Top Law Schools

Avoid at all costs. I'm a first year, and this experience has been TERRIBLE. I chose Villanova over a much higher ranked school, because they awarded me an almost full tuition scholarhsip.

I've a had a number of bad experiences since starting here. But today's takes the cake. We're in the middle of final exam week. The last of out exams are that we have one today, this Thursday, and this Friday. We had contracts last Wednesday. The test packets were passed out, but half the class received the wrong exam. Now, they're saying that one particular section must retake the test before this Friday, while we have exams, as stated above, schedule for today (finished this morning), Thursday, and Friday. The retake must be taken before this Friday.

Here's the email from the administration, which will has been forwarded to Above the Law by a number of my classmates:

Dear Students:

This email requires action only by students in Professor XXXXX's Contracts section this semester. I am sending this email to all members of the Villanova Law community, however, to apprise you of a recent problem and of the Administration's remedy for that problem.

When Professor XXXXX's exam was being distributed last Thursday in Room 101, it was discovered that in some cases an exam for another course was distributed instead. In the approximately twenty minutes it took for replacement exams to be produced and distributed, the integrity of the examination process was breached. Students who had seen the correct exam were allowed to converse among themselves and even to have access to the bags they had brought to the examination room. Although there were some efforts to limit the breach, those efforts were insufficient. The integrity of the examination process was fatally compromised. The Administration cannot allow this breach to go unremedied.

All students in Professor XXXXX Contracts section will be required to take a new essay exam question between Wednesday morning and the close of business on Friday of this week. Students will be required to self-schedule the exam. The Registrar's office will release the details of the self-scheduling process by late tomorrow afternoon. All of Professor XXXXXXX Contracts students, not just those in the compromised room (101), must take this new question. The multiple-choice portion of the original exam is not affected by the voiding of the essay portion.

This is an unfortunate situation, and I regret that this inconvenience is necessary. The integrity of our examination process is our first priority, however, and in this instance it requires the remedy described above. We hope that the self-scheduling element of the remedy mitigates the inconvenience. Thank you for your understanding.



Of course this email was sent around 4:30, at which point, no one was around to take my calls, or any of our calls. There have been a number of proposals, but nothing solid as of yet.

While this may be a simple mistake, this is something that we've been preparing for all semester, and their mistake is a huge problem.

My general advice is, if you're considering what school to go to, AVOID VILLANOVA UNIVERSITY AT ALL COSTS. Note that this is not the only problem I've had with them this year, and this is just the culmination. I am likely dropping out and trying again. This place is ruinous.

Do they still have that scarlet letter of a notice posted on their front door?

Retake and Reapply, bro.

goldeneye wrote:Do they still have that scarlet letter of a notice posted on their front door?

Yes, yes they do.

This incident alone is not enough to justify your blanket statement to avoid Villanova Law at all costs. Seems like the administration is trying to do the right thing by correcting an unfortunate & unintentional error. Are you willing to share your other concerns ?

Doorkeeper wrote:Retake and Reapply, bro.

Seriously considering doing this. I just don't know what the rules are. Can I just withdraw and reapply for next year? Or do I have to sit out for a year or two or something?

CanadianWolf wrote:This incident alone is not enough to justify your blanket statement to avoid Villanova Law at all costs. Seems like the administration is trying to do the right thing by correcting an unfortunate error. Are you willing to share your other concerns ?

Other experiences will out me to my classmates, which I don't really want to do. Just suffice it to say that this, coupled with the drop in rankings, plus my personal experiences here, I'm not sure if taking the money was the best idea. Others might differ, and that's fine. And I realize I may be making a bigger deal of this than I should be, but it is a pretty big screw up and I've just generally had a pretty shitty year here.

I'm not trying to be overly harsh, decision's up to the applicant, but I'm just sharing my experience.

I've discussed this with two T-14 law school admissions officers a few months ago. Neither group was able to come up with a definite answer. Probably situation specific (i.e., decided on a case-by-case basis).

CanadianWolf wrote:I've discussed this with two T-14 law school admissions officers a few months ago. Neither group was able to come up with a definite answer.

Discussed what? The dropping out and reapplying?

The issue was whether or not one could successfully complete the first year of law school & then reapply for the next year to a different law school as an incoming 1L. One T-14 said "no" based on the opinions of two adcomms; the other called together a conference with me & the entire admissions office & decided that it would be a situation specific decision.

CanadianWolf wrote:The issue was whether or not one could complete the first year of law school & then reapply for the next year to a different law school as an incoming 1L.

I see. I, too, have not found an answer. The answers I have found, however, have suggested a consensus that you do have to sit out a year or two, which would eventually void out your LSAT score and you'd have to crank that shit again.

I'm probably not going to dropout, since I don't want to go back to where I was two years ago, but, you know...

I disagree.

P.S. If one fails the first year, however, I agree that there is an ABA two year waiting period before starting law school again.

CanadianWolf wrote:I disagree.

P.S. If one fails the first year, however, I agree that there is an ABA two year waiting period before starting law school again.

Ohhh... Okay. I didn't realize that. Thanks for pointing that out. That definitely lends clarity. So, I guess, if you don't fail out, and you drop out on your own accord, you can reapply, at which point, I guess it's the school's decision to take you?

Again, in my example, the student successfully completed the first year at one law school before applying to the other.


As an aside: Long ago most law schools were not AALS members, but all were ABA accredited. AALS member schools were not allowed to accept transfer credits from non-AALS law schools, therefore one wishing to transfer to the most elite law schools (AALS members) had to repeat the first year. Today, AALS membership is no longer exclusive.

CanadianWolf wrote:Again, in my example, the student successfully completed the first year at one law school before applying to the other.


As an aside: Long ago most law schools were not AALS members, but all were ABA accredited. AALS member schools were not allowed to accept transfer credits from non-AALS law schools, therefore one wishing to transfer to the most elite law schools (AALS members) had to repeat the first year. Today, AALS membership is no longer exclusive.

Understood.. Thanks for the info. It's definitely useful.

WOULD YOU LIKE SOME WHINE WITH THAT CHEESE?

I am also a first year VLS student.

If you are considering dropping out of law school because someone makes you retake a test, who would entrust you to be their attorney? Not me, that's for certain. Things are going to get a lot more stressful than a college administration (doing their job) and trying to resolve an Honor Code issue...from what it looks like.

Stop whining, retake the test, and move on.

That blind guy Chen over in China just escaped years of imprisonment by finding his way out of a forest and jumping over a wall...Your desire to leave a law school where you have a full ride just because someone makes you retake a test makes you completely inane and self-absorbed.

By the look of it, considering all the grammatical and semantic mistakes and clunkers in that fecal, loserly dribble of a post, you don't appear to be the sharpest knife in the drawer, anyway...so given that, along with your whining, it probably would be best if you did drop out.

Good riddance, sir.

Well it sucks that this happened but I don't really see another solution to the problem. There's no doubting that Nova has had a rough couple of years with scandal and the resulting drop from an upper tier 2 to TTT though. On the other hand, the 1Ls this year can't really complain because the scandal was public when they enrolled. It's the 2Ls and up that really got screwed.