St. John's 1L, taking a break to post observations/take ?'s

[binghamtonalum]

Hey guys, it's been 3 weeks into law school! Already, I've encountered nuances about the school, its relative value compared to other law schools, and general law school culture that I wish I could have known coming in. During my application process, TLS gave me the information not only to get into the schools I wanted to but also to help decide where I would attend and I'm just looking to give back. I'll start with some background on myself.

-I had a 3.5/(151 and 163) coming and I'm on a full scholarship, contingent staying in the top 1/3 of the class. I'm giving this info to give you a sense of where you are in the application process.

-Students come from schools such as Harvard, Columbia U, U Michigan, Penn, Georgetown, Cornell but more so from Binghamton, Queens College, and John Jay. The quality of colleges is pretty spread out though.

-I'd say 90% of my classmates use laptops to take notes. I came in thinking that I would take notes by hand, but there are a lot of powerpoint slides, comments from professors, etc that you are expected to take down which, by hand, is impossible to keep up with. Get used to taking notes on your laptop and yes, you'll have a lot of books to carry, 14" screen max, 13" minimum, anything smaller and it's just not practical.

-I always scoffed at comments that law school would be a lot of work as I was always able to get by in college without putting much in much effort. But, the myths are confirmed. It's definitely a lot of work, but not so much that you can't have a social life.

- For those debating between BLS/St. John's. I have a friend who is a 2nd year associate at a BigLaw firm. They conduct OCI's (on-campus interviews) and take at least 5-6 BLS students ever hiring period. At St. John's, ZERO OCI's and no associates from our school in their HISTORY. Now, granted this is only one of the "BigLaw" firms in NY, but it's information that I wish I had coming in. Now, being only 3 weeks in, I don't know any 3L's but once I do, I'll keep you posted on whether they have jobs.

-The professors are geniuses! All of them come from Ivy league law schools and all succeeded at that level (haven't found any who weren't on law review at a top-10 school.)

- In conclusion, I love it here. It's been a great first couple weeks. The people are great, the facilities are awesome, and the staff is second-to-none. If this is on your radar, it should be. Hope this helps and if you have any questions feel free to post them.