a connection offering me a job how I stood or something along those lines.

bobbyh1919: I've talked to them about this with less definite wording and they've stated the obvious... where I stand in my law school matters. They knew the ones on my list though and they didn't say any disqualified me. Also, this would be nearly 4 years from now... so everything was obviously hypothetical.

[rad lulz]

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[romothesavior]

Dropping $50k for a 1/5 shot at success sounds like an awesome idea.

Pretty mouthy for a 0L newbie poster.

[rad lulz]

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[thelawschoolproject]

No offense, but if you haven't been to law school, you really don't know how it is.

You're right, but I have been in graduate school and a highly competitive biochem program. LS is not some random anomaly where all rules of academia are thrown out of the window. Also, I've never claimed to know precisely how law school is, merely that when students lack confidence in their ACADEMIC potential their work also suffers.

Confidence may say something about one's abilities if you're in a random UG class. Take that random UG class and pluck the top person or two from it, do that at other universities and then you start to see why your point doesn't really make sense.

I believe that you're confusing self-confidence in life with confidence in the academic material a person may be studying.

In LS, your peers have pretty much the same academic background as you do. Everyone scored in the 96+ percentile on a stupid standardized test. Everyone for the most part has a good undergrad record. Essentially, you had to have had success to be there.

I'd argue with you on the "same academic background" part, but that's a different time and place. Also, there are only a handful of schools where all of the students scored in the 96th percentile. I won't disagree that most LS's have solid UG performances but to assume that they're all the same is just wrong.

Whether one is confident or not tells us very little about one's prospects for doing well. You cannot use confidence as a proxy for past academic success, because everyone in a given LS class will pretty much have a similar level of past success. At that level of distillation, confidence just speaks to someone's personality. I'm very neurotic with pretty low confidence, but I did quite well in LS.

Again, it's about academic confidence, not about general life confidence. There are a plethora of pedagogical journals I'd be happy to forward you that attest to the fact that a students' confidence has a positive affect on their academic performance.

As a current law student who has actually taken law school exams, I can tell you that you are wrong.

Have you ever taken a law school exam?

This is just absurd. Not having taking one specific type of test in no way counteracts all of the research on the psychological affects of students on academic success. Disagree if you will, but your argument isn't the most logically sound.

[johansantana21]

Law school finals are unique. You should STFU as a 0L.

Nothing sadder than a 0L preaching about law school finals.

[keg411]

Unlike most people (except for probably a lot of you), I really don't mind reading boring dry content for hours and hours at a time and I retain the information very well. I also don't mind doing monotonous tasks and I am a good writer. I don't know exactly what I want to specialize in (it has some bearing on my different connections as well) and I'm hoping it will become more apparent in the near future as I do more research on this. No specific goal. salary doesn't play into my goals very heavily though. Law fascinates me and I'm hoping a particular specialty speaks to me at some point

Dear god, don't go to law school. If you gave me a different answer, I'd totally be a supporter of your going too. With this type of answer, you really have no idea what you're getting yourself into.

[rad lulz]

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[thelawschoolproject]

Law school finals are unique. You should STFU as a 0L.

Nothing sadder than a 0L preaching about law school finals.

awww....

y u so mad?

[rad lulz]

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[johansantana21]

Law school finals are unique. You should STFU as a 0L.

Nothing sadder than a 0L preaching about law school finals.

awww....

y u so mad?

Clueless 0L's.

Enjoy medianpwnage.

[thelawschoolproject]

Clueless 0L's.

Enjoy medianpwnage.

But y u so mad? Srsly? Hold on lemme think...

[johansantana21]

Clueless 0L's.

Enjoy medianpwnage.

But y u so mad? Srsly? Hold on lemme think...

Holy shit, bad posts have reached a new low.

[thelawschoolproject]

Holy shit, bad posts have reached a new low.

Yeah, you're right. I tried having a legitimate discussion with you, but that proved impossible. I am the worst poster on tls, it's fine.

[lisjjen]

This is just absurd. Not having taking one specific type of test in no way counteracts all of the research on the psychological affects of students on academic success. Disagree if you will, but your argument isn't the most logically sound.

