WUSTL c/o 2017 Applicants (2013-2014 Cycle) Forum

[DoveBodyWash]

Actually you're one of the few 1L wustluts I've seen about the place being all friendly (Sublime, where you at), do you have any thoughts? Even though my answer will ultimately come down to how much I'm willing to pay for a slightly better clerk rate / preftige, having been at WUSTL for a year what do you think of the place? My "Ideal" is Biglaw (lol I know), and the two are fairly close in that regard with Illinois having a slight edge. Having said that I have 0 ties to the Midwest I could put on a resume and I know that's something that comes up a lot for WUSTL whereas I assume Chicago is used to transplants.

Do you mind if i post here in the thread? or do you want a PM?

In the thread is fine, from the fact I just got a few PM's within ten minutes of my last post I can see that this topic is clearly a hot one!

Okay, well i don't know much about UIUC since i don't go there and don't have any friends there, so I'll refrain from saying anything about it other than it has a deeper alumni network in Chicago and that--like WUSTL--you'll need good grades to get BigLaw. I'm not sure if UIUC has off-campus interviewing programs in other markets like we do, so you'll have to find that out on your own.

The hiring schedule for clerks has basically gone to shit and judges have started to recruit really early (e.g. end of 1L year/ beginning of 2L year). So if you want to clerk, start making good relationships with your professors EARLY. Especially the ones who have clerked themselves. I don't know much about clerking opportunities cuz i'm not interested in it and it's not a widely sought-after position here. There are ppl who clerk, but it's not like HYS where it's a major career goal. In light of that, I don't know if you should pick WUSTL solely because it might offer slightly better clerkship chances (which i'm not even sure is true, but i haven't looked at most recent LST yet)

My experience here has been pretty satisfying. There are some things that are miserable, but those are struggles that just come with law school in general. One thing i really do appreciate about the school is that there's no ONE MARKET that we're all trying to get. The STL jobs are pretty much reserved for the kids with ties. So our school--over the years--has adapted to trying place grads in non-STL markets (e.g. Coastal and Southern markets).

This has practical and social benefits. Practically, the school spends the time and money to give us as much exposure to non-STL employers. This July/August my class will have the chance to participate in the Off-Campus interview programs. This cycle we have NYC, DC, Boston, SF, Houston/Dallas, Chicago, and Atlanta. This is in addition to the normal OCI (where employers come to campus). The dates are staggered so that a single student could theoretically participate in every city's off-campus program and our normal OCI. This is significant because the pool of employers who participate in the off-campus programs and normal OCI are different (although there are some overlaps). You'll still need good grades and decent interviewing ability, but our CSO has created a system that tries to maximize the market diversity of our offers. So we're not limited to just the Midwest. A single student could be entertaining interviews/offers from firms from several cities. This is probably the biggest advantage I can see us having over UIUC (but again, i dunno what initiative UIUC has in place to place their students in non-illinois markets, so double check this before taking my word for it)

Socially, there's less tension between classmates. Law school is stressful enough as it is. And to be honest, unless you're at HYS, it's a survival-of-the-fittest environment in many ways. So--by design--the environment can be tense or awkward after grades start rolling out. So while it's not all unicorns and rainbows here, that awkward competitive tension is mitigated because we're not all gunning for the same market. I can speak freely with my peers who are ranked near/above me about their employment goals without any pangs of insecurity or bitterness because i know they're not going to diminish my odds of getting a job in my desired market. When they enjoy success (via an award or good grade) i'm genuinely happy for them. There's no "oh fuck this kid might threaten my chances at a job." It sounds arbitrary and meaningless as an 0L, but not having to deal with that kind of tension does make for a friendlier/lighter environment.

As far as St. Louis itself, i'm from Boston and i went to college in New York, but I actually really like St. Louis. It's a very student-friendly city. There's enough to do to keep you occupied and it's very affordable. WashU recommends a 20k budget for living expenses. But that's an overestimate. I'm HILARIOUSLY irresponsible with my spending. I eat out regularly, have a gym membership, i shop regularly (damn Brooks Brothers..), and I've definitely had those "fuck-it-i'm-wasted-all-drinks-on-me" nights. But i still haven't spent 20k. This sounded insignificant to me as an 0L, but I've come to appreciate it: not having to stress about "omg will i have enough money to pay rent next month" just makes life so much easier. 1L is stressful as it is, so not having to worry about affording the bare necessities (cue Jungle Book soundtrack) is honestly kind of a blessing. I imagine Urbana-Champagne is affordable as ferk too, so you're good on both fronts.

