Softs, HYS, and scholarships Forum

[RZ5646]

I thought of that too

[cotiger]

Also, you probably might not want to hear this, but consider taking a few years to live in the real world before applying to law school. It'll help your app, especially if your UG life was a bit bland, and it'll help you get a job once you graduate.

But above all, it will help clarify if you really do want to go to law school or if that desire is coming more from just feeling uncertain about what comes next.

Eta: the fact that you wouldn't really get to know your thesis advisor until after you submitted your apps is just another reason to wait. Also, spending your early 20s worrying about law school exams and OCI before starting biglaw at 25 sounds absolutely brutal to me.

[RZ5646]

I hear that a lot, but I'm a liberal arts major

[malleus discentium]

But the a/d/w threads and c/o 2017 are full of people MAF about schools gyping them out of what they "deserve", especially the lol factory of the "I'm so awesome; that WL must've been YP". I think it's partially derived from how much we hype the numbers as being almost solely determinative of outcomes. They're by far the largest factor, but there's still a lot more that goes into it.

The concept of "underperforming numbers" by its very nature acknowledges that numbers aren't everything. It's absurd to attack people as you are for recognizing that they were affected by these extra factors when numbers are often all that matters. I don't mean to suggest that people who feel and act entitled to CCN with $/HYS because of their numbers shouldn't get sympathy when they don't get it, but your attitude toward people who don't like that their cycle was not reflective of their numbers is off base and inappropriately harsh.

[Tiago Splitter]

Yeah, for sure I was being simplistic. Like, if your only viable option is a full ride to UVA/Cornell, but living in rural Virginia/NY is totally unappealing to you bc of personality or SO, then you simultaneously got an incredible outcome and totally suboptimal. And at a lesser extreme, it's nice to feel the level of control to comes from choosing between multiple viable offers. I get that.

I'm really just pushing back against a feeling of entitlement (not from you, btw) that I see on here fairly frequently wrt to admissions decisions and numbers. Case in point, there's a KJD thread right below this asking if it's even worth it to apply outside t6 bc it's pretty certain that he gets ccn full ride, right? Then those people cry underperformance when they "only" get a butler and a Harvard acceptance.

Part of that, of course, is being on tls/lsn: hearing about how numbers are 95% of the process and then seeing all the people who are getting ccn full rides makes people think that that is what you should expect when you have those numbers. But in reality, tls/lsn are the strivers of the strivers -- ccn big money is tough to get, regardless of numbers. Even t14 full-rides are super difficult: there were like 80 mordecai finalists this year, not all of whom were then offered.

So when I see people who are getting six-figures to nyu, butlers, Harvard acceptances, t14 full rides, etc talking about underperforming or YP instead of talking about how awesome their results were, I just have to shake my head.

This is all fair, but keep in mind that the OP is a 0L. It's easy to look back at an odd cycle where someone got 150k from Duke and nothing else in the T14 and say "who cares, 150k to Duke is a great outcome!" But for a 0L going into the process, that's still pretty scary, because if whatever it was that hurt that guy's app everywhere else had come up at Duke he'd have been in a pretty bad spot.

[banjo]

Apps have been declining for a few years, so everyone just assumes they're going to have an EPIC cycle and are disappointed when their results fall short. I bet the general optimism on these forums also leads a few people to put less effort into their softs/interviews. Take your PS and recs seriously. And if you have red flags, you should absolutely write an addendum.

Another problem is that schools like Columbia suddenly changed their admissions policies a bit this year. I've gone into the a/d/w threads while bored and a few results definitely surprised me. The fact that a school's recruiting goals can change year to year is one of the best arguments for applying broadly.


tl;dr: take your softs seriously, apply broadly.

[gottago]

snip

[malleus discentium]

-snip-

So, in summary, you got HYS +/- 1 but you did not absolutely dominate CCN scholarships? Do you think attending ASWs/the social scenes affected your ultimate decision on where to attend?

[Mullens]

I hear that a lot, but I'm a liberal arts major, so idk if living in the real world without a JD is really an option for me. I'll certainly wait and reapply if I only get mediocre offers, but for me "living in the real world" would mean working retail and/or fast food while living with my parents and watching my student loans accrue interest... i.e., a much worse way to spend my early twenties than going to law school and starting a career.

If taking years off worked for you then that's great; I'm not knocking it. But I see law as essentially my only option for professional employment after I graduate (which I'm okay with... I may be trapped into going to law school, but it's a trap I set for myself by deciding early on that I wanted to pursue law instead of business or STEM).

