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Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Tue Jun 07, 2011 11:58 am
by kch3684
So I'm headed out this weekend to look at places, Bruins game 5 is Friday night, does anyone know of a good Boston bar? Or just a good hockey bar to watch the game?
edit: pretty much I'm looking for a place where I can sit at the bar with a high def TV, possibly yell something mildly inappropriate and drink good beer.
Also the Facebook group for class of 2014 has created a tailgate event for Cardinals game on 8/12, current students, if you're around please join us!

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:03 pm
by JenDarby
The fb group makes me a bit sad I'm no longer going to WUSTL, its probably time I leave it.

: (

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 08, 2011 2:56 pm
by romothesavior
JenDarby wrote:The fb group makes me a bit sad I'm no longer going to WUSTL, its probably time I leave it.

: (
You're lame. But good luck wherever you go.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 11:02 am
by ArtVandalay
Hey, just a question about WUSTL's admissions. Any unique part to the application? A Why WUSTL? Any advice when applying?

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Fri Jun 10, 2011 11:21 am
by romothesavior
ArtVandalay wrote:Hey, just a question about WUSTL's admissions. Any unique part to the application? A Why WUSTL? Any advice when applying?
Have a 168+ on your LSAT. I'm not kidding either... that's really the #1 thing you need to get into WUSTL.

Other than that, nothing that sticks out as different than any other school. A Why WUSTL wouldn't hurt, and I definitely advocate being personable and assertive (not aggressive or annoying) during the process, especially if you get waitlisted. The admissions office is very open and personable, so really show them that you want it.

Re: WUSTL 1L Taking Questions

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:28 pm
by folgers
romothesavior wrote:I'd say with the exception of biglaw and in-house, most 1L internships are pretty flexible. Rock Chalk is right with respect to SA positions; those schedules are usually set ahead of time, although I'm sure they'd permit some flexibility depending on what you are planning. However, getting a 1L SA is next to impossible without being a URM, having great grades, and doing some serious legwork (and usually it takes all three). Most law students will not be paid for their first year, and if you're not being paid, they likely won't care as much about your hours and start/end dates. After all, you're just free labor. This may not be the mentality of all unpaid employers, but it seems to be with a lot of them.

My job is very flexible... they let me come in when I want to, leave when I want to, and I set my start/end dates. Heck, I'm taking off this Friday to play golf and go to the Cardinals game, and my boss encouraged it. My job is probably a little more open about this sort of thing than others, but it seems like most RA, public interest, judges, local government jobs, etc. (which is what you will almost certainly be doing next summer) are pretty flexible and easygoing. Pretty much everyone I know in these types of positions is able to pick their hours, and their employer only cares about their hours to ensure they do their 350 hours for the stipend. I'd say just try to plan your major event at the beginning or end so you don't miss a chunk in the middle.
I thought I'd reiterate a bit of what Romo said flexible hours and start and end times. Although, I'm at a midsize plaintiff firm and it is a paid position. Even so, my employer was extremely flexible on start and end dates. I started on May 16th but some of the other clerks started as late as the 31st and the hr director just asked me when I wanted to start and end. The office hours are flexible too. I come in at 9 and leave at 5:30 (or at least try to), but they give you the choice of coming in at 8, 8:30 or 9. They pay overtime after 37.5 hours, and I usually work about 40 to 45 hour weeks. So, even if it's a paid position I think you can still find employers to be relatively flexible, but I don't think my boss will be suggesting I take any Fridays off to catch an Astros game.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Sat Jun 11, 2011 7:58 pm
by thexfactor
tls_je wrote:I need to make a decision between WUSTL and ND.

As an international student with F-1 visa status, I really need to find a firm which can support my H-1 visa (working visa)-- meaning that the firm has to have enough money and willingness to pay the cost for supporting for my visa.

In this case, which one would be a better choice in your opinion? (Which one would be better for internationals in terms of getting a job?)

Do you have any idea how the CSO at WUSTL is working on this issue?

Desperately need some insight!

