Top Law Schools

And I guess what I said above applies solely to H. I'm not counting on getting in at Y and/or S.

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I'm K-JD and it didn't seem to hurt me at all in terms of how my numbers should have performed.

Regulus wrote:Just be prepared to answer the question of "Why do you want to go straight to law school instead of gaining a few years of working experience?" if asked.

I got a variation on this in my JS1, basically asking whether I'd considered taking time off. H has a generous deferral program, so I told her I would consider taking advantage of that if a good opportunity arose. I didn't tell her that the job market is abysmal here and that I can pretty much guarantee the opportunity won't come...

That being said, I have a TON of part-time experience and was working 2 20 hour a week jobs last semester, so it's not like I don't have any office experience at all. One of them was in a legal office, so I think that gave me more credit in saying I was sure I wanted to pursue law.

I'm still working on my degree as well, and that didn't seem to affect me at all. If anything, it helped me, because it demonstrated that I could balance those two jobs with a full courseload.

Good luck!

Why would you assume that KJD status itself hurts an application? You're right to notice the correlation, but correlation [and you know what goes here].

KJDs are probably less likely to be accepted to top schools because of reasons like:

Less impressive things accomplished; or

A sub-par LSAT score due to rushing to take it to go right to law school.

Would being K-JD hurt you more in OCIs than having some work experience? Obviously not as relevant to HYS since they seem to be just about the only ones where everyone comes out of law school happy with their employment but more so at the lower T-14s?

john7234797 wrote:Would being K-JD hurt you more in OCIs than having some work experience? Obviously not as relevant to HYS since they seem to be just about the only ones where everyone comes out of law school happy with their employment but more so at the lower T-14s?

bump.

Being KJD didn't stop Harvard from accepting me. They didn't even ask why I wanted to go to LS right away in my JS1.

john7234797 wrote:Would being K-JD hurt you more in OCIs than having some work experience? Obviously not as relevant to HYS since they seem to be just about the only ones where everyone comes out of law school happy with their employment but more so at the lower T-14s?

Yes, probably. It won't be a huge deal most likely, but you will be at a disadvantage compared to your friends with corporate backgrounds. That said, it's probably better for OCI than having a PhD or a whole lot of non-profit experience, so again, not a huge deal, but if you have the option of working at a good job for two years, you'll be better off for a number of reasons.

JohnMarshall17 wrote:

john7234797 wrote:Would being K-JD hurt you more in OCIs than having some work experience? Obviously not as relevant to HYS since they seem to be just about the only ones where everyone comes out of law school happy with their employment but more so at the lower T-14s?

bump.

Relatively, yes. WE is almost always good for OCI purposes. However, 1L grades and interviewing ability are critical and neither of those things are directly related to your amount of WE (although people with WE presumably have gone through more interviews).

Regulus wrote:Just be prepared to answer the question of "Why do you want to go straight to law school instead of gaining a few years of working experience?" if asked.

Harvard has a tendency to take applicants with work experience over those without it, but I don't think they are as picky about it as Northwestern. Even so, here are their numbers for last year's entering class:

12% hold advanced degrees
76% at least 1 year out of college
54% 2+ years out of college

Just out of curiosity, why are you so anxious to pass up the opportunity to get some valuable work experience and go straight back into more school?

Other people in the thread pointing out that K-JD status didn't stop them from getting into Harvard are missing the point. Look at the bolded; only 25% of Harvard's class is K-JD. You are competing for a much smaller number of seats, and commensurately you are going to have to have much more impressive numbers, undergrad pedigree, or summer work to be competitive. So yes, going straight through hurts your application in that you enter a pool for a smaller number of seats.

The dumbest thing you could do is try to balance a full time job with the LSAT. So if you decide to work for a year or two, get the LSAT out of the way first and then begin your job. The way I would go about it is go to the career fair the semester after you graduate. I graduated in Dec. 2008. I should have done the Spring 2009 career fair. By the time I would have got hired in late spring, I would have already got done with most of my LSAT prep.