As far as employment/BigLaw/loans. I've been pretty fortunate. I've done well here so far (fingers crossed on those Spring grades) and am on a full ride. I have around 20k in loans from undergrad. So I'll be graduating with 65-80k in debt depending on how judiciously i spend my SA money (it won't be very judicious...see supra for my discussion about my spending).

If I want BigLaw, i can get it from here. I can choose to pay off my loans in 10 years at a ridiculously low monthly payment, or I can pay it off completely in 3-4 years (paying the same monthly rate for a 10-year plan if i had borrowed sticker at a T14). So yes I'll have loans to repay...but it's not like it will seriously delay my life goals (e.g. having a family, buying a house, building a roller coaster in my backyard). Could I have gone to a lower school and graduated with no law school debt at all? Sure. But personally i'm okay with borrowing a reasonable amount to advance my career. I don't believe that all debt is bad debt or that you MUST try and minimize loans to the lowest dollar amount. I think it's fine to borrow a little more to have better career opportunities or to attend a better school with smart classmates. Would I borrow 250k-300k for that? Probably not. But 60-80k total debt for a T20 degree? Yeah, it made sense to me.

Ultimately this is will be a personal choice for you. You'll need to do well at either school for BigLaw. I dunno if it'll be "easier" to do well at either school, you'll just have to put forth your best effort.

If you decide to come here, reach out to 2Ls who had your profs. Having good 2L/3L mentors was essential to my fortunate exam performance.

[chuckbass]

Cuse is a saint.

[workaholic82]

Cuse is a saint.

+1

[PrideandGlory1776]

Cuse is a saint.

+1

+1

[Dredd_2017]

Cuse that's a truly fantastic post, I really appreciate it. I'm going to contact Illinois and see what they have in the way of off-campus OCI, but just looking at the stats of where their people go to work it seems like a Chicago-or-bust shop. That's not bad, just different than WUSTL's longer reach.

This TLS thread and the amazing people in it are seriously a better draw to wustl than their website / literature could ever be, ya'll are awesome.

Edit: Just in case WUSTL adcomms read this page, money would still make this decision a heck of a lot easier

[DoveBodyWash]

Cuse that's a truly fantastic post, I really appreciate it. I'm going to contact Illinois and see what they have in the way of off-campus OCI, but just looking at the stats of where their people go to work it seems like a Chicago-or-bust shop. That's not bad, just different than WUSTL's longer reach.

This TLS thread and the amazing people in it are seriously a better draw to wustl than their website / literature could ever be, ya'll are awesome.

Edit: Just in case WUSTL adcomms read this page, money would still make this decision a heck of a lot easier

np, like i said earlier. There's no "bad" decision here. If you were going to do well at WUSTL, then you'll likely do well at UIUC and vice versa. Pick the school that's better suited for your goals and that you'd be happier attending for 3 years

[bound]

Cuse is the best!!

[Chinese_Mafia]

I am on waitlist. The adcomm emailed me to ask about my other schools deposited and what am I still waiting on.

Do I need to include schools I am on waitlist or just schools I deposited.

Appreciate the help!

[DoveBodyWash]

I am on waitlist. The adcomm emailed me to ask about my other schools deposited and what am I still waiting on.

Do I need to include schools I am on waitlist or just schools I deposited.

Appreciate the help!

They're trying to gauge the chances that you'll attend if you're admitted of the waitlist. If you tell them that you're deposited at USC with scholarship, then they'll assume you won't attend, and won't bother admitting you.

Whether you have to disclose your waitlists is a judgment call. You're not obligated to by any means. Where are you waitlisted? and where are you deposited? PM me if you don't want to post it in the thread

[PB&J.D.]

...

[DoveBodyWash]

I've gotten a few PM's about things that I did to prepare for law school the summer before school began..i suspect people are starting to shift focus towards how-do-I-survive-1L now that decisions are being finalized..so I'm just gonna post it in here in the thread so (1) i don't have to repeat it over and over again and (2) my peers/elders can confirm or critique my perspective, since that will provide the best feedback for you guys.

