Penn Students Taking Questions Forum

[YCrevolution]

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[Core]

Thanks again for answering our questions.
How useful have you found Penn's Career Planning & Professionalism Office?

[underachiever]

Thanks again for answering our questions.
How useful have you found Penn's Career Planning & Professionalism Office?

As a 1L, I personally have not found them very useful yet. However, there is still Fall OCR, which their 'major' purpose I guess, and 2 more years of interaction left, so I'll say the jury is still out on them in my book.

Remember this, YOU are your own best resource. No one will put in the hours of research that you can. You can make the phone calls, shake the hands, use the internet, etc...

I think the office is a guide, but real world practitioners + internet resources have severed me better as of yet.

Now, in saying this if i get handed a job through OCR this fall, I will love CP&P forever!

[Georgiana]

Thanks again for answering our questions.
How useful have you found Penn's Career Planning & Professionalism Office?

I very much like Heather Frattone and met with her before I did my bidding to make sure that I was making good choices. She's also just a nice person who is good to talk to for advice (like Kathleen Overly). Heather went to school at Penn so she knows most of the professors and can give advice about who to take and who to avoid as well as who writes really good recs. Christine Fritton (sp?) is the clerkship person and she is supposed to be quite helpful as well. I am not applying for them at this time but my boyfriend has good things to say about her. Eric McKinley is the PI go-to person but I'm not sure I would seek him out for anything non-PI.

They aren't there to find the job for you, they are there to provide guidance and opportunities. Getting a job through OCI is great (it was a surprisingly fun time of year) but if you don't find one that way, talk to them about opportunities and try to find out what you're overlooking.

[secretsmoker]

They aren't there to find the job for you, they are there to provide guidance and opportunities. Getting a job through OCI is great (it was a surprisingly fun time of year) but if you don't find one that way, talk to them about opportunities and try to find out what you're overlooking.

. . .

[Core]

Thanks again for answering our questions.
How useful have you found Penn's Career Planning & Professionalism Office?

As a 1L, I personally have not found them very useful yet. However, there is still Fall OCR, which their 'major' purpose I guess, and 2 more years of interaction left, so I'll say the jury is still out on them in my book.

Remember this, YOU are your own best resource. No one will put in the hours of research that you can. You can make the phone calls, shake the hands, use the internet, etc...

I think the office is a guide, but real world practitioners + internet resources have severed me better as of yet.

Now, in saying this if i get handed a job through OCR this fall, I will love CP&P forever!

Interesting. Can you elaborate? Did you approach them for help or advice?
Gotcha, yea. I'm just asking because I've heard some schools' OCS' are utterly useless and rude.

[underachiever]

Interesting. Can you elaborate? Did you approach them for help or advice?
Gotcha, yea. I'm just asking because I've heard some schools' OCS' are utterly useless and rude.

No, they are not rude at all, in fact they have been extremely nice in all of my interactions with them.

Lets just say they did not help me get the summer work I am doing. Furthermore, they have been very vague/ viewing the world through "rose-tinted glasses" when you ask about the job market/our prospects.

[krj02004]

So I just got a full scholly at Iowa and a research assistant position my last 2 years... am I crazy to take that over Penn (if I get in off the WL)? I'm sure I won't be getting much, if any, scholly money at Penn off the WL. Also, being a single parent the full-ride is looking very tempting. I know that Penn will offer my more employment opportunities, but I don't know if the debt trade-off would be worthwhile for my situation.

Any thoughts?

[x47point6]

Sorry if someone has already asked about this, but what is the credited approach to health insurance at Penn? I've got three other people besides myself to think about, so I can't do the whole "Jesus is my health insurance" thing. I've come up with a few options on my own, but I'm interested to hear what some of the students are doing. Thanks!

[Action Jackson]

They require you to have health insurance, which you can get through the school. It's something like $2000 for the year. Don't know about families. Penn's website should have this info, or you could call admissions.

[Tangerine Gleam]

Sorry to spam for TLS, but are any current Penn Law students (Class of 2011 or 2012) interested in getting paid to write an expanded profile on Penn Law for TLS over the summer? If so, PM me.