I think the bolded is a common fallacy that many 0Ls fall prey to. I also believe that people who enter law school with that mentality are disproportionately the students/lawyers who end up the most jaded and dissatisfied.

If you attend a good undergrad and have a GPA for HYS, you can get a good consulting job with a liberal arts degree. I realize this isn't an option for many people, but many at top schools don't realize that this opportunity exists. I didn't until after the fall recruiting schedule had mostly passed.

Even if you go to a mediocre regional undergrad institution (i.e. somewhere that consulting firms don't recruit), you can probably get a paralegal job at a biglaw firm. Most biglaw firms hire straight out of undergrad and although they require a two-year commitment, taking one of these jobs will allow you to 1) live in a big city and enjoy part of your 20s 2) help you decide if you actually want to be a lawyer and get a better understanding of what biglaw truly entails 3) bolster your resume for admissions and OCI.

[gottago]

nvm

[Attax]

don't quote please:

unqoted per request

Why would you take hys over say a ruby? Not that you got one but it seems somewhat nonsensical

[anyriotgirl]

I hear that a lot, but I'm a liberal arts major, so idk if living in the real world without a JD is really an option for me. I'll certainly wait and reapply if I only get mediocre offers, but for me "living in the real world" would mean working retail and/or fast food while living with my parents and watching my student loans accrue interest... i.e., a much worse way to spend my early twenties than going to law school and starting a career.

If taking years off worked for you then that's great; I'm not knocking it. But I see law as essentially my only option for professional employment after I graduate (which I'm okay with... I may be trapped into going to law school, but it's a trap I set for myself by deciding early on that I wanted to pursue law instead of business or STEM).

I think the bolded is a common fallacy that many 0Ls fall prey to. I also believe that people who enter law school with that mentality are disproportionately the students/lawyers who end up the most jaded and dissatisfied.

If you attend a good undergrad and have a GPA for HYS, you can get a good consulting job with a liberal arts degree. I realize this isn't an option for many people, but many at top schools don't realize that this opportunity exists. I didn't until after the fall recruiting schedule had mostly passed.

Even if you go to a mediocre regional undergrad institution (i.e. somewhere that consulting firms don't recruit), you can probably get a paralegal job at a biglaw firm. Most biglaw firms hire straight out of undergrad and although they require a two-year commitment, taking one of these jobs will allow you to 1) live in a big city and enjoy part of your 20s 2) help you decide if you actually want to be a lawyer and get a better understanding of what biglaw truly entails 3) bolster your resume for admissions and OCI.

+1 it's really not that difficult to get a para job

signed a paralegal with a liberal arts degree who spent approximately two weeks after college trying to find a job

[RZ5646]

Retake for money.

[anyriotgirl]

I think the bolded is a common fallacy that many 0Ls fall prey to. I also believe that people who enter law school with that mentality are disproportionately the students/lawyers who end up the most jaded and dissatisfied.

If you attend a good undergrad and have a GPA for HYS, you can get a good consulting job with a liberal arts degree. I realize this isn't an option for many people, but many at top schools don't realize that this opportunity exists. I didn't until after the fall recruiting schedule had mostly passed.

Even if you go to a mediocre regional undergrad institution (i.e. somewhere that consulting firms don't recruit), you can probably get a paralegal job at a biglaw firm. Most biglaw firms hire straight out of undergrad and although they require a two-year commitment, taking one of these jobs will allow you to 1) live in a big city and enjoy part of your 20s 2) help you decide if you actually want to be a lawyer and get a better understanding of what biglaw truly entails 3) bolster your resume for admissions and OCI.

Assuming such jobs are actually available, that still seems like a waste of time and money to me. If I were some uniformed, unemployed liberal arts grad imagining that a JD would solve all my problems, your advice might be useful. However, that's not the case. I've thoroughly researched the job and the job market and know that I want to be a lawyer; as I said, that's the whole reason I'm a liberal arts major in the first place. Working a low-paying job I don't even want after graduation would just put me further from my goal (and after all, I have my whole life to do that if I fail at law... no rush).

Furthermore, I don't think many opportunities above the $10/hour level would be available to me anyway. My school is hardly a "mediocre regional undergrad institution," but you aren't just handed a good job for getting a 3.9+ in the humanities. Sure, you hear about non-Ivy people with useless degrees getting middle-class jobs in business, but those are invariably due to connections, which I don't have. If I want a high-paying job, I'll need to get it by being exceptionally skilled in something I'm naturally suited for and enthusiastic about... which brings us back to law.

