Columbia ED, 3.83 166 Forum

[BigBear]

Took in June got a 160, September 166. Planning a retake in December.

K-JD and current senior but work full time in a legally focused federal government agency and have 3 years of combined work experience in government affairs throughout undergrad. Average softs (mock trial captain, SGA involvement, fraternity President). I'm a court appointed special advocate which I think could give me a boost.

I was practice testing in the 170 to 173 range for the September test and the last logic game (computer virus) really hurt hurt my score. I think I could do better with a retake.

My first choice of schools is Columbia. I'm considering doing ED at Columbia, and waiting for my Decmeber scores before applying anywhere else. I've checked LSN but what chances do I have at Columbia if I ED and is this a good decision? Money isn't a concern, just trying to get into the beat school possible.

[RamTitan]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

[BigBear]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

[goldenbear2020]

My first choice of schools is Columbia. I'm considering doing ED at Columbia, and waiting for my Decmeber scores before applying anywhere else.

Money isn't a concern, just trying to get into the beat school possible.

Say you hit a 173+ in December - you'd be competitive for HLS but potentially have locked yourself in for CLS.

[BigBear]

My first choice of schools is Columbia. I'm considering doing ED at Columbia, and waiting for my Decmeber scores before applying anywhere else.

Money isn't a concern, just trying to get into the beat school possible.

Say you hit a 173+ in December - you'd be competitive for HLS but potentially have locked yourself in for CLS.

That is a very good point. If that does end up being the case I supposed I could take a gap year and reapply. Or would that be seen as a violation of my ED agreement?

[lawlorbust]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

[ArtistOfManliness]

My first choice of schools is Columbia. I'm considering doing ED at Columbia, and waiting for my Decmeber scores before applying anywhere else.

Money isn't a concern, just trying to get into the beat school possible.

Say you hit a 173+ in December - you'd be competitive for HLS but potentially have locked yourself in for CLS.

That is a very good point. If that does end up being the case I supposed I could take a gap year and reapply. Or would that be seen as a violation of my ED agreement?

Read the ED agreement and see. (I think the ED agreement is simply, "If I go to law school this year, I will go to yours.")

[BigBear]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

What type of employment would add to my application?

[RamTitan]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

Uh, what? Are you still in college? Almost all entry-level jobs are "shitty"; but that's not the point of getting work experience before going back to school.

[RamTitan]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Just keep studying (with the occasional 1-2 week break) and you won't forget

[BigBear]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Just keep studying (with the occasional 1-2 week break) and you won't forget

Do you think February is a decent option? I have a long winter break to study and less chance of forgetting info.

[RamTitan]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Just keep studying (with the occasional 1-2 week break) and you won't forget

Do you think February is a decent option? I have a long winter break to study and less chance of forgetting info.

Feb. kind of sucks since you don't get to see what went wrong, but since this would be your last take it won't matter as much....I say consider it, but let others weigh in first before making a decision.

[ml2srosie]

I am less concerned about your work experience and more concerned about the "money isn't a problem" comment. If you are saying money isn't a problem because you have a huge trust fund or wealthy parents who will eat the bill, ok, fine. However, if you are considering taking loans for $350,000 (COA for 3 years with no aid at CLS), then I would tell you to strongly re-consider this whole plan unless you are comfortable being in debt until you are collecting Social Security. CLS will likely not give you any aid if you ED.

Re-take and get yourself a scholarship.

[lawlorbust]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

Uh, what? Are you still in college? Almost all entry-level jobs are "shitty"; but that's not the point of getting work experience before going back to school.

I don't mean for this to be rude, but if you're an 0L english major with a mediocre GPA from a non-prestigious midwestern college, can you please shut the hell up and not claim to be any authority on "non-shitty" post-college jobs? I assume there are (other) recently graduated posters with job options that extend beyond flipping burgers / stacking boxes at Walmart.

[RamTitan]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

Uh, what? Are you still in college? Almost all entry-level jobs are "shitty"; but that's not the point of getting work experience before going back to school.

I don't mean for this to be rude, but if you're an 0L english major with a mediocre GPA from a non-prestigious midwestern college, can you please shut the hell up and not claim to be any authority on "non-shitty" post-college jobs? I assume there are (other) recently graduated posters with job options that extend beyond flipping burgers / stacking boxes at Walmart.

LMAO, you definitely intended for that to be rude (or you're completely socially incompetent...or both?). But I do not flip burgers (and never have), and actually do marketing for an IT company, so your comments don't offend me. With that said, your initial advice is still misguided.

