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New poster here.

I will be applying in the fall to Michigan and am thinking about summer or fall start. I was just wondering if people thought summer starters had an inherent advantage. I assume they are in the same classes as fall starters in the fall and already have a semester of law school under their belts. Does it give you an edge over your competition if you have been through the process before?

Enough of an advantage to truly make a difference? Doubt it.

It would help you in your first semester, I imagine. You would have a lighter course load compared to those who start in the fall, so you can spend extra time on legal writing or studying for class compared to those kids. But the advantage wouldn't carry through the whole year.

You'll be doing OCI with 3 semesters of grades instead of 2, so that could either be a plus (more classes and grades) or a minus (3 rounds of finals).

im_blue wrote:You'll be doing OCI with 3 semesters of grades instead of 2, so that could either be a plus (more classes and grades) or a minus (3 rounds of finals).

Another advantage is that you'd be able to take more substantive courses; I'm interested in securities or tax law, and being able to take an additional course after income taxes (i.e. a simple tax seminar) might be able to convince employers at OCI that you really are in fact interested in tax as a 2L. But that's just my opinion:D

The temperature is actually above freezing when you start.

Ron Gant wrote:New poster here.

I will be applying in the fall to Michigan and am thinking about summer or fall start. I was just wondering if people thought summer starters had an inherent advantage. I assume they are in the same classes as fall starters in the fall and already have a semester of law school under their belts. Does it give you an edge over your competition if you have been through the process before?

I haven't been through the process before, but I can answer you question: no, you don't have an edge over your competition. Summer starters are in their own section and you will take all your 1L courses in that section, so it is not like you are taking classes in the fall with a section of students that never took a law school course before. However, I believe you only have one remaining 1L course by the time you get to your spring semester, so you could theoretically boost your GPA by taking easier upper level courses that semester, which fall starters could not do.

Two other big things. First, summer starters, by way of being 3L's in the spring of their second year, get to apply to clerkships before the fall, which means you can target judges you like before most anyone else. Also, if you do well your first semester (summer), you get to apply for 1L summer positions in December with grades. While it may be a disadvantage if you don't do as well, good or decent grades will look almost certainly better than someone with no grades yet.

The clerkship advantage is huge. Though a lot of fall starters "cheat" and apply before their official deadline, so I guess that evens things out...