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I was looking at Columbia's Application Components FAQ and noticed this sentence: "Applicants with substantive work experience who are not recent graduates must submit one professional letter and at least one academic letter of recommendation." What do you think they mean by substantive work experience?

What is your WE situation?

Most likely full-time post-undergraduate professional work experience but you should e-mail them to make sure.

Ask Columbia admissions. My best guess is that it refers to, broadly speaking, one who has worked for more than 2 years post-undergraduate school in job requiring active use of one's brain.

CanadianWolf wrote:Ask Columbia admissions. My best guess is that it refers to, broadly speaking, one who has worked for more than 2 years post-undergraduate school in job requiring active use of one's brain.

This sounds about right.

Although OP some schools require two academic letters so you'll probably have to get them anyway

The law school you are interested in might have their own definition of "substantive work experience." This could mean two years, three years or more.

It would be best to contact that school directly and speak to an admissions representative not only to get a better idea of what it means, but also to see if you fit that category of students needing to submit one professional letter and one academic letter of recommendation.

It is better to be safe than have your application have delays in processing.