Based off of a brief glance of your posting history, you come from an insulated perspective. That's cool that you went to a good law school and have had some success, but that doesn't mean your initial opinion is word of law. My point was that work experience, of any kind, can be good for most students (just take a look at the average starting age for the top tier law schools OP, and you'll see what I mean). Instead of addressing that, you insulted me when you know little about me other than what seems to be information taken from my first few posts here.

Edit - I also never claimed to be an authority on "non-shitty post-grad jobs". For someone who claims to have done the things he/she has done, I would have thought your language and logic skills would be stronger...

[vcap180]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

Being a paralegal at a v20 firm would absolutely be a worthwhile gap year! What are you talking about ?!

1) OP will have a chance to get to know people that could potentially hire him 3 years later.
2) OP will have the chance to see what biglaw is like, and thus will be better informed as to whether it's something he's willing to invest a quarter million dollars to pursue.
3) Law schools will certainly like it; I agree with Spivey that work experience and "employability" will become increasingly important to adcomms. Working at a prestigious, global law firm shows you have some basic level of respectability and professionalism.
4) it will probably give him a salary somewhere between 45-70k, with which he can at least start saving for some COL expenses for when he does enroll.

[whizzer18]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

^^^ Not even remotely true.

[poptart123]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

Uh, what? Are you still in college? Almost all entry-level jobs are "shitty"; but that's not the point of getting work experience before going back to school.

I don't mean for this to be rude, but if you're an 0L english major with a mediocre GPA from a non-prestigious midwestern college, can you please shut the hell up and not claim to be any authority on "non-shitty" post-college jobs? I assume there are (other) recently graduated posters with job options that extend beyond flipping burgers / stacking boxes at Walmart.

I'm not seeing how it is "shitty" to get work experience, become more marketable, and put away some money for law school. How is this a negative where it is better to go straight to law school? Please explain.

[proteinshake]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

stupid.

[zeglo]

.

[lawlorbust]

LMAO, you definitely intended for that to be rude (or you're completely socially incompetent...or both?). But I do not flip burgers (and never have), and actually do marketing for an IT company, so your comments don't offend me. With that said, your initial advice is still misguided.

Based off of a brief glance of your posting history, you come from an insulated perspective. That's cool that you went to a good law school and have had some success, but that doesn't mean your initial opinion is word of law. My point was that work experience, of any kind, can be good for most students (just take a look at the average starting age for the top tier law schools OP, and you'll see what I mean). Instead of addressing that, you insulted me when you know little about me other than what seems to be information taken from my first few posts here.

Edit - I also never claimed to be an authority on "non-shitty post-grad jobs". For someone who claims to have done the things he/she has done, I would have thought your language and logic skills would be stronger...

Oh, I never suggested that my initial opinion is word of law. I just thought that it was strange that you were questioning my background -- whether I was still in college -- since you are probably the most underqualified poster on this board to be giving any advice. To recap:

1. 0L
2. Shit ugrad
3. Unimpressive work experience (one year of IT marketing!!)
4. Worthless major
5. Mediocre GPA
6. Mediocre LSAT

(Again, I mean to state your qualifications in an objective manner, and want to state for the avoidance of any doubt that I'm not trying to come off as rude as all.) That hasn't stopped you from racking a thousand posts on giving advice on something that you don't really know anything about, that's a huge decision for lots of people. The world would be a better place if you didn't!

[lawlorbust]

I strongly advise you to not go directly to law school after undergrad, and at the very least, not apply ED to Columbia (unless you're filthy rich). Taking a year to work in the real word will hope your mature for law school, make you a more attractive candidate, and give you time to study. Since you only have one take left, I suggest aiming for the June 2017 LSAT.

Thank you for the advice. I have a paralegal offer from a V20 big law firm and was considering accepting that opportunity. The main thing I'm worried about is forgetting information and having to make up ground when studying for June. I was practice testing in the low to mid 170s and I think I could hit that or higher in December.

Being a paralegal is a shitty enough "gap year" job that you'd be better advised to go directly to law school.

Being a paralegal at a v20 firm would absolutely be a worthwhile gap year! What are you talking about ?!

1) OP will have a chance to get to know people that could potentially hire him 3 years later.
2) OP will have the chance to see what biglaw is like, and thus will be better informed as to whether it's something he's willing to invest a quarter million dollars to pursue.
3) Law schools will certainly like it; I agree with Spivey that work experience and "employability" will become increasingly important to adcomms. Working at a prestigious, global law firm shows you have some basic level of respectability and professionalism.
4) it will probably give him a salary somewhere between 45-70k, with which he can at least start saving for some COL expenses for when he does enroll.

a) Being a paralegal is, in itself, a dead-end job. That by itself should be a pretty non-controversial point.