Now like I said, I'll definitely find whatever job I can and reapply if I don't get any desirable offers the first time around, but I'm also definitely going to apply to law school my senior year of college.

But if you apply to law school and don't get an offer that you like, you'll have missed the recruiting schedule for the good jobs.

I also know plenty of people who did land good jobs with their useless liberal arts degrees. Look into corporate rotational programs (Nielsen, GE, etc).

If I were going to do it again, I would have gotten in on the those FOR SURE. I thought I wanted academia (lol) so I missed the boat.

[RZ5646]

Agreed

[Mullens]

I think the bolded is a common fallacy that many 0Ls fall prey to. I also believe that people who enter law school with that mentality are disproportionately the students/lawyers who end up the most jaded and dissatisfied.

If you attend a good undergrad and have a GPA for HYS, you can get a good consulting job with a liberal arts degree. I realize this isn't an option for many people, but many at top schools don't realize that this opportunity exists. I didn't until after the fall recruiting schedule had mostly passed.

Even if you go to a mediocre regional undergrad institution (i.e. somewhere that consulting firms don't recruit), you can probably get a paralegal job at a biglaw firm. Most biglaw firms hire straight out of undergrad and although they require a two-year commitment, taking one of these jobs will allow you to 1) live in a big city and enjoy part of your 20s 2) help you decide if you actually want to be a lawyer and get a better understanding of what biglaw truly entails 3) bolster your resume for admissions and OCI.

Assuming such jobs are actually available, that still seems like a waste of time and money to me. If I were some uniformed, unemployed liberal arts grad imagining that a JD would solve all my problems, your advice might be useful. However, that's not the case. I've thoroughly researched the job and the job market and know that I want to be a lawyer; as I said, that's the whole reason I'm a liberal arts major in the first place. Working a low-paying job I don't even want after graduation would just put me further from my goal (and after all, I have my whole life to do that if I fail at law... no rush).

Furthermore, I don't think many opportunities above the $10/hour level would be available to me anyway. My school is hardly a "mediocre regional undergrad institution," but you aren't just handed a good job for getting a 3.9+ in the humanities. Sure, you hear about non-Ivy people with useless degrees getting middle-class jobs in business, but those are invariably due to connections, which I don't have. If I want a high-paying job, I'll need to get it by being exceptionally skilled in something I'm naturally suited for and enthusiastic about... which brings us back to law.

Now like I said, I'll definitely find whatever job I can and reapply if I don't get any desirable offers the first time around, but I'm also definitely going to apply to law school my senior year of college.

But if you apply to law school and don't get an offer that you like, you'll have missed the recruiting schedule for the good jobs.

I also know plenty of people who did land good jobs with their useless liberal arts degrees. Look into corporate rotational programs (Nielsen, GE, etc).

If I were going to do it again, I would have gotten in on the those FOR SURE. I thought I wanted academia (lol) so I missed the boat.

I'm a 4.0 philosophy and english major from a T75 school with zero connections and no knowledge of business whatsoever. What sort of consulting job could I get?

You might be able to get one if you attend all the consulting career fairs/events at your school but idk how robust those opportunities are at a T75 school. A 4.0 GPA can carry you pretty far even in a random major if you are able to sell your skill set and abilities. That being said, T75 fits sqaurely into my definition of "mediocre regional" undergrad.

You also never responded to either mine or riot's suggestion of getting a job as a paralegal. You can claim you've done all the research you want, but nothing compares to working alongside biglawyers for long hours and seeing what being a lawyer actually entails (short of actually being a lawyer). Plus, you get to spend your 20s having fun with less responsibility than being a lawyer and don't have to spend six figures to find out if you actually want to be a lawyer.

[RZ5646]

NW loves WE.

[anyriotgirl]

Perhaps off topic, but it's ridiculously elitist to call ~97% of US colleges mediocre or worse. We're not all born with the socioeconomic pedigree to attend Harvard or Duke UG. (This is another reason I want to practice law--law school admissions and then legal hiring seem very meritocratic).

Do you want advice or do you want to sit around being buttburt?

[RZ5646]

Do you want advice or do you want to sit around being buttburt?

Did you miss the question I asked you above? Could someone with my background reasonably expect to find a job in business?

