Top Law Schools

TLS, please indulge me.

An undergraduate classmate of mine added me on LinkedIn the other day. He is at Yale Law School. On his profile under "Honors and Awards" he listed that he received full-tuition scholarships to Columbia, NYU and Chicago, but that he declined all of them.

This annoyed me. For one thing, this person should own his choice of school; I wonder if later on in life he will say, "This is my spouse, but just so you know, this other beautiful person said she would have married me too." Second, by drawing attention to the fact that he turned down so much money, he is declaring either, "Haha suckers, I can afford it," or "I am a prestige whore."

Am I being over-sensitive? Would an employer be impressed upon seeing such material on a resume/profile?

Rant over.

If he got into Yale it's reasonable to assume that he got substantial scholarships from schools 4-14. Listing that is being douchey, no question about it.

Phil Brooks wrote:TLS, please indulge me.

An undergraduate classmate of mine added me on LinkedIn the other day. He is at Yale Law School. On his profile under "Honors and Awards" he listed that he received full-tuition scholarships to Columbia, NYU and Chicago, but that he declined all of them.

This annoyed me. For one thing, this person should own his choice of school; I wonder if later on in life he will say, "This is my spouse, but just so you know, this other beautiful person said she would have married me too." Second, by drawing attention to the fact that he turned down so much money, he is declaring either, "Haha suckers, I can afford it," or "I am a prestige whore."

Am I being over-sensitive? Would an employer be impressed upon seeing such material on a resume/profile?

Rant over.

Not sure about law but this would be a no-no in just about every other industry out there. I'm going to go out on a limb and say nobody should do this for law either.

Please post a link so I can make sure my firm doesn't hire this person.

The only context where this works is academia - say you get an NEH fellowship and an Institute for Advanced Studies fellowship for the same year, for the same project - you can't accept both, but you can put the award you decline on your c.v. as "declined."

But for attending law school that is absolutely douchey. It's just not the same thing at all.

Lincoln wrote:Please post a link so I can make sure my firm doesn't hire this person.

I think you misread it. It's "LinkedIn", not "Lincoln". I guess your point stands, either way.

I think there are few contexts where this would be acceptable (like Anon mentions, academia or something). Otherwise, I don't see a reading where it's not super douchey and pretentious.

That's probably a bit more pretentious than a guy I knew during 1L year removing all mention of attending our school on his profile after he transferred to a T14 (we went to a T50). He didn't want anyone to know someone as great as him even attended our small peasant school at all

Snowy Shaw wrote:That's probably a bit more pretentious than a guy I knew during 1L year removing all mention of attending our school on his profile after he transferred to a T14 (we went to a T50). He didn't want anyone to know someone as great as him even attended our small peasant school at all

This...doesn't sound pretentious at all. He transferred.

Snowy Shaw wrote:That's probably a bit more pretentious than a guy I knew during 1L year removing all mention of attending our school on his profile after he transferred to a T14 (we went to a T50). He didn't want anyone to know someone as great as him even attended our small peasant school at all

He doesnt have a degree from the school. Why would he put it on his linkedin? He would do the same on his resume as well (i.e. you don't list your 1st school if you transfer unless you want to mention/discuss something specific about your old school).

I'd like to say this guy will get his for being an insufferable asshat, but we have offered jobs to people with similarly prestigious backgrounds who do similar things, so he may get away with it.

This is actually worse than the people I know who list their LSAT score on their linkedin

DCfilterDC wrote:This is actually worse than the people I know who list their LSAT score on their linkedin

The only person I know who did this also went to YLS. And put their SAT score on there IIRC

arklaw13 wrote:

DCfilterDC wrote:This is actually worse than the people I know who list their LSAT score on their linkedin

The only person I know who did this also went to YLS. And put their SAT score on there IIRC

I know a dude who put his 161...

I guess somewhat relevant to this topic:

Is it commonplace to put Received an invitation to participate on [insert school]'s Law Review on your resume if you transfer?

This would kind of strike me as odd but what do i know

I went to a public school....

dixiecupdrinking wrote:I'd like to say this guy will get his for being an insufferable asshat, but we have offered jobs to people with similarly prestigious backgrounds who do similar things, so he may get away with it.