Thanks!!
Id say in this case, you should go to ND. There are way too many international students at WUSTL. A lot of them are LLM-JD transfers. You will be competing against all of them for jobs. ND has a lot less international students so your language skills will stand out a lot more.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 5:46 am
by blackmambakatana
Thanks for providing all this info!

Would you happen to know where we could find past exams from different professors so we could take a sneak peak at them?

What are the professor preferences when it comes to writing and exam taking?

How does the actual grading system work for WUSTL Law?

Does WUSTL Law rank students after the first semester?

Thanks!

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 6:32 pm
by myq
blackmambakatana wrote:Thanks for providing all this info!

Would you happen to know where we could find past exams from different professors so we could take a sneak peak at them?

What are the professor preferences when it comes to writing and exam taking?

How does the actual grading system work for WUSTL Law?

Does WUSTL Law rank students after the first semester?

Thanks!
There is a past exams database but you have to be a WUSTL student to access it.

I don't think there is an overall WUSTL professor preference when it comes to writing/exam taking. It's all basically the same strategy you'd find in the TLS guides here/Getting to Maybe, tweaked a little for every individual professor. If you attend and have a list of professors, talking to 2Ls or people on TLS about them might help give you insight into what the professor wants.

Grading system - we get a number between 70 and 100. Mean for first year classes is between 86.5 and 87.5. Some professors give 100s and will fail students, some choose to have tighter curves and will have a 95 as the highest grade.

WUSTL publishes cutoffs for top 5, 10, 15, 20, 25, and 33 percent. They rank students individually within the top 5 percent.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:38 pm
by seatown12
myq wrote:Some professors give 100s and will fail students, some choose to have tighter curves and will have a 95 as the highest grade.
Professors will give one or two grades in the 70s but they are the equivalent of Cs and Ds. Nobody Very few people actually fails 1L classes.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 8:40 pm
by stratocophic
seatown12 wrote:
myq wrote:
blackmambakatana wrote:Some professors give 100s and will fail students, some choose to have tighter curves and will have a 95 as the highest grade.
Professors will give one or two grades in the 70s but they are the equivalent of Cs and Ds. Nobody fails 1L classes.
We had 1 or 2 Fs in my section. Probably outside circumstances or something, but definitely an F (as in a 70).

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Tue Jun 14, 2011 9:25 pm
by Oban
yeah definitely some Fs (74, 72, 70) given out both fall and spring, at least according to the grade distributions.

Some professors are pretty sensible and their curve is like 79-95, some are crazy and give out multiple hundreds and multiple low 70s

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 3:03 am
by myq
yeah, this semester 3 people failed my con law class. i didn't mean to suggest that professors often fail people, but it does happen.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:21 am
by 0LNOOB
Any specific suggestions on Central West End Apartment Buildings (high-rises)? Anything under 1k per month that you've heard good (or not so good) things about, or any buildings that are populated by a lot of law students?

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:59 am
by seatown12
Don't live in a high rise in the CWE they are all ripoffs. Try to find a place in a 3-6 unit building if you are set on CWE.

If it has to be a high rise this is probably your best option.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:29 am
by 0LNOOB
Well in that case, are there any areas within the Central West End (such as streets I should focus on that provide the nicest buildings and neighborhoods)?

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:33 am
by romothesavior
I agree, the high rise buildings are kinda mediocre. I'm living in the Park Lane this summer (4907 W. Pine) and the apartment is kinda crappy, but it is cheap for the area and it is in a prime spot at the corner of Pine and Euclid. I think it is like $730 a month including utilities.

There are some cool, older apartments down Maryland and McPherson that are worth checking out. CWE is a cool place to live and it is a fun area, but I really wasn't sold on the apartments in the area. Either too expensive for me, too old (as in terrible/no amenities... beware the word "charming" in descriptions) or just not very nice.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:47 am
by 0LNOOB
In that case, what areas do you recommend with the nicest apartments and reasonable price (under $1000). Any specific buildings to tailor my search to? I won't be down there for another 3 weeks, and I would like to have some idea of where to target my search for housing.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:53 am
by romothesavior
0LNOOB wrote:In that case, what areas do you recommend with the nicest apartments and reasonable price (under $1000). Any specific buildings to tailor my search to? I won't be down there for another 3 weeks, and I would like to have some idea of where to target my search for housing.
Are you moving here in 3 weeks? Or just visiting in 3 weeks?

