Is it weird to put DS on resume? Forum

[Anonymous User]

Rising 2L at HLS. OCS recommends listing “any Dean’s Scholar Prizes you have received in the Honors section for HLS.” It feels weird though. Thoughts?

[Anonymous User]

Don’t be humble here, list it.

[Wild Card]

I'm always amused when I see DSes in seminars, but it can't hurt you.

[Anonymous User]

Rising 2L at HLS. OCS recommends listing “any Dean’s Scholar Prizes you have received in the Honors section for HLS.” It feels weird though. Thoughts?

It’s not weird. People put cali awards at other schools . I had mine on my resume and got callbacks everywhere. Some people didn’t know what it meant and asked about it, and you just say it’s like a cali or an a+, then make fun of harvards stupid grading system.

[Pneumonia]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no. And I would leave it off if you only have one and it is from a seminar unrelated to the practice area you are pursuing.

[Anonymous User]

Op here. Thanks, will do!

[Anonymous User]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no.

Hold up, is it cringe to put DS/CALI/top-scorer equivalent awards underneath your law school on LinkedIn? Can I get a second opinion on this?

Does it matter if you are still in law school vs. graduated? What if the award lines up with the practice area you’re trying to enter?

(I’m personally not at HLS but another t14, FWIW)

[Anonymous User]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no.

Hold up, is it cringe to put DS/CALI/top-scorer equivalent awards underneath your law school on LinkedIn? Can I get a second opinion on this?

Does it matter if you are still in law school vs. graduated? What if the award lines up with the practice area you’re trying to enter?

(I’m personally not at HLS but another t14, FWIW)

If you’re still in law school or fewer than 5 years out, it’s not cringe. Otherwise, it’s cringe.

[LBJ's Hair]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no.

Hold up, is it cringe to put DS/CALI/top-scorer equivalent awards underneath your law school on LinkedIn? Can I get a second opinion on this?

Does it matter if you are still in law school vs. graduated? What if the award lines up with the practice area you’re trying to enter?

(I’m personally not at HLS but another t14, FWIW)

vaguely arbitrary but imo a named award is fine because it's like an 'official' prize from the school that the school spent enough time or whatever to force professors to think about and give out and associate with a specific name etc

anything else is sort of embarrassing. like, you're just posting (some of) your...grades? I wouldn't put "got an A+ in contracts" on my law firm bio lmao

re 'CALI awards' specifically - honestly I had not heard of these things until I graduated and started reviewing clerkship applications and kids from shitty law schools would list them. I continue to associate them with that, sorry - like they're "the thing gunners from bad law schools brag about"

[Anonymous User]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no.

Hold up, is it cringe to put DS/CALI/top-scorer equivalent awards underneath your law school on LinkedIn? Can I get a second opinion on this?

Does it matter if you are still in law school vs. graduated? What if the award lines up with the practice area you’re trying to enter?

(I’m personally not at HLS but another t14, FWIW)

My cohort at HLS pretty universally, if softly, mocked anyone who did this. If you are *in* law school, then anywhere you’re applying will have your full transcript and your resume (where you can individually list DSs if you want). If you’ve graduated, then ditto, plus you have a Latin honors designation. So listing individual DSs on LinkedIn doesn’t have much of a point other than bragging to your friends, which is not a good look.

Some law firms will put DSs on your firm bio page, and that is fine I guess. But if you browse SCOTUS clerk and magna web profiles, you will see few if any that do this. The people I know who list theirs on LinkedIn are the same people who were most likely to casually slip their grades into unrelated conversations or to obsessively try to identify whether their random CA4 clerkship was more prestigious than someone else’s random CA10 clerkship.

I associate CALI awards with lower ranked law schools, even though I think at least Georgetown gives them within the T14. I guess putting DS/CALI on your LinkedIn makes sense if you missed the boat on hiring and are hoping someone might notice your online profile?

If the DS aligns with your practice area, then there is a stronger case. Still pretty much just seems like bragging to your friends about grades though.

[Anonymous User]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no.

Hold up, is it cringe to put DS/CALI/top-scorer equivalent awards underneath your law school on LinkedIn? Can I get a second opinion on this?

Does it matter if you are still in law school vs. graduated? What if the award lines up with the practice area you’re trying to enter?