I was that 0L that was POSITIVE that doing prep before school would give me an advantage. And I was right to an extent and wrong to an extent.

(I had older peers tell me that summer prep was useless and others tell me it was vital, so i just decided to be cautious about it and listen to the latter group)

tl;dr don't bother learning the substantive law, learn how the "game" works. Have fun over the summer so that you're sufficiently hungry to get started in the Fall. LEEWS may be helpful, i didn't use it and i did just fine. Try it and decide for yourself.

Re: substantive law
Trying to survey the substantive law did me literally no good as far as exam performance. I skimmed some E&E's and the BarBRI mini conviser. So i had a basic understanding of contracts (e.g. offer, consideration, acceptance, unconscionability) and torts (e.g. negligence..battery etc..) by the time classes started.

The only advantage it gave me was that it reassured me that i wasn't too stupid to learn this stuff. "Hey this isn't so bad..i could do this."

But there was zero substantive advantage. Any distance i put between me and my peers was closed immediately because (1) there wasn't that much distance to begin with since i was pretty lazy about it and (2) everyone studies very hard, so they learned it at a much faster rate than i did over the summer

And there's the reality that--by finals--most of your classmates will "know" and "understand" the law. If we took finals in September, then maybe i would have had an advantage. But since we took them in December, it didn't matter by that point since we were all on equal footing (for the most part). Also, how you understand and articulate the law will be governed by your specific professor (if you want to do well on their final). So learning out of a commercial supplement might actually slow you down since you'll have to re-adjust your understanding

Re: LEEWS
I didn't use LEEWS, mostly because i was far too lazy to listen to all those boring recordings. I had some friends that tried it, i dunno how well it worked out for them. Personally i'm skeptical that there's one type of exam writing that will work universally well. I've written each of my exams differently depending on the topic and professor and exam constraints. But try it for yourself and see if it helps.

Re: Learning "the game"
This is the part that actually did me a LOT of good. I came into law school with a very good understanding with how the "game" works and--perhaps more importantly--the things that I shouldn't waste time on. This doesn't take long to learn, in fact, i'll just tell you here. You're not gonna find this stuff in the brochures or E&E's. This is just from reading TLS, talking to current students, reading blogs, etc...

Here are some of the things that I understood before school and that i can now confirm to have been true (from my experience)

1. Don't work for the sake of working. (e.g. briefing). Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't mean it's helpful. Remember that most of your peers have no idea what they're doing. Don't be led by the blind. You don't get points for being the 1L that suffers the most, no matter how fun it is to bitch about it on Facebook. If it's not advancing your understanding of the law (as is relevant to your professor) then don't do it just for the sake of doing it.

2. Law school is triage. You need to be task-oriented. The wrong way to study is to say "I'm going to work X hours today, what should i do?" The CORRECT way is "Okay i need to do XYZ, how do i need to distribute my time?" Let the tasks define the hours, not the other way around. Do what needs to be done and move on. Like I said, no one gives you points for putting in the most hours (that's not until you're an associate and are billing)

3. You can go it alone, but it'll be easier if you have a team. Remember the whole triage thing? There aren't enough hours in the day for one student do everything thoroughly. Every study group does things differently. Some prefer to work alone and get together during exam season. My study group met regularly throughout the semester to compare notes, do practice problems, and allocate tasks. If you're disciplined and stay on-task, it can be extremely effective. Every single person in my study group--regardless of whether they were ranked lower than me or not--has spotted issues on exams that I missed and have corrected me on the law more times than i can count. Going over practice exams as a group and/or comparing lecture notes is a GREAT way to make sure you're understanding things correctly and that you're not missing anything. Obviously there are topics which no one understands perfectly, that's when you go to office hours to get it clarified by the prof directly.

4. Remember what the goal is. The goal is to learn the law and do well on exams. Not impress your peers or win an argument with your professor during lecture. When you're gunning in class and trying to show-off, you're thinking about how to defend your argument and how to impress your peers. You're not focusing on what matters, which is how the professor is articulating and framing the law. Remember, every professor is "hackable" and how well you do on your final will be determined partly by how well you understand your professor. Do they refer back to certain cases over and over again? How deeply and widely do they analyze certain topics? Are they biased in some way (especially relevant for policy issues)? These are all things you should be focusing on and you can't do that when you're preoccupied with "Oh fuck the Prof has me in a corner, how do i defend my argument so i don't look like an idiot?" When you're on-call then you can't help it, cuz you're on call. But that's when you can turn to your study group and get their notes from that lecture.

