taking a semester off? Forum

[yung]

During the middle of OCI I got extremely sick and had to cancel half of my interviews. Of the ones I've gotten call backs on, I also had to reschedule (indefinitely, and still not yet schedule) due to this sickness. (No one will want to shake my hand or look at me with this condition)
I have also fallen extremely behind on both school work and journal work (a month worth) and I am not one of the students that have the luxury to get straight Bs second year, I definitely need to do better this year if I want to get a decent job. So I am wondering if anyone (or has heard of anyone) has taken a semester off from law school due to sickness? (My condition is still on going and painful, but if I decide to stay this semester I can not miss any more classes)

And if I was to take this semester off is there anything constructive I could possibly do?

[Unitas]

During the middle of OCI I got extremely sick and had to cancel half of my interviews. Of the ones I've gotten call backs on, I also had to reschedule (indefinitely, and still not yet schedule) due to this sickness. (No one will want to shake my hand or look at me with this condition)
I have also fallen extremely behind on both school work and journal work (a month worth) and I am not one of the students that have the luxury to get straight Bs second year, I definitely need to do better this year if I want to get a decent job. So I am wondering if anyone (or has heard of anyone) has taken a semester off from law school due to sickness? (My condition is still on going and painful, but if I decide to stay this semester I can not miss any more classes)

And if I was to take this semester off is there anything constructive I could possibly do?

Go talk to your school about this. They have specific advice and people to actually help you and not just dispense anecdotal advice.

I was going to give you a lot of advice but the school would give you much better advice.

[yung]

great, thank you very much. I would still love to hear you opinion if you would like to share them.

[Unitas]

great, thank you very much. I would still love to hear you opinion if you would like to share them.

Ok, as I see it you have three options:

Stay in school
Pros: You'll get it done, employers expect constant progress through law school without breaks and you'll avoid that red flag of dropping out
Cons: Grades will likely drop, you are sick and need time for yourself, and you may have already missed 2L OCI boat.

Try to take off this semester and W from all your classes
Pros: You'll get to recover, grades likely won't take the massive dip they may if you stay in.
Cons: You'll still not have done very well through OCI and the purpose of this school is to get a job. Most people accomplish this task during 2L OCI. You'll either have to make up the time in the summer or be pushed back a year compared to piers or take an unholy amount of classes each semester to graduate.

Get some kind of medical withdraw for the year
Pros: You'll get to recover, grades likely wont take a dip due to being sick, and you'll be able to go through OCI again.
Cons: You'll lose a year of school/your life and have to explain during OCI what happened. This may become the focus of interviews and make you a liability to firms.

These are all dependent on what the school lets you do. Hence why it is important to find out from them. They may be able to contact your interviewers from this year and reschedule, unlikely but possible. They may be able to give you some kind of accommodations for classes to make it so you can succeed despite being sick. So all of it is really dependent on the school, your goals, and what you can do. Hence why the school is much better suited to address this issue with you.

Lots of other variables are in this too. What rank of school you go to, long term goals, personal finances, and so forth.

Also: Everyone is likely behind right now, so it isn't like you couldn't recover. You seem to assume you won't be able to so I did also.