Top Law Schools

Quick question that I feel as though other TLS members will maybe relate to....

I have a list of 8 honors that I've been given throughout college, some of which are, comparatively, irrelevant to the others (i.e. top 5% of freshman class honor, but now I have one that is top 5% of senior class).

Would it be better to keep all 8 honors on my resume and have it exceed one page (for the schools that do not specify a length, only), or to keep it nicely on one page and take out some honors?

One page is an absolute must. The top 5% thing is kind of worthless if you can put summa cum laude on your resume. That being said, I'd take off things like "dean's list" before I took off top 5%.

One page. If you want to keep them all, you can put some of the honors on a single line (e.g. "Top 5% Freshman, Junior, and Senior Years)

RodneyRuxin wrote:One page is an absolute must. The top 5% thing is kind of worthless if you can put summa cum laude on your resume. That being said, I'd take off things like "dean's list" before I took off top 5%.

I can't tell if you're stating a general rule or just a requirement for this particular case. Just to be clear, unless specifically stated, one page is not a requirement or an expectation at all on a law school résumé, which is really much more a CV. If an applicant has enough substantive material to fill most of two pages, that is perfectly fine on a law school résumé. It's not a job résumé.

That said, I would definitely not go five lines over onto a second page just to include things like "Dean's List" and "top 5% of freshman class." OP, all of that should be apparent from Latin honors and Phi Beta Kappa. If you're going to use an extra page, it shouldn't be 80% blank. If you want to include that stuff, find a way to condense it and get it on one or two lines.

Format the honors into a double column and title them concisely

No one gives a shit about your class rank freshman year. Jesus Christ.

Also, it has to be one page for MOST applications. One of HLS' examples is a two-pager though, but thats because that person had important honors/activities to talk about.

Ti Malice wrote:

RodneyRuxin wrote:One page is an absolute must. The top 5% thing is kind of worthless if you can put summa cum laude on your resume. That being said, I'd take off things like "dean's list" before I took off top 5%.

Unless specifically stated, one page is not a requirement or an expectation at all on a law school résumé, which is really more of a CV. This is not a job résumé.

That said, I would not go five lines over onto a second page just to include things like "Dean's List" and "top 5% of freshman class." All of that should be apparent from Latin honors and Phi Beta Kappa.

So essentially you agreed with everything I said except you don't think a one-page resume is a must for someone (unlike OP) who has enough relevant work experience to make a two-page resume viable.

TYFT

Also, putting an accent mark over the e(s) in resume makes you look like a total douche. It's not 1800 and we're not in France. Just say "resume" in your cover letters.

ArtistOfManliness wrote:Also, it has to be one page for MOST applications.

Do the apps specifically say so now? They certainly did not when I applied.

If you're coming right out of college, there's no reason on God's good Earth that your resume should stretch to two pages.

RoaringMice wrote:If you're coming right out of college, there's no reason on God's good Earth that your resume should stretch to two pages.

This.

Mine was two full pages coming out of UG. If you have things that can highlight aspects about you that are not otherwise evident in your application, you should have a two page resume. If you're stretching to add things like IM Sports and a job you held for two weeks, maybe you should stick to just one.

RodneyRuxin wrote:So essentially you agreed with everything I said except you don't think a one-page resume is a must for someone (unlike OP) who has enough relevant work experience to make a two-page resume viable.

See the first sentence of my post.

Also, putting an accent mark over the e(s) in resume makes you look like a total douche. It's not 1800 and we're not in France. Just say "resume" in your cover letters.

Dude, the majority of your posts make you look like an idiot/douche. But I appreciate the tip nonetheless. Maybe when you're at Yale this fall you can spare a few minutes and look over my résumé and cover letters.

RoaringMice wrote:If you're coming right out of college, there's no reason on God's good Earth that your resume should stretch to two pages.

That's true for the vast majority of K-JDs (a minority of the students entering top law schools), but even then it's not an iron law.

Ti Malice wrote: Dude, the majority of your posts make you look like an idiot/douche. But I appreciate the tip nonetheless. Maybe when you're at Yale this fall you can spare a few minutes and look over my résumé and cover letters.