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BelugaWhale wrote:

BearState wrote:

Regulus wrote:Just be prepared to answer the question of "Why do you want to go straight to law school instead of gaining a few years of working experience?" if asked.

Harvard has a tendency to take applicants with work experience over those without it, but I don't think they are as picky about it as Northwestern. Even so, here are their numbers for last year's entering class:

12% hold advanced degrees
76% at least 1 year out of college
54% 2+ years out of college

Just out of curiosity, why are you so anxious to pass up the opportunity to get some valuable work experience and go straight back into more school?

Other people in the thread pointing out that K-JD status didn't stop them from getting into Harvard are missing the point. Look at the bolded; only 25% of Harvard's class is K-JD. You are competing for a much smaller number of seats, and commensurately you are going to have to have much more impressive numbers, undergrad pedigree, or summer work to be competitive. So yes, going straight through hurts your application in that you enter a pool for a smaller number of seats.

1) You are overestimating this effect by failing to account for the fact that there are more applicants that have WE.

Part of the reason why HLS takes in more people with WE is because most of the applicants that apply to there have WE.

2) Most people here that I know that has WE have either done paralegal for 1-2 yrs, some teaching job 1-2 yrs, or some other non--prestigious job for 1-2 yrs. These really have no effect.

Bottom line-if you have the numbers you're in.

I am unaware of any data showing work experience for applicants instead of admitted students. There may be more applicants with WE, but its hard to say without concrete proof. The only data I know of shows that Harvard and other elite schools have been increasing the number of admitted students with work experience.

If by 'some teaching job' you mean Teach for America, and paralegal means at a big law firm, I'd say that is pretty prestigious, and highly favored. There are many TFAs at my school, a lot of start-up people, big law paralegals, former consultants, etc; stuff I would consider prestigious. But that impression is just like yours - anecdotal. If it came down to a 3.9/176 with TFA, and a 3.9/176 without it, I think the result would be pretty clear. And even if the type of work experience has no effect, its pretty plain that having some kind of work experience matters - unless its purely random that only 25% of the entering class has no experience.

I don't think undergrad applicants are necessarily competing for a fixed number of seats in the class. Harvard's percentage of direct from college students has vacillated a good bit over the past few years, and I think it tends to change with the applicant pool. Harvard's percentage of students with work experience started increasing quite a bit when the recession came and left a lot of high achieving people laid off from banking/consulting/etc. My 1L section was full of people with that story. Bottom line is that if you have the numbers you're probably good, especially if you apply early.

All of that is irrelevant, of course, to whether you should go get work experience for other reasons. That's an entirely different question.

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Sounder89 wrote:I recently had my JS1, during which I was asked why I wanted to go straight to law school rather than get substantial work experience. I tried to give an answer tying my law school decision to an internship I'd had the year before. Still, it seemed obvious during the interview that my lack of work experience was the main weakness in my application.

Now my situation has changed, and I have accepted a full time job offer with a financial firm. Working there would almost definitely mean deferring law school for at least a year. Should I let Harvard know about my updated situation? My main concern is that if I tell Harvard I want to defer before I'm accepted, they'll just reject me this cycle and tell me to reapply.

It depends on how long you want to work for the firm.

From Harvard's website:

Generally we grant one-year deferrals, but we also grant two-year deferrals for certain types of activities (e.g., Teach For America, Peace Corps, 2-year analyst programs at banks and consulting firms, etc.). We also grant extensions to deferrals when necessary.

If you only plan on spending a year with them, I wouldn't tell Harvard, because then you give yourself the chance of being accepted and having your spot saved for you. I'd hesitate to tell them even if you plan on spending more time there, because they might grant you a longer deferral if you're accepted. Worst case scenario if you don't tell them is that you're rejected, but then you'll have WE when you apply again.
Honestly, I don't see a huge reason to tell them before you're notified of a decision except maybe the kindness of your heart to open up your spot for someone else. I don't know that telling them you changed your mind about work experience will benefit your application significantly. Is that why you were considering doing it?

ETA: If I were in your shoes, I'd let them know what was going on if you receive any kind of decision other than a rejection. No real sense in riding out the waitlist for the summer only to tell them you're not coming.