5. This is curved. This is especially important to remember during finals when everyone is stressed or freaking out about the exam that they just took. Our grades are awarded based on how well we do relative to everyone else. So you don't need to answer everything perfectly. You just need to score more points than your peers. If you miss an issue here or there, it's okay. No one catches all of those. The exams are designed to trick you or to be un-finishable in the allotted time. Being able to put mistakes behind you and move forward is essential to keeping your calm and maximizing profit.

6. Understand what's at stake. There have been plenty of times when i was working when i didn't want to or when my friends were going out and i was holed up in the library. To be honest, I definitely worked harder than I needed to the first semester. But it wasn't for the sake of working (see supra), it was because i didn't know what worked for me and i wanted to try a bunch of methods. There's a LOT at stake here. If you think that you need to do the work, then do it. The bar will still be there when you're a 2L. Hollywood will still be churning out shitty movies. Girls will still be there to reject you. I had plenty of fun my 1L year, but I also worked very hard. One of my classmates stopped studying for finals a week before the first test because "If I don't know it by now, then i don't know it. Better to just relax and stay confident". False. If you can learn ONE MORE LAW in that week, then it's worth it. 1L is not the year to be lazy about things. If you're going to relax, it should be the night before the exam.

7. Find mentors. Don't be that aspie fuck that walks up to 2Ls and says "be my mentor?" Develop and cultivate relationships with older students first. Get involved in SBA or student groups. Go out to bar reviews in September when there's no work to do and drink with 2Ls and 3Ls. When you open your first practice exam and think "what the fuck? how do i even approach this? what do i write? how do i write?", having those relationships will make all the difference.

If you understand and internalize this stuff, it'll make 1L a lot easier in terms of staying effective and it'll help way more than having a shallow understanding of what an enforceable contract is

[Fiero85]

[thorough golden advice]

Gracias Cuse. Good stuff!

[njdevils2626]

Gospel

Holy hell Cuse, that was unreal

[Dredd_2017]

7. Find mentors. Don't be that aspie fuck that walks up to 2Ls and says "be my mentor?" Develop and cultivate relationships with older students first.

Shrewd method of stopping all the wustluts who just read your advice from PM'ing you about being grasshopper to your sensei

Seriously awesome advice, I think I even spotted a couple tidbits that felt like they were channeling some of the great advice of TLS past. Saved and will be reviewing this just before 1L starts!

[hukchobo]

I've gotten a few PM's about things that I did to prepare for law school the summer before school began..i suspect people are starting to shift focus towards how-do-I-survive-1L now that decisions are being finalized..so I'm just gonna post it in here in the thread so (1) i don't have to repeat it over and over again and (2) my peers/elders can confirm or critique my perspective, since that will provide the best feedback for you guys.

I was that 0L that was POSITIVE that doing prep before school would give me an advantage. And I was right to an extent and wrong to an extent.

(I had older peers tell me that summer prep was useless and others tell me it was vital, so i just decided to be cautious about it and listen to the latter group)

tl;dr don't bother learning the substantive law, learn how the "game" works. Have fun over the summer so that you're sufficiently hungry to get started in the Fall. LEEWS may be helpful, i didn't use it and i did just fine. Try it and decide for yourself.

Re: substantive law
Trying to survey the substantive law did me literally no good as far as exam performance. I skimmed some E&E's and the BarBRI mini conviser. So i had a basic understanding of contracts (e.g. offer, consideration, acceptance, unconscionability) and torts (e.g. negligence..battery etc..) by the time classes started.

The only advantage it gave me was that it reassured me that i wasn't too stupid to learn this stuff. "Hey this isn't so bad..i could do this."