[YCrevolution]

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[sjj05]

Don't everybody kill me at once for failing to post this in the financial aid forum, but I have a question about loans at Penn. How do they notify you of which loans, etc... you are eligible for? Do they send an email or a paper letter or do you just have to figure it out from the Penn Portal?

Also, how helpful is the fin. aid. office? All of my UG loans are gov't, so I am REALLY clueless about what I should be doing.

Thanks

[Georgiana]

Don't everybody kill me at once for failing to post this in the financial aid forum, but I have a question about loans at Penn. How do they notify you of which loans, etc... you are eligible for? Do they send an email or a paper letter or do you just have to figure it out from the Penn Portal?

Also, how helpful is the fin. aid. office? All of my UG loans are gov't, so I am REALLY clueless about what I should be doing.

Thanks

They sent us a link to a website to log into with all of your $$ awards (scholarship, grant, loan). They then send you all of the paperwork through the mail. It wasn't a very hard process. Fin aid is pretty responsive if you go in person or call, less so if you email. The Penn (non law school) fin aid is also helpful if you have questions that aren't specific to the law school.

[texasgirl22]

Thanks for all of the help!

Could someone tell me how law review works?

[Georgiana]

Thanks for all of the help!

Could someone tell me how law review works?

Do you mean how getting on LR works? Or how it works once you're on?

[texasgirl22]

Both answers would be great!

[kurla88]

Thanks for all of the help!

Could someone tell me how law review works?

You get on law review, and most of the secondary journals, via the write-on competition, which occurs a couple of days after your spring finals. There's the in-class portion, for which you basically spend two days doing bluebook citations locked in a room. Except that you're free to leave whenever and come back. ^.^ It's two days, ten hours each. There's basically an exaggeratedly bad article that you have to edit.

Once you turn that in, you get a take-home essay, for which you don't have to be in Philly at all. It's due like a week later, and doesn't have to be anything law related. They give you a bunch of random (like New Yorker etc) articles and stuff, and you just come up with a thesis and write a short essay. There's also a separate personal statement, for which most people seem to reuse their law school personal statement.

When you register for the write-on, you rank your journal choices in order. The exact selection process for the journals isn't open, but basically it's some combination of your grades and your write-on score, so at some point after spring grades come back, you'll hear which journal you got on.

Not something you need to be worrying about any time soon, though.

[Core]

Thanks for all of the help!

Could someone tell me how law review works?

You get on law review, and most of the secondary journals via the write-on competition, which occurs after your spring finals. There's the in-class portion, for which you basically spend two days doing bluebook citations locked in a room. Except that you're free to leave whenever and come back. ^.^ It's two days, ten hours each. There's basically an exaggeratedly bad article that you have to edit.

Once you turn that in, you get a take-home essay, for which you don't have to be in Philly at all. It's due like a week later, and doesn't have to be anything law related. They give you a bunch of random (like New Yorker etc) articles and stuff, and you just come up with a thesis and write a short essay. There's also a separate personal statement, for which most people seem to reuse their law school personal statement.

When you register for the write-on, you rank your journal choices in order. The exact selection process for the journals isn't open, but basically it's some combination of your grades and your write-on score, so at some point after spring grades come back, you'll hear which journal you got on.

Not something you need to be worrying about any time soon, though.

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but does everyone land on a journal, or do a % of the lowest-performing students end up with nothing?

[kurla88]

does everyone land on a journal, or do a % of the lowest-performing students end up with nothing?

Almost everyone who wants to lands a journal. There's enough spots for almost everyone - law review alone takes 55 out of a class of 250ish. But I have heard of people getting left out. I think that might happen if you don't rank all the secondary journals in your list? Keep in mind that not everyone wants to do journals.

[Georgiana]

Thanks for all of the help!

Could someone tell me how law review works?

You get on law review, and most of the secondary journals, via the write-on competition, which occurs a couple of days after your spring finals. There's the in-class portion, for which you basically spend two days doing bluebook citations locked in a room. Except that you're free to leave whenever and come back. ^.^ It's two days, ten hours each. There's basically an exaggeratedly bad article that you have to edit.