You see all the threads on how being a biglaw junior associate is such a terrible, shitty life? Well, the job description is you doing their shit. Enjoy doing their collating, filing, and other bitch work for a year. Anything of intellectual ability in this field they send to the person with a law degree (duh). I know a lot of ex-paralegals, and some of them actually lucked into interesting projects/teams, but know that this is not the norm. There's no advancement possible, unless you count being a career paralegal, so one way or another you're up and out in 2 years.

The pay is terrible. You're not going to earn 70k even at WLRK or the few firms that pay above market unless you rack up serious overtime. Your 45k base pay is meaningfully lower than other entry-level, professionals jobs in a major city. Try saving any of this if you live in NYC.

Does it hurt you as you're applying law school? No, of course not! But it's not going to help at the T6 schools that the OP is interested in attending. There, it's a weak-to-neutral line on the resume; better than going K-JD, but obviously the relevant comparison is what else you could have been doing in that year.

b) Being a paralegal for a year or two en route to law school?

The upside to being a paralegal is knowing biglawyers and seeing biglaw. That's fair. But if you do like biglaw, the OP should know that it's not a meaningful boost for OCI (in part because most people at a T6 who wants biglaw gets biglaw anyway). If you had taken a chance, you'd been $120k and a year ahead -- that's a huge cost to get the marginal difference in certainty that we're talking about.

The big problem is that if you don't like biglaw, or if you can't apply to law school anyway because you ended up bricking the LSAT, having been a paralegal for a year actually makes you less employable than when you were coming out of college. You don't get any transferrable skills at all (lol at your takeaway being some "basic level of respectability of professionalism") so end up losing the year -- or two -- when you end up switching out.

ETA: Look, being a paralegal's a job, and I'm sure there are people that would be lucky to have it. But the OP's coming from a good public university with good grades, so the point I'm trying to make is that he probably could do better for a year off. Do whatever the top students at your school are doing -- finance, tech, consulting, general corp work, TFA, fed gov, a fellowship, etc. None of these options will disadvantage you in either a) applications or b) OCI; instead, you'll probably end up with a stronger application. And in case you brick the LSAT or change your mind about law school, you literally wouldn't have wasted two years of your life. On the other side of the ledger, I'll be the first to admit that you lose some clarity as to what the profession is like, but do your own calculus and figure out whether having that is worth enough to you considering all the disadvantages I've laid out.

[btruj777]

He means to state qualifications in an "objective" manner....attaches a value judgment to them.

If you did not mean to be rude earlier, you certainly mean to be offensive now.

Because I anticipate that you will look at my profile and try to be offensive towards me, I will save you the trouble.

167/3.95

TLS is meant to be a place where people come along side to encourage and provide advice with grace and love. No one comes here to offended.

[RamTitan]

LMAO, you definitely intended for that to be rude (or you're completely socially incompetent...or both?). But I do not flip burgers (and never have), and actually do marketing for an IT company, so your comments don't offend me. With that said, your initial advice is still misguided.

Based off of a brief glance of your posting history, you come from an insulated perspective. That's cool that you went to a good law school and have had some success, but that doesn't mean your initial opinion is word of law. My point was that work experience, of any kind, can be good for most students (just take a look at the average starting age for the top tier law schools OP, and you'll see what I mean). Instead of addressing that, you insulted me when you know little about me other than what seems to be information taken from my first few posts here.

Edit - I also never claimed to be an authority on "non-shitty post-grad jobs". For someone who claims to have done the things he/she has done, I would have thought your language and logic skills would be stronger...

Oh, I never suggested that my initial opinion is word of law. I just thought that it was strange that you were questioning my background -- whether I was still in college -- since you are probably the most underqualified poster on this board to be giving any advice. To recap:

1. 0L
2. Shit ugrad
3. Unimpressive work experience (one year of IT marketing!!)
4. Worthless major
5. Mediocre GPA
6. Mediocre LSAT

(Again, I mean to state your qualifications in an objective manner, and want to state for the avoidance of any doubt that I'm not trying to come off as rude as all.) That hasn't stopped you from racking a thousand posts on giving advice on something that you don't really know anything about, that's a huge decision for lots of people. The world would be a better place if you didn't!