But there was zero substantive advantage. Any distance i put between me and my peers was closed immediately because (1) there wasn't that much distance to begin with since i was pretty lazy about it and (2) everyone studies very hard, so they learned it at a much faster rate than i did over the summer

And there's the reality that--by finals--most of your classmates will "know" and "understand" the law. If we took finals in September, then maybe i would have had an advantage. But since we took them in December, it didn't matter by that point since we were all on equal footing (for the most part). Also, how you understand and articulate the law will be governed by your specific professor (if you want to do well on their final). So learning out of a commercial supplement might actually slow you down since you'll have to re-adjust your understanding

Re: LEEWS
I didn't use LEEWS, mostly because i was far too lazy to listen to all those boring recordings. I had some friends that tried it, i dunno how well it worked out for them. Personally i'm skeptical that there's one type of exam writing that will work universally well. I've written each of my exams differently depending on the topic and professor and exam constraints. But try it for yourself and see if it helps.

Re: Learning "the game"
This is the part that actually did me a LOT of good. I came into law school with a very good understanding with how the "game" works and--perhaps more importantly--the things that I shouldn't waste time on. This doesn't take long to learn, in fact, i'll just tell you here. You're not gonna find this stuff in the brochures or E&E's. This is just from reading TLS, talking to current students, reading blogs, etc...

Here are some of the things that I understood before school and that i can now confirm to have been true (from my experience)

1. Don't work for the sake of working. (e.g. briefing). Just because everyone else is doing it, doesn't mean it's helpful. Remember that most of your peers have no idea what they're doing. Don't be led by the blind. You don't get points for being the 1L that suffers the most, no matter how fun it is to bitch about it on Facebook. If it's not advancing your understanding of the law (as is relevant to your professor) then don't do it just for the sake of doing it.

2. Law school is triage. You need to be task-oriented. The wrong way to study is to say "I'm going to work X hours today, what should i do?" The CORRECT way is "Okay i need to do XYZ, how do i need to distribute my time?" Let the tasks define the hours, not the other way around. Do what needs to be done and move on. Like I said, no one gives you points for putting in the most hours (that's not until you're an associate and are billing)

3. You can go it alone, but it'll be easier if you have a team. Remember the whole triage thing? There aren't enough hours in the day for one student do everything thoroughly. Every study group does things differently. Some prefer to work alone and get together during exam season. My study group met regularly throughout the semester to compare notes, do practice problems, and allocate tasks. If you're disciplined and stay on-task, it can be extremely effective. Every single person in my study group--regardless of whether they were ranked lower than me or not--has spotted issues on exams that I missed and have corrected me on the law more times than i can count. Going over practice exams as a group and/or comparing lecture notes is a GREAT way to make sure you're understanding things correctly and that you're not missing anything. Obviously there are topics which no one understands perfectly, that's when you go to office hours to get it clarified by the prof directly.

4. Remember what the goal is. The goal is to learn the law and do well on exams. Not impress your peers or win an argument with your professor during lecture. When you're gunning in class and trying to show-off, you're thinking about how to defend your argument and how to impress your peers. You're not focusing on what matters, which is how the professor is articulating and framing the law. Remember, every professor is "hackable" and how well you do on your final will be determined partly by how well you understand your professor. Do they refer back to certain cases over and over again? How deeply and widely do they analyze certain topics? Are they biased in some way (especially relevant for policy issues)? These are all things you should be focusing on and you can't do that when you're preoccupied with "Oh fuck the Prof has me in a corner, how do i defend my argument so i don't look like an idiot?" When you're on-call then you can't help it, cuz you're on call. But that's when you can turn to your study group and get their notes from that lecture.

5. This is curved. This is especially important to remember during finals when everyone is stressed or freaking out about the exam that they just took. Our grades are awarded based on how well we do relative to everyone else. So you don't need to answer everything perfectly. You just need to score more points than your peers. If you miss an issue here or there, it's okay. No one catches all of those. The exams are designed to trick you or to be un-finishable in the allotted time. Being able to put mistakes behind you and move forward is essential to keeping your calm and maximizing profit.