I mean, there's more to life than jobs. He probably has like no friends and no romantic prospects, so maybe he already got his.

acr wrote:I guess somewhat relevant to this topic:

Is it commonplace to put Received an invitation to participate on [insert school]'s Law Review on your resume if you transfer?

This would kind of strike me as odd but what do i know

That's actually pretty normal. I assume it'd come off eventually but it should definitely be on there when applying for jobs during law school.

DCfilterDC wrote:This is actually worse than the people I know who list their LSAT score on their linkedin

I wish more people would list all of their standardized test scores on LinkedIn. It would make my life a lot easier.

Tiago Splitter wrote:

acr wrote:I guess somewhat relevant to this topic:

Is it commonplace to put Received an invitation to participate on [insert school]'s Law Review on your resume if you transfer?

This would kind of strike me as odd but what do i know

That's actually pretty normal. I assume it'd come off eventually but it should definitely be on there when applying for jobs during law school.

Respectfully disagree. I think filling out a one page resume with things you didn't do is kind of pathetic. It would certainly raise some eyebrows for the wrong reasons.

ClubberLang wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:

acr wrote:I guess somewhat relevant to this topic:

Is it commonplace to put Received an invitation to participate on [insert school]'s Law Review on your resume if you transfer?

This would kind of strike me as odd but what do i know

That's actually pretty normal. I assume it'd come off eventually but it should definitely be on there when applying for jobs during law school.

Respectfully disagree. I think filling out a one page resume with things you didn't do is kind of pathetic. It would certainly raise some eyebrows for the wrong reasons.

For the vast majority of law students, what impresses you more, the fact they made law review or what they did when they were on law review? Isn't a lot of law review just busywork?
Since my understanding is that at many law schools transfer students are ineligible for law review, there would seem to be some justification to listing it on their resumes.

ClubberLang wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:

acr wrote:I guess somewhat relevant to this topic:

Is it commonplace to put Received an invitation to participate on [insert school]'s Law Review on your resume if you transfer?

This would kind of strike me as odd but what do i know

That's actually pretty normal. I assume it'd come off eventually but it should definitely be on there when applying for jobs during law school.

Respectfully disagree. I think filling out a one page resume with things you didn't do is kind of pathetic. It would certainly raise some eyebrows for the wrong reasons.

I get this point, but from reading way too much of this website for way too long, I think doing this is expected/accepted, at least for 2L OCI. Beyond that it's probably getting weird (in part bc it would just highlight that you didn't get on at your new school, if you didn't, and if you did, you don't need the old LR).

stego wrote:

ClubberLang wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:

acr wrote:I guess somewhat relevant to this topic:

Is it commonplace to put Received an invitation to participate on [insert school]'s Law Review on your resume if you transfer?

This would kind of strike me as odd but what do i know

That's actually pretty normal. I assume it'd come off eventually but it should definitely be on there when applying for jobs during law school.

Respectfully disagree. I think filling out a one page resume with things you didn't do is kind of pathetic. It would certainly raise some eyebrows for the wrong reasons.

For the vast majority of law students, what impresses you more, the fact they made law review or what they did when they were on law review? Isn't a lot of law review just busywork?

HEY! I learned VALUABLE cite-checking SKILLS on my journal. How dare you impugn the value of this mindless busywork!

A. Nony Mouse wrote:

ClubberLang wrote:

Tiago Splitter wrote:

acr wrote:I guess somewhat relevant to this topic:

Is it commonplace to put Received an invitation to participate on [insert school]'s Law Review on your resume if you transfer?

This would kind of strike me as odd but what do i know

That's actually pretty normal. I assume it'd come off eventually but it should definitely be on there when applying for jobs during law school.

Respectfully disagree. I think filling out a one page resume with things you didn't do is kind of pathetic. It would certainly raise some eyebrows for the wrong reasons.

I get this point, but from reading way too much of this website for way too long, I think doing this is expected/accepted, at least for 2L OCI.

I don't expect/accept it for 2L OCI. I think it's a bad look.

If you're the applicant, what could the upside possibly be? I've never understood why some folks do this.

Well, you're a much better source on this than I am, so I'll certainly defer to you. I've never actually seen it in real life but I have seen a bunch of people here defend it as it it's perfectly acceptable.