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[Justathought]

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[MrAnon]

Don't move there to attend part-time. You should only go in to the part time program if you live there already and have a day job.

[Justathought]

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[MrAnon]

it would be. so don't do it. Attend a part time program if it in your backyard and you have a job. If you think you'll get crushed by the workers then you probably will. The ones who excel aren't worrying about the competition.

[Justathought]

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[MrAnon]

then go ahead and do it?

[Justathought]

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[Justathought]

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[MrAnon]

The answers are no and yes. The amount of studying done does not correlate to grades. People with innate ability to synthesize information and write quickly and concisely will rise to the top. The others, no matter how much they review the material given in class, and no matter how quickly they can rattle off things exactly like the professor says them, will earn lower grades. I'd suggest that a person who has taken the LSAT two and three times in order to get the score they need to get into the school of their choice will have trouble with law school, because they don't get a chance to re-do the semester and perfect their abilities.

If I were an employer interviewing someone who moved from NYC to Dallas for SMU's part time program I would think the person was a fool. This is aside from having employment set up for the year or not. That is because this is a locally geared program. At a locally geared school. Not a program, or a school really, that you move around the country to attend. Would you have considered moving 3000 miles for night classes at University of Southern Illinois for college if you had no job or connections there? Absolutely not. Why? Because it would be absurd.

Also, you are a little older. They'll wonder why you didn't want to get school over with already.

Attending a part time program without working full time will strike employers as very peculiar.

[Justathought]

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[Wholigan]

I am a part-time 1L working full-time and I don't think it's unmanageable. I did very well the first semester, compared to both part-time students who aren’t working and my full-time classmates. I am switching to full-time next year though, either at my school or a transfer. My plan going in was to keep my job so I didn’t take too much of a financial hit either way, and go full-time after the first year if I did well enough to believe I would have good career prospects, stay part-time otherwise. I can catch up to the full-time students over the 1L summer though in credits, doesn't seem like you'd have that option.

FWIW, I don’t know anyone who moved from out of the area to go PT. Law firm associates & partners that I have spoken to have told me that it will be pretty impressive at OCI if I can get good grades again in the spring, all while working full-time, since basically they will know that I can handle the kind of hours they expect at a firm and not let my work product suffer. I think that’s a good selling point if you can do it, but I don’t know if I’d recommend moving across the country to attend a PT program.

[havana daydreamin]

I'm in a similar boat as the OP, almost down to a T. In fact, I'm making the same decision regarding the SMU part time program. I'm coming from Austin though, so it's not halfway across the country, but it's not two blocks away either. But SMU is in fact the highest ranked school to offer me some $$$. Planned on finding a job in Dallas if I was to go to school up there. Very curious about part-time programs in general, do the majority of ppl stay PT or do a lot of them transfer to FT?

[MrAnon]

Half will transfer. Moving across state is silly, but reasonable if you have nothing better going on. You're a texan staying in texas.

[Wholigan]

I'm in a similar boat as the OP, almost down to a T. In fact, I'm making the same decision regarding the SMU part time program. I'm coming from Austin though, so it's not halfway across the country, but it's not two blocks away either. But SMU is in fact the highest ranked school to offer me some $$$. Planned on finding a job in Dallas if I was to go to school up there. Very curious about part-time programs in general, do the majority of ppl stay PT or do a lot of them transfer to FT?

I can't speak about SMU, but a decent number of people transfer to full-time at my school. I know some who transferred even after their first semester into full-time, but at my school you can transfer freely between PT & FT. I also know some current 2Ls who started part-time and transferred after one semester or the first year. My understanding is that you can't do that at all schools, since some schools do PT admissions completely separate from FT admissions. I would think it would depend how easy it is to make up the credits, since as OP said you can't even participate in OCI if you transfer at SMU after one year of PT. I can't imagine anyone would transfer in that scenario, unless you aren't interested in an OCI-type job. I will have 24 of the 28 credits FT students have by spring, so it's very easy to get back on track in my situation.

[Justathought]

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[paratactical]

Where are you hoping to work after graduation? What kind of job do you think you could get in TX? Have you looked into employment there?

[Justathought]

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[bass08]

The answers are no and yes. The amount of studying done does not correlate to grades. People with innate ability to synthesize information and write quickly and concisely will rise to the top. The others, no matter how much they review the material given in class, and no matter how quickly they can rattle off things exactly like the professor says them, will earn lower grades. I'd suggest that a person who has taken the LSAT two and three times in order to get the score they need to get into the school of their choice will have trouble with law school, because they don't get a chance to re-do the semester and perfect their abilities.

If I were an employer interviewing someone who moved from NYC to Dallas for SMU's part time program I would think the person was a fool. This is aside from having employment set up for the year or not. That is because this is a locally geared program. At a locally geared school. Not a program, or a school really, that you move around the country to attend. Would you have considered moving 3000 miles for night classes at University of Southern Illinois for college if you had no job or connections there? Absolutely not. Why? Because it would be absurd.

Also, you are a little older. They'll wonder why you didn't want to get school over with already.

Attending a part time program without working full time will strike employers as very peculiar.

This is dumb. You can't compare Univ. of South Ill. with SMU. SMU has a great reputation, esp. in Dallas, and people come from all over the country to attend its different programs. The law school has a lot of people from TX, but, as a part-time student, I can tell you that there are a decent number of people from other areas of the country (including me) that came here to attend SMU, even if it is PT. Plenty of people work full time, but there also are a fair number of people that, I'd guess roughly half-ish, don't work fulltime. Some have gotten part-time jobs since school started, others haven't. Many will probably work during their 2nd, 3rd and 4th years, but spend most of their time studying during their first year.

I don't think MrAnon makes any strong points, so you should probably not rely heavily on his comments when coming to your decision on a school.

Working fulltime while going to school would be a little rough, but plenty of people do it. It really depends on each person's situation: some people already have established careers and basically have to stay in their jobs while they go to school (or have family obligations, etc). Others had decent jobs that they quit to attend school. You'll have to weigh all the factors and decide what's right for you.

Feel free to PM me if you want more information about my particular situation or any other questions.

[Justathought]

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[MrAnon]

I suppose you could say you were drawn to SMU for religious regions. But this hypo falls apart if you obviously not methodist.

Every booster and admin tends to inflate the importance of their own school so don't take that bait. SMU is as much of a national law school as any of the other schools you've been admitted to, which are more fairly SMU's peer schools than SIU is I suppose. Those schools include Rutgers, Brooklyn, DePaul, Kent, Hofstra, Seton Hall, Loyola-Chicago, Miami, Quinnipiac, American, Michigan State.

[Justathought]

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[denism3]

Out of subject but I thought employers look at part time graduates with a stigma, in terms of they must be worse than full time and this causes PT students to be less competitive. correct me if I am wrong, So if your going PT you should have great grades and work full time through the 4 years in a legal related field.

[Wholigan]

Out of subject but I thought employers look at part time graduates with a stigma, in terms of they must be worse than full time and this causes PT students to be less competitive. correct me if I am wrong, So if your going PT you should have great grades and work full time through the 4 years in a legal related field.

From everything I have heard, they don't look at it with a stigma as long as you are working. Law school is seen as a proving ground of sorts, and if you're not working, employers will wonder why they went through hell to do it in three years and you spaced it out over four. I don't think you have to be working as a paralegal or I-banker. As long as you're doing something professional, I don't think it's a negative. However, it is a lot harder to be active in arguably important things like summer legal work, internships/externships, clinics, journal/moot court, pro bono work, etc. if you are PT, which is one of the reasons I'm switching at the end of this year.