6. Understand what's at stake. There have been plenty of times when i was working when i didn't want to or when my friends were going out and i was holed up in the library. To be honest, I definitely worked harder than I needed to the first semester. But it wasn't for the sake of working (see supra), it was because i didn't know what worked for me and i wanted to try a bunch of methods. There's a LOT at stake here. If you think that you need to do the work, then do it. The bar will still be there when you're a 2L. Hollywood will still be churning out shitty movies. Girls will still be there to reject you. I had plenty of fun my 1L year, but I also worked very hard. One of my classmates stopped studying for finals a week before the first test because "If I don't know it by now, then i don't know it. Better to just relax and stay confident". False. If you can learn ONE MORE LAW in that week, then it's worth it. 1L is not the year to be lazy about things. If you're going to relax, it should be the night before the exam.

7. Find mentors. Don't be that aspie fuck that walks up to 2Ls and says "be my mentor?" Develop and cultivate relationships with older students first. Get involved in SBA or student groups. Go out to bar reviews in September when there's no work to do and drink with 2Ls and 3Ls. When you open your first practice exam and think "what the fuck? how do i even approach this? what do i write? how do i write?", having those relationships will make all the difference.

If you understand and internalize this stuff, it'll make 1L a lot easier in terms of staying effective and it'll help way more than having a shallow understanding of what an enforceable contract is

thank you so much for this ive learned more from your posts than from any one else ive talked to irl

[yossarian]

There is no more goodnatured person than cuse. Thanks for that. Awesome.

In other news. Checking out. Withdrawn. Love you all.

[bostonbrewer]

Cuse, thank you again.

[KanyeShrug]

Comprehensive 1L advice

Find mentors. Don't be that aspie fuck that walks up to 2Ls and says "be my mentor?" Develop and cultivate relationships with older students first.

Alright, I'll have to find a different approach, but every plan can be tweaked. No big.

We appreciate you, Cuse!

[peachesthedoge]

it seems almost gratuitous at this point but cuse, you've been such an awesome resource.
come september, I vote that we 1L's take you and sublime out one night and pay for all your draaaanks

[Lebrarian_Booker]

Just got another email about the Thomas F. Eaglescout scholarship for Diversity, and thought to myself, "well hey, maybe a white jewish guy from the midwest is considered "diverse" in the south. Then I opened up the instructions and Caucasian is not even an option under "Race/Ethnicity". I would have to check "Other" and write in "Caucasian". I think that's their way of subtly suggesting that "no, no Lebrarian_Booker, you do not count as "diverse".

[lhanvt13]

to add to Cuse's post: He types roughly 639 wpm

Takeaway: Type faster. seriously, this gave me such an advantage over my classmates (120-30 wpm). write more issues, do more analysis. That's the game of law school.

[bostonbrewer]

Just got another email about the Thomas F. Eaglescout scholarship for Diversity, and thought to myself, "well hey, maybe a white jewish guy from the midwest is considered "diverse" in the south. Then I opened up the instructions and Caucasian is not even an option under "Race/Ethnicity". I would have to check "Other" and write in "Caucasian". I think that's their way of subtly suggesting that "no, no Lebrarian_Booker, you do not count as "diverse".

I always thought STL was Midwest. Is it considered South?

[Lebrarian_Booker]

Just got another email about the Thomas F. Eaglescout scholarship for Diversity, and thought to myself, "well hey, maybe a white jewish guy from the midwest is considered "diverse" in the south. Then I opened up the instructions and Caucasian is not even an option under "Race/Ethnicity". I would have to check "Other" and write in "Caucasian". I think that's their way of subtly suggesting that "no, no Lebrarian_Booker, you do not count as "diverse".

I always thought STL was Midwest. Is it considered South?

Depends on how much of a snobbish northerner you are

[Banshee]

it seems almost gratuitous at this point but cuse, you've been such an awesome resource.
come september, I vote that we 1L's take you and sublime out one night and pay for all your draaaanks

+1

Cuse, thanks so much for all of the advice, information, and transparency! You are awesome!

[peachesthedoge]

Just got another email about the Thomas F. Eaglescout scholarship for Diversity, and thought to myself, "well hey, maybe a white jewish guy from the midwest is considered "diverse" in the south. Then I opened up the instructions and Caucasian is not even an option under "Race/Ethnicity". I would have to check "Other" and write in "Caucasian". I think that's their way of subtly suggesting that "no, no Lebrarian_Booker, you do not count as "diverse".

I always thought STL was Midwest. Is it considered South?

Depends on how much of a snobbish northerner you are

checking in as a "snobbish northerner" who considers STL the midwest