Once you turn that in, you get a take-home essay, for which you don't have to be in Philly at all. It's due like a week later, and doesn't have to be anything law related. They give you a bunch of random (like New Yorker etc) articles and stuff, and you just come up with a thesis and write a short essay. There's also a separate personal statement, for which most people seem to reuse their law school personal statement.

When you register for the write-on, you rank your journal choices in order. The exact selection process for the journals isn't open, but basically it's some combination of your grades and your write-on score, so at some point after spring grades come back, you'll hear which journal you got on.

Not something you need to be worrying about any time soon, though.

Just to expand a little on the grading end of things...

The law review is in charge of grading the essays and the editing. The personal statements are distributed to all journals and each grades them on their own. For the editing, they grade not only based on "correctness" but also the number of changes made.

The impact of each portion is set by each journal independently. The law review typically has the most intricate process. They take the top x portion of the class by grades and ensure that they are in the top x percentage of the writing competition (last year it was top 60% or something). Then they take the top x percentage of the writing competition and ensure that they are the top x percentage of the class by grades. Then there are people who make LR based on their personal statements (basically an excuse for AA/"diversity" in LR... sorry...).

The process is repeated for the other journals but generally they just do a percentage weight for each portion (essay, grades, editing, and PS) based on what they value most (for JIL this year I think we decided to weight the editing portion the most heavily because we EE's want good editors! haha).

Dean Clinton is the one who decides who goes to what journal. The journals don't see your grades and all writing comp grading is done by exam number.

Once you're on a journal you start with editing. You get an edit either electronically or on paper (LR does paper edits) and you fix the article. Then you repeat with another section etc and so forth. Law review puts out the most issues per year which is why they are the most work. The other thing you do with journals is write a comment. For some journals it is required and for others it isn't. Law review requires them. This is a 35-50 page paper on some current area of law based on your interests. If you do a really good job, you may get it published.

At the beginning of 2nd semester, board applications will go out and you can decide if you want to be on board during 3L.

If you have more questions let me know.

[Georgiana]

does everyone land on a journal, or do a % of the lowest-performing students end up with nothing?

Almost everyone who wants to lands a journal. There's enough spots for almost everyone - law review alone takes 55 out of a class of 250ish. But I have heard of people getting left out. I think that might happen if you don't rank all the secondary journals in your list? Keep in mind that not everyone wants to do journals.

This is true... If you rank them all, you will most likely get a journal barring some mistake on your end (e.g. submitting late, not submitting part, not registering on time, etc).

There is no reason for a journal not to request the maximum number of AE's they can (I think its 60). Having more AE's means more people to do work and more comments to pick from.

[sumus romani]

Thanks for the account of how journals work at Penn. I had been looking for that information everywhere. Should have just asked here!

[krj02004]

does everyone land on a journal, or do a % of the lowest-performing students end up with nothing?

Almost everyone who wants to lands a journal. There's enough spots for almost everyone - law review alone takes 55 out of a class of 250ish. But I have heard of people getting left out. I think that might happen if you don't rank all the secondary journals in your list? Keep in mind that not everyone wants to do journals.

This is true... If you rank them all, you will most likely get a journal barring some mistake on your end (e.g. submitting late, not submitting part, not registering on time, etc).

There is no reason for a journal not to request the maximum number of AE's they can (I think its 60). Having more AE's means more people to do work and more comments to pick from.

How many "comments" are required per semester? Do you get any academic credit for being on a journal?

[Georgiana]

How many "comments" are required per semester? Do you get any academic credit for being on a journal?

You write one comment total. Right now credit is given for being on journal. You get 1 credit for AE editing and 2 credits for writing a comment. If you decide to be on journal board, you get 3-5 credits depending on the position. If you stay on as a senior editor you get 1 credit. After next year (aka class of 2012), credit will not be given for journals. The administration has decided that they will lower the overall number of credits required but remove the credits for journal. This is similar to what other journals do, very few of them give credits for journal.