Pragmatic Gun wrote:cusenation wrote:you're making a good decision. I took a year off and it made a huge difference (a good difference)
May you elaborate? I and a lot of other people would like to hear your story.
lol sure, i should have been more specific from the outset, my b
Some background, applied to law school in 2011-2012 during the Dewey collapse (was college senior). Was splitter with real shitty GPA (compliments of fraternity hazing). Got some offers but was too paranoid to borrow that much for school with the market being what it was. Also some veteran WUSTL students told me i'd be better off if i took a year off and re-applied (e.g. Romo, stratocophic). Ended up getting a non-legal job that paid pretty well (40-45k), worked 9-5. It was my first "actual" job since my only prior work experience was retail in high school and various summer internships during college.
There was a mixture of "hard" and "soft" benefits. (Hard benefits being things directly related to law school admissions)
Re: Hard benefits
1. I re-took LSAT, so that netted me some better offers
2. My application year was the year that WUSTL decided to make it rain with full rides, so i got lucky there
Re: Soft benefits
1. Working a non-legal job showed me that i could in fact make a living without going to law school. So it took away the "omg i can't do anything else with my history degree" element of the decision.
2. I spent my year off reading everything i could (that didn't require a subscription) about legal hiring, BigLaw, doing well in law school, living with large loans etc..This included blogs, PM-ing Tlsers, speaking with practicing attorneys, articles in major mainstream publications etc..
3. I had fun during my year off.
You have to realize that getting into a decent school (with or without lots of debt) is just step 1. You need to do well. And on a deeper level, you need to want to do well and have a clear understanding of what you're facing. Taking a year off and doing all the things above made me feel like that i was going to law school because i actually wanted to, not because i "had" to. It gave me perspective on the challenges and risks associated with legal employment. I knew coming into the Fall the type of things i needed to do and avoid if i wanted to do well on my finals. And i was eager to start school after taking a year off and being away from a classroom environment for a year. I personally would have been burnt out had i gone directly into law school from college.
This probably all sounds kinda trivial. But when you're a 1L, it makes a big difference whether you know that briefing is useless or not. Or that you know what to expect on a law school final. Being more informed than most of my peers helped me operate much more strategically, in large part because i could act with the knowledge that what i was doing was useful (or not). I skipped that entire part of 1L where i briefed every case and read every case meticulously for the first few months, instead i spent that time outlining and doing practice questions. I wasn't phased at all when i got embarrassed during a cold call, and i didn't let fear of embarrassment influence how i studied outside of the classroom. During lecture i wasn't writing down case facts, i was writing down key phrases that my professors used to describe/articulate the law. But only because I knew that "hacking" my professors would help me do well on my exams.
This is admittedly all stuff that you could learn from reading TLS regularly and thoroughly. But i spent an entire year trying to understanding the game that I would be playing and how I could stack the cards in my favor to do well.
Taking a year off usually yields the "hard" benefits that i mentioned earlier. But you can make it yield so much more than that if you take advantage of your time. I posted a more detailed post about this in the WUSTL 0L thread, linked below.
http://www.top-law-schools.com/forums/v ... 0#p7677147
ETA: It also gave me the time i needed to really think about whether i would take T14 at sticker or a lower school with full (or comparable) scholarship. Taking some time to assess your goals and what you want out of your career is essential.