Taking a Year off Forum

[cbreukelman]

I'm graduating this year and I'm contemplating taking a year off. I would work on improving my LSAT (currently a 164) and would look to improve ECs and job experience.

My main concern is this:
I currently have a few offers on the table right now. Can I expect (with similar (maybe even better)) to secure offers of this caliber next cycle? Or would taking a year off somehow reduce the quality of offers that I will receive.

[Lincoln]

It's more likely you'll get better offers. If you increase your score and add quality to your resume, it's almost guaranteed. With 3-4 more points you should be competitive for T14 if your GPA is solid. There's little if any downside to taking time off, at least.

[CanadianWolf]

Depends upon which law schools have offered scholarships to you. What is the Case Western Reserve law & medicine $23k scholarship & program ? Is that $23,000 per year scholarship ? Does it involve also getting a medical degree ?

To which US & Canadian law schools were you offered admission ?

[cbreukelman]

Depends upon which law schools have offered scholarships to you. What is the Case Western Reserve law & medicine $23k scholarship & program ? Is that $23,000 per year scholarship ? Does it involve also getting a medical degree ?

Its a scholarship to the law school - my impression is that its a scholarship + a bit more than usual that they give it to candidates considering a career in health law.

[Calchexas]

This is a personal decision that you have to seriously consider: on one hand, taking a year off lets you "get your affairs in order" (if necessary) and have some punctuation between your college years and law school years as opposed to going through a marathon; on the other hand, going straight into law school saves time, and gets you into the professional working world sooner.

Before you make the choice, though, I suggest that you envision how you would be with a 3 months off vs 15 months:

*Would you be happier to have the time off? If you are in a sincerely, honestly good state of mind right now, then you would be better off starting now; if you are in a pretty crummy mood after graduating, then taking the time off could let you do some healing (not to mention some potentially needed soul-searching before jumping into this).

*Is your application going to be better? When it comes to everything except the test retake, everything says "yes" to me. Note that I exclude the retake because there's a chance you'll do worse. I did worse on my "time off" retake, yet I can say with absolute confidence that the whole of my application improved (in particular the personal statement, which let me maximize the effect of a special story).

*Are you going to have more money to fund law school? Unless you can't find a good placeholder job, have a weaker application, and are forced to compete with a tough admissions cycle, then chances are you will have more $$$

Hope that helped. I was at this same crossroads a year ago, and I'm happy I made the choice that I did.