Government Honors Program Forum

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Does it seriously only accept applications from students in the top 20% of their class? They apply this same standard to EVERY school?

What about this reads wrong to you?

Top 20% class rank required (or minimum LSAT score of 160 or higher, if school does not provide a class rank at the time a selection is made)

Do these people even know what they're doing?

[A. Nony Mouse]

This is IRS, right? You might as well specify, since they're basically the only honors program I've ever seen that has this particularly odd requirement. I think someone has posted here before that it's worth applying if you're not top 20%, depending on school, but I could be misremembering. I wonder if it's a holdover from the days when government gigs were seen as stuffy boring and underpaid compared to the glory of biglaw (before tuition was quite so stratospheric), so they were recruiting from a wider coterie of schools.

[Anonymous User]

Note that this program says that they'll accept an LSAT score of 160 or higher if the school doesn't rank applicants. A lot of top schools (those with average LSAT in the 170s) do not rank applicants. So if you go to one of the top 5 or 6 schools, you should be okay.

[Anonymous User]

I got dinged at fed govt for not being top 3rd at a 50-100 school. Apparently, they still care.

[Anonymous User]

Can someone link me to a thread where I can learn about FedGov recruiting?

I am a 2L that might strike out in OCI

[mi-chan17]

DOJ Honors Application closes Tuesday. I'd hop on that one first, if you need to try and go FedGov.

[crumpetsandtea]

DOJ Honors Application closes Tuesday. I'd hop on that one first, if you need to try and go FedGov.

He's a 2L going through OCI, so he can't apply to honors positions yet. If I were you, I'd google the Government Honors Handbook ( your school probably has a link) and read that thouroughly, and get in touch with your career services person in charge of students interested in pursuing government positions.

I would also either figure out what kind of law I'd like to do (trans/lit? practice area?) OR take a broad range of classes over the next year - there are a lot of different government agencies and you can either try and pigeonhole yourself to make yourself the BEST CANDIDATE POSSIBLE for a few of them, or try to do things to maximize the number you can spin your story for. If you're looking at agencies like the SEC/FTC/other finance-based agencies, take transactional/finance classes like sec reg, antitrust, etc. I don't know much about transactional work so maybe someone else can speak to that. Take Int'l or Immigration classes for things like DOJ Immigration, DHS, DoS; employment/labor for DOL/NLRB, etc etc. Also, try to get some internships with federal agencies during the school year so you can demonstrate a commitment to public service (not to mention get more practical experience to talk about during your interviews).

That's my advice, anyway. Someone else might have something better.

[mi-chan17]

DOJ Honors Application closes Tuesday. I'd hop on that one first, if you need to try and go FedGov.

He's a 2L going through OCI, so he can't apply to honors positions yet.

The Honors app and SLIP dates are the same. So DOJ's paid internship application deadline is also Tuesday.