I wish I could be there to watch you take your first law school exam. It's not that you aren't brilliant. It's that everybody at a good law school is. Once you get in the top 20, there are no "pretty smart" people there. Everybody is brilliant. Something that stuck with me was the statement "you have no idea how smart your peers are" and "even the dumbasses are brilliant." True story.

Last year's Civil Procedure final was 39 pages and 4 hours long. It was a multiple choice exam and the A+ got 18 out of 40 right. You should be more reserved with your opinion when you don't know what you're talking about.

[johansantana21]

This is just absurd. Not having taking one specific type of test in no way counteracts all of the research on the psychological affects of students on academic success. Disagree if you will, but your argument isn't the most logically sound.

I wish I could be there to watch you take your first law school exam. It's not that you aren't brilliant. It's that everybody at a good law school is. Once you get in the top 20, there are no "pretty smart" people there. Everybody is brilliant. Something that stuck with me was the statement "you have no idea how smart your peers are" and "even the dumbasses are brilliant." True story.

Last year's Civil Procedure final was 39 pages and 4 hours long. It was a multiple choice exam and the A+ got 18 out of 40 right. You should be more reserved with your opinion when you don't know what you're talking about.

No man, but she's sure that being confident will result in somehow magically choosing the correct answers! She knows this from personal experience! Haven't you seen her mid 160 LSAT score? That's quite impressive, if only she was more confident...she might have broken 170!

[rad lulz]

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[fatduck]

This is just absurd. Not having taking one specific type of test in no way counteracts all of the research on the psychological affects of students on academic success. Disagree if you will, but your argument isn't the most logically sound.

I wish I could be there to watch you take your first law school exam. It's not that you aren't brilliant. It's that everybody at a good law school is. Once you get in the top 20, there are no "pretty smart" people there. Everybody is brilliant. Something that stuck with me was the statement "you have no idea how smart your peers are" and "even the dumbasses are brilliant." True story.

Last year's Civil Procedure final was 39 pages and 4 hours long. It was a multiple choice exam and the A+ got 18 out of 40 right. You should be more reserved with your opinion when you don't know what you're talking about.

dude, come on. the fact that your prof apparently decided to fuck with you all doesn't make civ pro hard. exams are easy, the problem is they're easy for almost everyone and there's a curve.

[thelawschoolproject]

I'm clueless and dumb, I'm always excited to learn all of the things.


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[lisjjen]

This is just absurd. Not having taking one specific type of test in no way counteracts all of the research on the psychological affects of students on academic success. Disagree if you will, but your argument isn't the most logically sound.

I wish I could be there to watch you take your first law school exam. It's not that you aren't brilliant. It's that everybody at a good law school is. Once you get in the top 20, there are no "pretty smart" people there. Everybody is brilliant. Something that stuck with me was the statement "you have no idea how smart your peers are" and "even the dumbasses are brilliant." True story.

Last year's Civil Procedure final was 39 pages and 4 hours long. It was a multiple choice exam and the A+ got 18 out of 40 right. You should be more reserved with your opinion when you don't know what you're talking about.

dude, come on. the fact that your prof apparently decided to fuck with you all doesn't make civ pro hard. exams are easy, the problem is they're easy for almost everyone and there's a curve.

She is, to be sure, a dinosaur who enjoys human suffering. But she is a prominent member of the ALI so the university lets her do what she wants. Tenure is a hell of a drug.

The point about the curve is absolutely the takeaway from all of the above. Rather the test is fucking ridiculous or super easy, you aren't competing against yourself. You aren't on some intellectual journey. You are measured against your peers and they are all extremely intelligent.

[lisjjen]

I'm clueless and dumb, I'm always excited to learn all of the things.


--ImageRemoved--

Well the good news is, even with the anonymity of the internet, your peers already dislike you. Get used to being called a gunner.

[thelawschoolproject]

Well the good news is, even with the anonymity of the internet, your peers already dislike you. Get used to being called a gunner.

No need to gun, I'll sleep my way to Law Review.

[beachbum]

Well the good news is, even with the anonymity of the internet, your peers already dislike you. Get used to being called a gunner.

No need to gun, I'll sleep my way to Law Review.

You don't think your peers haven't already thought of that? They're fucking brilliant, if you hadn't heard.