[transferror]

Perhaps off topic, but it's ridiculously elitist to call ~97% of US colleges mediocre or worse. We're not all born with the socioeconomic pedigree to attend Harvard or Duke UG. (This is another reason I want to practice law--law school admissions and then legal hiring seem very meritocratic).

Mullens and anyriotgirl are right on this one - try and find a job out of UG. If it doesn't happen, then go to LS. But if you can find a good gig or paralegal job, schools will let you defer for a year or two without incident. It sucks to have to pay back loans and wait to go to LS when you inevitably know it's 100% what you want to do, but it's worth it. Your employability at OCI rises by a non-marginal amount (especially if you don't interview all that well). There's no reason not to take a consulting/paralegal/business/semi-professional job after UG if given the chance. It will only help you in LS, and based on anecdotal evidence and TLS history, it seems as though the students that most often strikeout at OCI/EIW with decent grades are those that (obviously) interview poorly and/or K-JDs lacking work experience, and the students that excel at median are those that interview well and/or have WE. Do the math.

[RZ5646]

I guess we'll see... I just don't think I'm qualified for anything in business, and when the economy is so rough that even qualified candidates can't find decent jobs, I doubt I have a very good shot. It's something I may explore though.

I more or less agree with Mullens's point about only the most prestigious schools giving opportunities to liberal arts grads; I just took offense at his elitist attitude and implication that only those ultra-prestigious schools can be considered better than mediocre.

[anyriotgirl]

I guess we'll see... I just don't think I'm qualified for anything in business, and when the economy is so rough that even qualified candidates can't find decent jobs, I doubt I have a very good shot. It's something I may explore though.

I more or less agree with Mullens's point about only the most prestigious schools giving opportunities to liberal arts grads; I just took offense at his elitist attitude and implication that only those ultra-prestigious schools can be considered better than mediocre.

First of all, people here are just trying to help you, so try to be a little nicer.

As far as consulting jobs go, you apply to big companies in the late summer/early fall and go through a long interviewing process for an entry level position. You have a "class" of people w you and it's sort of like big law in that regard. You could be working on anything, they'll train you for their purposes.

Asking what your chances are to get a job in business isn't a very good question and that's why you're not really getting answers. Working "in business" doesn't really mean anything. With the information you've provided I would say that you have a reasonably good shot at getting someone to hire you to do something for 30-40k a year, but you'll have to work at it. Apply to literally everything. Use your schools career services, use other schools websites, use linked in, heck even check stuff like monster and craigslist.

As far as ~why would anyone hire a recent grad~ goes -- you're cheaper. You know how to use a computer. You will probably just stay on your parents health insurance. You're young and trainable. Don't sell yourself short.

The legal job market is more competitive than the regular job market. I'm on my phone so I'm not gonna link to stats, but they are all over this website. People are exciting bc the class of 2016 is going to have "only" 10k or so more grads than there are full time legal jobs. Even if you go to Harvard (which is still a big if without an LSAT score), you still have to hustle to land a good job where you can service your debt. Having some prior work experience is an excellent way to show employers that you're capable of getting and keeping an office job without being fired or rage quitting.

[RZ5646]

I'm going to try to go K-JD, but I might apply for jobs just as a backup plan.

[Mullens]

I guess we'll see... I just don't think I'm qualified for anything in business, and when the economy is so rough that even qualified candidates can't find decent jobs, I doubt I have a very good shot. It's something I may explore though.

I more or less agree with Mullens's point about only the most prestigious schools giving opportunities to liberal arts grads; I just took offense at his elitist attitude and implication that only those ultra-prestigious schools can be considered better than mediocre.

You can whine about the semantics and my use of the word "mediocre" all you want, but it was narrowly defined to include a set of schools where you can get a consulting job through undergrad OCI with a liberal arts degree. Is it elitist? Maybe, but I guess now's the time to learn that the legal field is largely prestige-driven and if you attend any top law school and/or go to a big firm, you will be surrounded by people far more elitist than me.

The point still stands that I think everyone should take time off before law school for the work and life experience. My two years after UG have been an incredible amount of fun and taking time off has probably been one of the best decisions I've ever made.

I also want to reiterate that paralegal jobs are pretty much available to anyone with a decent GPA and the persistence to contact enough firms. You can do all the research on the internet you want but there is nothing short of being a biglawyer that will expose you to the reality of biglaw like being a paralegal.

[RZ5646]

Can I ask what job you have and what background ?