(I’m personally not at HLS but another t14, FWIW)

My cohort at HLS pretty universally, if softly, mocked anyone who did this. If you are *in* law school, then anywhere you’re applying will have your full transcript and your resume (where you can individually list DSs if you want). If you’ve graduated, then ditto, plus you have a Latin honors designation. So listing individual DSs on LinkedIn doesn’t have much of a point other than bragging to your friends, which is not a good look.

Some law firms will put DSs on your firm bio page, and that is fine I guess. But if you browse SCOTUS clerk and magna web profiles, you will see few if any that do this. The people I know who list theirs on LinkedIn are the same people who were most likely to casually slip their grades into unrelated conversations or to obsessively try to identify whether their random CA4 clerkship was more prestigious than someone else’s random CA10 clerkship.

I associate CALI awards with lower ranked law schools, even though I think at least Georgetown gives them within the T14. I guess putting DS/CALI on your LinkedIn makes sense if you missed the boat on hiring and are hoping someone might notice your online profile?

If the DS aligns with your practice area, then there is a stronger case. Still pretty much just seems like bragging to your friends about grades though.

[Anonymous User]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no.

Hold up, is it cringe to put DS/CALI/top-scorer equivalent awards underneath your law school on LinkedIn? Can I get a second opinion on this?

Does it matter if you are still in law school vs. graduated? What if the award lines up with the practice area you’re trying to enter?

(I’m personally not at HLS but another t14, FWIW)

vaguely arbitrary but imo a named award is fine because it's like an 'official' prize from the school that the school spent enough time or whatever to force professors to think about and give out and associate with a specific name etc

anything else is sort of embarrassing. like, you're just posting (some of) your...grades? I wouldn't put "got an A+ in contracts" on my law firm bio lmao

re 'CALI awards' specifically - honestly I had not heard of these things until I graduated and started reviewing clerkship applications and kids from shitty law schools would list them. I continue to associate them with that, sorry - like they're "the thing gunners from bad law schools brag about"

Generally agree with this. Named awards seem fine, although I'd probably only list it on a firm bio if it was related to your practice area. Like, as a corporate associate, I didn't feel that it was particularly relevant that I got a named prize for doing well in Con Law.

As for CALI awards, my school was one of the few non-shitty law schools that gave CALI awards and I kind of always hated it for the reasons you stated. I hate to sound like a snob, but it was always weird that we were doing the same thing as a school like Golden Gate University. I always cringe a bit when I see students/alumni from my school listing their CALI awards on their resumes or LinkedIn.

[Anonymous User]

No, don't put your DSs on your resume. It just signals you got only a few, and yeah it seems like the CALI awards folks from obviously lower-ranked schools list.

There's a reason HLS/YLS/SLS don't publish 1-pager press releases on their websites or LinkedIn for every person who snags a SCOTUS clerkship, while lower-ranked schools always do.

[Anonymous User]

No, don't put your DSs on your resume. It just signals you got only a few, and yeah it seems like the CALI awards folks from obviously lower-ranked schools list.

There's a reason HLS/YLS/SLS don't publish 1-pager press releases on their websites or LinkedIn for every person who snags a SCOTUS clerkship, while lower-ranked schools always do.

CLS doesn't either! Wait, that is because we never get SOCTUS clerks...

[Anonymous User]

No, don't put your DSs on your resume. It just signals you got only a few, and yeah it seems like the CALI awards folks from obviously lower-ranked schools list.

I mean by definition, a rising 2L is "only" going to have a few DS's.

Here's a scotus clerk's CV. She puts best exam awards (under education, honors). https://michigan.law.umich.edu/sites/de ... 203.7.docx

[Anonymous User]

Here's a scotus clerk's CV. She puts best exam awards (under education, honors). https://michigan.law.umich.edu/sites/de ... 203.7.docx

Eh, CVs aren't especially good comparators. She also mentions a review of her work on jotwell.com ("The Journal of Things We Like (Lots)") and has three and half pages of "Popular Writing" and then mentions having worked at Covington DC and Wilmer DC. She lists every single speaking engagement or presentation she's given, in chronological order, a plurality of which are about presentations of her paper—including one at the "University of Wisconsin Con Law Schmooze."

It's a fundamentally different document, where throwing everything in is the goal.

