How much does work experience really matter? Forum

[laotze]

It depends on the school. Some didn't seem to mind my gap year, while others (namely Northwestern and Chicago) asked me to speak at length about my job and the activities I've undertaken since graduation.

^ This. Northwestern claims to admit very few people without post-collegiate work experience, and their AJD program flat-out requires it (at least two years, preferably). Their average student age is higher than a lot of others schools consequently.

As far as my personal application experience is concerned, in addition to Northwestern Georgetown, Vanderbilt, UCLA, and Boston U all seemed very interested in my "gap years" work background, while other schools didn't seem to care an iota. Your mileage may vary.

[dr123]

I'm in the midst of a gap year working at a small law firm. I'm not sure it did much for my admissions cycle, but it definitely helped me further develop my professional skills and let me mature a little bit. A fair amount of people who go to law school have already been out of undergrad for a few years and have (hopefully) had time to mature and develop some professional skills. I I feel that a year off can do nothing but help.

I definitely agree that some experience is better than no experience, but I do have a summer internship at a Fortune 500 company and some local government internships on the resume as well as other previous jobs. I suppose I'm kind of a "non-traditional" applicant given my variety of work experiences.

Internships are not work experience. In fact, I'd say internships are mostly a joke. You'll probably have classmates who have actually had real jobs at F500 companies and local gov't.


Also, 1 year is barely "work experience".

[eric922]

I don't know where you're applying OP, but I know NU really seems like work experience.