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I am thinking about staying in 3 three-credit courses my 2L fall in addition to a 4-credit externship and my role as a junior member on a secondary journal.

Will the BigLaw firm I am working for next summer question why I'm only taking 13 credits or look at it negatively?

Thanks for the help!

How abnormal is 13 credits even? I think we did an average of 14 each semester to graduate on time at my school. In case, this shouldn't be a problem. I guess I'm no expert since I'm just a 3L but everything I have heard about transcripts after you have already gotten your SA is that they are pretty much just making sure you aren't like, dropped out or clearly not going to graduate on time or maybe had some egregious grade drop or other weird issue. They asked for ours right before offers as a formality. Doubt anyone had any clue how many hours I was in.

At my school, after 1L if you took 2 12 credit semesters and 2 15 credit semesters you had enough to graduate which is all that matters.

I don't think that 13 credits is abnormal. That sounds pretty average for a 2L.

In any case, I've never heard of firms dinging people or rescinding offers for taking "too few credits." As long as you are on track to graduate, you will be fine.

Not something to worry about at all. So long as you remain a full-time student and on track to graduate, you'll be just fine. Very common to see 2Ls/3Ls take 13-credit (and even 12 or 11-credit) semesters. I remember taking at least one 12-credit semester and no one ever cared.

I know some people that dropped below 10 credits due to withdrawing from classes last minute and nobody cared.

Nobody at your firm is really going to look at (or care about) the number of credits you take.

notinbiglaw wrote:I know some people that dropped below 10 credits due to withdrawing from classes last minute and nobody cared.

Right, bottom line is to graduate on time.

If at all possible I'd advise against going below full-time status, partly because making up those credits can be a bear and partly because, while the risk is probably minimal, it's probably also nonzero, especially if during 2L.

Thank you for the help, everyone! I won’t worry about it then since it’s well over the minimum for full-time status anyhow.

Anonymous User wrote:Thank you for the help, everyone! I won’t worry about it then since it’s well over the minimum for full-time status anyhow.

Happy to help!

Also, I know you didn't ask this, but just FYI, your planned course load actually sounds pretty intense. (Credits don't always directly correlate to time/effort. That 12-credit semester I mentioned taking was one of my toughest in law school, despite the low number of credits.) Three courses, plus an externship, plus a journal? That could be a serious load depending on how hard your externship/journal work you.