It just seems like you're trying to go around disagreeing with people so you can give your "better" advice--when in reality you just repeated me. But for real, why spend the time to post the accent marks in a forum post?

My resume covers 11 years since I graduated, 6 jobs, 2 volunteer gigs, and my law school...and my resume is 1 page.

RodneyRuxin wrote:

Ti Malice wrote: Dude, the majority of your posts make you look like an idiot/douche. But I appreciate the tip nonetheless. Maybe when you're at Yale this fall you can spare a few minutes and look over my résumé and cover letters.

It just seems like you're trying to go around disagreeing with people so you can give your "better" advice--when in reality you just repeated me. But for real, why spend the time to find post the accent marks in a forum post?

Kiddos... calm thyselves

ArtistOfManliness wrote:
Kiddos... calm thyselves

I know this is probably an alt, but you are by far my favorite new poster on TLS

RodneyRuxin wrote:

Ti Malice wrote: Dude, the majority of your posts make you look like an idiot/douche. But I appreciate the tip nonetheless. Maybe when you're at Yale this fall you can spare a few minutes and look over my résumé and cover letters.

It just seems like you're trying to go around disagreeing with people so you can give your "better" advice--when in reality you just repeated me. But for real, why spend the time to find post the accent marks in a forum post?

Dude, read the first sentence of my post. The fact that we might be in agreement was already acknowledged at the outset. Whether that was your claim or not, the erroneous insistence on the one-page maximum under any circumstances is commonplace on TLS, so I usually say otherwise when it seems applicants reading a thread could be led to believe that's an actual expectation.

I have no idea what you mean by "spend the time to find post the accent marks." It's doesn't require extra time to type accented letters on a Mac. It would be an utter bitch to write in almost any European language other than English if that were the case.

rinkrat19 wrote:My resume covers 11 years since I graduated, 6 jobs, 2 volunteer gigs, and my law school...and my resume is 1 page.

That's great. Mine's one page, and it covers just about as much time as yours. That's how a job résumé is supposed to be.

A law school application résumé is not a job résumé.

Ti Malice wrote:

I mean, I agree that it's important to go against the TLS common-knowledge sometimes, but not when the advice is on-point and the counter is irrelevant to the topic at hand. OP wasn't asking if he should include his/her 5 other jobs on there. S/he was asking if s/he should include a few interests that would drag a few lines into the next page.

RodneyRuxin wrote:

Ti Malice wrote:

I mean, I agree that it's important to go against the TLS common-knowledge sometimes, but not when the advice is on-point and the counter is irrelevant to the topic at hand. OP wasn't asking if he should include his/her 5 other jobs on there. S/he was asking if s/he should include a few interests that would drag a few lines into the next page.

As I said in my first post, it wasn't self-evident from your post ("One page is an absolute must") whether you were saying that one page was a general rule or only necessary in the OP's particular case. If you meant the latter, then my post wasn't intended as a counter to yours at all. But since plenty of applicants other than the OP are likely to read this thread either in the next few days, or in the future via the search function, I don't consider it irrelevant to this topic to note that there is no one-page general rule when the thread comments are ambiguous on that point.

Anyway, I think we've spent more than enough bandwidth spent on this subject.

RodneyRuxin wrote:

Ti Malice wrote: Dude, the majority of your posts make you look like an idiot/douche. But I appreciate the tip nonetheless. Maybe when you're at Yale this fall you can spare a few minutes and look over my résumé and cover letters.

It just seems like you're trying to go around disagreeing with people so you can give your "better" advice--when in reality you just repeated me. But for real, why spend the time to post the accent marks in a forum post?

IOS autocorrects resume to [resume with accent marks].

Everybody calm TFD

RodneyRuxin wrote:

ArtistOfManliness wrote:
Kiddos... calm thyselves

I know this is probably an alt, but you are by far my favorite new poster on TLS

shhhhhh don't tell anyone

Cicero76 wrote:
Everybody calm TFD

I think I'm pretty calm and I think he is too. I misconstrued his first post to be argumentative. People are allowed to disagree on the internet.

The accent mark comment was a joke

/thread