1. As another poster pointed out, you are definitely not being objective. Are you sure you understand the definition of that word?
2. You don't know what undergraduate school I went to, so how do you know it's "shit"?
3. If you knew the company I worked for, you wouldn't be saying that. You likely say it's name every day, but I will not reveal anymore information about that.
4. I'm not going to debate whether an English Writing major is worthless. I agree that it's not the most employable degree.
5. 3.66 isn't great on these boards, but it's definitely not mediocre.
6. 169....maybe you scored higher, but a 169 is not mediocre.
7. I rarely give advice. Almost all of my posts have been asking questions about the LSAT and applying to schools. You clearly know my posting history, and can easily search it, so you should have known that what you said was false. With that said, I think it's way more irresponsible to tell someone to apply ED to Columbia with a 166 just so they can go to law school now instead of a year later.

In summary, laworbust is either a troll or an elitist who was luckily born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Edit - and you still never actually addressed my initial point about having work experience of ANY kind is good for most students before they enroll in school. It seems that everyone in this thread agrees that you are dead wrong, so do us a favor and shut up.

Edit 2 - just realized that I did in fact ask if you were still in college. Since that comment seems to have bothered you, I am sorry that I assumed you were still in undergrad. With that said, I stand by my initial advice. And even if you disagree with that, applying ED to Columbia with a 166 is not going to yield favorable results. Go directly to law school with a 166 and waste a 3.83 GPA? Ugh

[curry1]

LMAO, you definitely intended for that to be rude (or you're completely socially incompetent...or both?). But I do not flip burgers (and never have), and actually do marketing for an IT company, so your comments don't offend me. With that said, your initial advice is still misguided.

Based off of a brief glance of your posting history, you come from an insulated perspective. That's cool that you went to a good law school and have had some success, but that doesn't mean your initial opinion is word of law. My point was that work experience, of any kind, can be good for most students (just take a look at the average starting age for the top tier law schools OP, and you'll see what I mean). Instead of addressing that, you insulted me when you know little about me other than what seems to be information taken from my first few posts here.

Edit - I also never claimed to be an authority on "non-shitty post-grad jobs". For someone who claims to have done the things he/she has done, I would have thought your language and logic skills would be stronger...

Oh, I never suggested that my initial opinion is word of law. I just thought that it was strange that you were questioning my background -- whether I was still in college -- since you are probably the most underqualified poster on this board to be giving any advice. To recap:

1. 0L
2. Shit ugrad
3. Unimpressive work experience (one year of IT marketing!!)
4. Worthless major
5. Mediocre GPA
6. Mediocre LSAT

(Again, I mean to state your qualifications in an objective manner, and want to state for the avoidance of any doubt that I'm not trying to come off as rude as all.) That hasn't stopped you from racking a thousand posts on giving advice on something that you don't really know anything about, that's a huge decision for lots of people. The world would be a better place if you didn't!

Once again, you're proving you're not a very good reader. I never said you were still in college; I asked if you were a K-JD. But I'll keep this going for my own amusement, but I'm sure it will get distorted.

1. As another poster pointed out, you are definitely not being objective. Are you sure you understand the definition of that word?
2. You don't know what undergraduate school I went to, so how do you know it's "shit"?
3. If you knew the company I worked for, you wouldn't be saying that. You likely say it's name every day, but I will not reveal anymore information about that.
4. I'm not going to debate whether an English Writing major is worthless. I agree that it's not the most employable degree, but I think someone with such weak reading comprehension skills like yourself should probably not knock it.
5. 3.66 isn't great on these boards, but it's definitely not mediocre.
6. 169....maybe you scored higher (which would be crazy considering the insane amount of assumptions you make), but a 169 is not mediocre.
7. I rarely give advice. Almost all of my posts have been asking questions about the LSAT and applying to schools. You clearly know my posting history, and can easily search it, so you should have known that what you said was false.

In summary, laworbust is either a troll or a brain dead elitist who was luckily born with a silver spoon in his mouth.

Edit - and you still never actually addressed my initial point about having work experience of ANY kind is good for most students before they enroll in school. It seems that everyone in this thread agrees that you are dead wrong, so do us a favor and shut up.

The fact that the majority of T-14 matriculants have work experience does not necessarily mean that getting work experience was worthwhile for most of them or that doing so would be worthwhile for most applicants. Given the incredible cost of law school today, it is certainly arguable that it would be better for students with the stats to get into T6 schools or T14 with substantial money to go straight through rather than start biglaw when they are approaching 30 with enormous amounts of debt. People who have work experience are naturally going to be predisposed to say that they would "never trade their experience," but their desire to not feel like they have wasted time does not make getting work experience a good idea for everyone. The idea that even exceptional college graduates are going to generate significant "savings" during their few years of work experience and whatever they do generate will be directly countered by the price of law school rising 4-5% every year, compounding. You should stop posting.