[Anonymous User]

Here's a scotus clerk's CV. She puts best exam awards (under education, honors). https://michigan.law.umich.edu/sites/de ... 203.7.docx

Eh, CVs aren't especially good comparators. She also mentions a review of her work on jotwell.com ("The Journal of Things We Like (Lots)") and has three and half pages of "Popular Writing" and then mentions having worked at Covington DC and Wilmer DC. She lists every single speaking engagement or presentation she's given, in chronological order, a plurality of which are about presentations of her paper—including one at the "University of Wisconsin Con Law Schmooze."

It's a fundamentally different document, where throwing everything in is the goal.

Law professor CVs aren't a good way to tell these things - they basically have to keep track of all these engagements and awards and display them in a way practitioners do not.

[CanadianWolf]

Since you are at HLS, adding DS to your resume should be limited to your practice area in my opinion.

If from a non-T6, then my view is that all such distinctions--such as CALI awards--should be noted.

[Anonymous User]

Resume sure (although not everyone does), LinkedIn no.

Hold up, is it cringe to put DS/CALI/top-scorer equivalent awards underneath your law school on LinkedIn? Can I get a second opinion on this?

Does it matter if you are still in law school vs. graduated? What if the award lines up with the practice area you’re trying to enter?

(I’m personally not at HLS but another t14, FWIW)

My thing is that I tend not to think that I’m going to get real job opportunities based on people reading my LinkedIn out of the blue, so there’s no need to pull out all the stops to try to look as shiny and special as possible. I have LinkedIn more so that if someone Googles me, there’s something reasonably professional to look at, or for other networking that’s not about directly applying for a job where the other person doesn’t need *every* detail about me.

I don’t necessarily look down on a student/recent grad including that stuff, but I don’t think it accomplishes much because people who matter get your full resume. And if you’re a few years out, it does look cringe on LinkedIn (still fine on the actual resume, just depending how it’s done).

If you are very actively working LinkedIn to get a job, maybe that calculus is different.

[Anonymous User]

I agree with not putting it on LinkedIn, but mostly just because it's more findable than your resume.

For your resume, I'd say include them if it's more impressive than people would otherwise assume. For example, if you have no latin honors, list them. If you were cum laude, but just barely missed magna, list them if it shows that (but if you're kinda in the middle, don't). If you were not only magna, but have like 10 (so very high magna), list them. If you have "Fay Diploma" or "Sears Prize," don't list them. etc.

Also, sure, if it's more relevant to your practice area you should list them (for example, bankruptcy if you're a bankruptcy person, environmental if you're in that area, etc.). The exception, imo, is legal writing--just go with "best brief" or Ames or something, since getting it once in LRW isn't that impressive, and everyone is sort of in "legal writing" so it's not specific enough.

All of this is a judgment call, and most people won't like it if you put your grades anywhere because they prefer if it's all vague and unspecified. Usually, it's not worth the blowback to discuss / disclose anywhere, but your actual resume is an exception.

[becodalapa]

Since you are at HLS, adding DS to your resume should be limited to your practice area in my opinion.

If from a non-T6, then my view is that all such distinctions--such as CALI awards--should be noted.

Disagree with this. If you go to Cornell or Georgetown, there's no need to list a CALI award on your resume. If your GPA is good, then the CALI award doesn't provide much, if any, additional useful information. If your GPA isn't great, a CALI award or two won't move the needle. This is also my perspective for lower-ranked schools, but I can at least get why a student from, say, New England Law, might want to list all the CALI awards they've gotten. You don't really need to do that at a non-T6 T14, imo.

[jdoeman1234567]

Rising 2L at HLS. OCS recommends listing “any Dean’s Scholar Prizes you have received in the Honors section for HLS.” It feels weird though. Thoughts?

It comes off as snobby and cringey to me. I would never list anything besides Latin honors on a resume other than a named award that is widely known.

[Anonymous User]

Is a DS just like a generic A+? Asking bc I got an award for getting #1 in a doctrinal class at my T14 thats taught by someone very prominent in that field and I was planning on putting it on my resume.

[Anonymous User]

Is a DS just like a generic A+? Asking bc I got an award for getting #1 in a doctrinal class at my T14 thats taught by someone very prominent in that field and I was planning on putting it on my resume.

It's around 5-7% apparently. Not quite a CALI A+. More like a NU/GULC A+ (top 5-10%).

[Anonymous User]

Is a DS just like a generic A+? Asking bc I got an award for getting #1 in a doctrinal class at my T14 thats taught by someone very prominent in that field and I was planning on putting it on my resume.

Put this on your resume