Wes Henricksen wrote:
I guess I just come at this issue with a different philosophy. I never held it against an applicant for including something on a resume, unless it is patently inappropriate, such as stating "Went on a 3-day bender in Cancun, Mexico, during Spring Break my senior year of college." But including something directly relevant to law school and, more to the point, performance in law school (such as an invitation to join law review) is not a negative on a resume. And I think it is unfair to hold it against someone for including it. It's like penalizing someone because they didn't play by your own arbitrary rules of the application game. How are they supposed to know that you will be offended by including this information?
I guess what I'm trying to say is, How does it make an applicant less qualified by them stating that they were invited to be on law review? If you require law review experience, then of course they do not qualify as having that. But if lack of law review experience is not an automatic disqualifier, why should an applicant be automatically disqualified by including "invited"?
I don't think it makes them less qualified, but I just don't think it belongs on a resume. Some people put their LSAT on their resume, it's directly related to law school (though not performance in law school), but I just don't think it belongs on a resume. I don't think I ever said it would be an automatic disqualifier, I just wouldn't look highly on it.
bwv812 wrote:Yes, if you decide to quit LR you generally have to notify your employer and a note often gets added to your transcript. This is not much different than a transfer saying they were invited to LR. If the primary value of LR is that it indicates approximate class rank/write-on ability and a willingness to do work, then this is the transfer student's only way to illustrate this; write-on at the new school typically occurs after OCI and contains only limited slots. We ar clearly not going to agree on this issue, but in my opinion the comparison to someone who declines an invitation (without transferring) is inapposite, as declining the invitation is a clear indication that the position and its attendant responsibilities is undesired, whereas the motivating factors for a transfer are likely the opposite.
My point is that putting "invited" on doesn't tell me any of that. I don't know if they wrote-on, graded on, or wrote a very nice personal statement (I believe some LR's use personal statements in their decisions). All it definitively says is that they think it important that they were invited to LR at a school they no longer attend. It doesn't tell me even if they were planning on accepting that offer had they not transferred.
bwv812 wrote:Perhaps you'll write-on at your new school, but the competition happens after OCI, there are fewer slots available (if any), and the invitation usually reflects your writing ability. I think the baseline expectation at better schools (and those who interview there) is that pure grade-on is not possible, though I do wonder how many schools have pure grade-on slots, and if they tell invited students how they qualified; this uncertainty is another reason to include the info, because it's unlikely the person reviewing your resume will know how you qualified for law review, or how that law review extends invitations.
I know how the write-on works with OCI, I've been through this process as an interviewer. I went to a T10 school and my baseline assumption is that at lower-ranked schools, pure grade-ons are possible, and that not many higher ranked schools have pure grade-ons (though I could be wrong about this).
I don't know what the general thought on this is. I could easily believe my view is in the minority, but I don't think it's universally accepted as a good thing. I've been on the other side of the table and I just wanted to say what I do when I see this. And I guess you could go nuts trying to figure out all the nitpicky things interviewers will think are bad form on your resume (I really dislike 2 page resumes unless absolutely necessary), so if your CSO tells you to put it on, put it on.