I'd look in Clayton. Here are my favorite areas: 1) the neighborhood north of Clayton Road/east of Big Bend/west of Skinker/south of Wydown (commonly referred to as Demun), 2) in Clayton near the intersection of Hanley and Wydown, 3) in Clayton around the corner of Meramec and Maryland, 4) CWE. I'm not trying to discourage you from CWE, there are some great places around there, but they're just hard to find.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 12:29 pm
by 0LNOOB
Ok thanks. I'm coming down in the 3 weeks to look for and hopefully sign a lease. I plan on moving down there in early August, and am just trying to do some research before actually setting foot in Saint Louis.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:56 pm
by specialblend35
I'm also scoping out some places in St. Louis. How many people do you know that live downtown? I've found a couple hi-rises that seem reasonably priced, and I'm thinking its location might offset the extended commute to/from school. Is this common among WUSTL students?

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 9:59 pm
by stratocophic
specialblend35 wrote:I'm also scoping out some places in St. Louis. How many people do you know that live downtown? I've found a couple hi-rises that seem reasonably priced, and I'm thinking its location might offset the extended commute to/from school. Is this common among WUSTL students?
Not really. Downtown development's coming along pretty well and all, but I don't know many law students at all who live there (I assume you're talking about the Washington Ave. area). CWE/Loop/Clayton are where the vast majority live.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 10:13 pm
by specialblend35
stratocophic wrote:
specialblend35 wrote:I'm also scoping out some places in St. Louis. How many people do you know that live downtown? I've found a couple hi-rises that seem reasonably priced, and I'm thinking its location might offset the extended commute to/from school. Is this common among WUSTL students?
Not really. Downtown development's coming along pretty well and all, but I don't know many law students at all who live there (I assume you're talking about the Washington Ave. area). CWE/Loop/Clayton are where the vast majority live.
Yeah, at like 4th and Washington near the Convention Metrolink Stop. Still in the very preliminary stages of my search, and I'm still getting my bearings with all the different neighborhoods. Thanks for the advice.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Wed Jun 15, 2011 11:18 pm
by seatown12
I live downtown and almost no one else does. It is a decent neighborhood but it is kind of dead on weekday nights and there aren't many inexpensive food options. The apartments are much nicer for the price than anywhere else in the city, but I can't really recommend living there as a 1L because you will be so isolated.

Re: WUSTL 2L Taking Questions

Posted: Thu Jun 16, 2011 12:16 am
by Kabuo
I know this was touched on briefly earlier ITT, but I just got another email from Wash U about a diversity scholarship with Thompson Coburn. The deadline to apply was the 15th, but it says that they will continue to accept applications for "a short while." I'll be shooting an email off to the person in charge to ask her how long "a short while" means as soon as I figure out how to address it. I know someone said earlier that it might be worth it to apply as a boring white male if you can find something diverse about you to write about since they didn't fill the class easily last summer and ended up taking some students who don't fit the typical notion of "diverse."

Why I'm looking at it seriously this time is that it seems it hasn't in fact filled since they're accepting late applications, and because I noticed a section on the app for LSAT score. This excites me because it's basically the best achievement I could list on a resume, but I would never include it without it being specifically asked because it's pretty much a douchetastic thing to do. If I can craft something halfway decent about being the first to go to law school in my extended family (barring second cousins I've never met) or about growing up in a military family, would this be worth scrambling to apply for? Going to be at a family reunion this weekend and be doing ~12 hours of driving each way, but I figure I can be working on draft ideas in my head if it's worth it. Otherwise, I'd rather just enjoy my vacation. Anyone have any educated opinions?